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
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
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
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
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
In August of 2018, the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules proposed a number of amendments to certain appellate, bankruptcy, civil, and evidence rules applicable to litigation in U.S. federal courts. It is beyond the scope of...more
Defendants wanted to examine GEICO’s Rule 30(b)(6) witness about GEICO’s special investigation unit practices, protocols and guidelines, as well as its resources and procedures devoted to claim verification and fraud...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Seyfarth Shaw submitted comments to the Federal Advisory Committee on Civil Rules regarding needed reform to Rule 30(b)(6), the rule that governs depositions of organizations in federal litigation. ...more
Editor’s Note: Ok, we know, this is waaaay to long for a blog post. But this is just too good not to share! In our continuing effort to avoid re-inventing the wheel, getting the easy stuff down to checklists, and helping...more
As you know, Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and state counterparts allow a party to depose organizations, including corporations. The party requesting this type of deposition must describe with...more