EXAMINING THE EMPIRICAL CASE FOR DISCOVERY REFORM IN TEXAS LONNY HOFFMANt ...... 209 ..................................... I. INTRODUCTION II. PERVASIVE PROBLEMS WITH EXCESSIVE DISCOVERY COSTS AND ABUSE? A LOOK AT THE AVAILABLE ....... 211 ............................... EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
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Empirical Work on Discovery Costs and ..... 212 ........................ Abuse System-Wide .................. .............. 212 1. Research in the 1960s ......................213 2. Research in the 1970s and 1980s ....... 216 .................. 3. Research in the 1990s ..... 218 .................... 4. Research in the 2000s Empirical Work on Discovery Cost and 220 Abuse in Complex Cases.......................
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS-AND LOOKING AHEAD........
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INTRODUCTION
Discovery reform is back on the Texas Supreme Court's agenda. In the summer of 2016, the Court tasked a subcommittee of its Rules Advisory Committee with conducting a wholesale review of the state's civil discovery rules.' The last major amendments made to the discovery rules were back in 1999.2 The initial impetus for this most recent directive from the Court seems to have been a request from a lay committee of the State Bar of Texas (the Committee on Court Rules) in March 2016, asking the Court to consider a t Law Foundation Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center. I am grateful to Matthew Harper and George Hayek for their assistance. By way of disclosure, I serve on the Texas Supreme Court's Rules Advisory Committee that will take up proposals later this year to revise the state's discovery rules-though I am not a member of the discovery subcommittee that has been working on the initial drafts of proposed rule changes. 1. Letter from Hon. Nathan L. Hecht, Chief Justice, Tex. Supreme Court, to Charles L. "Chip" Babcock, Chair, Supreme Court Advisory Comm. 2 (Apr. 18, 2016) (on file with author) [hereinafter SCAC Letter]. Transcript of Meeting of the Supreme Court Advisory Comm. at 27033 (June 10, 2. 2016), http://www.txcourts.gov/media/1405601/SCAC-06-10-16-Transcript.pdf.
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