Where are all these eyeballs coming from?

I've been on Blogger, a Google company, since I started FWIW in 2006.

Yeah, I know, Google doesn't usually keep products alive for 20 years, but (knock wood) Blogger has been an exception.

Blogger didn't always track page views. I spent a good chunk of the day trying to track down when Blogger began counting page views on FWIW. Yes, I realize I'm the only one who cares.

I could not track the exact date down. Google was counting pages by 2015, obviously, when I reported that I'd reached 1,000,000 page views. Before Google undertook this task, I used a product called Sitemeter. While flailing around my self-dug rabbit hole this afternoon and evening, I confirmed that I was still relying on Sitemeter in 2011.

What got me started on this was the length of time it took to reach each million-page-view milestone. I laid all this out in my post about my six millionth page view... just this past January. At the time, I was pretty geeked because I'd gone from 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 page views in only about 292 days... under 10 months.

But... if you look at the screenshot I took off my site dashboard early this afternoon, I had over 7.76 million page views here. In not even six months, I've gone from 6,000,000 to shouting distance of 8,000,000.

It strikes me that there aren't that many people interested in Cook County judicial elections and social gatherings for the local bench and bar. Even if they visit often. Really often.

In fact, my best guess is that FWIW blew past the 7,000,000 page view mark some time in May. It's not like I was putting up all my Pulitzer-ready material in May; actually, I spent a good chunk of that month at Northwestern Hospital (thank you, I'm doing much better lately).

And how the heck did I get 47,315 page views on Friday?

Obviously, I'd like to believe that these page counts are 100% accurate... but... even if they are, I can't imagine that all these views come from people who are actually interested in the content I present on FWIW.

On the other hand, it is undeniable that traffic is up. Moreover, when I look at the page views on specific posts, I am gratified to note that the four posts I put up in 2017 proposing that Illinois move to a zero-based discovery system in civil cases, have attracted a lot of attention of late. All four posts are generating roughly equal traffic; that means people are reading each post in the series.

If you're interested, here's the series:

• Reforming civil discovery – Part 1 – the problem of human nature;
• Reforming civil discovery – Part 2 – preserve the civil justice system by adopting zero-based discovery;
• Reforming civil discovery – Part 3 – how zero-based discovery can work; and
• Reforming civil discovery – Part 4 – one more post on zero-based discovery.

I reread these posts recently. I stand by them; I think they're still timely. Maybe some of the recent readers of these posts will agree. Hopefully, some of these may be in a position to implement these proposals. I can dream, can't I?

Justice P. Scott Neville, Jr. joins the Illinois Supreme Court

Justice Anne M. Burke administering the oath of office

Before a packed Thompson Center auditorium audience that included many of his colleagues from the Illinois Appellate Court, Justice P. Scott Neville, Jr. was sworn in yesterday afternoon as the 117th justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.

The only empty seats were in the middle of the room;
many stood in the side aisles to see the ceremony

Justice Neville's sister, Professor Florise Neville-Ewell of the Western Michigan University Cooley Law School, introduced Appellate Court Justice Shelvin Louise Marie Hall, who served as Mistress of Ceremonies.

A dozen speakers offered congratulations to and reminiscences about Justice Neville: State Sen. Kwame Raoul (13th); State Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (25th); Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle; Justice Terrence Lavin, Vice Chair of the Executive Committee of the Illinois Appellate Court, First District; Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans of the Cook County Circuit Court; Judge Andrea Buford, Chairperson of the Illinois Judicial Council; Judge James E. Snyder, President of the Illinois Judges Association; Judge Ramon Ocasio, President of the Latino Judges Association; Allen Nettles, a law school classmate of Justice Neville at Washington University; Dr. Conrad Worrill, the retired Director of the Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University and a Neville family friend; Josephine Wade, the owner of Captain's Hard Times Restaurant on E. 79th Street; and Dartesia A. Pitts, the President of the Cook County Bar Association.

