More Proposed Changes to the Federal Rules that Will Inevitably Impact Electronic Discovery and Federal Practitioners

February 15, 2017

The Federal Rules are undergoing more changes!  And, effective December 1, 2017, there will be two new Federal Rules of Evidence (Rules 902[13], [14]) that will directly impact e-discovery in the federal courts.  These Rule changes are critical because, as aptly put by recently retired Magistrate Judge John Facciola, “[t]he Federal Rules of Evidence were…established to create uniformity in evidence law by providing guidance for every evidentiary problem that could be reasonably expected to occur at trial…But, as our tangible world has grown increasingly virtual, so too has the evidence,…[which] the [existing federal] rules are ill-designed to accommodate.”  Thus, the new rules deal directly with e-discovery and forensic collection processes and the authentication of same in federal litigation. The proposed Rules are designed to bridge this gap and demonstrate an important step toward updating the FRE to be more in sync with the increasingly digital world in which we live.

Specifically, Rule 902(13) provides for a certification process for ESI, produced by a computer system or computer process (analogous to Rule 902[11]’s certification of business records).

And, FRE 902(14) provides that electronic data recovered “by a process of digital identification” is to be self-authenticating, thereby not routinely necessitating the trial testimony of a forensic or technical expert where best practices are employed, as certified through a written affidavit by a “qualified person.”   Here, the authentication of the file would be established using the file’s hash value (i.e., the digital fingerprint).

Familiarity with the proposed changes are important for a number of reasons.

First, although the Rules aren’t expected to take effect for almost a year, ESI collected in a Rule 902(14) compliant manner any time prior to the Rule’s effective date (i.e., today) can be subject to the new Rule’s provisions once the Rule goes into effect. This is important, because digital evidence is routinely collected well in advance of trial.  So, practitioners need to understand and account for Rule 902(14) immediately given that electronic evidence that is collected today may not be used at trial until sometime after December 1, 2017.

Second, the expectation is that the new Rules will provide a streamlined and efficient process to establish a foundation for ESI collected in a Rule 902(14) compliant manner. This will increase predictability by eliminating surprise challenges, and will encourage the use of  ESI practitioners by allowing written certifications in the place of expensive and time-intensive in-person testimony.  Indeed, the ability to eliminate foundational testimony will undeniably result in significant cost savings to one’s client and help promote judicial efficiency.  (However, this necessarily presupposes that practitioners in the federal courts will understand what a 902(14) compliant collection means.)

For anyone who has interest in reading a very educating and comprehensive Law Review article about the proposed Rule 902(13) and (14), check out, “Law of the Foal:  Careful Steps Towards Digital Competence in Proposed Rules 902(13) and 902 (14),” 1 GEO. L. TECH. REV. 6 (2016), written by Hon. John M. Facciola & Lindsey Barrett.