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Comments on Recent Cases: October 2025

Courts may dismiss litigation on summary judgment when there is no evidence that supports one side. Sometimes a party’s own self-serving statement may not be enough evidence to preclude summary judgment and justify a trial, but often it is.
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Comments on Recent Cases: September 2025

Courts typically defer to the decisions of arbitrators, even when they believe that the arbitrators made a mistake. This is because federal law implements a policy where people can rely on arbitration being quick and final and not just the first step towards a lengthy litigation process. Still, people still attempt to appeal in court and, sometimes, they win.
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Comments on Recent Cases: August 2025

Courts typically defer to the decisions of arbitrators, even when they believe that the arbitrators made a mistake. This is because federal law implements a policy where people can rely on arbitration being quick and final and not just the first step towards a lengthy litigation process. Still, people still attempt to appeal in court and, sometimes, they win.
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Comments on Recent Cases: July 2025

While a plaintiff in litigation can recover money owed without a written contract on the principles of basic fairness, the existence of a written contract often prohibits recovery on fairness or “equitable” grounds. But litigants often debate when a written contract exists.
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Comments on Recent Cases: June 2025

Many people seek mediation to resolve disputes rather than initiate or proceed with litigation. As part of the mediation process, parties often submit a written statement to the mediator to explain their positions. These statements are often confidential, especially since they may make concessions in an effort to strike a settlement. Courts respect that confidentiality.
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Comments on Recent Cases: May 2025

Parties in American litigation not only often have the power to conduct deposition interviews of the other parties; normally they can compel non-parties, too. But this power, however, is not unlimited.
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Comments on Recent Cases: April 2025

Parties in litigation have very broad powers to ask questions and gain information about the other parties. This often includes information that is irrelevant to the case. But in some instances, courts will put limits on the subjects of inquiry in discovery.
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Comments on Recent Cases: March 2025

Parties in litigation have very broad powers to ask questions and gain information about the other parties. This often includes information that is irrelevant to the case. But in some instances, courts will put limits on the subjects of inquiry in discovery.
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More Commentary

Litigation Practice

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An Update on Discovery to Aid Litigation Outside of the United States

The American legal system allows litigants to compel the production of far more evidence before trial than many other systems. And it does not limit this power to proceedings taking place within the United States. Instead, pursuant to statutes like 28 U.S.C. §  1782 or CPLR 3102(e), litigants can ask American courts to compel discovery for use in proceedings abroad.
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The Clerk's Office

Lawyers have a reputation for being self-important and rude. Members of the general public who litigate without lawyers have a reputation for being insane cranks. And clerks have to deal with a steady stream of both kinds of people every day. This can be frustrating.
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More Thoughts on Courtesies to Adversaries

The client may believe that, if her lawyer says “too bad” to an adversary who is about to go off on vacation and therefore cannot respond to a complaint, the lawyer may be doing justice by helping her win quickly and cheaply. But the truth is that the opposing counsel will likely be able to ask the court for an extension anyway and then be less willing to give extensions in return when the client’s counsel wants them. It’s a lose-lose situation.
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More Thoughts on Commercial Courts

Sophisticated businesses often agree to resolve their disputes through private arbitration instead of by going to court. Arbitration has numerous advantages, such as being confidential instead of public and being generally less expensive. But another advantage is that the parties can provide input on the selection of their arbitrator and thus can select an arbitrator and a forum that is well-suited for commercial disputes.
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Earning Clients' Trust

I try to let clients know that I understand what they are going through. It may make a lawyer easer to trust if they recognize the emotional challenges that client may be going through because that may mean they have more emotional intelligence, or at least experience with similar issues.
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More Thoughts on Appearing Pro Hac Vice

Clients often hire lawyers in their own community. And those lawyers typically are allowed to appear in the local court. But sometimes clients hire lawyers from another community than the one in which the relevant court is located. This has happened a lot in my work, and so I wrote a post about lawyers being temporarily admitted to a different court. A few years later, I write to update the post.
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Factual Research

The bulk of the relevant material may be there since it includes the materials the parties thought to ask for and that counsel identified as being relevant. But there may be relevant information elsewhere! And so a creative litigator thinks outside of the box and searches for more facts that may be useful.
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More Thoughts on Deposition Designations

Witnesses swear to tell the truth at the start of their depositions, just as they do when they testify in court. And violating that oath is technically a crime, just as it would be for lying in court. And a court reporter makes a verbatim transcript of the deposition, which allows lawyers to submit the exact same testimony at trial.
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More Litigation Practice

Interviews

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Litigation in the Kyrgyz Republic

At present, paper filings are still required in Kyrgyzstan. Pleadings must be submitted in person or by courier. There is no nationwide electronic filing system for courts yet, although limited email communication is sometimes allowed.
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Litigation in Egypt

Lawyers are required to wear a robe during hearings—it is very similar in shape and color to the traditional French robe, reflecting the influence of civil law traditions in Egypt.
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Gathering and Preserving Evidence in Litigation in Argentina

Our national procedure system (or Procedure Code) establishes two big ways of producing evidence before trial, even though both of them requires the involvement of the judge and, in one of them, of the counterparty also.
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Litigation in Estonia

Lawyers do not wear a robe and should instead wear formal business dress, though sometimes they dress casually.
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Litigation in Louisiana

I find the bar down here to be pretty genteel, but that may just be true of most smaller jurisdictions that are not trying to be high-powered legal centers. When I started down here it was perhaps better dressed than NYC (most people still wore suits to the office), but that’s largely faded away and we’re business casual like everywhere else.
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Litigation in Morocco

Since each side bears their own legal fees, there is a tendency for defendants to delay proceedings. They may hire a cheap lawyer to litigate and appeal as a means to delay their obligation to pay or dissuade a claimant from pursuing litigation.
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Litigation in Haiti

From the complaint to the judgment, the deadline can last up to three months if there aren’t any strikes. Often times it is the clerks who are on strike, other times it is the judges or bailiffs to claim salary adjustments (raises) or better working conditions.
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Litigation in Iceland

"Eðli máls" (the nature of the case) is a recognized source of law in Icelandic legal practice. It is used when there is no explicit statutory provision, precedent, custom, or other clear legal source that directly applies to a particular legal issue. When courts or legal professionals rely on "eðli máls," they base their decisions on reason, fairness, and general legal principles to determine a just and reasonable outcome.
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More Interviews