§ 8.01-384.2.Waiver of discovery time limitations by parties.

Discovery deadlines exist to keep a case moving, but sometimes the parties themselves would rather cooperate than fight over a due date. Section 8.01-384.2 lets them do that without going to the trouble of asking the court’s permission first. If all the parties, or their counsel, agree, they can waive any time limitation the Rules of the Virginia Supreme Court set for responding to a discovery request or for scheduling discovery proceedings — no court order required to make the waiver effective between them.

The court’s role is mostly to get out of the way. Once the parties agree to the waiver, the court has to allow it, with one limit: if the court has already entered its own order setting discovery or filing deadlines in the case, that prior order controls, and the parties cannot agree their way around it. Before that kind of court-imposed schedule exists, though, the parties have room to manage their own discovery timeline by agreement.

The practical value is flexibility. Lawyers juggling multiple cases, or working through a document-heavy dispute, do not have to file a motion every time they want a little more room on a response deadline — they can agree between themselves, as long as everyone involved is on board and the court has not already locked in its own schedule.