Litigation and trial practice

Subscribe to Litigation and trial practice via RSS

Legal scholars are becoming more aware that actual trials in federal courts have decreased dramatically since the 1960’s.  Suja Thomas discussed this trend in a recent speech at Seattle University to mark the 25th anniversary of the summary judgment trilogy.  See Workplace Prof report.  Prof. Thomas mentions a couple of developments leading to this…

I have talked about this before, but it needs repeating.  See my prior post.  The plaintiff employee deposition is critical to success for any employment lawsuit.  The plaintiff employee must be able to show the opposing attorney and the employer that the employee can testify, can present well to a jury and can tell…

Law school professor, David Yamada, wrote a blog post saying essentially that many employer side lawyers in employment cases are "attack dogs" (my paraphrase) because many employers are "attack dogs" themselves.  Such abusive employers tend to seek out abusive lawyers, he writes.  See David Yamada’s blog post.  Law school profs are in a position…

Discrimination lawsuits, like many lawsuits, rely heavily on discovery.  Discovery is the process by which we seek the other sides’ evidence.  In employment cases, the discovery process takes on added importance because the employer has most of the key evidence.  The employer, for example, posses personnel records regarding other employee who were terminated for similar…

Judges always tell jurors not to do their own legal research during a trial.  A jury is supposed to use the legal terms provided by the court.  Our judicial system relies on legal standards that are known to both sides, defense and prosecution.  The two sides to any trial will devote considerable time and energy…