Some of the speakers at yesterday's ceremony.  Front row, from left to right, Justice Shelvin Louise Marie Hall, Dartesia Pitts, Judge Buford, Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie, Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans, Judge Ramon Ocasio, and Justice Terrence Lavin.  Back row, left to right: Dr. Conrad Worrill (obscured), Allen Nettles, Judge James E.Snyder (obscured), and Pastor David B. Thornton

Pastor David B. Thornton, of the Sixth Grace Presbyterian Church, offered the invocation and benediction and Felicia Coleman-Evans, accompanied by Elsa Harris, provided music.

Outgoing Justice Charles E. Freeman was lauded by virtually every speaker, as were the late Appellate Court Justices Glenn T. Johnson and R. Eugene Pincham.

In his remarks, Justice Neville praised Justices Johnson (for whom he clerked) and Pincham as the mentors of his legal career and Justice Freeman as the mentor of his judicial career.

In his service on the Supreme Court, Justice Neville said repeatedly, no one will be unseen, no one will be unheard ("whether pro se or no say," he added at one point, to applause).

Neville did not announce that he will appoint a committee to screen judicial candidates, but he pledged to work with the Alliance of Bar Associations for Judicial Screening (the United Nations of bar associations, he said) to vet his appointments. I have "complete confidence" in the Alliance, Neville said, "because I co-founded" that group.

Justice Neville proposed that every court should be a "court of record" -- that court reporters, or at least tape recorders, be present in every courtroom so that there is a record in every case and no case is ever "bounced" in a court of review for lack of a record. Justice Neville suggested that this could be financed by law firm donations, though he did not specify how this might be done.

Personal opinion, clearly labeled as such: This is a great proposal. Personally, I'd prefer live court reporters in every courtroom for every hearing and trial. While I've been impressed with the quality of transcripts I've seen transcribed from tapes in DuPage County, I think a live court reporter in the room would provide the best, and most accurate, record. But the cost would presumably be substantial -- and the funding of such a laudable venture would be problematic.

Justice Neville also proposed that the State should organize a trial bar, like that utilized by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Fully half the litigants in Cook County, Neville said, are unrepresented. They may be effectively denied access to justice on account of their inability to navigate the tricky shoals of the justice system. Lawyers from the proposed 'trial bar' could be appointed to assist these litigants, Neville suggested.

Personal opinion clearly labeled as such: This is a terrible idea. While the pro se problem is real and a true access to justice issue, the solution is not to impose yet another unfunded mandate on the bar.

The problem is an economic one: Litigation costs too much.

Note that I did not say lawyers cost too much. There are a privileged few -- a very few -- who command $1,000 or more per hour for their services. But there are a great many lawyers struggling to pay the rent, who charge far, far less -- and who can't collect the fees they do charge.

The truth is that, for too many litigants, the cost of obtaining, and paying for, a lawyer is the only litigation cost that can be "controlled." Even though judges recognize the folly of this -- like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face -- litigants too often forego the services of a lawyer (or, as litigation costs mount, stop paying their lawyer).

By reducing the cost of litigation, we will reduce the numbers of pro se litigants -- and increase employment opportunities for lawyers. (See my 2017 article, Solving the Pro Se Revolution, and putting lawyers back to work, too.) And how do we reduce litigation costs? We move from "routine" (and prohibitively expensive) discovery to a system of zero-based discovery.

Of course, serving as a fair but skeptical gatekeeper in discovery matters will take effort on the part of the judiciary, but the courts have always had the power to control discovery. And better this than to respond to one economic injustice by imposing another.

I suppose it is unwise for a mere solo practitioner to stake out a policy disagreement with a newly-installed Supreme Court justice on Day One of his tenure. But, then, I never was much of a politician.

And this is too important.

Reforming civil discovery – Part 4 – one more post on zero-based discovery

For Part 1 of this four-part series, click here.

