Minds Intertwined: The Cognitive Teamwork of Federal Civil Rulemaking

Abstract

Amending a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure is an act of intricate teamwork. Members of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules must make sense of thousands of pieces of information, account for a variety of stakeholder perspectives, and anticipate the consequences of even the most modest rule change. This Article provides a unique look inside the rulemaking process, using personal interviews with Committee members, direct observations of Committee deliberations, and primary source documents to reconstruct the history of the 2020 amendment to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6). It reveals a complex and deeply layered cognitive process that is likely unfamiliar even to those who follow federal civil rulemaking.

Keywords: Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, law and cognition, team cognition, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, civil procedure, discovery, groupthink, mental models, case study, group decision making, federal courts, civil litigation, information processing

JEL Classification: K40, K41