On June 4, 2026, the Arkansas Supreme Court updated several key civil discovery rules in a manner more closely tracking the federal rules. Arkansas Rule of Civil Procedure 26 now limits discovery to information that is both relevant and proportional to the needs of the case, adds an express duty to describe materials withheld on privilege grounds, and creates a new discovery-certification rule. The changes took effect immediately.
For litigators who practice in both state and federal court in Arkansas, the headline is simple: state-court discovery now looks a great deal more like its federal counterpart. The Court adopted the changes in In re Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Civil Practice, 2026 Ark. 106, after publishing them for comment earlier in the year. What follows is a summary of the changes.
What does “proportional” discovery mean under the new Rule 26(b)(1)?
The scope of discovery is no longer measured by relevance alone. Revised Rule 26(b)(1) limits discovery to non-privileged matter that is relevant and “proportional to the needs of the case,” and then lists the same six factors federal practitioners have applied since 2015: the importance of the issues at stake, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.
The amendment also removes a phrase Arkansas lawyers have utilized for decades. Gone is the old language allowing discovery of anything “reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” In its place, the rule says only that information “need not be admissible in evidence to be discoverable.” The Reporter’s Note explains the reason: the old phrase could be construed to extend discovery beyond relevance, and the amendment is meant to confine the scope to what is relevant and proportional. The practical effect is that “it might lead to something” is no longer, by itself, an answer to a proportionality objection.
Do Arkansas lawyers now have to log privileged documents?
New Rule 26(f)(1), modeled on Federal Rule 26(b)(5)(A), provides that a party withholding otherwise-discoverable information on privilege or work-product grounds must (A) expressly make the claim, and (B) describe the nature of the withheld documents, communications, or things in a way that lets the other parties assess the claim without disclosing the protected content itself.
This is a real change from prior Arkansas practice, which had no express rule requiring a party to describe what it was withholding. The Reporter’s Note explains that the detail required will depend on the materials and the privilege asserted, and that a full privilege log “would generally not be required, for example, as to litigation-related communications involving only counsel and their clients.” The familiar privilege-order provisions that used to live in Rule 26(f), governing the findings a trial court must make before ordering production over a privilege claim and when that order can be appealed, were not repealed; they simply moved to new Rule 26(f)(2) without change.
What is the new discovery-certification rule?
Arkansas adopted a discovery-specific analog to Rule 11. Under new Rule 26(g), every disclosure and every discovery request, response, or objection must be signed, and the signature certifies, after a reasonable inquiry, that the filing is consistent with the rules, not interposed for an improper purpose, and “neither unreasonable nor unduly burdensome or expensive” given the needs of the case. A certification that violates the rule without substantial justification exposes the signer, the party, or both to sanctions, including the other side’s reasonable expenses and attorney’s fees.
Paired with this is new Rule 11(d), which makes clear that Rule 11 itself does not govern discovery disclosures, requests, responses, and objections; those are now covered by Rule 26(g) instead.
Did Arkansas simply copy the federal rules?
No. In two places Arkansas kept its own practice:
First, both the new mandatory-limits provision (Rule 26(c)(1)) and the new certification rule (Rule 26(g)) require the moving party to confer, or attempt to confer, in good faith before bringing the matter to the court. The federal versions of those provisions contain no such requirement. The Reporter’s Notes explain that Arkansas added the conferral step to stay consistent with the conferral culture that already governs nearly all discovery motions in the state.
Second, the new Rule 11(d) departs from its federal counterpart on discovery motions. Federal Rule 11(d) exempts discovery motions from Rule 11, and the federal discovery-certification rule does not pick them up, which can leave discovery motions held to a lower standard than other filings. Arkansas closed that gap: discovery motions remain subject to Rule 11.
What changed for interrogatories, requests for production, and admissions?
The Court also tightened objection practice across Rules 33, 34, and 36. Blanket objections to a set of requests are not recognized. Grounds for an objection must be stated with particularity as to the specific request, and it is “not sufficient to state merely that the [request] is not relevant or proportional or is otherwise improper.” For requests for production, a response must now also state whether any responsive materials are being withheld on the basis of an objection, mirroring the federal withholding-statement requirement. The Court modeled these changes on the current federal rules and on Local Rule 33.1 of the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Arkansas.
What else changed, and what is still coming?
The Court’s discovery package was part of a larger set of civil rules changes issued the same day. Rule 6(d) was amended (2026 Ark. 109) to confirm that the rule’s three-business-day extension for acting after service applies when service is made through the Court’s electronic filing system, resolving an ambiguity that had arisen under Administrative Order No. 21. And a new Arkansas Rule of Evidence 412 now limits how the cost of past medical care may be used to prove its reasonable value, generally allowing the amounts actually paid or still owed rather than amounts billed. A pair of further proposals, touching Rule 54(b) certificate timing and attorney-fee motions, remain open for public comment (through August 1, 2026) and are not yet effective.
The throughline appears to be a measured update of Arkansas civil practice along federal lines, with the Court retaining its own conferral requirements where it saw fit. For civil litigators in Arkansas, the day-to-day consequences are concrete: proportionality is now a live objection and a certification risk, withheld privileged materials must be described, and blanket objections are no longer recognized. Counsel handling Arkansas matters should review their standard discovery responses and objections against the new rules.
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