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Litigation

The Illinois Trial Practice Blog

Tips and techniques for trial lawyers, whether plaintiff or defense
By Schaeffer & Lamere, P.C

Post Frequency: 1.8/day

Last Entry: March 30, 2011 at 14:54:42

15 Ways to Ruin a Deposition (Part 3 of 3)

Posted on February 17, 2009
Wrapping up this series of posts (see parts one and two), it's time for the final five ways that a lawyer can ruin a deposition. Since I've personally made all of these mistakes myself, I feel I'm well qualified to...

From Blonde Justice: Preparing for Trial in Four Steps

Posted on February 12, 2009
Over the past few months, the anonymous blogger Blonde Justice has been writing a four-part series called "How to Prepare for Trial." Although it's aimed at criminal defense lawyers, civil lawyers may also find it interesting. In the series, you'll...

Learn from a Trial Transcript

Posted on February 10, 2009
As I said in an earlier post, "Trial Transcripts Online," you can learn a lot from watching live trials or, failing that, reading trial transcripts.The only problem is that complete trial transcripts in civil cases are hard to find on...

15 Ways to Ruin a Deposition (Part 2 of 3)

Posted on February 05, 2009
Following up on the first part of this series, I'll continue with the second five ways a lawyer can ruin a deposition. Once again, these tips are all based on personal experience, so I know them well--6. Failing to ask...

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Carry the Rules With You On Your iPhone

Posted on February 03, 2009
At the old firm many years ago, the partners used to shake their fingers at any associate who asked a question that could be easily answered by reference to the rules."Read them this weekend," they'd say. "What do you think...

15 Ways to Ruin a Deposition (Part 1 of 3)

Posted on January 29, 2009
In this series of posts, I'll dig into the archives of The Trial Practice Tips Weblog and highlight some of my prior posts about depositions. Although you can see all of these post in this weblog's deposition category, I thought...

The Paperless Office Continues to Fascinate

Posted on January 27, 2009
Ernie the Attorney remains on the trail of the paperless office. For details, see his post, "Upcoming 'paperless lawyering' seminars," and sign up to receive notice of seminars that might be taking place near you.Related Post: "The Paperless Office Wiki:...

New Weblog with Practice Tips: the James Publishing Author's Blog

Posted on January 22, 2009
There's a new weblog by James Publishing, which publishes (often plaintiff-oriented) law-related works like my own Deposition Checklists and Strategies. Called the James Publishing Author's Blog, the weblog will feature posts from James Publishing authors, who will highlight content from...

Conform Your Citations to the Bluebook, Automatically

Posted on January 20, 2009
Using CiteGenie, you can "automagically copy text with correct citations from Westlaw, Lexis, and other websites." Here's how the author describes the free program, which plugs into your browser--Cutting and pasting when doing legal research using your browser is simple...

Trial Practice Tips from the Kentucky Law Review Weblog

Posted on January 15, 2009
You can find three-years of trial practice tips at Kentucky Law Review by Michael L. Stevens, including these-- "Tip: Obtaining certified copies of past weather conditions from National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)" "Manual for Complex Litigation - FREE" "Use of...

Epidemiology for Semi-Dummies

Posted on January 13, 2009
Products-liability lawyers who work on pharmaceutical cases, as I do from time to time, need to be have a working knowledge of the science of epidemiology. A few years ago, I surveyed the variety of basic-to-intermediate epidemiology texts and selected...

Two Litigation-Related Weblogs for Your RSS Reader

Posted on January 08, 2009
Check out these two weblogs, if you haven't already-- The Complex Litigator--"A California-centric collection of comments and resources concerning the practice and procedures that make complex litigation and class actions uniquely challenging" Litigation & Trial--"The tales and tribulations of a...

Tip for Direct Examination: Write Down the Answer, Not the Question

Posted on January 06, 2009
This direct-examination tip comes from "Persuasive Direct," by Jim McElhaney, in the January 2009 issue of the ABA Journal-- When you prepare for trial, don?t write out your questions. They?ll sound stiff and unnatural when you read them out loud....

A Useful Question to Ask at Expert Depositions

Posted on December 31, 2008
Some lawyers routinely ask this question at expert depositions-- Q. "What is your understanding of your role in this litigation?" The question touches on a number of topics you will cover later in the deposition: the manner in which the...

