Author: Michael D. Berman

Accurate and Complete Discovery Responses Can Be Strategically Advantageous

Explore the case of Management and Construction Services, LLC v. Sayers Construction, LLC. It highlights the importance of accurate and complete discovery responses in litigation. The court’s perspective shows that such precision in discovery can...

There’s No Right or Wrong Answer – But There Are Mistakes

In Rayome v. ABT Electronics, 2024 WL 1435098 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 3, 2024), the court wrote that “it would be in the parties’ interest to reach a negotiated result. It should not be forgotten that a...

Court Orders Parties to Enter Into an ESI Protocol

In the unusual context of a Delaware federal subpoena for discovery in a Spanish proceeding, a court ordered the parties“to meet and confer to discuss the scope of each request and to enter an agreed-upon ESI protocol and protective...

General Objections, Dracula, and “Whac a Mole”

One Form of a Custodial Data Map

Sometimes Discovery Disputes Do Not Bring Out the Best in Us.  

In the recent decision in M1 Holdings, Inc. v. Members 1st Fed. Credit Union, 2024 WL 182220 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 17, 2024), interesting, both of the disputing litigants were ordered to state under oath that they...

How Much Detail is Enough in a Privilege Log?

In Southern Pine Credit Un. v. Southwest Marine & Gen’l. Ins. Co., et al., 2024 WL 1361891 (M.D. Ga. Mar. 29, 2024), the court addressed the amount of detail that must be in a privilege log. Southern...

What Happens When Parties Fail to Negotiate a Privilege Log in Good Faith?

In Kyle Rayome v. ABT Electronics, 2024 WL 1435098 (N.D. Ill. 2024), the court wrote that it “would prefer this case not go to the dark place where attorneys on one side demand that the attorneys on...

Changing the Forum for a Motion to Quash a Subpoena

Another Spoliation Motion Denied as Untimely

In an employment case, an untimely spoliation motion was denied in Smith v. Wormuth. Find out why courts are unsympathetic to motions that try to reargue substantive issues under the guise of spoliation and why...

Ninth Circuit – – Don’t Destroy Relevant Texts

In Jones v. Riot Hosp. Grp. LLC, the Ninth Circuit upheld serious consequences for the deletion of text messages in litigation. This case reminds us of the critical importance of preserving electronically stored information (ESI)....

Privilege Logs:  New Techniques to Achieve Proportionality – The “Certification Log”