Civil Litigation - Page 14
This is FindLaw's collection of Civil Litigation articles, part of the Litigation and Disputes section of the Corporate Counsel Center. Law articles in this archive are predominantly written by lawyers for a professional audience seeking business solutions to legal issues. Start your free research with FindLaw.
Civil Litigation
Civil Litigation Articles
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Electronic discovery does not refer to a simple, cheap means of responding to requests for information and documents in litigation. It involves searching your company's computer network to locate and produce potentially large volumes of electronically stored items, e.g. emails, attachments, spreadsheets and drawings, and may include producing metadata (data hidden in documents regarding authors and times of document creation) and drafts of documents that have been "deleted" from computers. -
Today, more than at any other time in the history of our profession, many cases are won or lost on the testimony of the expert witness. So, exactly what does an "expert" look like, and how do you find the right one? By definition, an expert is a person with specialized knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education which qualifies that person to form helpful opinions for a party in anticipation for litigation or preparation for trial. -
An expert is a person with specialized knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education which qualifies that person to form helpful opinions for a party in anticipation for litigation or preparation for trial. The court must find, however, in addition to the expert's qualifications, that the opinion evidence will be relevant to the issues in the case, that it is reliable, and that it will be helpful to the trier of fact. -
For at least the last 20 years, two counties in Texas had become affectionately known as the number 1 and number 2 litigation hell holes in the nation. The courts in those counties frequently set the nationwide pace for critical pretrial activities in mass tort litigation. Courts in those counties decide everything from who gets deposed and when, to what documents get produced and when, and finally to who gets to see those documents and when. -
Under the Lanham Act, Federal Trade Commission and many states' statutes, an advertiser must substantiate its claims. Industry or proprietary research or testing is generally used to determine whether a particular claim is substantiated, although courts will look to the overall impression the advertising or marketing conveys to the consumer. -
Companies are often sued in the United States for product liability claims relating to accidents that occurred in other countries. In the case of large national or international corporations with operations in many jurisdictions, plaintiffs have the luxury of carefully selecting venues that are known to be plaintiff-friendly and have a history of large awards. -
As the responsibilities for preservation and production of electronic records become clearer, parties and counsel should take a proactive approach to preparing for battles that may develop. As in warfare, the proactive approach is one in which the counsel should wield at least as much command offensively as defensively. -
This article describes several practical approaches that have been employed by financially successful, marketing oriented law firms to law firms that have added value to their clients, hence, making these firms to be valued and continuing resources of their client. -
Gone are the days when parties and counsel could claim ignorance of the technical and legal issues involved in preserving electronic records associated with matters in litigation. As Judge Shira Scheindlin wrote in Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC , 2004 WL 1620866 (S.D.N.Y. July 20, 2004) "Now that the key issues have been addressed and national standards are developing, parties and their counsel are fully on notice of their responsibility to preserve and produce electronically stored information." -
The sending of a "preservation" letter is rapidly becoming the norm in litigation today. The typical preservation letter demands that your client sequester its entire computer network and each employee's PC at Fort Knox, pending the final resolution of either anticipated or currently pending litigation. Such tactics are clearly designed to raise the cost of litigation while at the same time positioning your opponent to seek a spoliation instruction as well as any other sanction that the presiding court may order against either the client or the attorney in charge.