Negotiation Law Blog - The Goddess of Discovery Arrives in the Blogosphere - Comments http://www.negotiationlawblog.com/ Southern California Arbitration Mediation & Conflict Resolution: Settle it Now Dispute Resolution Services: Serving Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Century City en Copyright 2012 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:59:06 -0800 Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:59:06 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.32-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Joe Markowitz One reason that discovery comprises so much of civil litigation practice is to keep law firm associates busy. When I was a law firm associate, I did spend a lot of my days doing discovery and discovery motions. Now that I don't have any associates to keep busy, I don't spend nearly as much time doing discovery, and I am no less prepared for trial or settlement. I never send meet and confer letters. If I need to meet and confer, I pick up the telephone. If my adversary sends me a meet and confer letter, I write a short response back saying that I will do anything within reason to avoid discovery motions, including amending any interrogatory answer they do not find sufficient, and negotiating any other discovery problem. I hardly ever file discovery motions anymore, and if my adversary files one, my response is that their motion was unnecessary because I offered to negotiate any discovery problem they had.

If we view discovery as an opportunity to create issues to litigate about, discovery can be as time-consuming as we want. If we instead view discovery as an opportunity to negotiate, it need not be terribly time-consuming. And if we limit what we ask for in discovery to the things we need to prepare for trial, we need not spend our lives doing discovery.

]]> http://www.negotiationlawblog.com/advice-for-young-lawyers/the-goddess-of-discovery-arrives-in-the-blogosphere/#22810 http://www.negotiationlawblog.com/advice-for-young-lawyers/the-goddess-of-discovery-arrives-in-the-blogosphere/#22810 Advice for Young LawyersAdvocacyBlawgsConflict ResolutionLegal Practice Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:06:15 -0800 Victoria Pynchon