With zero-based discovery, no discovery would be permitted to any party unless and until the court first reviews and approves the specific discovery sought.

This is similar to the way things worked in Lincoln’s day. A well-funded party would file its law action – and then file a separate chancery action, a bill of discovery, in order to obtain the discovery needed for their law case. We don’t need a separate suit to authorize discovery in the modern age, the distinction between courts of law and courts of equity having been abolished. But, if we are serious about reducing the cost of civil litigation and thereby securing access to the civil justice system for more than just the one-percenters, we do need a gatekeeper. A vigilant, skeptical gatekeeper.

Granted, while the existing discovery rules would not have to be totally rewritten to accommodate zero-based discovery, there would be some adjustments made by the bench and bar in order for the system to work.

So what?

Change is the only constant of modern life.

But, most of the time, ‘change’ means adding onto, not substituting one thing for another.

In my 37 years in practice, we’ve gone from IBM Selectrics to personal computers to laptops to tablets and smartphones.

We now have ‘phones’ which we use mostly to text or email people we might have, at one time, called.

On a phone.

I have been in practice so long that I can recall a time when the word ‘cloud’ referred principally to a visible mass of condensed water vapor in the sky.

In the course of my career, the rise of word processors and, later, PCs led directly to the ubiquitous use of form interrogatories. I refer not to the ‘form’ interrogatories now included in the comments to Supreme Court Rule 213 but, rather, to the form interrogatories that lawyers developed (or appropriated) for their own use – including, of course, the multi-page ‘definitions and instructions’ that some sadistic misanthrope inflicted on the rest of us a generation ago. We started using form discovery because it had become easy to do so. (Can you imagine someone having to retype those ‘definitions and instructions’ on a Selectric every time these were to be dropped on some unsuspecting opponent?)

In our modern, high-tech culture we often do things because we can, without giving a second thought to whether we should. The most widely cited example of this phenomenon has been the making of the second Star Wars trilogy, but this concept applies to civil discovery as well.

Photocopying made it possible to obtain large quantities of documents. So we started insisting on the production of large quantities of documents. Then digital technology made it possible to share enormous quantities of documents. So we began demanding these as well.

With zero-based discovery, we can step back and consider not just what we can do, but whether we should do it in the first place.

Lawyers will still be able to prepare cases, and settle cases, and try cases with zero-based discovery. But the best lawyer can’t do any of these things without clients. And potential clients can’t become clients unless they can afford representation.

We say we want ‘access to justice’ for civil litigants. In civil cases, meaningful access does not mean only that litigants can appear in court. Unrepresented parties can too easily ruin meritorious cases because they don’t understand either the applicable law or procedure. No matter how we streamline our court system, lawyers who regularly appear in a courtroom will have a decided advantage over pro se litigants who are involved in only one case. Access to justice for these litigants should involve access to lawyers, too. By drastically restraining discovery, perhaps many litigants will ‘discover’ that they can afford representation.

Reforming civil discovery – Part 3 – how zero-based discovery can work

In yesterday’s installment, I suggested that zero-based discovery would help ameliorate a basic access to justice problem, namely, that the cost of litigation has taken our civil court system beyond the reach of all but the biggest companies and the most wealthy individuals. But small businesses and middle class people still get sued and not every claim can be brought within liability insurance coverage. So we see increasing numbers of pro se litigants in our courts. Without the means to hire their own lawyers, too many pro se litigants, even those who might have meritorious claims or defenses, wind up losing to better-funded, represented opponents.

Eliminating ‘routine’ discovery will go a long way toward reducing the costs, and the pitfalls, for these pro se litigants. It may even bring the cost of representation back within the means of many litigants.

Having trouble visualizing a world without automatic discovery?

Routine discovery illustrated?

With zero-based discovery, the court would not merely inquire whether the parties have propounded interrogatories, the court would have to be persuaded that interrogatories are necessary to help this case be postured for settlement or trial and then have to approve the specific interrogatories to be propounded.

