Trial Lawyers Section releases 2024 Handbook on Civil Discovery Practice and Professional Conduct Guidelines
The 2024 Florida Handbook on Civil Discovery Practice, regarded as the go-to resource for all aspects of civil discovery, and the 12-page Guidelines for Professional Conduct, as adopted by the conferences of circuit and county court judges, are now available from The Florida Bar Trial Lawyers Section.
“[W]e strive to provide unique and high-level resources and training to assist Florida’s trial lawyers to refine their skills, inside and outside of the courtroom,” states section Chair Geddes Dowling Anderson, Jr., on the section’s website. “The handbook aims to curtail perceived discovery abuses.”
Among the topics the handbook addresses:
- Discovery Standard and Expectations
- Preservation and Spoliation of Evidence
- Electronic Discovery (including discovery of social media ESI)
- Written Discovery Practice
- Proper Conduct of Depositions (Including objections)
- Expert Witness Discovery
- Compulsory Medical Examinations
- Work Product Protection, Trade Secrets and Other Privileges (including obtaining psychological records when pain and suffering are at issue)
- Motions for Protective Orders
- Motions to Compel
- Fraud on the Court
Pensacola attorney and Board of Governors member Jeremy C. Branning headed the committee that oversaw the revisions to the handbook, which was last updated in 2021. The 2024 edition committee included Anderson, Judge Christine Marlewski, Kim Ashby, Tom Dart, Jennifer Lester, Andrew Reiss, Weston Smith, Rachel Walters, and Whitney Untiedt.
The Trial Lawyers Section produced the handbook in collaboration with the Florida Conference of Circuit Judges and the Conference of County Court Judges of Florida.
The Trial Lawyers Section has also released the 2024 edition of the 12-page Guidelines for Professional Conduct.
The guide describes:
- General Principles
- Scheduling, Continuances, and Extensions of Time
- Service of Papers
- Written Submissions to Courts, Including Briefs, Memoranda, Affidavits, and Declarations
- Communications with Adversaries
- Depositions
- Document Demands
- Interrogatories
- Motion Practice
- Ex Parte Communications with Courts and Others
- Settlement and Alternative Dispute Resolution
- Remote Communications and Attendance
- Trial Conduct and Courtroom Decorum
For more information on how to obtain these documents, contact the Trial Lawyers Section at floridatls.org/.
Formed in 1967, the Trial Lawyers Section has more than 5,500 members who share a mission to promote access to the courts, preserve the independence of the judiciary, and protect the constitutional right to a trial by jury.
