Speaker 1: The information provided here is not legal advice and does not purport to be a substitute for advice of counsel on any specific matter. For legal advice, you should always consult with an attorney concerning your specific situation. Hey guys, welcome to Associate Tribe. There's

Speaker 2: a lot that goes on between the time a case is filed and the time a case goes to trial. And while some of those details may differ depending on the judge that you have or the court that you're in, a lot of those steps are the same across the board, which means that you and your team are going to be doing a lot of the same work throughout the litigation process, regardless of what litigation it is. And so for all my litigation associates out there and any corporate associates who have always been a little bit curious about the litigation process, here are my 10 case to trial tips in 10 minutes or less. So we're going to start by dividing the litigation into three stages, very scientifically, the beginning, the middle, and the end. And the beginning is the best place to start. So let's start there. When you first get on a case, the very first thing you're going to want to do is read the complaint petition or demand. And I know that sounds very basic, very commonsensical, but you'd be surprised at how many associates go months or years on a case without ever having read the complaint. So you're going to want to read the complaint petition or demand so that you know who the parties are and you know what the conflict is about. The next thing you want to do is Google the parties, because unless you were involved in the pre-suit investigation on the plaintiff side, odds are you don't know that much about the parties or the conflict, even after having read the complaint. So Google your client, Google opposing parties, Google the conflict to see if anything has been written about it. And this will give you sort of a broader, more national or global understanding of how these parties interact with one another, what business services or products they provide, and also have the added practical benefit of providing you with publicly available information that specifically might be out there for public companies that you won't have to ask for in discovery. So Google to get to know how these parties interact with one another, what the conflict is, and it will provide you with a nice high level understanding going into the litigation. The next thing you're going to want to do is to download the form jury instructions for your causes of action. And you can do this by Googling form jury instructions in your jurisdiction. And I would also check out the website for the appellate court in your jurisdiction because they often have form jury instructions too. And the reason that you want to do this is because you want to know from the outside of the case, what specifically are you going to have to prove or defend against at trial two, three, four years down the line. And this is important because it's going to drive everything in the case. It's going to drive discovery responses, deposition questions, dispositive motion arguments. It's going to drive everything. And so make sure you know what those are. Make sure you download those and save them somewhere easily accessible because that's really going to help you along the way. One other thing to keep in mind is that some form jury instructions are older, tend to be out of date. So it's always a good idea to run a Westlaw Lexis search or ask local counsel to see if you can find any jury instructions for your causes of action that have recently been adopted in that jurisdiction. The next thing you're going to want to do is to download any local rules or standing case orders in your jurisdiction by, you guessed it, Googling local rules and the court that you are litigating in. And this comes in really handy because now, you know, the parties, you know, the conflict, you know, the elements of the causes of action at issue, but you're going to want to know what specifically are the rules that are going to govern this entire litigation process. And keep in mind that courts have specific rules, but also judges can have specific rules or standing orders. And a lot of those times, those orders are going to take the form of a scheduling order or docket control order, a discovery order or an ESI electronic discovery order, and a protective order. So those are some of the most common. So take a look around the website, see what kind of standing orders, see what kind of standing rules there are, and make sure you're saving those somewhere easily accessible because you are going to be referencing those throughout the entire case. Now, we're going to move on to the middle part of the litigation, and we're going to talk about a few things that are good to have in the background, works in progress as you go through the case. And the first one is to create a proof outline. And a proof outline can be an outline bullet point form. It can be in chart form. And essentially it is the elements of the causes of action that are at issue and the evidence that you're going to use to either prove those up or defend against them at trial. And most of the time that evidence is going to take the form of hot documents, on-point deposition testimony, and the written responses of the opposing party. So interrogatory responses, requests for admission. And this document is going to change a lot. Things are going to be added and taken away, but it is really important to start it early so that you can have an idea of what you're going after, have an idea of what's helping you, and keep track of all those things because they are going to be changing along the way. And when I talk about hot documents, as you can imagine, those are documents that are very good for your case, that are very on point, that are very helpful for you and for your side. But in addition to those, it's also really important to have a bad hot documents folder. So as you can imagine, it would be the documents that are very good for the other side, harmful to