Proposed Federal Rule Amendments Now Open for Public Comment

On August 15, 2013, the public comment period opened on the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. As discussed in an earlier post that detailed the proposed amendments, this package of amendments represents the culmination of several years of work on the part of the Civil Rules Advisory Committee, with the end goal of streamlining the pre-trial process, and particularly discovery, so as to achieve a “just, speedy, and inexpensive” process. The public comment period will run through February 15, 2014. This is one step, and an important one, in the process of implementing amendments to the Federal Rules. Following the public comment period, the Advisory Committee will meet and consider the public comments, and potentially revise the proposed amendments based on those comments. See this Forbes article for a simplified flowchart of the “long and winding road of rules reform,” as well as a nod to IAALS' contributions along that road.