”He that violates his oath profanes the divinity of faith itself.” — Cicero.
It might seem unlikely that, long ago, we noticed the above maxim inscribed on the south side of the Los Angeles City Hall while walking to our first jury trial (almost as unlikely as the fact that we were walking in L.A.). It
Here are a couple of recent favorable developments concerning the effort to require public disclosure of p-side third-party litigation funding to the same extent as defendants must disclose relevant insurance coverage. In addition to litigation-related benefits, such disclosure would (unfortunately) benefit plaintiffs by allowing them to shop for the best terms (as one can with insurance), rather than essentially have to take what they are offered in the current utterly opaque market.
Continue Reading Recent TPLF Disclosure Developments
We get paranoid in our old age. We know that our clients spend a great deal of effort and money on keeping their internal data safe from criminal hackers. We assume that hospitals and other repositories of electronic medical records are doing the same. However, once such data, such as corporate trade secrets and personnel files, are turned over during discovery, we have no confidence whatever that the other side is employing similarly robust data security measures. Equally, if not more, problematic is the degree of data security maintained by expert witnesses and the plethora of other litigation-related vendors who may receive confidential material − translators, court reporting services, copying services, data processors, database and remote deposition hosts, coders, document reviewers, graphics producers, jury researchers, and trial preparation services. Similar confidentiality issues exist, although less of a concern for us, concerning plaintiffs’ personal medical records after they are collected.
Is there any way we can require them to upgrade their security?
Continue Reading Using Protective Orders To Protect Against Data Breaches
We spent much of the last six years opposing the government in civil litigation. Sure, a few of the government lawyers had a certain swagger to them, but in most ways litigating against them was similar to litigating against private parties. The government hired and collaborated with many of the same plaintiffs’ attorneys that we
If Dante had practiced law, there’s a good chance he would have added a tenth circle of hell—discovery for defense attorneys. Imagine being slowly crushed under a mountain of PDFs, emails from 2007, and inexplicably sticky banker’s boxes. Let’s face it, some of us could update our bios to include—professional document archaeologist.
Discovery was theoretically
Wouldn’t it be nice if all legal disputes could be sensible? But, alas, overreaching plaintiffs make work, make motions, and often make craziness. Sometimes those overreaching plaintiffs can be the government, and that makes things even worse.
In Hayek Medical Devices (N.Am.) v. Vermont, 2025 Vt. Super. LEXIS 117, 2025 LX 12055 (Vt. Super.
On the internet, “because reasons” is the default when you don’t have the time or energy to explain why something is correct, but you are sticking with your viewpoint nonetheless.
It is the opposite of what our profession expects from lawyers and the courts: We all are supposed to explain, with crystalline clarity, why our
This is not the first time we have posted about Gallego v. Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc. About six weeks ago we told you all about the excellent preemption decision that dismissed the entire case with prejudice except for a piece of the negligent design claim. On that, plaintiff was given thirty days to file
Late last year we said that almost every legal conference these days has a session on artificial intelligence. It is de rigeur. That is also true with respect to litigation funding. It is a hot issue. Our Inn of Court (University of Pennsylvania) did a presentation on litigation funding that, despite the fact that
This post is from the non-Reed Smith side of the blog.
We live in a “producer-pays” world. Our discovery system gives plaintiffs a windfall by allowing them to demand production of millions of dollars’ worth of documents and data and to impose those costs almost entirely on defendants. Now think about that in MDLs. Plaintiffs