your case that will probably be used against you at some point. So it's a very good idea to keep track of those because at some point you're going to have to explain them, defend against them, and you want to know what those are ahead of time rather than later. So start that proof outline as early as you can and keep working on it as the case and as discovery progresses. Another good list to keep ongoing throughout the case is a list of potential motions for summary judgment. So as discovery progresses, as more evidence comes to light, keep a list going of those causes of action or parts of causes of action that you think you might be able to file summary judgment on, either because the evidence is very strong in your favor or very weak in your opponent's favor. And an added benefit to moving for summary judgment on certain causes of action is that your opponent has to come forward with all of the evidence that they have to defend against that motion for summary judgment, which can really help you in knowing where they're coming from, what they intend to prove or defend against at trial. So keep that list going. It's going to change and fluctuate, but when those dispositive motion deadlines come up, you're going to want to know and have in mind what causes of action you think you can move for summary judgment on. Another really good ongoing list to have as you make your way through the litigation process is a list of potential motions in limine or mills. And motions in limine are going to be those motions to exclude extremely prejudicial evidence that the jury will not be able to see or hear. And the thing about motions in limine is they are very case specific and they tend to crop up throughout the case sort of in a scattered way. And if nobody's keeping track of them, it's very, very easy to forget about them as trial approaches and a lot of those deadlines start coming up. And so keep a list of potential motions in limine. They are going to be case specific, but some of the more common ones are going to be lewd language or lewd photographs that come up in private emails of parties or witnesses. Another common one that gets litigated is if a party has an insurance policy that's going to cover any damages that might be ordered to be paid. And there are a lot of different ones, but keep that list going. It's going to come in really handy as you get closer to trial. Now we're going to move on to the final stage of litigation, the preparation for trial and going to trial. And this is going to be the most complex detail oriented part of the litigation. And we could do a whole series of videos on trial presentation and preparation, but I did want to go ahead and at least mention a few things in this video. And the first one is to have your team write as early as possible an opening statement. And the reason that is so important is because the opening statement is going to reflect the story and the strategy and the themes of your case. And that's going to drive everything else that's going to impact what exhibits you put on your exhibit list, what testimony you want your witnesses to give, what information you're going to try to get from the other side. So keep that in mind that as early as you can put that together, even though it's going to change and fluctuate to get those trial themes out as early as possible. And that way, every member of the trial team is going to know how their exhibits fit in, how their witnesses fit in to the overall trial strategy and story. Tip number nine is to create a very detailed pre-trial task list because those pre-trial tasks are going to come fast and furious, and it's going to be very important to stay on top of them and to stay ahead of them if at all possible. And depending on the court, depending on the jurisdiction, you're going to have pre-trial tasks that include exchanges of exhibit lists, witness lists, deposition designations, pre-trial orders, jury instructions, verdict forms. There's going to be a ton of them, and they're going to usually come one right after the other. So it's very important to have a very detailed task list of internal deadlines, external deadlines to keep track of all of them and to keep on top of all of them. And that is going to come in very, very handy and really help when that crunch time starts. The last case to trial tip is to draft your direct witness outlines as early as possible, at least six weeks to two months before trial to give yourself plenty of time and your witness plenty of time to prepare and get comfortable with the testimony that the witness is going to give. And to that point, make sure that you have time to draft complete direct examination outlines. So Q&As, the exact questions that you're going to ask, the exact testimony that you're looking for the witness to give, and any exhibits that you're going to try to get in through that witness. And another really vital part of prepping that witness and going through those direct examination outlines and practices is to prep a full cross-examination outline that you would do if you were opposing party questioning your witness. So do a full out faux cross-examination outline so that you and your witness can prepare responses to those potential questions. So get those two outlines done as early as possible. Give yourself and your witnesses a good chance to prepare themselves for the trial coming up. So those are my 10 case to trial tips. I hope they were helpful. I know that the litigation process is difficult and complicated and has lots of twists and turns and nuances, but I hope that at least this provided you with some ideas and suggestions for things to do as you make your way through your cases. And if anybody out there has any go-to tips that you use, please leave those in the comment section below for all of us to read. And if you have any questions or war stories, as always, please leave those for us as well. And if you are interested in receiving a notification every time we release a new video, click on the subscribe to this channel button, and I will see you in the next one.