Law schools teach three bad habits—ones that are particularly deleterious to pretrial and trial advocates. These three dreadfully bad habits can be broken, and the means to breaking them are covered here and, in more depth, in Trial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis, and Strategy and Pretrial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis, and Strategy. First, although law schools should [...]
Irving Younger, the renowned lecturer and professor at Cornell Law School, distilled all the essentials of cross-examination into his Ten Commandments of Cross-Examination. Here are Ten Commandments of Pretrial and Trial Advocacy. As Younger would probably have said, “Violate any of these Commandments and you will regret it instantly and punishment will be immediate.” You [...]
The Jenner and Block Attorney-Client Privilege Handbook was recently distributed through an email by David Greenwald. Greenwald wrote: This work has evolved from a modest outline inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Upjohn Co. v. United States more than 30 years ago. Through regular provide practical information for in-house and outside counsel. We [...]
George R. (Bob) Dekle - A Great Artist “Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal.” This is a statement attributed to Pablo Picasso. The same proposition holds true for great trial lawyers. Lesser trial attorneys borrow; great trial lawyers steal. The greats study what other trial lawyers have done, they remix it and transform it into [...]
On June 21, 2019, the United States Supreme Court in Flowers v. Mississippi reversed the murder conviction and sentence to the death of black defendant Curtis Flowers. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority stated that Curtis Flowers had not been provided with “(e)qual justice under law” because his criminal trial was not “free of [...]
The Critical Importance of Practicing Your Voir Dire By Thomas M. O’Toole, Ph.D. Despite what Allen Iverson might say (search “Allen Iverson” and “practice” on YouTube if you do not get this reference), practice is essential to the successful development of any skillset. In competition, competitors get better by practicing. This is why it is [...]
Why is Paper Still King in King County? by Larry Johnson Even though the first 20 years of my practice were spent in civil litigation, my real love since the 1980s was computers, and then, in the 1990s, the emerging Internet.[1] So in 1995 I gladly accepted the invitation from Presiding Judge Dale Ramerman and [...]
In 2018, Washington adopted GR37, which is a new general rule that changes how racial bias in jury selection is addressed. The rule is designed to provide courts with guidance for effectively eliminating racial bias in the use of peremptory strikes. The purpose of this article to explain GR37 and what it means for litigators [...]
The Washington Supreme Court is the first court in the nation to adopt rules aimed at eliminating implicit bias from jury selection in both civil and criminal cases. The new General Rule 37 (effective April 24, 2018) dramatically alters practices and procedures regarding exercising peremptory challenges. It remains to be seen whether this new rule [...]
When the two adversary lawyers in the Bush v. Gore case, David Boies and Theodore Olson, teamed up to challenge California’s Proposition 8 in a federal lawsuit, they created the TRUE LEGAL DREAM TEAM. They also proved to be exceptionally fine co-authors when they recounted their pretrial preparation, trial and appellate experiences in their [...]
