Ever found yourself in that situation where you are not only losing an argument or motion, but it seems mysteriously like the judge is bent on preventing you from making a decent record of…
Read Article“We got a kinder, gentler, Machine gun hand” – Neil Young There is the temptation, it’s almost primal, to be derisive, if not outright mean, when cross-examining a witness who has lied in the…
Read ArticleThis post could be alternatively titled: “Beware The Interloper With The Pen,” or “Why I’m Not A Great Team Player At The Writing Table.” In a recent article in the ABA Journal,”Why Lawyers Can’t…
Read ArticleLitigating any case is stressful business. But I had a real nail-biter some time back. It was a product liability case and my client was a small mom-and-pop outfit that supplied a component which…
Read ArticleA couple of posts back, I tried to address the difficulty of getting jurors to apply commonly used, but inherently ambiguous, legal terms and principles, such as “reasonable” to the facts of a particular…
Read ArticleWhen Alec Baldwin retires we’ll look back over his career, appreciate his different “periods,” and argue over when he shined most brightly. I’ll be torn between the current Alec Baldwin, a mischevious clown with…
Read ArticleOne of my great pleasures in raising my daughter is watching her encounter and struggle to make sense of the inherent ambiguities of our language. Puns are a particular favorite. She first learns to draw…
Read ArticleSo much in our lives, both professional and personal, lies outside our control. Focusing on the professional, most lawyers will never be fortunate enough to be able to limit our practice to only perfect clients who march into…
Read ArticleOne of the earliest motions I learned to write while working as a law clerk was a motion in limine. Perhaps because of the brevity and intentionally narrow scope of these motions, the job of…
Read ArticleThis originally appeared in the Los Angeles Daily Journal. At the risk of ridiculous understatement, all is not well in the California state court system. Last week it was reported that, over the last…
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