40.261	Order to Meet and Confer to Establish Joint Document Depository
[Caption]
It is ORDERED:1

1.	Defendants, in consultation with plaintiffs, shall establish and maintain a document depository program (a “depository”) in a manner to be agreed on by the parties and/or ordered by the Court. The parties will propose to the court a formula for sharing the cost of maintaining the facility. The depository shall store all materials produced by parties and third-parties in this proceeding that may be needed for more than a single case, including documents, interrogatories, requests for admission, requests for production of documents, deposition transcripts, and similar materials. These materials shall be made available to any litigants in any case in the above-captioned litigation [and to any litigants in any related state court litigation].
2.	Counsel must agree on computer hardware and software systems for scanning, viewing, downloading, and printing documents from remote locations. The parties must agree about allocating fees to operate the depository. The document depository must not be operated as a profit center. Each attorney/party seeking access to the depository must sign the agreement regarding rules of usage, protection of confidential documents, and payment of fees.
3.	A party fully satisfies its obligation to produce documents to the parties in all cases in this litigation by placing those documents in the depository and serving notice of this placement on counsel in all affected cases. Such notice shall identify the documents produced, using a unique alphanumeric identifier, and notice shall be produced as documents are kept in the usual course of business or documents shall be organized and labeled to correspond with the categories in the request set forth in Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b). This provision may be revised based on the parties’ submissions pursuant to paragraph 4 below.
4.	Within          days of this order, plaintiffs’ lead counsel (or a designated representative) shall meet with defendants’ lead counsel (or a designated representative) to confer about the creation, financing, design, and operation of the depository and shall endeavor to present to the court a stipulation outlining a protocol for the depository, as well as the organization, categorization, and/or indexing of the defendants’ responses to plaintiffs’ document requests. The parties shall present to the court by
         [date]         a proposed stipulation regarding the depository protocol and, if necessary, a statement of any matters on which they disagree. In developing this protocol, the parties shall consider potential protocols that would efficiently use technologies (such as CD-ROM or Internet-based production) and that would facilitate the parties’ prompt and effective access to the contents of the depository and reduce parties’ need to travel to examine documents. Any technology used must permit a hard copy of the document to be produced by the recipient.
5.	Each party shall be responsible for delivering to the depository any documents produced in this proceeding pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 45. The party noticing a deposition shall be responsible for delivering to the depository any transcription (including videotape) of any deposition taken in any of the consolidated cases. The party serving any objection, answer, or response to an interrogatory, Rule 34 request, or request for admission in any of the consolidated cases shall be responsible for delivering a copy to the depository.
6.	Plaintiffs’ liaison counsel (or a designated representative) shall be responsible for monitoring the content of the depository and shall provide periodic notification to all plaintiffs’ counsel of the addition of materials to the depository, with a basic description of the newly added materials.
7.	Parties to the litigation may establish at their own expense private document depositories at other locations and make arrangements for obtaining documents for inclusion in those depositories as they see fit. The depository established pursuant to this order, however, shall be the official document depository for all consolidated cases.

Notes:
	1.	This order is derived primarily from an order issued in In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. ATX, ATX II, & Wilderness Tires Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1373 (S.D. Ind. Jan. 2001). Paragraph 2 is derived from an order issued in In re Serzone Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1477 (S.D. W. Va. Oct. 17, 2002).