This year we are wrapping up a decade of changes to the discovery rules. I know for many people, the past few years have been like the ancient curse: "may you live in interesting times." But it was not chaos. Some consistent themes emerged.

First, the overarching theme of the past ten years has been to constrain overbroad or improper discovery.

The second, and related, theme has been to promote judicial management of discovery; what many commentators have referred to as "adult supervision."

Part and parcel of this, of course, has been to highlight the judicial power to tailor discovery to the needs of the case, and to give judges the tools to do so effectively.