D. Me. Loc. R. 26

(a) Serving Discovery

Unless ordered by the Court or required under this rule, the following

discovery requests, objections, and responses must be served on all other

parties, but should not be filed with the Court:

(1) deposition notices;

(2) interrogatories;

(3) requests for documents;

(4) requests for admissions;

(5) subpoenas; and

(6) initial disclosures, expert disclosures, pretrial disclosures, and any

disclosures ordered by the Court.

(b) Obligation to Preserve

Any party serving discovery requests or responses is responsible for preserving

original transcripts and original discovery for use by the Court.

(c) Discovery Disputes

No contested discovery motions may be filed without prior approval of the

Court. The procedure for seeking review of a discovery dispute is:

(1) Before seeking judicial review, a party must confer with the opposing

party in a good faith effort to resolve the discovery issues.

(2) If that effort is unsuccessful and a party wants judicial review of the

discovery dispute, the party must file on ECF and serve on all parties

the Court’s form for requesting a hearing on a discovery dispute,

available on the Court’s website, https://www.med.uscourts.gov/forms.

Filing a request for hearing is a representation that the parties have

conferred in good faith to resolve the issues before seeking a hearing.

(3) If the Court needs to review discovery materials, the party requesting

the hearing must confer with the opposing party to identify the discovery

materials relevant to the dispute. Only relevant excerpts of transcripts

and discovery should be submitted with the request for hearing unless

the dispute cannot be decided without the complete document.

(4) The hearing may take place in person, by telephone, or via

videoconference.

(5) Recording telephone or video hearings is prohibited unless prior

permission is granted by the Court. The Court will conduct the hearing

on the record, but that record will not be officially transcribed except on

request of the parties or the Court.

(6) Written discovery motions may not be filed without the prior approval

of the Court. If the Court permits a written discovery motion, the motion

must be filed under Local Rule 7.

(7) Written discovery motions must:

(A) quote in full each disputed discovery request or deposition

question at issue or otherwise identify specifically and succinctly

the disputed discovery;

(B) quote in full or otherwise identify specifically and succinctly the

response or objection to the disputed discovery; and

(C) state why the Court should compel a response to the specified

disputed discovery or grant protection against the discovery

sought.

(d) Confidentiality Order

A party may submit an uncontested motion to the Court with a proposed

confidentiality order for the production and use of confidential documents and

information in the pending action. If the motion is contested, the parties must

follow subsection (c). If the proposed order does not conform to the Form

Confidentiality Order or Form Heightened Confidentiality Order in Appendix

F the motion must identify each proposed modification and state the reason for

that modification. If a party moves for entry of the Form Heightened

Confidentiality Order or a modified version of that Order, the party’s motion

must explain why the additional confidentiality protections are necessary.