We try cases. I've been lucky to have a couple incredible mentors who brought me along and have let me get in the courtroom.
Heard a civil guy say "yeah, we're trying that case right now." It wasn't in trial, but it was in court. So I was just making sure.
Reservation of rights means that they're offering a defense (per their duty to defend) but reserving their right to deny indemnification of a judgment. So, they'll represent him but may not pay the judgment. Normally they simultaneously hire a coverage attorney to decide whether there's coverage. In auto cases, they'll normally just pay the judgment unless there's an obvious exclusion and/or the exposure is huge.
Nevermind then. That guy needs at least four more years of Big Meech tutelage, and I need to work on reading comprehension.
thanks. we tried and won last year a bad faith breach of insurance contract case on a hotel fire the insurer refused to pay for. the coverage attorney investigated the case and ultimately decided our guy did it. Then the question became did they do a proper investigation. Well the coverage attorney was also the attorney that ended up litigating the case. So we got into an issue of is that investigation work product was it done in anticipation of litigation well absolutely it was. Well can we make him a material witness and disqualify him from trying the case? I'd think you'd want different coverage counsel than trial counsel for this reason. And I don't think coverage counsels investigation should be privileged work product. The entire bad faith case was about whether they had the proper investigation and facts to deny the claim.
One of my bosses is, in my opinion, the best trial lawyer I've seen in my short year and half of practice. He just gets the law, understands testimony, asks perfect questions, and pretty much always gets exactly what he wants. The only problem is that sometimes his questions might be over the jurors' heads. He'll ask a perfect question for the testimony he's trying to get, he'll get the perfect answer for our case, but the jurors don't understand what just happened. Especially in products cases. It's tough finding that middle ground, but I've learned more from him than from my other two bosses combined.
Do we have any patent attorneys on the board? After a patent expires, how hard is it to renew? I remember learning this in BizLaw, and my understanding is that there has to be a small update to the process/product in order for it to be renewed, right? What if there was never a copycat attempt? Is the process still public after expiration? To provide context, I know someone's father who owns a small business that he's trying to sell. He invented a very cool and unique niche product that he never really tried to sell (mainly bc he hates selling, and was happy bringing $300k/year while only working 20 hours a week, and playing golf the rest of it). However, his patent just expired in February. What would the next owners' strategy be with regards to protecting themselves if they actually tried to grow the business? Unrelated, kind of, but I was at Guthries in Ringgold, GA last weekend and looked at their timeline on their wall (found same picture, posted below). I wonder if the original Guthrie got a patent on their sauce, and once it expired, since it's like almost 20 years exactly, Zaxby's (or whomever they're referring to) was ready to rock with literally the exact same sauce. In this scenario, it would have probably been a better idea to keep the recipe a secret (ala Coca-Cola).
One of our best trial lawyers was a guy who graduated near the bottom of his law school, but got in with the right firm and is incredibly savvy. Now we fly him all over the country to try several cases a year, and his win % is pretty incredible.
Look, do what you want. Most folks in here are young lawyers looking for advice. I've been practicing 10 years, made partner and am in charge of hiring for a good size state/regional firm. I still consider myself a dumbass. I take every opportunity to learn from other lawyers, senior and junior to me. I have witnessed what some great senior partners warned me about - the lawyers who run around chasing business before they are ready flash then disappear. The young attorneys who put in their time, become experts in the field and become semi-competent in a variety of fields are the ones with staying power that become big rainmakers.
Words matter. There's a lot of lawyers who can ask questions that other lawyers or experts understand is a good question and get a good answer. But it doesn't matter one bit if the 6-12 strangers sitting in the jury box don't understand. My mentor is one of the best in the country because, among other things, he's able to distill down complex med mal, tobacco, and products cases into something that jurors understand. It's one of the most challenging things we do as trial lawyers.
Agreed. There's a myth that great trial lawyers are salesmen. That works sometimes, but the best are good teachers. Being able to carefully explain is more important than to persuade. If your side makes more sense, the jury is going to side with you well before you can talk them into it.
I think one of the best ways I've had it explained to me is that the ultimate goal is to have the jury convince themselves, not you convince them. You are never going to sell your way into a truly righteous verdict. You just provide the framework and the motivation for the jurors to rule in your favor. I'm also convinced that in the context of personal injury cases that there's no harder case to hit a home run on than a rear end auto accident. Give me disputed liability and big damages all day. Oh and I think Gump mentioned it, but not all of mine are first chair. I think it's 8 first chair, 9 second chair. I've picked the jury for I think 13 of the 17 though. It's the part of trial I now have the hardest problem passing off to someone else.
that's what David Ball and Kennan talk about. In terms of letting the lightbulb go off for the jury. Let them figure it out for themselves. You don't have to hit the over the head with everything and act like they're idiots. They are smarter than you think.
