eDiscovery Daily Blog
Public Comment Period Extended for Commentary on Defense of Process: eDiscovery Best Practices
As we noted a couple of months ago, The Sedona Conference® Working Group on Electronic Document Retention and Production (WG1) has issued a Public Comment Version of a new Principles and Guidelines for Developing and Implementing a Sound E-Discovery Process. The deadline for public comment was to have ended a couple of days ago, on November 15. Now, the deadline for public comment has been extended by the WG1 steering committee.
The new deadline for the public comment period for the Commentary is Monday, November 28.
As noted in the Preface, the Commentary “represents the culmination of five years of spirited dialogue within WG1 on a number of sensitive topics that go to the heart of what it means to be a competent advocate and officer of the court in an age of increasing technological complexity. It addresses the tension between the principle of party-controlled discovery, and the need for accountability in the discovery process, by establishing a series of reasonable expectations and by providing practical guidance to meet these competing interests. The overriding goal of the principles and guidelines set forth in this Commentary is to reduce the cost and burden typically associated with modern discovery by helping litigants prepare for – or better yet, avoid altogether – challenges to their chosen discovery processes, and by providing guidance to the courts in the (ideally) rare instances in which they are called upon to examine a party’s discovery conduct.”
The WG1 steering committee gave no reason for the extension in its email announcement. Perhaps they are receiving a lot of comments, which shows that a lot of people have taken interest in the Commentary. If so, that’s good.
As usual, the Commentary is free and you can download it here. Questions and comments regarding the Commentary may be sent to comments@sedonaconference.org.
So, what do you think? Will these new principles help organizations implement a sound eDiscovery process? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
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