This is common in almost all legal systems. How else would the defendant get to examine the evidence against them and how else would you provide evidence if there was no discovery process?
Its hard to imagine there would be a legal system without it.
If you're the plaintiff and you have evidence that supports your version of events, you give it all to the court. If you're the defendant and you have exculpatory evidence, or anything that shows that the case is frivolous, you give it all to the court. The judge can then ask for more evidence, or utilize what's provided.
My legal team didn't need to sift through ten years of emails in order to find a few needles hidden in the haystack. The process wasn't adversarial. The parties can't use "discovery" to get trade secrets or proprietary information. And the costs were near enough to zero.
I wouldn't even say that it's a "better" system. I'd characterize US-style discovery as simply broken, and the Chinese system as something that works in a common sense way.
Yes, but what if you're the plaintiff/defendant and the other party has evidence in your favor? How do you get it before the court? That is what discovery is for.
Honestly it just sounds like you had an easy case tried in China and a hard one tried in the US and are making some really broad assertions about the two legal systems based on a small sample size.
What do you know of this evidence and how do you know about it?
> Honestly it just sounds like you had an easy case tried in China and a hard one tried in the US and are making some really broad assertions about the two legal systems based on a small sample size.
lol, no. It was actually the other way around. The US case was completely open-and-shut, whereas the Chinese case hinged on a matter of sensitive technology with military or "dual use" potential and it could have gotten ugly. I'll swear on whatever you like that I could hardly wait to get our US case in front of a US judge, but it was practically impossible. There are just so many absurd pretrial hoops to jump through. And all of them expensive.
This is but one of infinite examples of the other party having evidence helpful to the other side and harmful to themselves.
You provide the court with that information, and the judge presiding over the case can (and almost surely will, if you're correct,) ask for the logs. If they don't provide them upon request, they're hit with a adverse inference, just as they would be if they withheld documents in discovery.
It's plain common sense.
Now, it's true that "you don't know what you don't know" and that discovery can be an investigative process, but for the vast majority of cases it's totally unnecessary. And, in very many cases, discovery will actually impede access to justice. In court systems without discovery, judges tend to take on a slightly more investigative role, besides.
Exactly. The US justice system works for people with money.
It's called "discovery" for a reason. You ask for everything you think might be relevant.
Red-Team Lawyer: "Provide us with all emails from 1/1/2010 through 1/1/2020, inclusive, that include or mention [product x] or are of relevance to its research, development, production, or marketing."
Blue-Team Lawyer: "That's overly broad and many of those emails contain proprietary confidential and trade-secret information, which is protected. My client will not provide them."
Judge, intervening after objections are filed: "Counsel, under FRCP 26(b)(1), discovery must be proportional to the needs of the case. Red Team, narrow the timeframe to 2015–2020 and limit the search to emails involving R&D leads and marketing executives. Blue Team, designate confidential portions under FRCP 26(c) as 'Attorneys’ Eyes Only' and produce a privilege log for withheld items. Failure to comply may result in sanctions under FRCP 37."
Every single part of this costs money and takes time. It usually takes a judge ~1-3 months to rule on discovery disputes. Filing the dispute is non-trivial. And "designating confidential portions" can provide junior attorneys with months of work.
That's hardly even the tip of the iceberg. There are so many sneaky tactics you can use in discovery that entire books have been written about them. For instance: https://jamespublishing.com/product/guerrilla-discovery/
Whereas if both sides just provide their evidence to a judge's office which compiles them into an account, all of this cost and effort is spared.
Basically you're complaint here is about formality and paperwork. Which, fine. It sucks. But the fact that it exists is precisely what prevents someone from doing stuff like paying off the judge or just destroying evidence. I don't love it either but I sure as shit know which system I'd rather be living under.
[1] It's also actually wrong as a matter of pedantic fact: discovery requests are court filings and are made "to" the court, not the opposing counsel. But again, that's a distinction without meaning.
"Paying off the judge" is not a systems-level problem; it's the sort of thing that has been criminal for as long as man has had legal systems. You can't point to it as an example of "legal system is good" or "legal system is broken." Doesn't work that way.
It literally criminalizes it! People go to jail and lawyers get disbarred for obstruction every year. And as a result reputable firms won't even try to dance around these things. If you're an attorney and get a subpoena or discovery request, you tell your client to freeze their backups right away and send repeated emails reminding them, then print them out and file them along with the response. This is true even if it's a ridiculous request you know you'll beat. Because you know if you fuck this up you'll lose your career.
I mean... have you ever actually talked to a corporate lawyer?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_614
Rule 614. Court’s Calling or Examining a Witness
(a) Calling. The court may call a witness on its own or at a party’s request. Each party is entitled to cross-examine the witness.
(b) Examining. The court may examine a witness regardless of who calls the witness.
(c) Objections. A party may object to the court’s calling or examining a witness either at that time or at the next opportunity when the jury is not present.
Ha, well, you would say that.
This statement is false, both the German and French legal systems do not have something like discovery. To confirm for yourself just Google "is there something like discovery in the German/French legal system". Considering that many legal systems are based on these two (one could argue the German one is based on the French as well) I think we can conclude that not having discovery is in fact common.
> How else would the defendant get to examine the evidence against them and how else would you provide evidence if there was no discovery process? > > Its hard to imagine there would be a legal system without it.
Here is a link how the German system works without it. It also explains why for German legal practitioners it is a concept that violates some of the core principles of fair justice. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/german-way-discovery-just-don...
You don't sue people for fun, right? It's either they did something to you and you have damages, costs, paperwork, records, CCTV footage, medical examination records, whatever, or you want them to do something based on some regulation/statute/right.
Discovery usually tries to show that so and so higher up knew about it all along, no?