Navigate Litigation 2.0

Dismissal of a lawsuit is a rare sanction for a discovery violation, but it happened recently in a workplace discrimination lawsuit, due in large part to two probing depositions that called into question one party’s assertion that she had turned over all relevant text messages stored on her cell phone. The case underlines a principle…

The increasing globalization of business, through Internet-based commerce and the activities of multinational corporations, has made it more likely than ever that litigators in U.S. courts will be confronted with documents written in languages other than English. These might be business records, contracts, patent descriptions, internal e-mail communications, or – due to liberal pretrial discovery…

Jury trials are expensive. They disrupt jurors’ lives for days or weeks,. They demand the complete attention of court personnel. They require witnesses to make time for court appearances and travel to and from the courthouse. And they cause the litigators to back-burner the concerns of other clients for the trial’s duration. No wonder appellate…

As litigators know, the United States follows the so-called “American Rule” when apportioning the costs of litigation. Unless a statute specifically provides otherwise, parties in court are responsible for their own attorneys’ fees, regardless of outcome. The spirit of this rule applies to other litigation-related costs as well: the losing side in civil litigation typically…

Broadly speaking, most personal injury claims survive the death of the plaintiff. They live on as survivor’s actions or wrongful death claims brought by representatives of the deceased plaintiff’s estate. Although seriously injured or terminally ill plaintiffs may no longer be a party to their legal actions, their testimony is often crucial to the value…

Many attorneys have long and successful careers without ever having to practice law outside of the jurisdiction where they obtained their license. But for litigators and in-house counsel, the need to be conversant with the rules governing multi-state practice and the process for gaining temporary permission to represent clients before an out-of-state tribunal is a…