The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, as well as state procedural rules, permit parties to a lawsuit to conduct discovery, in search of information and documents that may be relevant to the litigation. Parties can issue requests for documents, information (called interrogatories), and admissions of fact to other parties to the lawsuit; parties may use

Litigants traditionally look to the rules of civil procedure in order to get discovery in a litigation. Plaintiff’s attorneys have, however, begun to try to circumvent restrictions within the discovery rules that are designed to limit the number, type, and timing of information requests, by sending out “access requests” on behalf of their clients under