Drive Better Outcomes

Last week’s blog touched briefly on the need to provide appellate courts with an adequate record of trial court proceedings that are the subject of an appeal. Without an adequate record – in almost all cases, a verbatim written record – there is no way for any litigant to successfully appeal an unlawful trial court…

The conclusion of the baseball season is an apt occasion to reflect on the wisdom of New York Yankee great Yogi Berra’s remark, “You can observe a lot by watching.” What Berra meant to say, we imagine, is that close observation of anything will yield valuable insights and strategic advantage over inattentive participants in the…

The post-pandemic litigation environment has seen a rising desire to conduct depositions remotely and a diminishing opposition to remote proceedings. Where litigators do insist on in-person proceedings, those cases are largely confined to special circumstances where in-person proceedings are believed to have a critical impact on litigation objectives. Disputes are uncommon: negotiations occur, and depositions…

Many lawyers today are wrestling with the question of whether they should inform clients that artificial intelligence technologies are being used on their case matters. Ethical advice from state bar regulators has been slowly accumulating for the past several years, but there is as of yet no definitive answer. Legally significant artificial intelligence tools, along…

Litigators don’t always have control over the outcome-determinative evidence in their cases. Often, contracts, accident reports, photographic images, and other critical bits of evidence have in most cases already been created when the client seeks representation. These materials are the star of the show during pretrial depositions. Traditionally, deposition exhibits were shared across a conference…

We’ve written frequently on ways that parties can recover their costs of suit — particularly deposition-related costs — at the conclusion of civil litigation. Costs related to deposition transcripts used at trial, deposition transcripts of corporate representative witnesses, and deposition transcripts used in successful motions for summary judgment are all potentially recoverable in federal courts.…