11 Wednesday Jun 2014
Posted in Education, Paralegals/Legal Assistants, Professional Organizations
≈ Comments Off on Paralegal and Legal Assistant Resources.
Tags
AAfPE, ABA Standing Committee on Paralegals, ABA-Approved Paralegal Programs, Core Competencies, Legal Assistants, National Association of Legal Assistants, National Federation of Paralegal Associations, Paralegal Associations, Paralegals
Paralegals and Legal Assistants, HG Legal Sources
http://www.hg.org/paralegal.html
Resources on paralegal education, definitions, and paralegal associations (both USA and worldwide). -CCE
09 Monday Jun 2014
Posted in Paralegals/Legal Assistants, Trial Tips and Techniques, Witness Preparation, Witnesses
≈ Comments Off on Witness Preparation – When May The Witness Show Anger?
Tags
Expert Witness, Legal Assistants, Legal Insights Blog, Litigation Insights Blog, Merrie Jo Pitera, Paralegals, Witness Preparation
Witness Preparation Tip: When Is It Appropriate For A Witness To Show Anger? by Merrie Jo Pitera, Ph.D. – CEO, Litigation Insights Blog
Many years ago, I was working on witness preparation with a corporate HR Director who was being deposed. It was quickly apparent from the moment that he walked in the room that he was not happy to be there. During his own mock direct examination, when the questions were clearly “friendly fire” from his own attorney, he was angry and aggressive. He was so mad that he was getting out of his seat and pointing at his own attorney with his finger when answering simple questions. What was worse, he was getting progressively more emotional and belligerent as the questioning continued. And we hadn’t even gotten to mock cross examination yet! It was clear we needed to take a break and pull him aside for a heart-to-heart discussion. In his current emotional state, he was the antithesis of an HR Director, and his display of anger was inadvertently reinforcing the plaintiff’s claims that the company did not care about his complaints of racial discrimination. An additional complication was that the HR Director thought his strong, angry reaction was helping his employer’s case.
While extreme, this witness’ reaction to testifying is not unusual. It is no secret that no one looks forward to being deposed. . . .
09 Monday Jun 2014
Posted in National Exams, Regulation
≈ Comments Off on Paralegal Regulation Chart State-By-State.
Tags
Legal Assistants, National Federation of Paralegal Associations, NFPA, Paralegal Ethics, Paralegal Regulation, Paralegals
Paralegal Regulation, State by State, posted by The National Federation of Paralegal Associations (last updated May 2012)
REGULATION_CHART_5-12final.docx
A non-partisan chart of state-by-state by the paralegal profession., and created by The National Paralegal Association.
If you have trouble opening the link – or if you are aware of updated information, please contact The National Federation of Paralegal Association at http://www.paralegals.org/default.asp?page=103. -CCE
09 Monday Jun 2014
Posted in Adobe Acrobat, Animations, Bates Numbers, Legal Technology, Paralegals/Legal Assistants, PowerPoint, Presentations, Trial Notebooks, Trial Tips and Techniques, Witness Preparation
≈ Comments Off on Nine Top Tips for Paralegals Preparing for Trial.
9 Critical Steps for Trial Preparation, by David J. Dempsey, Paralegal Today Magazine (formerly Legal Assistant Today)
http://paralegaltoday.com/issue_archive/features/feature1_ja03.htm
I suspect that any paralegal with significant trial experience would have other things to add to this list. But it’s still good advice and a good start. -CCE
[P]aralegals play an indispensable role in the trial preparation process. It’s imperative that, in conjunction with the lead counsel, you design and adhere to a plan to make sure your energies — and those of the entire support team — are focused on the tasks that will contribute most to the success of the trial.
As the final phases of intense trial preparation approach, paralegals can wear many hats: coordinating schedules, monitoring deadlines, helping prepare witnesses and documents, organizing files and exhibits, preparing subpoenas and working with all members of the support team, including expert witnesses, outside vendors, and other legal assistants and attorneys involved in the trial.
Every trial attorney will use the talents of a paralegal in different ways. In my practice, I tend to rely heavily on paralegals and delegate a considerable amount of responsibility to them.
While the following guidelines will not work for every trial team, these are nine critical steps I believe paralegals can take to help make sure when the opening gavel falls at trial, your team is prepared to prevail. . . .
08 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in Civil Procedure, Class Actions, Federal Civil Procedure, Jurisdiction, Litigation
≈ Comments Off on Two 2014 Pivotal Supreme Court Cases on Personal Jurisdiction And Their Lasting Impact on Civil Litigation.
