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Civility and Litigation

By Evan Schaeffer

There's a good article about civility in this month's Illinois Bar Journal: "Uncivil Action," by Helen W. Gunnarsson.

Some tips from the lawyers interviewed for the article:

• It's a waste of time to try to outbully a bully; make a decision not to respond to incivility with incivility;
• You can't reform the small percentage of lawyers who use incivility as a litigation tool; those lawyers, though, will become known for their incivility, which will tend to make it harder for their strategy to work;
• Your own bad behavior will come back to bite you; always treat people with courtesy, even when they're inept at doing it themselves.

Here's my own tip: get more sleep. In my experience, many of the ugly outbursts I've witnessed at depositions, which often lead to apologies later, are caused by stress exacerbated by lack of sleep.

Full post as published by The Illinois Trial Practice Blog on August 20, 2010 (boomark / email).