Welcome and thank you for visiting the American College of Trial Lawyers’ website.  Here, you will learn more about the College, its Fellows and their activities. 

The College is delighted to release the Final Report on the Joint Project of The American College to Trial Lawyers Task Force on Discovery and The Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System.  This work by the 17 participating members of the College’s Discovery Task Force has been underway since 2007 under the leadership of Fellow Paul Saunders of New York.  The Task Force was created by the Board of Regents to examine the role of discovery in the perceived problems in the burdened U.S. Civil Justice System and to work with the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver in Colorado which provided the financial support for the project.  The Task Force’s report is another example of the College’s constant commitment to excellence through the work of our Fellows.

The Task Force has met its goal of creating a platform to foster thought and action towards discovery reform.  It has authored a set of Principles aimed at stirring public discussion and debate with the expectation that these Principles will ultimately result in reform to a civil justice system that better serves the needs of its users.  These Principles challenge long existing practices under the current procedural rules in place in both our federal and state courts.  They necessarily and appropriately have reached beyond concerns over costly and unlimited discovery.  You will find when reviewing this report that it is enlightening and offers a well thought out and fresh perspective on how to make our system work better.  By clicking on the Final Report in the Highlights section below you can access this work.