Tags
Cassandra Burke Robertson, Charles "Rocky" Rhodes, Civil Litigation, Civil Procedure & Federal Courts Blog, Class Action, Daimler AG v. Bauman, Jurisdiction, Personal Jurisdiction, Robin Effron, SSRN, Walden v. Fiore
Rhodes and Robertson on the New PJ Decisions, by Robin Effron, Civil Procedure & Federal Courts Blog
Interesting implications for both state and federal civil litigation. This article deserves thoughtful study. -CCE
Charles “Rocky” Rhodes (South Texas College of Law) and Cassandra Burke Robertson (Case Western) have posted Toward a New Equilibrium in Personal Jurisdiction to SSRN.
In early 2014, the Supreme Court decided two new personal jurisdiction cases that will have a deep and wide-ranging impact on civil litigation in the coming decades: Daimler AG v. Bauman, 134 S. Ct. 746 (2014), and Walden v. Fiore, 134 S. Ct. 1115 (2014). Bauman eliminates the traditional “continuous and systematic” contacts test for general jurisdiction, and Walden significantly retracts the ability of courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants whose actions have in-state effects. Taken together, both cases will make it significantly more difficult for plaintiffs to exercise control over where lawsuits are filed. In some cases — such as large-scale class actions — the new decisions may make it impossible to identify a single forum where multiple defendants can be sued together, and will therefore shift the balance of litigation power from plaintiffs to defendants.
This Article examines the effect that these decisions will have on future litigation and suggests solutions to the problems that will arise in the wake of these decisions. It analyzes how the Court’s new jurisprudence has shifted the balance of power in the jurisdictional framework, and it explores areas of future litigation. . . .
08 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in Court Rules, Courts, Depositions, Discovery, E-Discovery, Federal District Court Rules, Federal Rules of Discovery, Interrogatories, Preservation, Requests for Admissions, Requests for Production
≈ Comments Off on Proposed Amendments to Federal Civil Procedure Rules Are Close to Approval.
Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (“Standing Committee”) Approves Proposed Amendments to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, by K&L Gates, posted in FEDERAL RULES AMENDMENTS, NEWS & UPDATES.
The amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will be finalized sometime in September. -CCE
Last week, the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure (the “Standing Committee”) approved proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including the “Duke Rules Package,” addressing Rules 1, 4, 16, 26, 30, 31, 33, and 34 and a rewritten version of Rule 37(e), addressing preservation. The proposed amendments were approved with only two revisions to the proposed Committee Notes for Rules 26(b)(1) (encouraging consideration and use of technology) and 37(e) (clarifying the role of prejudice in subsection (e)(2) of the proposed rule). Meeting minutes reflecting the precise changes to the Committee Notes are not yet available, although the text of the rules as adopted was published in the Standing Committee’s meeting Agenda Book, available here.
The next stop for the proposed amendments is the Judicial Conference, which will consider the proposed amendments at its meeting in September.
08 Sunday Jun 2014
Tags
Brief Writing, Citations, Hon. Patricia M. Wald, Legal Argument, Persuasive Writing, Proofreading
“Briefly Speaking,” Brief Writing – Best Practices, Washington State Court of Appeals, Division I, CLE
This is the essence of writing a persuasive and winning brief. Each section is important. Ignore the guidance here at your peril.
The icing on the cake is the advice from the Hon. Patricia M. Wald, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, taken from her article, “19 Tips from 19 Years on the Appellate Bench,” The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Winter 1999). She is right – this is your opportunity to tell your client’s story. Short and to the point is always more persuasive than long-winded recitations of fact and case law.
Make this your brief writing checklist. -CCE
07 Saturday Jun 2014
Posted in Appellate Law, Evidence, Legal Analysis, Legal Writing, Motions, Motions in Limine, Rule 103
≈ Comments Off on 8th Circuit Motions of Limine and Offers of Proof.
Tags
Eighth Circuit, Evidence, EvidenceProf Blog, Federal Rules of Evidence, Legal Writing, Motion in Limine, Offer of Proof, Rule 103
Renewal Notice: 8th Circuit Finds No Offer of Proof Needed Based on Prior Definitive Ruling, by Colin Miller, Evidence ProfBlogger, EvidenceProf Blog
As amended in 2000, Federal Rule of Evidence 103(b) reads as follows:
(b) Not Needing to Renew an Objection or Offer of Proof. Once the court rules definitively on the record — either before or at trial — a party need not renew an objection or offer of proof to preserve a claim of error for appeal.
