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1996 ADVISORY COMMITTEE'S PREFACE

After the 1991 Amendments to the Local Rules of the District of Minnesota, two important procedural events occurred that required a new look at the Local Rules. First, the Federal District Court for the District of Minnesota promulgated a Civil Justice Reform Act Implementation Plan ("CJRA Plan"), as required by the Civil Justice Reform Act of 1990, 28 U.S.C. §§ 471-82. The CJRA Plan, which was promulgated on August 23, 1993, supplemented and to some extent supplanted the then-existing Local Rules. Second, the Supreme Court promulgated a set of amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("National Rules"). These amendments to the National Rules became effective on December 1, 1993. They made important changes in discovery and pretrial procedure, while giving leeway to district courts to use Local Rules to "opt out" or modify many of the new procedures.

These 1995 amendments to the Local Rules are designed to provide a single authoritative compilation of the procedural rules of the District, so that practitioners will no longer need to refer both to the Local Rules and to the CJRA Plan. They also set forth the Court's decisions on whether to exercise local options permitted under the discovery and pretrial conference provisions of the 1993 amendments to the National Rules.

The provisions of the 1993 amendments to the National Rules that related to discovery and mandatory pretrial disclosure were controversial. A number of courts in other districts modified or opted out of those provisions. The Federal District Court for the District of Minnesota decided to give the new National Rules a trial before promulgating Local Rules in reaction to them. After reviewing this experience and considering arguments for and against the new discovery and disclosure process, the 1996 Advisory Committee recommended acceptance of the principal provisions of the 1993 amendments to the National Rules. The Committee's recommended 1996 amendments to the Local Rules do, however, exempt certain categories of cases from some of the provisions of the National Rules, and modify other provisions to meet concerns expressed during the Committee process. The Committee's recommended rules also opt out of certain provisions of the National Rules relating to disclosure or discovery of information about expert testimony and set forth a different procedure for expert discovery.

Each Local Rule is followed by an effective date. Those Local Rules with an effective date of 1996 were adopted at the recommendation of the 1996 Advisory Committee. The Local Rules with an effective date of 1991 were adopted at the recommendation of the 1991 Advisory Committee, whose Advisory Committee Preface follows this one. In a few instances, the 1995 Advisory Committee made minor technical changes in the 1991 Local Rules (such as substituting "Magistrate Judge" for "Magistrate") without changing the 1991 notation following the rule. Where one subsection of a Local Rule was promulgated in 1991 and one subsection was promulgated in 1996, a date notation follows each subsection.

When it promulgated the 1991 Local Rules, the Court, at the recommendation of the 1991 Advisory Committee, re-adopted a number of rules that pre-dated 1991, while re-numbering them to facilitate reference to related National Rules. The 1991 Advisory Committee's Preface describes this process and enumerates the rules that pre-dated 1991.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2077(b), the Court appointed an Advisory Committee to prepare a draft of the 1996 Amendments and to make recommendations to the Court. The Advisory Committee consisted of the following members:
 

The Committee wishes to express its gratitude to all those who aided its efforts. Special thanks are due to a few individuals. Frank Dosal, the Clerk of Court, provided invaluable information and support in formulating both the 1991 and 1996 rules, and he was ably assisted by Sara Nielsen and Wendy Schreiber. Russell A. Blanck gave selflessly of his time and counsel. Finally, we would like to recognize Caron Pjanic for her exemplary care and effectiveness in processing and assembling the rules, without which the task of the Committee and its Reporter would have been much more difficult.

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