Requests for Production: A Comprehensive Guide to Objecting and Responding

56 questions on requests for production, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Are boilerplate discovery objections still permissible?
• Can an inadequate privilege log waive the privilege?
• Can a Rule 34 request be served on a non-party?
• Can the requesting party dictate how the producing party searches for documents?
• Did the 2015 amendments change the relevance standard for discovery?
• Does an inadvertent production of a privileged document waive the privilege?
• How does Rule 26(g) turn boilerplate objections into a sanctions problem?
• How do you obtain documents from a non-party?
• How do you write a proportionality objection that works?
• How long do I have to respond to a request for production in federal court?
• How should a party respond to a request seeking ten years of records in a narrow case?
• How should collaboration-tool data like Slack and Teams be handled in discovery?
• Is categorical privilege logging permitted?
• Is technology-assisted review accepted by courts?
• Must a company produce work-related messages from an employee's personal phone?
• Must a Rule 34 response address each request separately?
• What are the four ESI production formats and their trade-offs?
• What are the risks of using disappearing-message apps once litigation is anticipated?
• What are the six proportionality factors?
• What are the threshold conditions for spoliation sanctions under Rule 37(e)?
• What counts as a document for Rule 34 purposes?
• What discovery objections actually work?
• What does a compliant modern Rule 34 response look like?
• What does DR Distributors teach about preserving chat and webmail data?
• What does Federal Rule of Evidence 502(a) do?
• What does it mean to state whether documents are being withheld?
• What does possession, custody, or control mean in document discovery?
• What does Rule 34 authorize a party to request?
• What does the meet-and-confer requirement demand before a motion to compel?
• What happens if a party complains about production format only after receiving the documents?
• What happens when a party responds evasively to a document request?
• What is a disciplined workflow for responding to requests for production?
• What is a protective order in discovery?
• What is a Rule 502(d) order and why is it so important?
• What is inaccessible ESI, and who bears the cost of producing it?
• What is the attorney-client privilege in the corporate context?
• What is the scope of discovery under Rule 26(b)(1)?
• What is the work-product doctrine?
• What makes a litigation hold defensible?
• What makes a meet-and-confer effective?
• What metadata cautions apply to the producing party?
• What must a privilege log contain?
• What sanctions are available for spoliation of electronically stored information?
• What sanctions follow from disobeying a discovery order?
• What should a non-party do when it receives a document subpoena?
• What three commands did the 2015 rewrite of Rule 34(b)(2) impose?
• What three questions should every objection pass before service?
• When does the duty to preserve evidence attach?
• When is a document prepared in anticipation of litigation?
• Who chooses the form in which ESI is produced?
• Who pays the fees on a motion to compel?
• Whose obligation is proportionality in discovery?
• Why are general objections so perilous?
• Why does metadata matter in document discovery?
• Why does tone and credibility matter in discovery responses?
• Why is document discovery where most cases are actually decided?