I practice in front of judges so I usually get to skip the primer stuff that I assume yall have to do with juries. Especially experts. We normally use one of a handful of experts in any particular field and all are well known by the family judges, so no sense in beating down their credentials besides admitting their CV into evidence so it is a part of the record. Plus if you have a good judge who is going to prepare, we just submit a detailed trial brief, give a brief history of the marriage with testimony while hitting our high points, and then move on to the guts of our case. Also can go a bit crazy with testimony that is inadmissible. If we have some damning stuff that isn't admissible, fine, we'll just proffer it so the judge hears it even if he can't technically consider it. The main issues we deal with are credibility. Every case that goes to trial has two vastly different stories and the case essentially turns on who the judge believes. While juries I think would err more towards witness testimony and demeanor, family court judges, in my view, rely more on documentation. Presume that's a result of most jurors not wanting to Wade through a shitload of documents and family court judges having enough experience to know all the litigants in front of them are insane regardless of how they present themselves.
Keenan is a great lawyer and has some great ideas but some of the stuff he and ball put out seems to be rooted in a fantasy land where mistrials don't exist. Ball's stuff is too formulaic for me. I think there's much better books out there for Plaintiff's lawyers.
It's so important to be yourself and develop your own style that it's kind of tough to learn from a book. I've picked up a lot of little things from hundreds of sources, but often I read something and think lolwrongnumber when imagining trying to pull it off.
It's amazing the number of people that think and hope there's some cookie cutter approach to trying cases and end up coming across as disingenuous dipshits.
my law school class mate who is a public defender in jackson , ms got thrown in jail yesterday for criminal contempt during a capital murder hearing.
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2016/apr/15/judge-orders-public-defender-jailed-during-clients/ Looks like he deserved it: http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2016/04/bond-revoked-for-suspect-in-kendrick.html?m=1
He told the court that his client was required by a doctor to feed her child breast milk. The only actual evidence was a discharge order that said she should feed the child breast milk or formula.
the biggest thing was that the judge said the hearing was over and then he continued to try to say that she has to say on the record the reasons for denying bond (he was saying this over her saying "this hearing is over" basically you're done, cut off, etc so stop talking). The problem is that the judge had already made a record of why she was denying bond : (1) he didn't have sufficient proof to show that the mother had to give the baby breast milk (2) its a capital murder charge (3) for public safety reasons.
My son actually had some GI problems, knowing what I do about that I'd be hard pressed to call it a blatant misrepresentation, but it was stupid nonetheless. I've witnessed much worse from attorneys that didn't result in criminal contempt. I was almost held in contempt once when I questioned why a Juvenile Court judge was ignoring an Appellate decision in a DSS case, then questioned how she interpreted precedent to work when she said she only accepted decisions from the highest state appellate court and mid level decisions were only advisory without creating any binding decisions. She was near mandatory retirement age, but was not recalled to the later retirement age. Basically the state didn't feel like going through the procedure to dismiss her as a judge. She holds the record for the most cases overturned by the Appeals Court. She was seemingly a DSS employee on the bench.
The judge would've let it go if the attorney hadn't interrupted the judge repeatedly after the judge made his ruling. Still, most judges would've just given the attorney a complete dressing down and let it go.
You can't tell tone from the record, but based on the wording and her reaction to it, I'd imagine he was being an ass. And, in a capital bond hearing, you can't just make up shit that's disprovable.
His sole reason for why the judge should ignore precedent was something he completely made up. That's a big fucking deal, and it's compounded by the fact that it's a capital murder case.
Misrepresenting the facts is probably the worst thing you can do in a courtroom. We can disagree about the law and advocate for our clients but nobody respects a lawyer that lies.
It depends on how you define misrepresentation imo. We never knowingly lie to the court (though I'm certain we've relied on lies our client has given us). That being said, I feel like we've all had to argue in favor of facts that, while not demonstrably false, we didn't really believe. Also, the whole not questioning the judge and give deference to them vibe in here today isn't making me feel all that great. Earlier today, my firm filed a petition for a writ of mandamus and prohibition with our supreme Court (my argument and my petition) against an opposing client, the court of appeals, and three court of appeals judges.
Cool. That's the proper avenue, not arguing with the judge once they've concluded the hearing when you've been caught making up a fact that's proven false by records. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here.
I've got no problem filing a writ of mandamus. That's a legal issue. I may make some creative arguments as to how the law applies to my facts, but I never try and get cute with the facts. I hope I've asked enough of the right questions to know my client isn't lying.
I'm not arguing with you on this. Haven't really read the article or transcript nor do I practice in criminal courts so don't know the limits you can push. I'm just commenting on how the whole "the judge ruled so stfu" vibe effects my mood considering what I just filed.