So, assume that a party files a motion in limine seeking to exclude evidence before trial. If the judge makes a definitive ruling deeming the subject evidence inadmissible, does the proponent need to make an offer of proof at trial? In Smith v. Hy–Vee, 622 F.3d 904 (8th Cir.2010), the Eighth Circuit answered this question in the affirmaive. In Lawrey v. Good Samaritan Hosp., 2014 WL 2489076 (8th Cir. 2014), however, the same court answered the question in the negative. . . .
07 Saturday Jun 2014
Posted in Apple, Apps, Cell Phones, iPad, iPhones, Legal Technology, Mac, PC Computers
≈ Comments Off on Use Reflector App to Display Your iPhone or iPad on Your Computer.
Please note the related posts at the end of this article by Ms. Pansini. –CCE
If you’ve ever tried to display your mobile device on a big screen without wires or an Apple TV, you know how complicated it can be. Enter, the Reflector app. Reflector is an AirPlay receiver that allows you to display your mobile device on a big screen without any hullabaloo. . . .
07 Saturday Jun 2014
Posted in Appellate Law, Intellectual Property, Patent Law, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, U.S. Courts of Appeal
≈ Comments Off on Interesting Analysis of Federal Patent Appeal
Tags
Administrative Patent Challenges, Consumer Watchdog, Dan Ravicher, Inter Partes Reexamination, Patent Act
Federal Circuit: In Order To Appeal USPTO Post-Grant Decision, Third Party Requestor Must Show “Injury In Fact” by Dennis Crouch, Patently-O Blog
http://patentlyo.com/patent/2014/06/circuit-decision-requestor.html
Consumer Watchdog v. WARF and USPTO (Fed. Cir. 2014)
The Patent Act provides for a variety of administrative review proceedings that can be filed by any third party wanting to challenge the validity of an issued patent. The statute also provides the third-party requester with a right to appeal any adverse judgment to the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit. Following these statutory guidelines, Consumer Watchdog requested review (inter partes reexamination) of WARF’s patents covering human embryonic stem cells. When the USPTO sided with WARF, Consumer Watchdog appealed. But Consumer Watchdog has a major problem with its appeal – standing. Consumer Watchdog is a public interest group who is not being directly impacted by WARFs patents other than the general indignity felt by all of us.
As the appeal was pending, the Supreme Court decided Already v. Nike and reminded courts that, under the Constitution, they only have power over actual cases and controversies. At Patently-O, we used that case as a springboard for questioning whether the statutory appellate authority was sufficient to satisfy the demands of the Constitution, and the Court immediately called for Consumer Watchdog and WARF to brief the question of standing. . . .
04 Wednesday Jun 2014
Posted in Legal Writing, Plain Language, References
≈ Comments Off on “Must Have” Plain Language Tips and Tools.
Tips and Tools, PlainLanguage.gov
http://www.plainlanguage.gov/howto/index.cfm
Take a good look. Links to Quick Reference Tips, Word Suggestions, Dictionaries, Thesauruses, Style Guides, and Grammar Sites. -CCE
04 Wednesday Jun 2014
Posted in Bad Legal Writing, Legal Writing, Legalese
≈ Comments Off on Do You Write Like A Tool? Here’s One Way To Find Out.
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: 20 Ways to Write Like a Tool, by Jay Shepherd, Above The Law Blog
Ever see Fight Club? Yeah, me neither. The 1999 Brad Pitt movie was more of a cult film than a commercial success, although it did make back its costs. But the movie did have a line that became something of a meme, and was once recognized by Premiere magazine as the 27th greatest line in movie history (which seems dubious, but whatever):
The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.
If only lawyers had the same rule.
You see, being a lawyer is like being a member of an elite club. OK, maybe not as elite as we like to think; there are more than a million members in the US. But elite enough. And the problem is, too many of us are dying to show off to others that we’re members of law club. And one of the ways we do it is by trying to sound like a lawyer when we speak, and especially when we write. This is a problem because sounding like a lawyer is the same as sounding like a tool.
I’ve come up with 20 lawyerisms that do nothing to advance the message you’re trying to send, but instead show that you’re a member of law club. And that you sound like a tool.
How many of the 20 do you use? . . .
