How automatic discovery has changed my family law practice
It’s been six months since the South Carolina Supreme Court mandated automatic discovery in family court. I didn’t expect this rule change to change my practice. It has. As I’ve noted before, serving...
View ArticleThe only two goals of responding to discovery
There are common bad practices of responding to discovery. One often sees responses that are incomplete and only partially respond to the request. The rules of civil procedure are quite explicit that...
View ArticleObtaining electronically stored information in electronically stored format
A common idea among litigators is that an excellent way to hide damaging information is to produce it with a whole bunch of innocuous information. There’s even an informal term for it: data dumping....
View ArticleBest practices in responding to requests for production
I spend a lot of time struggling to get opposing attorneys to fully respond to requests for production. Often it’s hard to tell if the response is adequate because often the response is not clear....
View ArticleAutomatic discovery in family court–finally
Effective today (May 1, 2017) the South Carolina Supreme Court has amended Rule 25, SCFCR, to authorize automatic discovery in family court. In 23 years practicing under the prior rule, I only had...
View ArticleAnswering discovery you first object to
A pet peeve of mine is attorneys who begin discovery responses with a list of boilerplate objections. Recently I received interrogatory answers from two separate attorneys who I actually respect with...
View ArticleThe pitfalls of boilerplate supplemental interrogatories
I’m shocked how often I encounter supplemental interrogatories in family court in which the issuing attorney has clearly given no thought into how interrogatories might be useful in that particular...
View ArticleAn evasive or incomplete answer is to be treated as a failure to answer
I find it curious that attorneys routinely treat incomplete or evasive discovery responses as no big deal. From my reading, Rule 37(a)(3), SCRCP, could not be more clear, “For purposes of this...
View ArticleInterrogatory answers need to be accurate, complete, and minimal
My standard procedure in answering interrogatories is to obtain an opposing party’s questions as a word document, cut and paste into my own responsive word document, add a return and “Answer: ” at the...
View ArticleThe danger of sandbagging witness lists and trial exhibits in discovery...
The four standard interrogatories that are relevant to family court are basically questions about witnesses, expert witnesses, and trial exhibits. Any initial request for production worth issuing...
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