For most companies, litigation is the law department’s single biggest line-item expense. For many individuals, litigation is just too expensive to pursue. The expense is ever-increasing as e-discovery becomes more and more costly. There is now an entire industry whose mission is to increase the cost of the discovery process while simultaneously touting their cost-saving attributes. Litigants, even sophisticated companies, often find themselves caught in tangled mess of barbed wire, caught amongst outrageous expense and discovery complexity, rules that were mostly drafted in an age before electronic information was commonplace and lawyers who seek to turn every misstep into a fight to the death or a sanctionable offense no matter how small the consequence the particular case.

The judiciary as a whole has failed to answer the clarion call presented by the expense of the system they oversee. Many judges, alone or with colleagues, have stepped up masterfully.

1. Accelerate the end.

2. Require senior trial lawyer involvement.

3. In business to business cases, get the businesspeople involved.

4. Identify and decide key issues first.

5. Guard against too much process at the expense of practical outcomes.

6. Standardize rules in ways that drive efficiency.

7. Limit discovery.

8. Master e-discovery cost drivers.

9. Reduce the briefing.

10. Decide quickly.

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