The U.S. Judicial Conference recently took an important step toward addressing electronic discovery issues by approving proposed amendments to the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure that will force e-discovery issues to be addressed early in the litigation process and protect companies from having to dig up data that is not reasonably accessible.
Although the amendments will not be formally in place for another year, experts tell Compliance Week that they have already become very influential and are being referred to by litigants and judges. One federal judge in Kansas specifically cited the proposed rules in a recent case involving metadata (see related opinion at left).
