Rule 6-1 Discovery Management

(a) The parties should be prepared to discuss discovery management at the Case Management Meeting to the fullest extent possible. As stated in BCR 5-1 (f), the parties may conduct additional meetings after the initial Case Management Meeting to complete their discussion of discovery management.

(b) This article is intended to facilitate a process the parties can use to set expectations, with reasonable specificity, concerning the information each party seeks to discover and how that information will be identified, preserved, retrieved, and produced, absent a good faith objection. The parties should at least discuss all the following discovery topics:

(1) Necessary Scope of Discovery. Counsel should discuss the scope of discovery (taking into account the needs of the case), the amount in controversy, limitations on the resources of each party, the burden and expense of the expected discovery compared with its likely benefit, the importance of the issues at stake in the litigation, and the importance of the discovery for the adjudication of the merits of the case.

(2) Organization of Discovery. The parties should discuss how discovery will be organized, including the numbering system (e.g., Bates numbering) that will be used to identify any materials produced during discovery and the format for producing the same.

(3) Phased Discovery. Counsel should consider whether phased discovery is appropriate and, if so, counsel should discuss proposals for specific phases.

(4) Electronically Stored Information ("ESI"). Parties should consider preparing an ESI agreement for the identification, preservation, collection, and production of ESI. The Court recognizes that ESI agreements will not be necessary in all cases. Where applicable, the ESI agreement shall be determined on a case-by-case basis and shall include, at minimum, the following topics:

(A) The specific sources, location, and estimated volume of ESI.

(B) Whether ESI should be searched on a custodian-by-custodian basis and, if so:

(i) the identity and number of the custodians whose ESI will be searched; and

(ii) the search parameters.

(C) A method for designating documents as confidential.

(D) Plans and schedules for any rolling production.

(E) De-duplication of data.

(F) Whether a device needs to be forensically examined and, if so, a process for the examination.

(G) The production format of documents.

(H) The fields of metadata to be produced.

(I) How data produced will be transmitted to other parties (e.g., in read-only media, segregated by source, encrypted, or password protected).

(c) Treatment of Privileged or Protected Information. The treatment of privileged or protected information shall be governed by BCR 6-3.