The federal courts have analyzed stipulated protective orders like contracts between the parties, which they are. Only they are contracts between parties to litigation usually signed by counsel although binding on the clients.
If a party did not negotiate a provision of the stipulation/contract which it could have negotiated but did not, then she, he or it faces a very high burden to overcome if that party wants a federal judge to change the contract, i.e., modify the stipulated protective order.
A party that requests a judge to change a protective order to which that same party previously stipulated, i.e., contracted, must show the Court good cause to change the contract that is "more substantial than the good cause needed to obtain a sealing order in the first instance." Hallmark Licensing LLC v. Dickens Inc., No. 17-CV-2149 (SJF)(AYS), 2018 WL 6573435, at *7 (E.D.N.Y. December 13, 2018) (Shields, USMJ, denying a motion to change a stipulated protective order on the ground that there was an insufficient showing of good cause required to "modify" the stipulated protective order; the moving party requested that a new provision be added by the Court to the party's previously stipulated protective order, "an attorneys' eyes only designation" category to conceal evidence, where the party could have requested it during negotiations with other parties but did not, even though the parties "specifically negotiated about and agreed to the addition of two [other] categories of individuals to whom 'confidential' information may be disclosed").
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