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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

Depositions: When the Witness Answers a Question You Didn't Ask

Posted on July 17, 2008
Often during depositions, a witness will answer a question that's different than the one you asked. Lawyers with good deposition skills listen closely enough to a witness's answers to recognize this situation when it happens. Example: Q. Were you present...

Trial Notebooks: An Alternative Method

Posted on July 10, 2008
As an alternative to an earlier post, "A Method for Organizing a Trial Notebook," here's another method of organization, as suggested in a book by Leonard H. Bucklin-- The Plan Summary Pretrial Orders Our Witnesses Their Witnesses Third-Party Witnesses Our...

Filing Online in Illinois: Not Quite Ready for Primetime

Posted on June 12, 2008
From the Krane County Chronicle: "Online court filings in the future," by Kate Thayer-- The state?s high court wants to make filing cases and court documents easier with an initiative that would allow lawyers to file online. The ?E-Business? initiative...

Illinois Lawyers: Discovery Depositions Can Rarely Be Used as Substantive Evidence

Posted on June 10, 2008
In Illinois, we have two types of depositions, discovery and evidence, with different rules for each. Both types of depositions can be used to impeach, but only evidence depositions, generally speaking, can be used as substantive evidence. A new case...

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Reminder: New Illinois Jury Instructions Can Be Found Online

Posted on May 29, 2008
The Illinois Courts website contains "recent instructions, not yet contained in the Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions bound volumes, drafted by the Supreme Court Committee on Jury Instructions in Civil Cases." You'll find the new instructions at Recent Civil Jury Instructions,...

Resources for Backing Up Online

Posted on May 27, 2008
From PC World, an article of interest to solos: "Mobile Computing: Online Backup Services." Most traditional backup methods copy your computer files onto some kind of media, be it an external hard drive, a CD or DVD, or a USB...

A Must-Not-Forget Tip for Dealing with Experts

Posted on May 22, 2008
Here's some good advice about dealing with experts, posted by Ron Miller at the Trial Lawyer Resource Center: Do not send a letter, email or even leave a telephone message to an expert (or fact witness) that you would not...

Bryan Garner Discusses Writing with Justice Scalia

Posted on May 20, 2008
The ABA Journal has emailed me to say that in addition to the Scalia-Garner freebie I mentioned in a post last week, there's also a free audio file in which Scalia and Garner discuss writing and oral argument. You can...

An Expert-Related Practice Tip from Deposition Checklists and Strategies

Posted on May 15, 2008
This is just one of the many practice tips that you'll find liberally scattered throughout the eight chapters of my book, Deposition Checklists and Strategies (James Publishing): �4:255 Practice Tip: What the Expert Did Not Do Remember to ask the...

A Don't-Miss Freebie from the ABA

Posted on May 13, 2008
The ABA Journal has excerpted "Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges," by Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan A. Garner. The excerpt can be found here; a link to the book itself is here. Meanwhile, there is an interesting...

Class Actions, Post-CAFA

Posted on May 08, 2008
This month's Trial magazine has news from a March conference at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law called "Justice and the Role of Class Actions." A quick summary-- Class actions are "evolving, not dying." If the Class Action Fairness Act...

Motion Hearings: Listening to the Judge

Posted on May 06, 2008
Some judges don't say very much at motion hearings. When they do, however, make sure you're listening to them. Last year, I saw a judge interrupt a lawyer with a comment. As often happens at a motion hearing, the judge...

Six Tips for Improving Your Direct Examinations

Posted on May 01, 2008
Here is a basic blueprint for putting together a direct examination. The tips are basic, but worth remembering-- Find out what information you want to elicit. The rest of these tips deal with technique; this tip deals with substance. You're...

All the Online Reference Sites You'll Ever Need

Posted on April 30, 2008
Here's an article to bookmark from the newsletter of the ABA General Practice, Solo & Small Firm Division: "Sites For Sore Eyes: Fun and Handy Reference Sites That Rock!" by Jim Calloway and Courtney Kennaday-- It?s not all about Google,...

Informing Yourself about Your Adversary: Google Is Your Friend

Posted on April 24, 2008
Here's an interesting post from David Swanner of the South Carolina Trial Law Blog: "How to Ace a Job Interview with Me"-- One of the first questions I ask is ?What do you know about me?? It amazes me the...

