ANALYSIS: Is Proportionality Easing Need for Protective Orders?

Eight years after the Supreme Court approved amendments to the federal rules defining the proper scope of discovery in civil suits, reinforcing the need for proportionality in discovery requests, there are signs that litigants are implementing that clarification into their practice.

One way that a party can combat abusive discovery requests—those not “proportional to the needs of the case” as required by the 2015 amendments to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1)—is to ask for a protective order from the court shielding the party from improper requests.

However, Bloomberg Law dockets data reveal that the number of parties seeking such ...