Podcast - Part II: The Do’s and Don’ts of Demonstratives
Podcast - Part I - The Do’s and Don’ts of Demonstratives
Podcast - How Do You Define Success?
Podcast - Seek Out Feedback
Podcast - Part I: Being an Expert Is a Lonely Business
Podcast - Finding Common Ground
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 504: Listen and Learn -- Motions for Judgment as a Matter of Law and Motions for New Trial (Civ Pro)
Podcast - "Ready for Trial?"
Podcast - Every Case Is a New World
Podcast - The 3 Core Themes of Trial Law: Do the Right Thing
Podcast - How Did We Get Here?
Podcast - Parting Thoughts: Be a "Peddler of Common Sense"
Against All Odds- Part Four
Podcast - Expert Witnesses, Special Issues
Podcast - Direct Examination of Expert Witnesses
Podcast - Drowning in Complexity
Podcast: Part I - Reading the Jury
Podcast - How to Use Humor and Anger Effectively in the Courtroom
Preparing for Deposition Success
Podcast - Connecting Separate Pieces of Evidence Clearly, Persuasively
U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals - USA v. Zayas - currency transaction report, filing - Cunningham v. Cobb - § 1983, qualified immunity...more
Apple has escaped a $300 million patent infringement verdict after a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated both the infringement and damages judgment because of faulty jury...more
Three years of law school can teach us many things. But what they do not do very well—as we typically discover soon after graduating—is prepare us for the actual practice of law. For those of us who always planned to be...more
The Supreme Court of Virginia taught appellate practitioners yet another hard lesson in how procedural pitfalls can scuttle otherwise compelling appeals. In Eckard v. Commonwealth, the pitfall was failing to get the complete...more
Sometimes in civil cases, the plaintiff’s liability claim is opportunistic, wishful, or factually weak. Other times, it is real. Someone didn’t do their job, a danger was missed, or — in that Olympic champion of passive-voice...more
Last month, in Jane Doe v. Alkiviades David, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury returned a verdict in a sexual assault and harassment case in the amount of $900 million. This verdict is one of the largest ever for a...more
The criminal trial of former President Trump in New York state court reminds experienced practitioners of some of the big issues that white-collar defense attorneys wrestle with as a trial comes to an end. The jury and the...more
The use of special interrogatories given to juries to render verdicts has been said to be “admittedly fraught with many pitfalls in the potential conflicts between the general verdict and the interrogatories,” and is “nothing...more
INLINE PLASTICS CORP V. LACERTA GROUP, LLC - Before Taranto, Chen, and Hughes. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts....more
Goddard v. J.S.J. Unlimited, LLC, 368 So.3d 109, 2023 WL 4982324 ((Fla. Dist. Ct. App. Aug. 4, 2023) - This case involved a defense verdict where the trial court denied the plaintiff’s requested jury instructions as to a...more
The Texas Patent Litigation Monthly Wrap-Up for October 2023 covers three decisions addressing the scope of the work-product and attorney-client privileges, limits on the use of a defendant’s use of its own patents during...more
The Georgia Court of Appeals recently considered a challenge to Georgia’s preponderance-of-the-evidence pattern jury instruction, which is based upon a repealed version of Georgia’s prior evidence code. Reading from the...more
As any seasoned trial attorney will tell you, one of the key events during a jury trial is the reading of the jury instructions to the jury. During the reading of the instructions, for a lengthy amount of time, the jury hears...more
Previously, the Second District Court of Appeal extended to civil cases the holding in Hazuri v. State, 91 So. 3d 836 (Fla. 2012), a criminal case addressing readbacks to the jury following a request for trial transcripts....more
A Kingston couple was dealt a significant blow days before Christmas when the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) set aside a jury verdict awarding them $3.5 million in damages for errant golf balls hitting their property. In...more
In its recent decision, Brink v. Direct General Ins. Co., 38 F.4th 917 (11th Cir. 2022), the Eleventh Circuit ruled 2-1 that the Florida district court erred when it failed instruct a jury that an insurer not only owed a duty...more
The defamation cases brought by Johnny Depp and Amber Heard against each other, entertaining as they were to many Americans, involved complex issues of law as applied to the facts alleged by the parties. For the jury to reach...more
You don't need us to tell you that trials are increasingly rare. So when heading to trial, trial counsel must know their client's story and must be prepared to tell that story to the trier of fact—a feat that requires...more
The instructions for jurors are clear: They are to take an issue that has no effect on them, listen dispassionately to the evidence and arguments, apply the facts to the law, and make a decision. That is the model, but in...more
Recognizing and reducing bias is obviously essential in a litigation context. But when it comes to “de-biasing,” it helps to see instructions as one tool in the toolbox, but not a tool that’s guaranteed to fix everything. In...more
Texas attorneys know the Pattern Jury Charges as valuable guide to properly instructing a jury at trial. But most don’t know all the work that goes into creating and updating the various volumes. In this episode, Todd Smith...more
Jurors are often put in the position of assessing the probability or risk of something at the time a decision was made, before the consequences can be known. “How likely is it that a given result will be the outcome from a...more
Many litigators recognize the benefits of giving jurors a set of substantive jury instructions before opening arguments. Such preliminary substantive jury instructions are a beneficial and effective tool. This is not a new...more
Traditionally, we might think about what happens in the jury room as a kind of “Black box,” an unknown process with jurors keeping their secrets on how they got to their verdicts. In practice, however, we know a fair amount...more
On March 8, the California Court of Appeal issued an important opinion clarifying that the trier of fact in a bad faith “failure to settle” case must specifically find that the insurer acted unreasonably in order to find...more