New York Times

WASHINGTON — Calling for “a change in our legal culture,” Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr. devoted his year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary to a plea that lawyers “avoid antagonistic tactics, wasteful procedural maneuvers and teetering brinkmanship.”

But critics said the report praised a development that will limit the amount of information individuals can obtain from companies and the government, frustrating their ability to prove their cases.

The chief justice’s report welcomed December’s adoption of major changes to the rules governing civil litigation in the federal courts, notably limits on the pretrial exchange of information that lawyers call discovery.

“I cannot believe that many members of the bar went to law school because of a burning desire to spend their professional life wearing down opponents with creatively burdensome discovery requests or evading legitimate requests through dilatory tactics,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote.

The amended rules limit discovery to materials that are “proportional to the needs of the case.”

The change has not met with universal approval.

“This provision will be used to restrict a citizen’s access to the information that often is critical to establishing a grievance, whether it be a civil rights claim or an economic or personal injury claim,” said Arthur R. Miller, a law professor at New York University.

Suja A. Thomas, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said the new rules were too sweeping.

“They were aimed to decrease costs in the cases where costs were out of control,” she said. “This is a very small set of cases.”

On the other hand, she added, the new rules may tie the hands of litigants like victims of employment discrimination. “These are cases where discovery is very important because employers have so much information,” she said.

Stephen B. Burbank, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the new rules were a poor fit for many lawsuits and will often prove counterproductive.

“Continuing a trend that goes back decades, these amendments take a problem that arises chiefly in complex, high-stakes litigation between corporations, and devise solutions that necessarily apply to all federal litigation,” he said. “As a result, the layers of additional expense that active judicial management can impose make litigation costlier for litigants less able to afford it, including most importantly individuals.”

But Chief Justice Roberts said proportionality was a common-sense concept that should be embraced by lawyers.

Judith Resnik, a law professor at Yale, said she welcomed the chief justice’s embrace of the orderly amendment of the rules as part of “a deliberative process, with input from a wide array of participants.”

But she said the Supreme Court in the last few years had “taken upon itself to reread rules rather than use that process,” notably by giving judges greater authority to dismiss cases soon after they are filed.

The court’s vow to the amendment process will be tested in its current termin three cases concerning a rule governing class actions, she said.

“The concern is that the court will leapfrog over the rule amendment process and impose a reading that will limit the use of class actions,” she said. “Hopefully, the chief justice’s commitment to the process will be reflected in the decisions to come.”

Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the amended rules represented important progress.

Just as “a change in the culture left dueling by the wayside and left us with lessons learned,” he wrote, “we should not miss the opportunity to help ensure that federal court litigation does not degenerate into wasteful clashes.”