Among the reasons that courts issue protective orders in both civil and criminal cases is to keep discovery confidential on a showing of good cause. Experience has proved confidentiality protective orders to grease the wheels of discovery in many cases.

This report summarizes the findings of a study of the operation of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(f) and 16(b) in a nationwide sample of recently terminated civil cases.

In 2010, the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules requested a study of motions for sanctions based on an allegation that the nonmoving party had destroyed evidence, especially electronically stored information (ESI).

Court case records and proceedings are presumptively public, but occasionally there are compelling reasons for keeping all or parts of them confidential, sometimes permanently but often only temporarily.