In civil litigation, non-party discovery is an effective and often necessary tool. While non-party discovery imposes real burdens on non-party witnesses, parties routinely fail to keep their end of the bargain by serving discovery that is inconsistent with the requirements of California’s Civil Discovery Act (the “CDA”), Cal. Civ. Proc. Code §§ 2016.010-2036.050. As a result, most non-party discovery is defective in some way, shape, or form.

In arbitration, ability to seek information from nonsignatories to the contract may depend on how it was drafted…

Though it may come as a surprise to many a party responding to a request for production in California is currently under no obligation to provide a privilege log in connection with its response—either initially or at some later date.

Rule 201 establishes the method for obtaining judicial notice of adjudicative facts, which are facts relevant to a particular case. Judicial notice can be used to take notice of facts generally known within the community that are not subject to reasonable dispute.1 The statements “the sun rises in the East and sets in the West” and “water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit” exemplify this use.