Kroll Ontrack, an company in electronic discovery and computer forensics business, has compiled a list of the 5 most important of the 138 reported electronic discovery opinions issued from Jan.1, 2008 until Oct. 31, 2008. A full 25% of the cases address the issues of sanctions. To read a summary…
Evan Schaeffer from St. Louis has two blogs, The Legal Underground and The Trial Practice Tips Weblog. He has written three posts on the latter titled "15 Ways to Ruin a Deposition." Here is his latest and last post (Part 3) on the subject. Here is a link to Part 1…
Here is Part 2 of Evan Shaeffer’s post called "15 Ways to Ruin a Deposition." Evan writes "The Trial Practice Tips Weblog" and "The Legal Underground." Here is Part 1.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has just ruled that liability insurance policy limits are not discoverable in typical personal injury and wrongful death cases in Tennessee. Unlike the vast majority of states, our TRCP 26 does not mandate disclosure of limits. The Court ruled that insurance policy information " is not subject to…
Evan Schaeffer at The Trial Practice Tips Weblog has started a three-part series titled "15 Ways to Ruin a Deposition." Here is his first post on the subject. The first tip? Deposing someone who doesn’t need to be deposed at all.
Here is a summary of FRE 502 which came into effect on September 18, 2009. The rule – which addresses the attorney client privilege and work product doctrine – is intended to provide increased clarity in this confusing area of the law. The author explains that "[t]he rule establishes a…
Paul Luvera’s blog includes this great checklist for taking the deposition of an eye witness. Paul makes the point that "lawyers must use a checklist for every deposition they take no matter how experienced there are. If seasoned airplane pilots use checklists, lawyers should too. It’s too easy to get…
Here are links to two interesting blog posts by Stewart Weltman in his "Lean and Mean Litigation Blog" on the subject of formulating a discovery plan before taking depositions. The knee-jerk response is depose everyone, but as this author makes crystal clear that is not always the smart thing to do.…
Rule 37 of the TRCP makes exclusion of evidence the default sanction for failure to supplement. The trial judge can impose a lesser or greater sanction. In a recent case in Arkansas the Court of Appeals reversed a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff when the plaintiff failed to supplement…
The Congress has approved changes to the Federal Rules of Evidence, including the addition of Rule 502 dealing with the waiver of attorney-client privilege and work product protection as a result of inadvertent or intentional disclosure to another party. Click here for the text of the rule as it appears…