Civil Procedure

Requests for Admission Requests for admission are a discovery tool used to establish facts that are not genuinely disputed, authenticate documents, and narrow the issues that must be proved at trial. Instead of asking an opposing party to produce evidence or answer a series of factual questions, a request for Read more

Requests for Production Requests for production are one of the most important tools in civil discovery. They allow one party to require another party to produce documents, electronically stored information, tangible things, or other materials relevant to the claims and defenses in a lawsuit. They can also be used to Read more

Interrogatories Interrogatories are written questions that one party in a civil lawsuit serves on another party as part of the discovery process. The responding party must generally answer the questions in writing and under oath, unless a valid objection applies. In federal civil litigation, interrogatories are governed primarily by Rule Read more

Scope of Discovery The scope of discovery determines what information a party to a civil lawsuit may obtain from another party during the pretrial process. In federal civil litigation, the central rule is Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), which generally permits discovery of nonprivileged matter that is relevant to Read more

What Is Discovery? Discovery is the pretrial process through which parties to a civil lawsuit obtain information, documents, electronically stored information, testimony, and other evidence from one another and, in appropriate circumstances, from nonparties. Discovery is intended to allow the parties to investigate the facts, identify the evidence that matters, Read more

Class Certification What Is Class Certification? Class certification is the court’s formal determination that a lawsuit may proceed as a class action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. A lawsuit does not become a class action merely because the complaint says that the plaintiff intends to represent a class. Read more

Class Actions What Is a Class Action? A class action is a civil lawsuit in which one or more representative parties litigate on behalf of a larger group of people who have claims or defenses sharing legally significant characteristics. Instead of requiring every affected person to file an individual lawsuit, Read more

Intervention What Is Intervention? Intervention is a procedural mechanism that allows a person or entity that was not originally named as a party to enter an existing civil lawsuit because the litigation may affect that person’s legal interests. Instead of starting a separate lawsuit, the prospective intervenor asks the court Read more

Required and Necessary Parties Civil litigation sometimes involves people or entities whose interests are so closely connected to the dispute that they should participate in the lawsuit even though the plaintiff did not initially name them as parties. A court may therefore have to determine whether another person must be Read more