Civil Procedure

Judgment as a Matter of Law Judgment as a Matter of Law (JMOL) is a procedural device that allows a federal trial judge to resolve a claim or defense without submitting it to the jury—or, after a jury verdict, to set aside a verdict when the evidence is legally insufficient Read more

Civil Jury Trials vs. Bench Trials A civil jury trial and a bench trial are two different ways in which a civil lawsuit can be decided at trial. In a jury trial, a group of jurors serves as the principal factfinder, while the judge presides over the proceedings, resolves legal Read more

Jury Selection and Voir Dire Jury selection is the process through which prospective jurors are identified, questioned, challenged, and ultimately selected to serve on a jury in a civil trial. The questioning of prospective jurors is known as voir dire, a French expression traditionally associated with determining whether prospective jurors Read more

Trial in Civil Litigation A trial in civil litigation is the stage at which the parties formally present their claims, defenses, evidence, and legal arguments to the court so that the dispute can be decided. Unlike pleadings and discovery, which prepare the case and identify the issues, the trial is Read more

Pretrial Conferences and Case Management Pretrial conferences and case management are central mechanisms through which federal courts organize civil litigation before trial. Once the pleadings are established and discovery begins or progresses, the court must ensure that the case moves toward resolution in an orderly, efficient, and fair manner. Federal Read more

Discovery Disputes and Motions to Compel Discovery is intended to allow parties to obtain relevant, nonprivileged information needed to prepare their cases. But discovery does not always proceed cooperatively. Parties may disagree about whether a request is relevant, whether it is proportional, whether it is too broad, whether the response Read more

Work Product Doctrine The work product doctrine protects certain materials prepared in anticipation of litigation from discovery by an opposing party. Its purpose is not simply to keep lawyers’ documents confidential. It is designed to preserve the adversarial legal system by allowing attorneys and their clients to investigate claims, evaluate Read more

Attorney-Client Privilege Attorney-client privilege is a legal protection that generally prevents compelled disclosure of confidential communications between a lawyer and client made for the purpose of seeking or providing legal advice. The privilege is one of the oldest recognized protections in the law of evidence. Its central purpose is to Read more

E-Discovery Electronic discovery, commonly called e-discovery, is the process of identifying, preserving, collecting, reviewing, producing, and using electronically stored information (ESI) in civil litigation. Modern lawsuits generate enormous amounts of potentially relevant electronic information. Emails, text messages, spreadsheets, databases, social-media communications, photographs, videos, electronic calendars, cloud files, instant messages, collaboration Read more