Discovery Processes

This lesson is part of a series of lessons about Discovery. Discovery is the process through which the parties exchange information, documents, electronically-stored information, and sometimes even tangible things. This particular lesson focuses on the processes lawyers use to create, respond to, and have disputes about discovery.

You can do the Discovery lessons in any order, but this one will be most helpful to you if you have already gone through the three other lessons by this author that cover the rules of relevance and privilege, or if you have covered those topics in your Civil Procedure class.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Explain the general duty of good faith that governs discovery processes.
2. Name the required components of the initial discovery conference.
3. Apply your knowledge of discovery relevance to discovery planning.
4. Identify the discovery devices provided by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
5. Analyze which device is best suited to obtain which kind of information.
6. Choose the proper way to object to discovery requests (including objections to preserve privileges).
7. Explain how to get a court to rule on a discovery dispute.
8. Analyze what sanctions courts can impose when a litigant has failed to comply with the rules.