Life Sciences Legal Update : Life Sciences Lawyers & Attorneys : Reed Smith Law Firm : Healthcare, Food and Drug Law, Biotechnology, Privacy, Product Liability

This post was written by Meghan K. Landrum.

Recent changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) Rule 26 make it easier to communicate with expert witnesses and to prepare them for deposition and trial testimony while still protecting attorney work product. While expert discovery has been a part of federal practice since 1993, the period dedicated to the discovery of attorney-expert communications and draft expert reports has become increasingly time consuming during pre-trial preparation. The amendments to Rule 26 address this development and attempt to create an atmosphere that encourages better communication between attorneys and their experts.

To learn more about the changes made to Rule 26 and the immediate impact this has on working with expert witnesses, read our full alert.

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This post was written by Meghan Landrum and Renee Feldman.

California's tireless Civil Justice Association of California sponsored an electronic discovery bill that was signed into law on June 29, 2009 by Governor Schwarzenegger. The Electronic Discovery Act (“the Act”) establishes procedures for litigants when obtaining discovery of electronically stored information in California. The Act amends the California Code of Civil Procedure, effective immediately, by adding provisions specifically related to electronic discovery.

Modeled after similar electronic discovery rules in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Act strives to strike a balance between making ESI available to a requesting party without over-burdening a responding party who utilizes mass quantities of ESI in its normal course of business. For more information, please read Reed Smith's full alert.

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This post was written by Melissa A. Geist and Steven B. Roosa.

On May 29, 2008, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland issued a lengthy and noteworthy ruling regarding the discovery of “electronically stored information” or “ESI.” The court held that the defendants waived the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine with respect to 165 separate documents. See Victor Stanley Inc. v. Creative Pipe Inc., Civil Action No. KJG-06-2662, 2008 WL 2221841 (D.Md. 2008). The case is particularly instructive because it describes in detail the multiple steps that a litigant should take in order to (1) protect against the inadvertent disclosure of privileged ESI; (2) preserve the privileged status of ESI in the event that it is inadvertently disclosed; and (3) defend the methodology used to search for relevant ESI.

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