One immediate benefit would be the immediate disappearance of those six and seven page “definitions and instructions” sections that some attorneys like to lard onto interrogatories. No responsible court would ever approve a set of interrogatories with these. First of all, no one can possibly furnish answers to interrogatories that fully comply with these ‘instructions’: In the real world, the singular does not include the plural (or vice versa) and “and” never means “or” (usually couched, in the byzantine, prolix gibberish of the typical ‘instructions’ section, in terms of the conjunctive including the disjunctive... and vice versa).

Think about that for a minute. Under these kinds of impossible instructions, “two or three” might refer to an indeterminate, but small, number of something... or it might mean “five.” That’s simply absurd.

“Form” interrogatories would also vanish, unmourned, into the past. Let’s consider an example: In a garden variety rear-ender case, do we really need to know “the name and address of any physician, ophthalmologist, optician or other health care professional who performed any eye examination of” the defendant “within the last five years and the dates of each such examination?” Do we really need the defendant to disclose every doctor’s visit in the past 10 years and the reasons therefor? A court applying zero-based discovery should not ordinarily approve interrogatories like these in this sort of case despite their ‘approved’ pedigree.

With zero-based discovery, the attorneys for both side would have to persuade the trial court at the initial case management conference that they need certain interrogatories answered in order to either complete settlement evaluation or prepare the case for trial. A judge might agree that some of the old ‘form’ interrogatories might be useful in this regard – but probably not all of them in any particular case.

On the other hand, in a red-light, open intersection case, or where the defendant driver plows into a building, injuring persons within, interrogatories about the defendant’s prior health might be very important... and a court might be expected to permit these kinds of interrogatories. The important lesson is that discovery requests must be tailored to the issues in the case.

One other tremendous advantage of having direct judicial involvement in discovery from the outset of a case is that disputes about requests being too broad or too burdensome should be ‘nipped in the bud.’

In describing what zero-based discovery might look like, we started by talking about written discovery.

But there is no good reason to always wait for the conclusion of written discovery before taking depositions.

Consider an open intersection accident where each party is absolutely certain that the other ran the red light. If there were two eyewitnesses, why wait until after the plaintiff is forced to reveal that she had her tonsils out at age four? Why not start with the depositions of the two eyewitnesses? Both sides can reasonably reevaluate their settlement positions after just these two depositions are taken (the settlement value varying, of course, according to which party is identified by the eyewitnesses as being at fault). If the witnesses split, perhaps a trial is inevitable – but, then, future discovery can be framed with the necessity of trial in mind.

On the other hand, a trial court might conclude that depositions aren’t really necessary in a given case. Returning to the example of the garden-variety rear-ender case: To prepare such a case for trial, does the plaintiff’s attorney really need to know—in advance—whether the defendant claims to have hit the brakes five seconds or 10 seconds before impact? Conversely, does the defense really need to give a plaintiff the opportunity to rehearse his or her trial testimony?

Juries sometimes do strange things. When an anomalous result obtains, and the party or insurer starts looking through the pre-trial record, no attorney wants to be called upon to explain an order in which certain written discovery or depositions were ‘waived.’ Zero-based discovery will not eliminate runaway juries. But where the court has had ultimate authority about what discovery to permit and what to refuse from the very outset of the case, no one party can be blamed for ‘waiving’ anything.

Zero-based discovery will not mean zero-compliance discovery: Where a court permits certain interrogatories to be propounded, or certain documents to be requested, or certain depositions to be taken, the expectation will be that there will be “full disclosure.” But, when there is a dispute over the sufficiency of a response, the court will not have to guess what was expected; the court will have been a party to the creation of the expectation.

