eDiscovery Amendments to FRCP Move Closer to Becoming a Reality

On April 12, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court approved, without comment or dissent, amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) to address some of the legal and practical issues generated by the explosion of electronic discovery (eDiscovery). According to the Judicial Conference Rules Advisory Committee (the Committee), which oversaw the lengthy drafting and review process, “the amendments are aimed at making the rules better able to accommodate the qualitative and quantitative differences between electronic discovery and conventional discovery and to provide a framework to resolve the issues electronic discovery presents.” The amendments are now before Congress for review and—unless Congress takes action to reject, modify, or defer them—they will go into effect on December 1, 2006.

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