Requests for Production of Documents and ESI

Document and ESI requests get one of the trilogy’s most modernized chapters, covering both Rule 26 disclosures and Rule 34 requests, the possession-custody-control standard, request mechanics and drafting, and a long ESI-specific treatment: ESI sources, computer systems and technical terminology, life-cycle issues, discoverability rules, preservation duties, accessibility and proportionality, cost-shifting, and spoliation sanctions. Subsequent sections cover non-party production via subpoena and government production. The chapter’s depth on ESI makes it especially valuable for any pretrial litigation course in a jurisdiction (now most of them) where electronic discovery dominates real practice — students leave with both doctrinal grounding and practical workflows.