No one else can “eclipse” our coverage of eDiscovery case law! Our April 2024 monthly webinar of cases covered by the eDiscovery Today blog discusses disputes related to relevance and privacy of an unpublished autobiography,...more
As noted in several previous Privilege Points, courts have great difficulty assessing privilege protection for communications relating to a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition — in which a corporation or other institution designates a...more
30(B)(6) Preparation Tips - If you have ever said “that rule may make sense in theory, but it does not work in real life,” you may also have spent weeks futilely attempting to prepare a witness to serve as a corporate...more
The most daunting of measures attorneys face in protecting an entity in litigation is preparing witnesses for a Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) deposition. Whether taking or defending, the first dance is the scope...more
Can a corporate party affirmatively use deposition testimony from its own 30(b)(6) witness at trial? It depends. Corporate Witness Testimony at the Deposition Stage - A quick primer on corporate witnesses under Federal...more
This week, the Ninth Circuit explains the requirements for administrative summonses compelling testimony, and addresses whether a farm laborer was subjected to economic duress and undue influence when signing an arbitration...more
The Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado recently denied a plaintiff’s bid to overturn a protective order preventing the plaintiff from taking 30(b)(6) deposition testimony on a...more
Welcome to Morrison & Foerster’s quarterly newsletter on dispute resolution. In this newsletter, we address recent developments in arbitrations, investigations, and commercial and intellectual property litigation that may...more
Defending corporate representative depositions in the new reality. If there is one lesson all trial lawyers have learned over the last year, it’s that life and the practice of law must go on, even in the face of upheavals...more
The Supreme Court of Delaware recently affirmed a decision by the Court of Chancery that ordered a corporation to produce certain books and records to a shareholder, and which granted leave to the shareholder to take a...more
Fortis Advisors, LLC v. Dematic Corp., C.A. No. N18C-12-104 AML [CCLD] (Del. Super. Nov. 18, 2020) - As this decision illustrates, Delaware trial courts have a variety of sanction options available when it comes to...more
Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which concerns the use of a deposition notice or subpoena directed to an organization, was amended in December 2020 to require that parties meet-and-confer prior to...more
Oh Happy Day! Stimulus Is Finally (Almost) Live. The House and Senate are scheduled to vote on a $900 billion pandemic relief package along with a $1.4 trillion measure to fund the government through September 30, 2021. ...more
This past year has brought lots of change, including an amendment to Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 30(b)(6) governs the deposition of an organization (e.g., a corporation or a partnership) and...more
The last month of the year brought changes to Rule 30 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, specifically Rule 30(b)(6), governing deposition notices to organizations. The rule was amended, effective December 1, 2020. ...more
An amendment to Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) that took effect on December 1, 2020 requires attorneys to meet-and-confer regarding the subject matters of an organization’s oral deposition....more
On June 23, 2020, Magistrate Judge Hildy Bowbeer denied plaintiffs’ motion to compel defendant to identify the topics on which each Rule 30(b)(6) witness would testify because the language used in Rule 30(b)(6) “reflects a...more
Nearly three years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Food Brands LLC,1 both parties and courts continue to grapple with what it means for a defendant to have a regular and established place...more
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, plaintiffs continue to file class actions, shouldering defendants with potentially massive discovery costs. With the economic slowdown associated with the pandemic, businesses face...more
The Angle wishes all our readers a wonderful holiday and happy new year! We want to thank all of you for your continued support and suggestions. As 2020 approaches, we wanted to make the last post of 2019 a review of our...more
Trial counsel’s ability to make skilled use of electronically stored information is often outcome-determinative in modern litigation. ESI, however, can be difficult to locate within an opponent’s often sprawling computer...more
Electronically stored information, a critical category of evidence in nearly all non-trivial legal disputes, is usable only to the extent that it can be located, authenticated, and described with foundational evidence that...more
Litigation counsel today routinely engage with large quantities of digital evidence, often with case outcomes turning on the advocate’s success at unearthing or preserving relevant electronically stored information (ESI). As...more
A few years ago, I represented a process piping subcontractor in a claim against the general contractor and the owner of a coal fired power plant in Massachusetts. While the case was unique and interesting in a number of...more
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 30(b)(6), a party may depose a public or private corporation, a partnership, an association, a governmental agency, or another entity. Of course, it is not actually possible to...more