Discovery Privileges: Work Product

This lesson is part of a series of lessons about Discovery. Rule 26(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure describes the scope of discovery: This lesson will explore the doctrine of attorney work product. Material that falls under the work product doctrine ordinarily need not be produced in discovery, even if it is extremely relevant.

You can do the lessons in this Discovery series in any order, but it may make more sense to start with the relevance lesson before moving on to the lessons that explore the discovery privileges.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of the lesson, the student will be able to:

1. Explain the requirements of work product.
2. Discuss the exception to work product in cases of substantial need and undue hardship.
3. Apply each of those requirements to different fact patterns.
4. Analyze hypothetical documents to determine whether they would need to be produced in discovery.