Zero-based discovery would not mean an end to all discovery. Nor would it end Monday Morning Quarterbacking by disappointed clients or insurers. It would, however, bring an end to discovery being conducted without a valid reason or goal (and spending one’s opponent into submission would never qualify). With the parties having to justify any desired discovery and the court being involved in the process right from the start, and the natural antipathy of court and conscientious counsel toward discovery, the burdens—and costs—of discovery should be drastically reduced. Zero-based discovery is a concept that should find adherents from ITLA to the Judicial Hellhole folks. The IJA, however, may be a tougher sell....

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For the fourth and final part of this series, click here.

Reforming civil discovery – Part 2 – preserve the civil justice system by adopting zero-based discovery

For Part 1 of this series, click here.

There seems to be a misunderstanding among lawyers generally and courts in particular that, unless forced to do so, a lawyer in a civil case will never disclose a single scrap of information.

And yet we know that we don’t behave that way. Judges didn’t behave that way when they were in practice either (just ask one).

And we also know that most—the overwhelming majority of—civil cases are disposed of without trial.

And, finally, we also know that a great many cases are settled without suit ever being filed.

Cases settle without suit because lots of information is voluntarily disclosed. Plaintiffs’ attorneys carefully gather together their clients’ medical records and lost-time records and helpful scene photographs and bundle them together in a ‘package’ designed to make the adjuster requisition adequate authority. The damning documents are carefully arranged and an explanatory letter is sent in an effort to make the other party to the contract realize the consequence of his or her breach. It doesn’t take a 213(f)(3) disclosure schedule to get the property owner to share the engineering report that clearly shows that the concrete was improperly mixed and that this caused the damage to the structure. These disclosures are willingly made in order to resolve cases at the earliest possible opportunity.

In other words, we really are very eager to disclose information that helps us... it’s just information that might hurt our cause that we try to keep hidden. (Human nature again.)

But, in our hyper-connected, over-sharing age, a lot of stuff that clients might not want to reveal, if they thought about it, is already ‘out’ before their lawyers are brought ‘in.’

Even if some damaging stuff sometimes remains buried during pre-suit investigation, cases don’t typically arrive in court without both sides already knowing quite a bit, good and bad, about the controversy.

Why does it automatically make sense to recreate all the information obtained or exchanged pre-suit?

In a great many cases—especially in our hyper-connected, over-sharing world—a lot of information damaging to our opponent is already known by third parties. Military Strategy 101 teaches that a good flanking maneuver is less costly than a frontal assault on a fortified position. Why do lawyers spend so much time, and so much client money, making frontal assaults on their opponents, demanding that they reveal damaging stuff that could be far more easily obtained from others?

The concept of “complete” or “full” discovery may sound appealing to law school professors, but the costs attendant thereto has made our civil court system too expensive a forum for too many – and, yet, there’s no viable alternative available. (Arbitration? Don’t get me started: Discovery is corrupting arbitration practice, too, and where one side is purchasing the arbitrator, as is now the case in mega-company vs. consumer arbitration, just exactly how fair can that system be?)

What we should do instead is abandon the idea of automatic discovery and move to a zero-based discovery system. This is not as inconsistent with our existing rules as you might initially think. Consider, for example, Supreme Court Rule 218(a), which already provides that “the following shall be considered” at an initial case management conference:

(1) the nature, issues, and complexity of the case;

(2) the simplification of the issues;

(3) amendments to the pleadings;

(4) the possibility of obtaining admissions of fact and of documents which will avoid unnecessary proof;

(5) limitations on discovery including:

(i) the number and duration of depositions which may be taken;

(ii) the area of expertise and the number of expert witnesses who may be called; and

(iii) deadlines for the disclosure of witnesses and the completion of written discovery and depositions;

(6) the possibility of settlement and scheduling of a settlement conference;

(7) the advisability of alternative dispute resolution;

(8) the date on which the case should be ready for trial;

(9) the advisability of holding subsequent case management conferences; and

(10) any other matters which may aid in the disposition of the action including but not limited to issues involving electronically stored information and preservation.”

