State court ediscovery rules scorecard

September 23rd, 2009 | By Steve Puiszis

Anyone old enough to remember when Jack Brickhouse and Lou Bodreau were WGN’s broadcasters for the lovable losers on the north side of Chicago, will have fond memories of the venerable public address announcer who graced the “friendly confines” known as Wrigley Field. At the beginning of each game Pat Pieper would begin with his signature announcement: “Attention, Attention, please! Have your pencils and scorecards ready and I will give you the correct lineups for today’s game.”

As of September 2009, there are 24 states which have enacted their own electronic discovery rules. Staying on top of this movement is important for attorneys with multi-jurisdictional practices and for general counsel whose companies operate in multiple states or ship their products through out the country, and as a result, are sued in various jurisdictions. Texas adopted its ediscovery rules (Tex. R. Civ. P. 196.4) before the federal rules were enacted and has not attempted to amend its rules to mirror the federal rules. Several of the states listed below (Idaho and Mississippi) follow the Texas approach. While other states have attempted to base at least some of their ediscovery rules on the corresponding federal provisions, in some instances there are obvious gaps and differences between the analogous state and federal rules, and in others, the variations are subtle, yet significant. So there is no substitute for reviewing the actual rules themselves.

Thus, with a tip of the hat to Tom Allman who originally began tracking those states that adopted their own set of ediscovery rules, and with a bow to Pat Pieper, get your pencils and scorecards ready for a list of those states that have enacted ediscovery rules which are linked below to their respective state rules:

• Alaska
• Arizona
• California
• Idaho
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Maryland
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• Montana
• Nebraska
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Virginia
• Wyoming

Pat Pieper served as the public address or field announcer at Wrigley Field for 59 years – he worked longer in that capacity than the ediscovery rules listed above likely will. Some fun facts about Pat on his Wikipedia page are that from 1916 to 1932, he used a megaphone to make his field announcements, and he never missed a game at Wrigley Field after 1924 until he retired in 1974. He likely should be listed in Ripley’s Believe It or Not for watching the most baseball games ever lost. Had he only gone to the South Side and worked for the White Sox, at least he could have watched some winning baseball including the 1959 Champs known as the Go Go Sox. Yes, I admit it, I am a White Sox fan, and I am waiting for the most interesting manager in baseball, Ozzie Guillen to pop back up on Twitter. Or was he also Twitterjacked?

Scorecard photo courtesy of Flickr user Caitlinator under this Creative Commons license.

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