The Anatomy of the Perfect Deposition Question

Posted on December 23, 2008
The perfect deposition question has the following characteristics: It's short -- it contains no unnecessary words; It's clear -- it contains no ambiguities and is susceptible to only a single meaning; It's self-contained -- its meaning can be ascertained with...

The Only Writing Tip That Really Matters

Posted on December 18, 2008
The topic of today's post is overstatement. An example of overstatement can be found in the title of today's post, in which I suggest that overstatement might be the only writing problem that really matters. Well, not really. It is...

Improve Your Oral Argument

Posted on December 16, 2008
Here's advice from Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, when asked for three ways that lawyers can improve their oral arguments-- First, know the record, your brief, and the cases on which you rely. Second,...

Finding "The Best and Cheapest" Experts

Posted on December 11, 2008
In his popular plaintiff-oriented book David Ball on Damages, David Ball has a section titled "The Best and the Cheapest," which begins like this--In every community, there is an ample supply of first-rate expert witnesses who can testify on a...

A Bit of Housekeeping: A Minor Change in This Weblog's Name

Posted on December 10, 2008
Since most of the posts on this weblog are not Illinois-specific, I've taken "Illinois" out of the weblog's name.What was once the Illinois Trial Practice Weblog is now The Trial Practice Tips Weblog.You can reach the weblog as you've always...

Questioning Experts on Direct: Focus on Methodology

Posted on December 09, 2008
Experts shouldn't force-feed jurors their opinions; instead, they should give jurors the tools -- the methodology -- to reach the right conclusions themselves.Call it the softer approach. Rather than allowing the expert to make pronouncements with little explanation, put the...

A New Magazine "for Women in Litigation"

Posted on December 04, 2008
A new bi-monthly magazine "for woman in litigation", Sue, launches in January with a cover feature by law professor Laurie L. Levenson titled "If Women Wrote the Laws"-- What would our world look like if women wrote the laws? What...

Legal Writing: Is That Judge Smart, or Not?

Posted on December 02, 2008
Does the use of simple words make you seem smarter? That's the topic of two recent blog posts from two different bloggers that I happened upon serendipitously by accident. One of the posts deals with a particular judge, which is...

Netbook Computers: A Growing Trend

Posted on November 25, 2008
Are netbook computers are better-suited to college students than bigshot lawyers? Maybe so, but they've evolved to the point where they'll do what most lawyers would want them to do. If you're looking for a small computer for short trips,...

Advice to Litigators: Don't Depose Every Witness

Posted on November 20, 2008
At Atkinson-Baker's Depo.com, lawyer Stewart Weltman has some good advice in his article, "Deciding Who To Depose (part one)"-- [D]eposing everyone connected with the facts is not the answer. Why? Because doing so results in numerous meaningless depositions being taken...

Trial-Planning Steps to Take After a Deposition Has Ended

Posted on November 18, 2008
While you'll often want to forget about a deposition as soon as it's concluded, the better practice is to use your recent gearing-up for the deposition as a springboard for some trial preparation. Consider taking the following steps: In a...

Production from Non-Parties and Records Depositions: Some Generalities

Posted on November 13, 2008
Here are some broad principles that will apply to many situations involving production from non-parties: A non-party person or entity will be compelled to produce documents and appear for a deposition with a subpoena, not a notice; For deposition subpoenas...

Lay Witnesses: Separating Fact from Opinion

Posted on November 11, 2008
Lay witnesses will often give you their opinions at depositions even when you didn't ask for them. Examples: "He wasn't driving safely.""The roof was in good repair.""I wasn't at fault.""I'm going to need more surgery.""Our policy was perfectly reasonable...

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: Online Resources

Posted on November 06, 2008
For future reference, here's a list of some online resources concerning the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure: The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, from Cornell University Law School, html and hyperlinked; The Federal Rules from the US Courts website; links...

The Use of Round Numbers in Trial and Settlement

Posted on November 04, 2008
Which number seems higher: $325,425 or $325,000? There's an interesting analysis of this question from Ron Miller at The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog: "Exact Numbers in Personal Injury Cases." Miller's post deals with trials but also touches on settlement...

Legal Writing in Crisis?

Posted on October 30, 2008
At Legal Blog Watch, Carolyn Elefant blames the deterioration in legal-writing abilities on the ubiquity of low-cost legal research tools-- While I believe that both factors --the informality of e-mail and lack of quality teaching -- have contributed to the...

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