“Reasonable” is a loaded word in law. According to John Barkett, partner with Shook, Hardy & Bacon, it appears roughly 74 times in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), including more than 20 times between Rules 1 and 26 alone. But what does it mean to be reasonable – and what should be done if reasonableness isn’t occurring?
The luncheon “Reasonableness Under Rule 1 & 26(g)” session of the inaugural Judicial Training Symposium, co-sponsored by the Electronic Discovery Institute (EDI) and the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) tackled this question for the assembled crowd of 50 federal judges. The panel, moderated by Barkett, consisted of Thomas Allman, adjunct faculty at University of Cincinnati College of Law and a former general counsel; Judge John Facciola, a retired magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia; Dawson Horn, associate general counsel and vice president at AIG; and Judge Craig Shaffer, magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court in the District of Colorado.
