The Rules of Civil Procedure assume that lawyers will be ethical and honest in providing discovery to their opponents. Unfortunately, the reality is that lawyers get away with discovery abuses every day. These abuses continue because they are extremely difficult to pin down and even harder to cobble into a motion to compel. The following are the top 10 dirty pool discovery abuses.
The Shuffle
The shuffle, otherwise known as the “deposition shuffle,” goes like this: You need to take your depositions in a particular order because you believe this is the best way of developing your case. You therefore schedule the witnesses in the order that you need them, only to find, generally at the last minute, that opposing counsel cannot accommodate your order of depositions.
