Civil Procedure

This is FindLaw’s collection of Civil Procedure articles, part of the Litigation and Disputes section of the Corporate Counsel Center. It is the body of law surrounding procedural rules detailing how the court will handle a civil case. Civil procedure is a set of rules that help determine what pleas, orders and motions are allowed, as well as how to handle depositions and discovery. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, adopted by the US federal court in 1938, has been used by most states. 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 Procedure Articles

An Update On Conflicts And Ethical Issues

1. a. Minnesota recently addressed the issues related to the use of e-mail, and both analog and digital cordless and cellular telephones. b. Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board Opinion No. 19(1) notes that a lawyer may utilize these methods ...
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Appeal in Error: Common Mistakes Made in Appeals

After a trial, the losing party often has too much at stake, emotionally or financially, to let the verdict stand unchallenged. Appeal is the next option, but many litigants do not fully understand how different an appeal is from a trial. They may ...
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Appellate representation

Even excellent lawyers have clients who get convicted. Then comes the appeal. In the Arkansas state court system, there are two appellate courts: the Arkansas Supreme Court and the Arkansas Court of Appeals. They have different jurisdiction, and the ...
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Are The Documents Of A Corporate Defendant Plaintiff’s Work Product?

With the explosion of instant communication through the Internet and organizations like the Attorneys Information Exchange Group, Inc. (AIEG), plaintiffs' lawyers no longer "reinvent the wheel" or "work in a vacuum" when pursuing claims of defect ...
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Assisting the Court

In a post-Daubert world, courts considering the admissibility of expert testimony must become somewhat expert themselves in the subject matter of the testimony. To use a simple analogy, judges must not only be able to call the balls and strikes of ...
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Attorney Conduct: The Impaired Client

ABA Model Rule 1.14 (b) permits an attorney to seek a guardianship of the attorney's own client if the attorney reasonably believes that the client cannot protect his or her own interests. California has no such rule. Current California ethics ...
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Auditing in Legal Services

Scott Fargason maintains that lawyers waste considerable resources. As a lawyer and a CPA in the U.S., he claims that "there is ample opportunity for auditors to dramatically improve the efficiency and effectiveness of in-house and external legal ...
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Aviation Law Alert: April 13, 2004

In another recent order from the District Court for the Northern District of California, a plaintiff’s challenge of a commercial airline’s withholding discovery based on “sensitive security information” was rejected. The airline and the United ...
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Avoiding the Mindfields when Conducting an Internal Investigation of an Organization

The recent rash of federal and state government initiated investigations of health care fraud, including those against some of the nation's largest health care providers, has heightened the health care industry's sensitivity to the liabilities ...
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Bad Faith Experts After Kumho

Editor's Note: Mr. Tager and Mr. Untereiner are partners and Ms. Penner is a senior associate (who will become partner on January 1) in the appellate practice group of Mayer, Brown & Platt in Washington, D.C. Mr. Tager and Ms. Penner have extensive ...
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