04 Wednesday Jun 2014
Posted in Bad Faith, Insurance Coverage, Insurance Law, Pennsylvania Superior Court
≈ Comments Off on No Insurance Coverage = No Bad Faith.
Tags
Bad Faith, Declaratory Judgment, Fire Loss, Insurance Benefits, Insurance Coverage, Traveler's Insurance
Here’s a Thought: If There Ain’t No Coverage, There Ain’t No Bad Faith, by Daniel E. Cummins, TORT TALK
In their recent ‘non-precedential’ decision (why do they mark them ‘on-precedential’ on occasion?!) in the bad faith case of Yera v. Travelers Ins. Co., of Am., 1398 EDA 2013 (Pa. Super. April 22, 2014)(Ford Elliott, P.J.E., Ott, J., Strassburger, J.) (Opinion by Ott, J.)(Concurring and Dissenting Op. by Strassburger, J.), the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed a trial court’s finding that the homeowner’s insurance carrier for the Plaintiff did not act in bad faith by waiting six (6) months to deny the Plaintiff’s fire loss claim as there could be no bad faith claim where there was an underlying decision that the carrier need not afford any coverage under the policy in any event. . . .
02 Monday Jun 2014
Posted in Legal Writing, Proofreading, Spell Checking
≈ Comments Off on The ITS Style Guide – Put This One In Your Legal Writing Toolbox.
Tags
Grammar, ITS Style Guide, Legal Writing, Punctuation, The University of Texas at Austin, Writing, Writing Guide, Writing Style
ITS Style Guide, The University of Texas at Austin
http://www.utexas.edu/its/style/written/misused.php
Easy Peasy. Definitely worth a bookmark. -CCE
The ITS Style Guide is an online reference for the Information Technology Services (ITS) department at The University of Texas at Austin. It promotes consistency in ITS publications with a focus on technical communications. The Guide covers correct writing styles, word usage, capitalization, punctuation, and other issues that arise in written communications.
01 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in Attorney Discipline, Legal Ethics, Technology
≈ Comments Off on Indiana Ethics Opinion Doesn’t Like Legal Start Ups.
Tags
Carolyn Elefant, Law Tigers, Legal Ethics Opinion, Legal Start Ups, myShingle.com, Nolo Law Directory, Nolo.com
An Indiana Ethics Opinion That May Kill Legal Start Ups, by Carolyn Elefant, myShingle.com
Via the Legal Profession Blog, comes a recent Indiana ethics decision reprimanding a lawyer who’d practiced 41 years without incident for participating Law Tigers, a site that helps members of the public find a motorcycle attorney. Trouble is, in pursuit of a single Tiger that may purportedly cause harm to the public, the Indiana Supreme Court now has the entire fledgling industry of legal matchmaking platforms by the tail.
Here’s the background. The American Association of Motorcycle Injury Lawyers (AAMIL) operates the Law Tigers website – one of dozens of lead gen platforms like the Nolo Law Directory Total Attorneys that direct website visitors and prospective clients to participating lawyers who pay to receive leads within a designated geographic area. Naturally, to encourage site visitors to seek legal services, the Law Tigers website boasts ‘Exceptional Results: Settlements and Verdicts’ and links to glowing client testimonials. However, the respondent lawyers website, which could be accessed through a link on the Law Tigers site, included a disclaimer that a firm could not advertise past settlements or results. . . .
01 Sunday Jun 2014
Posted in Cross-Examination, Depositions, Discovery, Expert Witness, Trial Tips and Techniques
≈ Comments Off on Preparing for Expert Witness Depositions.
Tags
Cross-Examination, Depositions, Evan Schaeffer, Expert Depositions, Expert Witnesses, The Trial Practice Tips Weblog
Preparing for Expert Depositions by Looking Ahead to the Cross-Examination at Trial, by Evan Schaeffer, The Trial Practice Tips Weblog
Your preparation for depositions will generally be much easier if you think about the ways the testimony will be used at trial. This tip applies to most pretrial discovery: it’s almost never an end in itself, but something that will be used later in front of a jury. It’s no accident that the ins-and-outs of pretrial discovery often make more sense after a lawyer has witnessed some actual trials. When trials are scarce, even reading trial transcripts helps.
The looking-ahead-to-trial tip can be especially useful for deposing your opponent’s experts. If you often rely on outlines prepared by other lawyers, this method will also help you understand why it’s important to ask the questions lawyers typically ask when deposing experts. . . .
The Researching Paralegal 
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