For all of the attention devoted to electronically stored information (ESI) on the one hand, and imposition of deposition limits on the other, little case law or scholarly work appears to have addressed the possibility that the influx of digital data has rendered obsolete the standard rules allowing for as many as 10 or more day-long depositions per side. This article urges judges, legislators and lawyers to apply proportionality rules to limit depositions in cases in which ESI provides a far greater window into a case than the drafters of the original Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ever imagined.

More than a decade past Sedona and Zubulake, the data continues to grow exponentially