A blog about the work lawyers do to win commercial disputes by Will Newman
There is no summary judgment or motions to dismiss. This is true, even if you challenge a lawsuit on the grounds of the statute of limitations or similar defenses. Instead, a defendant needs to litigate a case through its conclusion.
Read MoreA contract provision may seem clear to someone, but a court may not always see it the same way. Frequently, litigation arises because another party reads the contract differently. And a court may interpret a contract provision differently than its plain language because of what that language may mean in light of the other provisions of the agreement.
Read MoreSometimes there are no statutes or precedents from another jurisdiction that directly answer the question that a court needs to consider. In those situations, courts often will apply the law in the way they believe the other state would have applied the law. And, in some situations, courts in one jurisdiction can “certify a question” to the highest court of another state for it to answer so that the local court can apply the law correctly.
Read MoreIn federal court, Rule 11 governs the procedure for addressing false statements by an attorney in a written document submitted to court. Rule 11 requires the lawyer to give notice to the other lawyer about the lie and provide her an opportunity to respond to it. Following that notice, the lawyer may make a motion to the court, asking it to punish the lawyer for the lie. Often this punishment comes in the form of the reimbursement of attorneys fees incurred in connection with the motion and because of the lie.
Read MoreIndonesian courts are open to the public and ordinary people can watch a commercial trial. But there are some courts which are not open to the public. These include courts that hear family law cases or divorce cases.
Read MoreNew York recently adopted a law called the Freelance Isn’t Free Act (“FIFA”). It enables freelancers to sue customers that do not pay and recover double what they were owed, plus attorney’s fees. The purpose of the law is to discourage customers from not paying and to enable freelancers to afford litigation. But the law does not apply in every case; just when the plaintiff is a freelancer that works by his or herself.
Read MorePart of the reason lawyers are so deferential is because judges have the power to hold lawyers in contempt. And another part of this is because judges ultimately decide major issues in a case, so lawyers want to be on their good side.
Read MoreOnly certain types of cases qualify for small claims court. Generally, they are disputes over an amount of money below a certain threshold. For example, in New York City, small claims courts hear disputes for up to $10,000. In Miami, they hear claims for up to $8,000. These are amounts of money that may not seem small (no one wants to lose $8,000), but that are below the cost of litigating a full case in another court.
Read MoreThere were no rules of evidence. Instead, each litigant at trial gave a speech and it was somewhat freeform, a little like Judge Judy. These speeches included matters that may not be technically relevant to the case, such as character attacks, their adversary’s past crimes, or their own altruistic work.
Read MoreIn negligence lawsuits, a plaintiff may prevail if she establishes that the defendant failed to act in a reasonable way. But litigants often debate what “reasonable” means. And in lawsuits arising from emergency situations, like car accidents, courts may be more permissive with that standard.
Read MoreLitigants often try to use the “procured by fraud” exception to try to re-litigate the merits of a case. They claim that the initial court was deceived by false evidence or testimony and the new court should therefore not domesticate the judgment. But while these arguments may complicate the proceedings, they rarely succeed.
Read MoreIn my experience, technology assisted review does not process the actual document requests that lawyers carefully draft and even litigate. It only processes how a lawyer coded a subset of documents. Therefore, the system may miss important categories of documents or nuances in the distinction between responsive and non-responsive documents.
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