A Model Brief for the Court

I. Relief Requested

[Movant] asks the Court to authorize the parties to satisfy their financial disclosure obligations by granting read-only, scoped, revocable electronic access to their financial account records through an authorized application programming interface, in lieu of, or in addition to, the production of paper or PDF account statements, and to enter the proposed order attached hereto.

II. Statement of Facts

This matter requires the valuation of account-based assets as of [date of separation / date of death / date of filing]. [Describe the accounts at issue, the disclosure already attempted, and any gaps, delays, or omissions in the productions received.] The records necessary to fix those values are held by [number] financial institutions, none of which is a party to this action.

Under the proposed method, each party authorizes retrieval at that party’s own financial institution, through the institution’s own login. No party discloses online banking credentials to anyone. The authorization is read-only, limited to the accounts the authorizing party selects, and may be revoked by that party at any time.

III. Argument

A. The method serves the proportionality standard the discovery rules already impose.

Discovery must be proportional to the needs of the case, accounting for the burden or expense of the proposed discovery against its likely benefit. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1); accord CR 26(b)(1). Authorized retrieval lowers the burden side of that comparison in every respect: it eliminates the weeks a custodian of records spends assembling a subpoena response, the fees that custodian charges, the paralegal time spent downloading and Bates-labeling statements, and the motion practice that follows an incomplete production. It raises the benefit side as well, because it returns transaction-level data from which a balance on any date within the retrieved window can be computed, rather than monthly summaries that rarely align with the operative legal date.

B. The method reduces the burden imposed on non-party financial institutions.

A party serving a subpoena must take reasonable steps to avoid imposing undue burden or expense on the person subject to it. Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(d)(1). Subpoenas to banks, credit unions, and brokerages are exactly the burden the rule contemplates: each requires a compliance review, a records search, and a certified production, all at the institution’s cost, for a dispute in which it has no stake. Authorized retrieval asks nothing of the institution beyond what it already provides to its own account holder.

C. The retrieved records are at least as authenticable as produced statements.

Authentication requires evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what its proponent claims. Fed. R. Evid. 901(a). Evidence describing a process or system and showing that it produces an accurate result satisfies that standard. Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(9). Records generated by an electronic process or system that produces an accurate result may be certified rather than proved through live testimony, Fed. R. Evid. 902(13), as may data copied from an electronic device or file where the copy is verified by a process of digital identification, Fed. R. Evid. 902(14). Where the records are those of a regularly conducted business activity, they remain subject to Fed. R. Evid. 803(6) and the certification procedure of Fed. R. Evid. 902(11). Washington’s counterparts are ER 901, ER 902, and ER 803(a)(6).

A produced PDF enjoys none of these advantages by default. It is an image that passed through the producing party’s hands, editable without visible trace, and provable only by the party’s own representation or a later custodian declaration. Retrieved data, by contrast, comes from the institution’s system and can be retrieved a second time to confirm that what was produced matches what the institution holds.

D. The method is less intrusive than the alternative and leaves control with the account holder.

A court may enter protective orders limiting the scope of discovery to shield a party from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c); CR 26(c). A subpoena to a financial institution is blunt: it reaches whatever the custodian reads it to reach, and the account holder has no practical ability to narrow it after service. Authorized retrieval inverts that posture. The account holder chooses which accounts are within scope, never discloses credentials, and may revoke access at any time, leaving a record of both the grant and the revocation. That is a narrower intrusion than the subpoena it replaces, and the Court may condition its order accordingly.

E. The valuation date the law supplies is the date this method can actually answer.

[Select as applicable.] Dissolution: property must be characterized and valued with reference to the parties’ separation, and post-separation earnings and accumulations of spouses living separate and apart are separate property. RCW 26.16.140; see RCW 26.09.080. Bankruptcy: the estate comprises the debtor’s interests as of the commencement of the case, 11 U.S.C. § 541(a), and the schedules must describe that property as of that moment, 11 U.S.C. § 521(a)(1). Probate: the personal representative inventories the estate as of the date of death, and the federal basis of property acquired from a decedent is generally its fair market value on that date, 26 U.S.C. § 1014. Fraud and tracing: the transfers at issue are identified by date and amount, not by monthly totals. In each instance, the legally operative date falls where it falls, typically inside a statement period rather than at its edge. Transaction-level retrieval answers that question directly; a stack of monthly statements requires the Court to accept an interpolation.

IV. Proposed Order

It is ordered that:

1. Each party shall, within [number] days, authorize read-only electronic retrieval of records for each financial account in which that party holds a legal or beneficial interest, covering the period [start date] through [end date].
2. Authorization shall be completed at each institution’s own authentication page. No party shall request, and no party shall disclose, online banking credentials.
3. Retrieved data shall be used solely for this proceeding, shall be treated as confidential under the protective order entered [date], and shall be destroyed or returned within [number] days of final resolution.
4. A party revoking authorization before the retrieval period closes shall notify all parties within [number] days and state the reason for revocation.
5. This order does not relieve any party of an obligation to produce records that fall outside the retrieval window or that are held at a non-participating institution.

V. Conclusion

The method requested is cheaper, faster, narrower, and more reliable than the production it replaces, and it answers the valuation question the governing law actually asks. [Movant] respectfully requests that the Court grant the motion and enter the proposed order.