The Court believes that the parties can and should work out most discovery disputes, and thus discourages the filing of discovery motions. The Court will not hear or consider any discovery motion unless the parties have complied with the meet and confer requirement under Local Rule 37.2. Any discovery motion must state with specificity when and how the movant complied with Local Rule 37.2 by separate certificate filed with the motion and attested to by the attorney.

Parties are reminded that compliance with Local Rule 37.2 requires a good faith effort to resolve discovery disputes through communication and negotiation. The Court believes face to face communications regarding discovery disputes are the most effective way to resolve them and requires counsel for parties to meet in person unless it is impracticable to do so. Videoconferencing satisfies this requirement. The Rule 37.2 Certificate must state that this requirement has been met or why it cannot be met with particularity. The mere exchange of correspondence (through emails, text messages, instant messaging, etc.) will not be sufficient to comply with Local Rule 37.2. Parties who fail to indicate that they have met in person to attempt to resolve their dispute risk having their motion stricken.

Any motions to compel must identify and attach the specific discovery requests at issue, as well as the opposing party’s response (i.e., motions must not simply identify specific “categories” of documents or discovery that the movant seeks).  Motions to compel must also include arguments supporting the relevance and proportionality of the requested discovery. Motions to compel may be summarily stricken for a failure to comply with these rules.  Moreover, parties must not seek overbroad requests in the hope that the Court will tailor the resolution on its own; each discovery request will be adjudicated based on the totality of the request, so parties should appropriately narrow their requests ahead of time.  Failure to do so may result in denial of the motion to compel with prejudice; the Court will not tailor a discovery request for the party when it could have done it on its own.

Parties are not allowed to file a brief in response or reply of a discovery motion without leave of Court.

The Court reminds the parties of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(a)(5), which requires the Court to award the winning side fees and costs unless the losing party’s position was substantially justified or awarding fees and costs would be unjust.

With particular respect to electronic discovery disputes, if the parties have reached an impasse regarding the discovery of records from a database, server, computer, service provider or similar electronic storage facility (ESF), before filing a motion to compel, the parties are required to meet and confer with an IT representative for each party in order to determine the most effective and feasible ways to retrieve the requested material, as well as the proper format for the retrieval of the records. This electronic discovery conference must take place in person, by telephone, or by video, and both sides should be prepared to discuss specifically the parameters of both the search(es) and the ESF.