Unless the Court directs otherwise, counsel and pro se litigants must not communicate with the Court about the merits of the case by letter, phone, or email (excluding the submission of a proposed order). All communications must be made in the form of a motion, brief, or a status report, properly noticed and served on opposing counsel. If a party has questions about scheduling, the status of motions, or the logistics of trial, contact Judge Kness's Courtroom Deputy, Ellen Reyes, at Ellen_Reyes@ilnd.uscourts.gov or 312-582-3254.

Parties requesting entry of an order to preserve the confidentiality of materials disclosed in discovery must base the proposed order on the Model Confidentiality Order contained in the Local Rules (Form LR26.2), available HERE . The Model Confidentiality Order provides that parties should include or delete language in brackets as necessary to the specific case. Any other proposed changes to this model order must be shown in redlined format that reflects both deletions and additions to the model text. For proposed substantive changes, counsel and parties are encouraged to include comments explaining why the changes are sought. Counsel shall file a motion for entry of the proposed confidentiality order and attach as an exhibit the redlined proposed order. Counsel shall separately submit a clean copy of the proposed order in Word format to the Court’s proposed order inbox: Proposed_Order_Kness@ilnd.uscourts.gov. The Court will not enter a proposed confidentiality order suggesting that material a party has designated as “ confidential ” may, for that reason alone, be filed under seal. Any confidentiality order that contemplates under-seal filing must provide that no documents may be filed under seal absent a motion showing good cause for sealing a portion of the record. A party ’ s mere designation of information as “ confidential ” is insufficient to permit filing under seal. A party seeking to file material under seal must instead set forth in its motion the reasons why the record should be sealed. When a party wishes to file a document on the public docket that another party has marked confidential, the parties must meet and confer to determine who is the appropriate party to file any motion to seal.

Other Discovery Motions The Court believes that parties can and should work out most discovery disputes without Court intervention. The Court expects the parties to make a genuine, good-faith effort to resolve disagreements before filing a discovery motion. The Court will not hear or consider any discovery motion or non-dispositive dispute unless the movant has complied with the “meet and confer” requirement of Local Rule 37.2. The motion must state with specificity when and how the movant compiled with Local Rule 37.2. Compliance with the Local Rules requires a good-faith effort to resolve discovery disputes, including communications that take place in person or by phone. The exchange of emails or letters will not normally be sufficient to comply with the Local Rules. Motions that do not comply with the Local Rules may be stricken. If a party requests a meet-and-confer, the other party must respond promptly and participate in a meet-and-confer in a reasonable time. If an impasse arises about the recovery of electronically stored information (ESI), no discovery motion may be filed unless the parties first meet and confer to determine whether the requested material can be retrieved and, if so, the most effective way of doing so. Such a conference must take place in person or by phone and must be attended by an IT representative of the party (or, for a putative class, an IT representative of plaintiffs’ counsel) that served the request and an IT representative of the party that received the request. Motions to Dismiss The pendency of a dispositive motion, such as a motion to dismiss, does not automatically cause discovery to be stayed. Sequence of Discovery Parties are reminded that there is no “order” in which discovery must occur. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(3). One party’s failure or inability to respond to discovery will not excuse any other party’s non-compliance. Boilerplate Objections Objections to written discovery must state with specificity the grounds for objecting. See, e.g., Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(4) (“The grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity.”); Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)(B) (“For each item or category, the response must . . . state with specificity the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons.”). That is, the objecting party must offer a particularized reason tailored to each request. Boilerplate objections are inadequate and are to be disregarded. For example, a generic assertion that a discovery request is “overbroad” or “unduly burdensome”—without an accompanying explanation—is the same as not objecting at all. Limit on the Number of Requests for Admission The Court sets a limit of 25 requests for admission under Rules 26(b)(2) and 36 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Per “side” means parties represented by the same counsel. Any party may seek relief from this order by way of motion .