W.D. Wash. LCR 26

(a) Required Disclosures

(1) Reserved

(2) Reserved

(3) Pretrial Disclosures. Unless otherwise directed by the court, the disclosures listed in

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(a)(3) shall be made in the manner and in accordance with the schedule

prescribed in LCR 16. A party shall state any objections to exhibits in the manner

prescribed in that rule. Objections not so disclosed, other than objections under Rules 402

and 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, shall be deemed waived unless excused by the

court for good cause shown.

(4) Reserved

(b) Reserved

(c) Protective Orders

(1) Any motion for a protective order must include a certification, in the motion or in a

declaration or affidavit, that the movant has engaged in a good faith meet and confer

conference with other affected parties in an effort to resolve the dispute without court

action. The certification must list the date, manner, and participants to the conference. If

the movant fails to include such a certification, the court may deny the motion without

addressing the merits of the dispute. A good faith effort to confer requires a face-to-face

meeting or a telephone conference. If the court finds that counsel for any party, or a party

proceeding pro se, willfully refuses to confer, fails to confer in good faith, or fails to

respond on a timely basis to a request to confer, the court may take action as stated in LCR

11 of these rules.

(2) (2) Parties may file a proposed stipulated protective order to protect confidential,

proprietary, or private information that warrants special protection. The court may enter a

proposed stipulated protective order as an order of the court if it adequately and

specifically describes the justification for such an order, it is consistent with court rules, it

does not purport to confer blanket protection on all disclosures or responses to discovery,

its protection from public disclosure and use extends only to the limited information or

items that are entitled to confidential treatment under the applicable legal principles, and it

does not presumptively entitle the parties to file confidential information under seal.

Parties are encouraged to use this district’s model protective order, available on the court’s

website. Parties that wish to depart from the model order must provide the court with a

redlined version identifying departures from the model.

(d) Timing and Sequence of Discovery

Interrogatories, requests for admissions or production, etc., must be served sufficiently early that

all responses are due before the discovery deadline.

(e) Reserved

(f) Conference of the Parties; Planning for Discovery

The rule is intended to promote the just, efficient, speedy, and economical determination of

every action and proceeding and to promote, wherever possible, the prompt resolution of

discovery disputes without court intervention. Counsel are expected to cooperate with each other

to reasonably limit discovery requests, to facilitate the exchange of discoverable information, and

to reduce the costs of discovery.

The proportionality standard set forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1) must be applied in every case

when parties formulate a discovery plan and promulgate discovery requests. To further the

application of the proportionality standard in discovery, discovery requests and related responses

should be reasonably targeted, clear, and as specific as possible.

(1) Prior to the initial status conference with the court, if any, or prior to submitting their

joint status report, counsel and any pro se parties shall meet and discuss, and address in

their joint status report if the court orders one, the topics set forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(f)

and the following issues:

(A) possibilities for promptly settling or otherwise resolving the case;

(B) whether the parties plan to engage in some form of alternative dispute resolution

(“ADR”), such as mediation or the individualized trial program set forth in LCR 39.2,

when they plan to engage in ADR, or why the parties do not plan to engage in ADR;

(C) the existence of any related cases pending before this court or in another jurisdiction

as set forth in LCR 3(g) and (h) and a proposal for how to handle the related cases;

(D) a statement of how discovery will be managed to promote the expeditious and

inexpensive resolution of the case, including but not limited to:

(i) forgoing or limiting depositions or exchanging documents informally;

(ii) agreeing to share discovery from third parties and the cost of obtaining that

discovery;

(iii) scheduling discovery or case management conferences with the judge

assigned to the case as necessary;

(iv) presenting discovery disputes to the court by informal means;

(v) requesting the assistance of a magistrate judge for settlement conferences;

(vi) requesting to use an abbreviated pretrial order; and

(vii) requesting other orders the court should enter under LCR 16(b) and (c).

(E) the targeted discovery that each side anticipates seeking;

(F) phasing motions to facilitate early resolution of potentially dispositive issues;

(G) any preliminary issues relating to the preservation of discoverable information and

the scope of the preservation obligation;

(H) procedures for handling inadvertent production of privileged information and other

privilege waiver issues pursuant to Rule 502(d) or (e) of the Federal Rules of Evidence;

(I) whether the case will involve the preservation and production of Electronically Stored

Information (“ESI”) and, if so:

(i) the nature, location, and scope of discoverable ESI; and

(ii) whether the parties agree to adopt the Model Agreement Regarding Discovery

of Electronically Stored Information in Civil Litigation (the “Model ESI

Agreement,” which can be found under “Forms” on the court’s website) or a

modified version thereof, and the timing for filing the agreement;

(J) if one or more of the parties intend to engage in the discovery of ESI and are unable to

agree to the Model ESI Agreement or a modified version thereof, whether they are able to

reach agreement regarding the following topics and the substance of their agreement:

(i) the nature, location, and scope of ESI to be preserved by the parties;

(ii) the formats for production of ESI (whether TIFF with a companion text file,

native, or some other reasonably usable format);

(iii) methodologies for identifying relevant and discoverable ESI for production,

including:

(a) methods for identifying an initial subset of sources of ESI that are

most likely to contain the relevant and discoverable information as

well as methodologies for culling the relevant and discoverable ESI

from that initial subset;

(b) identifying the custodians and non-custodial data sources, including all

third party data sources, most likely to have discoverable information;

(c) any plans to filter data based on file type, date ranges, sender, receiver,

custodian, search terms, or other similar parameters; and

(d) the use of any computer- or technology-assisted review, including any

plans to use keyword searching, mathematical or thesaurus based topic

or concept clustering, or other advanced culling technologies.

(iv) whether ESI stored in a database or a database management system can be

identified and produced by querying the database for discoverable

information, resulting in a report or a reasonably usable and exportable

electronic file for review by the requesting counsel or party.

(K) The date upon which the plaintiffs shall move for a determination under Fed. R. Civ.

P. 23(c)(1), as to whether the case is to be maintained as a class action, and an

appropriate briefing schedule for the motion.

(2) The attorneys for each party shall review and understand how their client’s data and

ESI are stored and retrieved before the Rule 26(f) conference and before any meet and

confer discussions related to the production of ESI in order to determine what issues must

be addressed during those discussions. To satisfy this requirement, the attorney may

choose to include in the Rule 26(f) conference and/or meet and confer discussion a

paralegal, information technology specialist, or other person with knowledge about how

the client’s data and ESI are stored and retrieved.

(3) Any motion for a protective order or motion to compel related to the production of

ESI must include the certification set forth in LCR 26(c) or 37(a)(1), state that the parties

agreed to an ESI Agreement and attach that ESI Agreement, or state that the parties met

and conferred regarding the topics set forth in LCR 26(f)(1)(I) to the extent they are

applicable.

(4) In the scheduling order or by separate order, the court may require the parties to

adhere to an agreement for the discovery and disclosure of electronically stored

information.

(5) If the court determines that any counsel or party in a case has failed to cooperate and

participate in good faith in the discovery planning process, the court may require

additional discussions prior to the commencement of discovery, and may impose

sanctions, if appropriate.

(6) Generally, the costs of discovery shall be borne by each party. However, on motion

or on its own, the court may apportion the costs of discovery related to ESI upon a

determination of good cause, considering the factors in Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(2)(C) and the

parties’ failure to agree to the Model ESI Agreement, a modified version or other similar

agreement.

(g) Reserved