Legal Research

"Civility and Litigation"

This post was written 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."

To reach the blog post and the active links, click on the author's name.

Source: Trial Practice Tips Weblog, 20 August 2010, reproduced with permission of the author.

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on August 23, 2010 (boomark / email).