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3 verbatim requirements extracted from judge-lillian-ewen__Guidelines-Regarding-Privilege-Logs-and-Procedures-for-In-Camera-Review.pdf, across 3 topics.
Nineteenth Judicial Circuit (Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee, St. Lucie). Check the order's own effective and rescission dates before relying on it. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
Verbatim from the order, captured 2026-07-24; whitespace normalised only. No OCR was used anywhere in this chain. DISCOVERY DISPUTES • CIVIL JURY DIVISION GUIDELINES REGARDING PRIVILEGE LOGS AND PROCEDURES FOR IN CAMERA REVIEW AND INSPECTION OF DOCUMENTS, MATERIALS, AND RECORDS In order to assist counsel for all parties seeking to withhold documents, materials, records, and other information from production on the basis of privilege or trade secret, the Court herein provides guidelines for preparing an adequate or sufficient privilege log and procedures for in camera review and inspection of documents, materials, records, and other information contained in the privilege log. Privilege Logs A party withholding information otherwise discoverable by claiming it is privileged shall make the claim expressly by preparing and filing an adequate privilege log compliant with Rule 1.280(b)(6), Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and the 2021 Florida Handbook on Civil Discovery Practice to “include at a minimum (for documents), sender, recipients, title or type, date and subject matter”1 and the pages of each document listed on the amended privilege log shall be bates numbered. A sufficient privilege log will enable other parties and the Court to assess the applicability of the privilege or protection asserted by the discovery opponent. The Fourth District Court of Appeal explained that a privilege log should: describe the document’s subject matter, purpose for its production, and a specific explanation of why the document is privileged or im mune from discovery. These categories, especially this last category, must be sufficiently detailed to allow the court to determine whether the discovery opponent has discharged its burden of establishing the requirements expounded upon in the foregoing discussion. Accordingly, descriptions suc h as ‘letter re claim,’ ‘analysis of claim,’ or ‘report in anticipation of litigation’ -with which we have grown all too familiar-will be insufficient. This may be burdensome, but it will provide a more accurate evaluation of a discovery opponent’s claims and takes into consideration the fact that there are no presumptions operating in the discovery opponent’s favor. Any failure to comply with these directions will result in a finding that the plaintiff -discovery opponents have failed to meet their burden of establish the applicability of the privilege.”2 1 Florida Handbook on Civil Discovery Practice, p. 139 at “Privilege Logs” and nn. 458-461 (2021). 2 TIG Ins. Corp. of Am. v. Johnson, 799 So.2d 339, 341 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001) (citation omitted). COURTESY COPIES • In Camera Review Following the filing of an adequate privilege log, in the event the party seeking discovery of documents, materials, records, and other information contained on the discovery opponent’s privilege log determines there is a need for an in camera review of such documents, materials, records, and other information, then the process for such is as follows: 1. The party requesting the in camera review of documents asserted to be privileged must file a Notice of Request for In Camera Review. The notice shall identify the documents requested for review by excerpting the complete information provided in the objecting party’s privilege log for each document. 2. The party requesting the in camera review is encouraged to spread out the requests in batches for in camera review and otherwise make the work for the Court more manageable to the extent possible and need not request review of all documents in a single grouping. 3. The documents appearing in the request for in camera review shall be provided to the Court within 7 business days of receipt of a Notice of Request for In Camera Review if review of 25 documents or less is requested, and within 10 days if review of more than 25 documents is requested. 4. For all documents submitted for in camera review pursuant to this Order, counsel for the party asserting the privilege s raised shall send a cover letter to the Court’s chambers, enclosing documents for in camera inspection in a sealed envelope marked FOR IN CAMERA REVIEW/NOT TO BE FILED. The cover letter will advise the documents are being provided for an in camera inspection pursuant to this Court’s order. The documents shall be produced with bates stamps in the order set forth in the Notice of Request for In Camera Review. No argument or other information shall be included in the cover letter. A courtesy copy of the entire cover letter (without the enclosed records) shall be provided contemporaneously to all parties’ counsel. The notice itself shall also not contain argument. This Order is not intended to foreclose any party from making argument. 5. Within 10 days of the party seeking discovery serving a “Notice of Request for In Camera Inspection,” the party asserting the privilege s raised may make a submission in the form of a memorandum addressing the documents to be reviewed under the Notice of Request for In Camera review and the applicability of any of the privileges raised. Any amendments to the privileges previously asserted shall also be submitted within this initial 10-day submission period. No further amendments to the privileges asserted as to the documents at issue in the Notice of Request for In Camera Inspection shall be made absent the filing of a Motion to Amend the Privilege Log and a showing of good cause for the amendment. Within 10 days of any submission by the party asserting the privileges raised, the party seeking discovery may make a submission to the Court also in the form of a memorandum directed to the applicabili ty of the privileges asserted. The party asserting the privileges raised may then file a reply or rebuttal submission to the submission within 5 days of service of the discovery seeking party’s submission. This shall be the extent of any submissions made on these Notices of Request for In Camera inspection by any of the parties. EXHIBITS & EVIDENCE • 6. The materials provided to the Court will be maintained in camera until the conclusion of this case and may be filed under seal for purposes of appellate review. 7. The Court will review the documents and make rulings as to the applicability of privilege. In doing so the Court will order production of any document not subject to privilege and will identify the documents to be produced by bates number. 8. Any order of this Court as t o discovery of these documents is not intended to govern the determination as to whether the discovered information is admissible as evidence. The scope of discovery is not limited to admissible evidence but includes information that is “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” Fla. R. Civ. Pro. 1.280(b). Accordingly, any statements or rulings by this Court are not intended to be a ruling on the admissibility of any information or document.
CIVIL JURY DIVISION GUIDELINES REGARDING PRIVILEGE LOGS AND PROCEDURES FOR IN CAMERA REVIEW AND INSPECTION OF DOCUMENTS, MATERIALS, AND RECORDS In order to assist counsel for all parties seeking to withhold documents, materials, records, and other information from production on the basis of privilege or trade secret, the Court herein provides guidelines for preparing an adequate or sufficient privilege log and procedures for in camera review and inspection of documents, materials, records, and other information contained in the privilege log. Privilege Logs A party withholding information otherwise discoverable by claiming it is privileged shall make the claim expressly by preparing and filing an adequate privilege log compliant with Rule 1.280(b)(6), Florida Rules of Civil Procedure and the 2021 Florida Handbook on Civil Discovery Practice to “include at a minimum (for documents), sende
Reviewer note: Document sha256: 9e39f4903e6089f9784170edeeec1162f5ab850a6e70af73062d827ceeb032f7. One rule per order rather than per topic, so an order's requirements stay together. Published during the completeness pass.
Every party setting a hearing in Division AO must first confer in a good-faith effort to resolve the matter, and every hearing notice must include a certificate of that conferral. The division instructions state that conferral requires counsel to actually talk.
Under the 2025 case-management amendments, a movant must confer with the opposing party in a good-faith effort to resolve a nondispositive motion before filing it, and must include a certificate of conferral.
CV-E layers a second conferral on top of Rule 1.202: certify conferral before filing the motion (Exhibit A) and again before scheduling it for hearing (Exhibit B).