It isn’t often that the Judicial Conference, the most important policymaking body for U.S. courts, revises its rules governing discovery practices. Since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure became law in 1938, the Conference has altered the rules just six times–twice in the 21st Century. The first time was in 2000, when, on the brink of recommending a series of amendments, the Conference’s Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure realized it made a terrible oversight–it had failed to address the myriad problems of electronic discovery.
“[W]hen the 2000 proposals were recommended for adoption following the public comment period, the Committee fully understood that its work was incomplete,” the Committee wrote in 2005.
