Articles Posted in Civil Litigation

If I were conscripted to listen to sit quietly in court and listen to lawyers, judges and witnesses talk all day, I would probably doodle some. Now there is a web site dedicated to art by real jurors while on jury duty.  See the American Gallery of Juor Art.      

There is an old saying that no one’s life or property is safe while the Georgia legislature is in session. As a trucking safety trial attorney in Atlanta, I have often reflected on the truth of that quip. This week, we have seen some remarkable developments under the Gold Dome, which have been surprisingly benign. There…

As a personal injury trial lawyer in Georgia, I have often told clients that they do not want what goes with the kind of case that makes headlines. It is better to have good health than a multi-million dollar injury case. A recent New Jersey case is a good illustration of that. In 1999, an Aramark…

Last week the U. S. Congress passed a new Federal Rule of Evidence 502 to address disclosure of information protected by the attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine. It addresses concerns about conflicting rulings regarding inadvertent disclosures and the scope of privilege waivers. The new rule seeks to protect litigants from subject-matter waivers, unless “fairness” requires…

Over the past year I have had the pleasure of serving, along with some folks who are clearly smarter than me, on the advisory board of Georgia Court Watch, which is a project of Georgia Watch, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group committed to consumer rights in Georgia. We recently issued an annual report on Georgia…

As an Atlanta lawyer handling both defective product and motor carrier cases, I have been troubled over the past several years by a trend of federal agencies seeking to block juries from ever getting a chance to consider the evidence  against manufacturers through the doctrine of federal preemption, often beyond anything expressly intended by Congress.…

Ron Miller has a good post on the Trial Lawyer Resource Center blog on “Should Your Bring Your Expert Witnesses Live to Trial?”  He makes a number of good points, and I commend it to your reading. I’ll spare you the buggy-load of jokes about the status of technology when I started practicing law.  But…

Once again, reality is stranger than fiction.  You just can’t make this stuff up. San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett has ordered Starbucks to pay its California baristas (coffee servers) $86 million, plus interest, for using some of its employees’ tips to pay shift supervisors. A plaintiffs attorney in the case said the total…

The Fulton County Daily Report has published my analysis of the unintended consequences of a sales tax on legal services, an earlier draft of which appeared in this blog a couple of days ago. It must have been a slow news day because they gave me a full page.

Governor Perdue has appointed Fulton State Court Judge Henry Newkirk to succeed Judge Stephanie Manis in Superior Court.  As an Atlanta attorney familiar with the quality of his work, I think It’s a great appointment. I first met Judge Newkirk at Furman in about 1971 when he was a freshman and I was a junior.…