In the context of asset recovery, a successful outcome largely depends on the ability of a claimant to garner sufficient disclosure of assets that are amenable to enforcement. This, in turn, explains why the powerful...more
Employers that defend against human rights complaints often find themselves grappling with pleadings and submissions that wander well beyond the events the complainant experienced. ...more
The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (Commencement No. 5) Regulations have been made under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA). These regulations, made on 10 June, bring into force...more
The Florida Supreme Court amended Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.280(f) (Timing and Sequence of Discovery) to resolve an ambiguity in the Rule that practitioners had been unreasonably using to thwart or delay the...more
Effective April 1, 2015, the Commercial Division of the New York State Supreme Court promulgated a series of reforms to the Rules of Practice for the Commercial Division, including the addition of new Rule 11-e, which...more
Texas and Missouri, two states that have long flirted with the idea of adopting the Uniform Interstate Depositions and Discovery Act, now appear poised to take action sometime this year. ...more
In September 2023, Chief Justice Morawetz of the Superior Court of Justice and Attorney General Doug Downey announced an initiative to undertake a comprehensive review of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure, with a view to...more
The Georgia legislature has passed a sweeping tort reform package aimed at reducing litigation costs, curbing excessive jury awards, and increasing transparency in civil lawsuits in Georgia state and superior courts....more
In the recent case of Bank, et al. v. Lee, the New Jersey Appellate Division addressed a significant procedural issue regarding the timing for parties to file a motion to dismiss pursuant to New Jersey Court Rule 4:6-2(e)....more
New court rules went into effect in Massachusetts last month that authorize remote depositions whenever the party noticing the deposition elects that format. A prior proposal to make in-person depositions the default option...more
The rule seems simple enough: Attorneys defending a witness during a deposition may instruct the witness not to answer questions only for the purpose of protecting privileged information. And yet, if the number of trial court...more
No company would relish the prospect of defending against a class action lawsuit and thousands of related individual arbitrations at the same time. But following a recent federal court ruling, Google (and its parent company,...more
A couple of weeks ago, I was in court to help pick a jury in a high-value case. During that early phase of jury selection, the gallery was full to capacity with potential jurors, the counsel and parties were present, the...more
Everything is bigger in Texas. Even pretrial discovery rules, which permit depositions to be taken merely for the purpose of investigating whether a lawsuit should be filed. No state is more permissive when it comes to...more
I remember listening to Justice Frank Cleckley of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, my professor for Evidence, open his first lecture with a discussion of Federal Rule of Evidence 103. As a young law student, I was...more
The last quarter of 2024 and the beginning of 2025 saw multiple amendments to the Mississippi Rules of Civil Procedure that will impact Mississippi practitioners. The three primary Rule changes are: (1) third-party...more
The start of the new year has brought changes to Florida’s civil practice. In June 2024, the Florida Supreme Court issued proposed amendments to the state’s Rules of Civil Procedure, which we covered here. After the comment...more
Ever had to explain to a client why a sweet win in the lower courts doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s time to dig in and eat? In City of Martinsville, VA v. Express Scripts, a Fourth Circuit majority opinion used a...more
Attorneys love rules. And our adversarial legal system functions best when both sides understand and follow common rules. So one Maryland appellate rule has always confounded me because it is routinely construed as meaning...more
2024 was an active year in the class action arena. In this post, our Litigation group in Toronto discusses noteworthy developments over the past twelve months. While our focus is on cases and other developments affecting...more
One of the ongoing goals of the New York State Office of Court Administration (“OCA”) is to periodically update and refine the jurisdictional criteria for the Commercial Division to ensure that it exclusively handles complex...more
My new favorite judge is The Honorable R. David Proctor, chief U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Alabama. I love his Nov. 26, 2024 order granting an Opposed Motion Extension of Time to respond to a complaint....more
Minnesota Rule of Civil Procedure 30.02 has been amended to expressly authorize parties to conduct depositions via remote technology and require a party seeking to take a deposition to elect between deposing in-person or...more
The Washington Supreme Court recently approved significant revisions to that state’s procedural rules on remote depositions. Revised Rule 30 of the Washington Civil Rules will now allow remote depositions to be noticed...more
Lawyers’ growing use of artificial intelligence is front of mind these days, but that shouldn’t overshadow the equally energetic and consequential efforts by the nation’s judges to ethically incorporate AI into their work....more