Rules 218(a)(4), (5), and (10) specifically invite a trial court’s early and direct involvement in discovery issues. But rather than asking whether ‘form’ interrogatories have been unthinkingly propounded, or whether the depositions of all parties have been scheduled, whether needed or not, I suggest that we ask courts to presume that no discovery whatsoever is necessary in any case. I call this ‘zero-based discovery.’

With zero-based discovery the burden would be imposed on any party who wants it to persuade the court as to what discovery is necessary, and why. The court becomes the gatekeeper, tasked with evaluating whether the requested discovery is really necessary to get a case ready for trial – or positioned for settlement – or whether the discovery being sought is instead intended as a means to wear down or harass the other side. The court’s active involvement at this juncture should stop a ‘fishing expedition’ before it leaves port. The court’s control of the conduct of discovery from the outset would protect the uninsured or underfunded party against the use of discovery by a well-funded opponent as a means to bleed and bludgeon it into an unfair settlement or, worse, default or nonsuit.

With zero-based discovery, human nature works with the system, instead of against it: When the judge becomes obliged to 'deal with' discovery issues, he or she, consistent with his or her understandable disdain for discovery issues, will want to minimize discovery, to focus it on just that which is essential.

The new assumption would be that, without a court-specified and court-monitored discovery schedule, carefully tailored to meet the specific needs of each case, a case would be ready for trial just as soon as issue was joined. This would not prevent the parties from attempting to resolve their differences, either with the court’s assistance in a pre-trial, or through mediation (again, as Rule 218(a) already provides). But, without unfettered, automatic discovery, the cost of litigation would be reduced, perhaps drastically, bringing the court system—and the services of lawyers—once again within the reach of middle class people and small businesses. That alone might curb the surge in pro se litigation.

Meanwhile, equally well-funded parties could still try and discover each other to death (if equally well-financed parties are determined to wage a discovery war of attrition, the wise trial judge will gladly let them). But the civil court system can still be preserved as a viable dispute resolution forum for the rest of us.

To be continued.

Reforming civil discovery – Part 1 – the problem of human nature

First in a series.

“Discovery is intended to be a mechanism for the ascertainment of truth, for the purpose of promoting either a fair settlement or a fair trial.” Ostendorf v. International Harvester Co., 89 Ill.2d 273, 282, 433 N.E.2d 253, 257 (1982). “[D]iscovery is supposed to enable counsel to decide in advance of trial not only what the evidence is likely to be but what legal issues can credibly be argued.” Lubbers v. Norfolk & Western R. Co., 105 Ill.2d 201, 213, 473 N.E.2d 955, 961 (1984).

That’s what discovery in a civil case is intended to be.

Discovery is not supposed to be “a tactical game,” a game played to “impede and harass” an opponent. Williams v. A.E. Staley Mfg. Co., 83 Ill.2d 559, 566, 416 N.E.2d 252, 256 (1981).

But, too often, that’s just what discovery is: A game, a gauntlet, a trial by ordeal. It is too often used to prevent consideration of the merits of a case. It is deployed to wear down, subdue, bleed, and even bankrupt an opponent. Especially where the parties are not equally well-funded: Big business vs. small businessperson, for example, or well-insured or well-financed defendant vs. plaintiff (read: plaintiff’s attorney) with shallow pockets. Or where the defendant is uninsured.

How can this happen?

Two words: Human nature.

In the very next sentence after the Illinois Supreme Court warned, in Williams v. A.E. Staley Mfg. Co., that discovery should not be a tactical game, the court itself created the playing field: “Discovery is intended as, and should be, a cooperative undertaking by counsel and the parties, conducted largely without court intervention, for the purpose of ascertaining the merits of the case and thus promoting either a fair settlement or a fair trial.” (83 Ill.2d at 566, emphasis mine.)

