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Discovery Subcommittee Letter on Electronic Discovery and Responses

Originally posted at www.kenwithers.com

In September 2002, the Discovery Subcommittee of Advisory Committee on the Rules of Civil Procedure, a committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, issued a letter to approximately 250 attorneys, academics, and experts concerned with electronic discovery and the civil rules process in general, asking for their views on whether the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should be amended to address issues raised by the discovery of computerized documents and data, and if so, what specific amendments should be considered. The letter drew thirteen responses.

Although these documents are considered "public," the Rules Support Office of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts does not yet have a mechanism for posting them for on its web site. Therefore Ken Withers obtained permission to make these available on an interim basis.

• Letter from Prof. Richard Marcus dated September 2002.

Responses:

• Carl E. Person, received 9/18/2002
• National Association of Consumer Advocates (Ira Rheingold, Executive Director; Michelle Weinberg, Board of Directors; Stephen Gardner, Board Chairman Emeritus), received 12/10/2002
• Thomas Y. Allman, received 12/10/2002
• David E. Dukes, on behalf of the Defense Research Institute (DRI), received 12/10/2002
• David E. Dukes, on behalf of the Defense Research Institute (DRI), ADDENDUM received 06/26/03
• Rex K. Linder, on behalf of Lawyers for Civil Justice, received 12/10/2002
• Alan F. Blakley, Kevin Jacobs, Clark Stone, and many other members of the Federal Litigation Section of the Federal Bar Association (not a public position of the Section or Association), received 12/13/2002
• F. Paul Bland and Victoria W. Ni, on behalf of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice and the TLPJ Foundation, received 12/18/02
• Peter J. Oesterling, on behalf of Nationwide Insurance Companies, received 12/19/2002
• Mary E. Alexander, on behalf of Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), received 12/20/02
• William B. Barnes, Esq., received 12/26/02
• San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association (Scott Kalkin, President), received 2/19/2003
• William A. Fenwick, received 2/19/2003
• Association of the Bar of the City of New York, received 5/6/2000
• J. Walter Sinclair, Esq., received 6/26/03
• Robert D. Hunter, Esq., received 6/26/03
• Charles A. Beach, received 6/20/03 and 6/25/03
• CIGNA (Stephanie A. Middleton, Chief Counsel), received 6/26/03
• John H. Martin, Esq., received 6/26/03
• Michael Aylward, Esq., received 6/30/03
• Rebecca Levy-Sachs, Esq., received 6/30/03
• Forsberg & Umlauf, P.S. (Roy A. Umlauf, Esq.), received 7/01/03
• Senith Tipton, Esq., received 7/01/03
• Shell Oil Company (Cynthia Glass Bivins, Senior Counsel, Litigation), received 7/01/03
• Washington Mutual Bank (Theresa M. Marchlewshi, First Vice Prewsident and Senior Counsel), received 7/01/03
• Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel (Robert V. Dewey, Jr., President), received 7/01/03
• Gregory M. Lederer, Esq., received 7/01/03
• Nationwide Insurance Companies (Peter J. Oesterling, Assistant General Counsel), received 7/01/03
• Nelson Levine deLuca & Horst (Michael R. Nelson, Chairman), received 7/01/03
• Christopher W. Tompkins, Esq., received 7/02/03
• Wyeth (Mark Lynch, Senior Corporate Counsel, Litigation), received 7/02/03
• Charles Peter Hopkins, II, Esq., received 7/02/03
• McGuire Woods LLP (Gilbert E. Schill, Jr., Esq.; Rosewell Page III, Esq.; Evan A. Burkholder, Esq.), received 7/02/03
• Bruce H. Raymond, Esq., received 7/03/03
• Patrick Lysaught, Esq., received 7/03/03
• American International Companies (Don Tierney, Manager, Claims Litigation), received 7/03/03
• Bill Roedder, Esq., received 7/03/03
• Ashish S. Prasad, Esq., received 7/03/03
• Randall R. Riggs, Esq., received 7/07/03
• James W. Lampkin, Esq., received 7/08/03
• Paul M. Lavelle, Esq. (As Chair, Defense Research Institute Electronic Discovery Task Force), received 7/09/03
• Ralph Streza, Esq., on behalf of the IADC Privacy Project, received 06/20/03
• Steven Gerber, Esq., Gerber & Samson LLC, received 06/27/03
• Richard T. Boyette, Esq., Cranfill, Sumner & Hartzogg, L.L.P., received 06/28/03
• H. Patrick Morris, Esq., Johnson & Bell, received 06/28/03
• Gerald W. Weedon, Esq., Marks Gray PA, received 06/28/03
• Marc E. Williams, Esq., Huddleston, Bolen, Beatty, Porter & Cohen LLP, received 06/28/03
• Matthew Y. Biscan, Esq., Hall & Evans, LLC, received 06/29/03
• Robert V. Dewey, Jr., Esq., President, Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel, received 06/30/03
• Lawyers for Civil Justice, received 11/17/03
• International Association of Defense Counsel, received 11/25/03