The Texas Supreme Court Rules Advisory Committee voted last Friday not to adopt federal discovery rules that require parties to provide written reports about their expert witnesses and extend work-product privilege to drafts a testifying expert witness prepares before testifying in a case. “We talked for about an hour-and-a-half. And the committee voted 2-to-1 not to have it,” says Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht, the court’s liaison to the committee. “But we sent it off to draft a rule in case the court wants one.” Nobody liked the written-report requirement, Hecht says, and the committee was “just nervous about creating a new area of confidentiality.” Those changes were part of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26, which took effect Dec. 1, 2010. Here's a letter from Hecht making the court's request for the advisory committee's recommendations, the discovery rules subcommittee's memo to the advisory committee and a letter to the subcommittee.
-- John Council
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