Because my practice focuses on complex commercial disputes–especially cases involving antitrust, oil and gas, and patents–I keep daily track of important decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals.
You can follow along during the week on Twitter (@contingencyblog) or here at The Contingency each Monday with this Commercial Case Roundup: U.S. Appeals.
Continue Reading Commercial Case Roundup: U.S. Appeals
This coming Thursday, I’ll give a talk about Preparing Difficult Witnesses for Trial at the University of Texas law school Civil Litigation Conference in Austin. My series of posts on the subject ends with this one — and it’s the best one of them all, in my view.
Continue Reading Preparing difficult witnesses for trial: Hardest questions, dry runs, keeping a safe distance, and conclusion
In Part 3 of our Preparing Difficult Witnesses for Trial series (see Part 1 and Part 2), we study a key aspect of trial-team dynamics and the necessity of getting face-to-face with difficult witnesses (DWs).
Continue Reading Preparing Difficult Witnesses for Trial — Part 3
In Preparing Difficult Witnesses for Trial — Part 1, we looked at the four major types of trial witnesses. We also sketched “some of the more significant ethical considerations that govern your dealings with each category”. We then took “a short and non-exhaustive look at the two major privileges that trial lawyers deal with: the lawyer-client privilege and the lawyer work-product doctrine.”
In this post, we’ll cover the necessity for getting really ready and something you may find surprising — the importance of caring.
Continue Reading Preparing Difficult Witnesses for Trial — Part 2
For your client to win at trial, the trial lawyer in you must tell a human story, one that moves jurors to decide in your client’s favor. Flesh-and-blood witnesses fill essential roles in the drama. So-so ones will turn the story to mush, and bad ones will allow your friend on the other side to beat you and your client about the head and neck with it. Difficult witnesses – DWs – therefore pose a risk you must use all your talents and powers to manage.
How can you prepare DWs for their potentially pivotal turn on the courtroom stage? In this series of posts, I offer thoughts from 33 years of trying cases.
Continue Reading Preparing Difficult Witnesses for Trial — Part 1
Existential threshold
The number of companies that can bring treble-damages claims against drug manufacturers for violating federal antitrust law has dwindled. The scarcity has grown so acute that last week it crossed an existential threshold.
Continue Reading Multiples for Pharma Buyers Pursuing Opt-Out Antitrust Claims
Arise, ye claimants
For more than 40 years, you could wait (and wait and wait) to decide whether or not to opt out of a class action in order to pursue your own individual case. You didn’t have to squawk until (1) you got formal notice of your right to remove yourself from the class and (b) you failed to timely respond by saying “I opt out. Leave me alone. I would rather do it myself! More money for me!!”
But the thing that gave you leisure — American Pipe tolling — went partially poof last week. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 (with Gorsuch in the role of Scalia) that tolling may apply to a statute of “limitations” but doesn’t stop the tick-tock under a statute of “repose”. California Public Employees’ Retirement Sys. v. ANZ Securities, Inc., No. 16-373 (U.S. June 26, 2017).
Wake up, people! You may need to move fast.Continue Reading Opt-Outs on Parade
Location
The place of suit matters a lot in civil cases. Suing at home helps the plaintiff — by keeping her costs low, giving her comfort that local judges and juries will give her fair treatment, and throwing out-of-town defendants off balance. All of that bigly boosts the plaintiff’s chances of success.
But a trio of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings promise to make plaintiffs’ home fields more like patches of weeds than acres of sweet verdance.
Continue Reading Into the Lions’ Dens