Changing the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Has the Time Come?

Pleading standards have been one area of concern in recent years for the U.S. Supreme Court, as evidenced by its decisions in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombley. Private practitioners have long debated other aspects of the Federal Rules, including the scope of permissible discovery, a party's obligation to preserve documents and other potential evidence, and which party (or perhaps which attorney) should bear the costs of discovery. Still others are questioning the basic fairness, from a legal and even constitutional perspective, of a system that, without any showing of reasonableness, allows one private party to make production demands of another private party. Three experts in the field of civil procedure will present papers on these and other related issues during our panel discussion.

Panelists:

• Prof. Ronald J. Allen, John Henry Wigmore Professor of Law, Northwestern University School of Law 
• Prof. E. Donald Elliott, Yale Law School
• Prof. Richard M. Esenberg, Marquette University Law School
• Prof. Martin H. Redish, Louis and Harriet Ancel Professor of Law and Public Policy, Northwestern University School of Law
• Moderator: Hon. Merrick B. Garland, United States Court of Appeals, DC Circuit
• Introduction: Mr. Dean A. Reuter, Director of Practice Groups, The Federalist Society