With the lower courts instructed to refrain from routine intervention in discovery, whatever the Supreme Court’s intent, it was inevitable that abuses would flourish: Discovery bullies, like every other kind of bully, are all too willing to take every advantage when assured they can act without fear of ‘intervention.’

Not that trial courts needed much persuasion to refrain from intervention. Judges (understandably) don’t want to be burdened with discovery issues. It’s just human nature: Judges didn’t like discovery when they were mere practitioners.

Nor should this be surprising: No sane person likes discovery. Junior lawyers dream of becoming senior lawyers so they can fob discovery compliance off on the next cohort of fresh-faced associates, just as this unsavory task was dumped on them by their elders. That’s also human nature.

Senior partners may like the billable hours accumulated by their minions in the relentless pursuit (or avoidance) of discovery compliance, but none of them would willingly pitch in and review documents. That’s human nature, too.

Besides, no sane client would ever pay the senior partner’s hourly rate for tasks that the greenest associate might handle (or even a robot). Clients don’t just hate paying for discovery, they hate being bothered by it. What lawyer hasn’t had a client whine why am I paying you if I have to look for all this stuff myself? (With clients whose defense costs are being fronted by liability insurers the whining is sometimes even worse: Why do I have to do all this stuff? What did I buy insurance for anyway?)

So it’s just human nature that clients, and all the lawyers who can, will avoid discovery whenever they can (and, sometimes, even when they shouldn’t). Equally in accord with human nature, the courts are entirely willing to adopt an attitude of benign neglect (you lawyers should work this out amongst yourselves).

This creates opportunities for the Eddie and Edwina Haskells of the world. (I always hesitate to use cultural references from my TV-saturated childhood but, in rummaging around the Intertubes preparing this piece, I came across a 2011 article on the Psychology Today website, by Dr. Ronald E. Riggio, entitled, “Bullies and the Eddie Haskell Effect,” and subtitled, “Why workplace bullies often don’t get caught.” So I guess the reference is still well enough understood.) Mrs. Cleaver usually saw through Eddie’s smarmy and unctuous horse manure, but not always right away. Sometimes Wallace and Theodore, er, Wally and the Beaver, would wind up in hot water first. Comedy ensued.

Like June Cleaver, judges may eventually see through the Eddie or Edwina Haskells who are abusing discovery (and their opponents) in the cases before them – but not always before costs are inflated out of proportion with the value of the case.

Litigation is about persuasion. Persuasion involves more than the lawyer’s careful case citations or passionate speeches. A jury trial, you may have heard, is a proceeding in which 12 strangers decide which party has the best lawyer. There’s a kernel of truth in that old piece of corn: First and foremost, persuasion involves the lawyer trying to show the court that she is the reasonable one, that he is trustworthy, that they are credible. The lawyer who loses credibility with the court may find that all the great case citations and flowery language in the world can’t save the client’s cause. Once again, that’s human nature.

Anyone who has ever played a team sport, or had a kid in a team sport, has learned (often the hard way) that the umpire or referee doesn’t always see (or recognize) the provocation that gives rise to the retaliation. But the retaliation is almost always seen, and penalized. That’s human nature, too.

A court may not immediately recognize that the motion to compel is unfair or unjust because the underlying discovery requests are irrelevant, overbroad, overly burdensome, and/or grossly disproportionate to the dispute in question. In fact, this would be unlikely because, after all, the parties are supposed to work this stuff out without judicial intervention. Therefore—human nature being what it is—the party seeking the court’s assistance in enforcing discovery, in apparent compliance with the rules, particularly Rule 201(k), especially when represented by an Edward Haskell, Esq., will, at least at first, command the court’s sympathy. And the aggrieved respondent, whose credibility with the court is diminished just by being on the receiving end of such a motion, can squander what credibility he or she has left with too shrill or outraged a response. This, too, is human nature.

A proper civil discovery system should not work against human nature (or, at best, in spite of human nature).

More on this tomorrow.