One aspect of civil litigation appreciated by many practitioners if not more broadly by the public at large is that, though adversarial, there is often a considerable degree of cooperation between adversaries in litigation. Lawsuits are fought over weeks, months, and, often, years. Logistics to facilitate the exchange and review of documents and electronic data, the scheduling of meetings, and so on require cooperation and agreement. Where is a deposition to take place? How long will it be? How much time should it take an expert to prepare?
Fighting about such trivia is costly and hardly endearing to courts already over-burdened with considerably more important issues.
The ACLU v. TiZA case might serve as the paradigmatic breakdown, where it seems that the Court must constantly weigh in on nearly every aspect of the minutiae of discovery. Most recently, it appears the parties cannot agree whether an Owatonna-based expert should be deposed in Edina or Minneapolis. And that is only one of many points of contention…