The first phase of the Seventh Circuit’s Electronic Discovery Pilot Program is complete and the program has resulted in positive feedback from both attorneys and judges.

Launched in May 2009 by Chief Judge James Holderman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the program is an attempt to “develop, implement, evaluate, and improve pretrial litigation procedures that would provide fairness and justice to all parties while seeking to reduce the cost and burden of electronic discovery consistent with Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.”

During the first phase, 13 federal court judges presided over 93 civil cases between October 2009 and March 2010. The judges, and the 285 attorneys involved in the cases, followed a set of principles drafted by the pilot program’s committee members.

Those principles included: recognizing that cooperation with opposing counsel does not compromise zealous advocacy; resolving electronic discovery disputes early, without court intervention; taking reasonable steps to preserve electronically stored information; making electronic discovery demands proportionate to the case; and making a good faith effort to agree on the format for production of electronically stored information.

Participating attorneys and judges evaluated the program by completing a survey, which revealed that 92 percent of the judges agreed that the principles had a positive effect on counsels’ ability to resolve discovery disputes before requesting court involvement and reach agreements on how to handle the inadvertent disclosure of privileged information or work product.

via Wisconsin Law Journal – Article.