A Lawyer's Duty: Control the Client at Depositions

Posted on April 22, 2008
Do lawyers have a duty to control their clients during depositions? Take a look at this recent article from Law.com-- Lawyer and Client Sanctioned Over Client's Conduct, Use of 'F Word' During Deposition A federal judge has levied sanctions of...

New Book: Make Better Use of Technology to Collaborate

Posted on April 17, 2008
Any lawyer who must collaborate with others--that's all lawyers, by the way--should take a look at The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Recently published by the ABA...

A Few Things to Know About Juries

Posted on April 15, 2008
In the April, 2008, issue of the Illinois Bar Journal, you'll find some interesting tidbits about juries in "Lessons from Jury Research," by Sara Parikh and Terrence Lavin. Some examples-- Juries care most about the "strength of the evidence" and...

Common Deposition Error: Repeating Yourself

Posted on April 10, 2008
Once you get good testimony at a deposition, you're best to leave the testimony alone. Take the good answer from the witness and move on. It seems like obvious advice, but some lawyers can't wait to read the good answer...

Experts in Illinois: The Duty to Disclose Begins with an Interrogatory

Posted on April 08, 2008
Question: You represent the plaintiff in a case in which the trial court has entered a scheduling order requiring you to disclose your experts by a certain date. You do so, in addition to sending the other side a report....

Deposition Podcasts: Advanced Techniques

Posted on April 03, 2008
For free deposition advice, why not try my three podcasts on advanced deposition techniques? Originally posted Legal Underground, I'm reprising them here. Just follow the links-- Advanced Deposition Techniques #1: Five Tips for Asserting Control at Depositions Advanced Deposition Techniques...

The Paperless Office Wiki: Everything You Need to Know

Posted on April 01, 2008
Everything you need to know about "paperless offices" for law firms is now contained at a wiki created by Christinne Newman, Philip Devin , and Kim Ross-Winston. The intro-- The intent of this wiki is to provide you, the end...

Tip: What to Do with Those Stacks of Legal Magazines

Posted on March 27, 2008
Every month, the legal magazines keep piling up. Some might actually contain some useful information. But when are you going to find the time to read them? If you're like me, you're prone to simply glance at the new magazines...

Self-Editing Tips for Legal Writers

Posted on March 25, 2008
When you're close to a final draft, use this self-editing checklist to add a bit of polish--or give it to your assistant to do the same. Are the headings correctly numbered? Are acronyms explained? Are the parties referred to in...

E-Filing Resources for Newbies

Posted on March 20, 2008
Those who don't practice regularly in federal court might still be in the dark about e-filing. Some resources: The ABA's Electronic Filing Resource Page contains some basic information about state and federal e-filing systems, as well as a list of...

Navigating Illinois Trial Practice by Category

Posted on March 18, 2008
Since I started this weblog in January, 2004, I've written 689 posts. Most of these posts are assigned to one or more categories. You can get to these categories by clicking on the list that appears on the left side...

The Supreme Court on Legal Writing

Posted on March 13, 2008
The news has already made its way around the law-related weblogs, but I wanted to bookmark it here for my own purposes: Bryan Garner's interviews about legal writing with eight U.S. Supreme-Court justices, all available in one place at LawProse,...

A Litigation Weblog with an Attitude

Posted on March 07, 2008
Stewart Weltman, formerly a partner at Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll P.L.L.C. and now the owner of Weltman Law Firm, has a new weblog: Lean and Mean Litigation Blog. A representative post is titled "Another Reason Why You Shouldn't Play...

More Practice Tips from My Deposition Book

Posted on March 04, 2008
The book I recently wrote about depositions, Deposition Checklists and Strategies (James Publishing, 2006 Rev. 2007), contains eight chapters. As a bonus, each chapter contains an assortment of "practice tips," comparable to the type of tips I post here on...

Writing Tip: Using Footnotes in Early Drafts

Posted on February 28, 2008
Most agree with the idea that in legal briefs, you should cut the footnotes to a minimum. Nonetheless, it's easy to "drop a footnote" using word-processing programs, and I do it a lot when I'm drafting--to add a note to...

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