What Is An Informal Discovery Conference?

[Music] This is Stuart aalverson with Albertson and Davidson and I want to talk to you about a fantastic device that we're starting to use in our case is called the informal discovery conference we call these ID C's for short what is an informal discovery conference what an IDC is is where we've asked an opposing counsel to give us written discover responses to discovery that we've sent to them and they've refused to give us responses that we believe were entitled to under California law so we can go to all the work of filing a motion to compel doing all of the meet confirmed process that you're required to do prior to filing that motion to compel it's a tedious task it takes a lot of hours it's complex or we can ask the court to set an IDC and IDC is where the court sets up an informal discussion between the lawyers and the judge to see if we can come to a resolution of the impasse we're having in the discovery fight these are fantastic we've been able to do a couple of these so far since the law was passed or became effective January 1 2018 that permits IDC s I believe it's under CCP 2016 dot zero eight zero if you look there that gives you all the rules for IDC s there's one judge in Los Angeles that's actually made this a standing order in her courtroom you cannot bring a motion to compel unless you've done an IDC first so what happens if the IDC both lawyers show up the judge is there some judges hold them in chambers some judges hold them from the bench and we tell the judge why we're entitled to the discovery we've asked for the opposing counsel says why we're not entitled to the discovery and the judge based on his or her experience of being a judge and their experience from when they were trial lawyers they will give it an opinion it's not an order they will give an opinion they'll tell you their gut reaction to how they would rule on this if we were to bring a motion to compel well chances are that judge is going to tell you exactly how they would rule on this if you do bring the motion to compel so you got to listen carefully if the judge says you're not entitled to that discovery if the judge says you are entitled to that discovery more than likely the other side is going to agree at that IDC to go ahead and give you the discovery you've been asking for we are so hopeful as trial litigators in California that these IDC s become the norm we would love to be able to meet with a judge have an informal discussion with that judge with the opposing counsel they're saying why we're entitled to the discovery chances are with the judge they're telling us his or her opinion as to whether we have a right to that discovery and we think generally we will have a right to that discovery the other side will comply and we won't have to go through the long process of motions to compel we will report back and let you know how we're doing with these ABCs. [Music] [Applause] [Music]