Mediating Discovery Disputes: When "Meet and Confer" Alone is not Enough

It is universally agreed that mediation can be a very effective tool for resolving a civil lawsuit. For this reason, to save the parties' time and expense, and to conserve judicial resources, a large majority of jurisdictions require the parties to participate in mediation or another ADR technique before proceeding to trial. Mediation is not commonly employed, however, as a method of resolving discovery disputes. This article proposes that mediation, properly adjusted to account for the differences between the "endgame" and the discovery phase, can and should be used more widely as an efficient and cost-effective alternative to court orders to resolve discovery disputes.

In addition, the use of mediation is a viable option in the multi-prong effort to reduce the skyrocketing costs and complexities of e-discovery.