MEMORANDUM DECISION & ORDER

DUSTIN PEAD, Magistrate Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Currently pending before the Court is Defendant Daniel O'Bannon's ("Defendant") "Motion To Compel" Plaintiffs, American Charities For Reasonable Fundraising Regulation, Inc., LLC and Rainbow Direct Marketing, LLC's (collectively, "Plaintiffs"), to provide discovery responses (doc. 300) and Plaintiffs' "Motion For Leave To File Sur-Reply" (doc. 313).1 The discovery disputes raised in Defendant's motion to compel relate to issues surrounding Plaintiffs' standing in the underlying matter.

II. MOTION TO COMPEL

Upon review, the Court finds Defendant's motion to compel deficient in several regards. First, Rule 37-1(b) of the Rules of Practice for the United States District Court for the District of Utah states that all motions to compel discovery:

DUCivR 37-1(b). Defendant's thirty-five page motion fails to comply with this rule.2 Instead, Defendant "prioritizes" his motion to compel into five main categories indicating that "[i]f the issues in Group 1 cannot be resolved, there is no need to reach the issues in Groups 2 through 4". (doc. 300, p. 2). In doing so, Defendant fails to identify exactly which discovery requests are at issue or provide the requisite statement for each objection explaining why Plaintiffs' responses are inadequate. Although Defendant references several discovery requests in the footnotes to the motion, it remains essentially impossible to discern which discovery requests are at issue or on what basis Defendant asserts the requests should be compelled.

Second, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37, a moving party must certify that he has "in good faith conferred" with the opposing party to obtain discovery without court intervention. Fed R. Civ. P. 37(a)(1). Likewise, local rule 37-1(a) requires that before the court will consider a motion to compel, counsel for the moving party must file:

DUCivR 37-1(a)(1). Defendant's reference to both a certification3 and a November 6, 2014, letter4 do not satisfy his meet and confer obligations under the rules. Rather, a meaningful meet and confer contemplates that the parties make a genuine effort to determine "precisely what the requesting party is actually seeking; what responsive documents or information the discovering party is reasonably capable of producing; and what specific, genuine objections or other issues, if any, cannot be resolved without judicial intervention." Cotracom Commodity Trading Co. v. Seaboard Corp., 189 F.R.D. 456, 459 (D. Kan. 1999); see also DUCivR 37-1(a)(1). The meet and confer requirement adheres to all motions to compel and is not dispensed with based upon the passage of time or prior communications addressing similar issues. The court admonishes counsel to make every possible effort to resolve the discovery matters at issue.

Overall, it is not incumbent upon the court to undertake the task of parsing through documents to identify the specific discovery requests at issue or to construct arguments on behalf of the Defendant. Thus, while the court could deny Defendant's motion outright based upon its overall lack of sufficiency and specificity, the court instead denies the motion without prejudice and provides the following direction.

Counsel for Plaintiffs and counsel for Defendant are hereby directed to engage in a meaningful meet and confer in an attempt to reach agreement on the discovery matters at issue. If such efforts are unsuccessful, Defendant may re-file its motion to compel. In doing so, the Court orders that any re-filed motion must: (1) identify, in the body of the motion, each specific discovery request at issue; (2) identify Plaintiffs' objection to each individual discovery request; and (3) provide a separate statement or argument for each objection explaining on what basis Defendant believes that Plaintiffs' response is inadequate.

Given the age of this case, the court is reticent to delay matters any further. However, Defendant's failure to comply with the rules places this court at such a disadvantage that, absent additional information and clarity, the court is unable to provide appropriate direction on the discovery matters at issue.

III. ORDER

For the reasons stated herein:

1. Defendant's Motion To Compel is denied without prejudice (doc. 300). Any re-filed motion should be submitted to the court no later than twenty (20) days from the date of this Order. Plaintiffs' opposition to the motion shall be due ten (10) days thereafter, and Defendant's reply shall be due an additional ten (10) days after Plaintiffs' opposition is filed. While the court recognizes that this schedule contemplates shorter briefing times than typically allowed under the rules, any re-filed motion is intended to provide clarity and specificity and does not contemplate the development of new legal arguments or theories. See DUCivR 7-1(b)(3)(A)("The court may order shorter briefing periods. . . .")

2. Plaintiffs' Motion For Leave To File Sur-Reply is denied (doc. 313).