Much Ado About Nothing?

With the recent press coverage of about new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, you'd think that these rules just popped out of nowhere.  However, for those following the various e-discovery blogs such as Preston, Gates, & Ellis' Electronic Discovery Law and Fios' Sound Evidence, this has been a long trip.  After all, substance of most of the rules has already been implemented in federal courts through cases like Zubulake v. UBS Warburg (Zubulake III), 216 F.R.D. 280 (SDNY 2003).  Certain Coleman v. Morgan-Stanley, 2005 WL 679071 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Mar. 1, 2005) served as a kind of wakeup call more than a year before the Rule 37 Safe Harbor provision went into effect.  Nonetheless, for those trying to push the envelope in e-discovery, the press coverage is welcome news.  Hopefully companies will realize that they cannot wait until the last minute to figure out if their information is "discoverable."  Retention policies, litigation hold procedures, and information disposal practices need time to be written and implemented.  As Arthur Andersen can testify to, letting people to their own devices under the heat of an subpoena can lead to catastrophic results.  So let's welcome all the Johnny-comes-latelies and hope that they're not too late to the party.