Do the California state courts offer e-filing and cost- and time-saving technologies?
Kaufhold: The Santa Clara Superior Court now has e-filing for all complex cases – cases assigned to the complex department. This is a very helpful development and one that will likely expand both within California and nationally if adequate funding can be allocated. Unfortunately, this is another area where most California state courts still have a lot of catching up to do and the Governor’s budget reduction proposal will slow the process of adopting these new technologies even more. Editor: e-Discovery is very big and the risks of failing to comply are tremendous. Given their caseloads, do you see judges at the state court level being able to control overly broad e-discovery requests? Kaufhold: I think it is really evolving from court to court. The difficulty with e-discovery is that it has made the burdens, particularly on corporate defendants, exponentially more expensive and time consuming. That fact is not lost on the plaintiffs’ bar. They are spending a huge amount of time focusi
