In many markets, legal advertising nearly saturates the airwaves. In an overcrowded market, competitors urge consumers to hire a “pitbull.” Not surprisingly, many potential clients walk in with inflated expectations about the outcome of their potential case. Getting those expectations under control is one of the most important client-relation tasks you will face. Clients with […]
Read More
Virtually all civil cases are driven by documents. Personal injury lawyers must gather and manage medical records and damages documentation. Business litigators must collect company records and corporate communications. Employment litigators need to obtain the client’s personnel file, disciplinary documents and the like.
Read More
One of the most important trial lawyer skills is the ability to think outside the box. It’s just as true when planning your presentation as when having to think on your feet at trial.
Read More
While trial lawyering is hard, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Evidence furnish tools that can help advocates cut to the chase and simplify issues for the presentation of evidence. Whether your audience is the judge or jury, these tools can flush out game playing and streamline your case. Consider the following. 1. Attack […]
Read More
There is no getting around it – the process of learning a case is hard work. It means taking the time to interview the client and potential witnesses, and reviewing documents to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Read More
Much has been written about trial notebooks as an organizational tool to house all the important information for use at trial. Undoubtedly, a trial attorney should begin assembling a trial notebook sufficiently in advance of trial – arguably months before the docket call.
Read More
Trial lawyering is a contact sport. To succeed, you need a level of endurance and mental toughness made possible only to those who take care of their mind and body.
Read More
Jury trials don’t simply happen. Trial presentations are the product of months of preparation and planning that some refer to as “scripting a trial.” In a previous article, I described the process of creating witness outlines as the foundation for all other trial preparation. This process necessarily forces a trial attorney to identify exhibits that […]
Read More
Trial lawyers with a “barrister” mindset know that early trial preparation is a key to success. How early? To have a winning edge, you should begin this process before the completion of discovery. The process I will describe below will reveal evidentiary problems with witness questioning that you’ll still have time to solve before it’s […]
Read More
Litigation document management is central to a trial-ready law practice. In a previous article, I proposed that trial lawyers need to think about the stages of that process and not simply let documents and data meander through the practice and get lost along the way.
Read More
