When deposing a retained expert in California, a party may specify materials to be produced by the expert at the deposition.  In response, experts often appeared for deposition with reams of materials, often disorganized, in an attempt to sandbag the opposition.  This often forced the deposing party to scramble to review the materials during the deposition and waste limited deposition time.

Effective January 1, 2017, the California Legislature amended the Code of Civil Procedure to prohibit this tactic.  Section 2034.415 now requires an expert to produce materials at least three business days before his or her deposition.  Because the new rule requires production of materials three “business days” before the expert deposition, the party noticing the deposition would be well-advised to avoid noticing an expert deposition on a Thursday or Friday so as to take advantage of the weekend’s two extra days.