How Litigators Dress

Every office is different. Some workplaces are stuffier by nature, priding themselves in being elite institutions. Others are more relaxed, taking pride in being a place that people can do their best work in by being comfortable. As a result, different law firms take different approaches to dress.

Litigation in Iraq

Federal Iraq has a Federal Supreme Court, which is the court of highest decree in the country. The Kurdistan Region does not have a similar counterpart; however, we can have our cases heard at the Federal Supreme Court as well.

Comments on Recent Cases: April 2023

Courts are often reluctant to second guess an arbitrator’s decision (although they do on rare occasions). So when people arbitrate their claims, there may not be a chance to ask a court for a do-over. This may be true even when there are conflicts of interest.

Keeping Litigation Fees Lower

While it is nice to know that a lawyer is available to take the burden of a lawsuit off of a client’s shoulders, a client should also remember that lawyers often bill by the hour. And so it may make sense to delegate the work that a non-lawyer can perform to less expensive workers or for the client to perform the work themselves.

Impeaching a Witness

Setting traps works when the lawyer is confident that she knows how a witness will answer a question and that the answer will be demonstrably false. So, for example, if the lawyer is confident that the witness will testify that a light was red, the lawyer may ask what color the light was, and then show a picture of a green light to reveal that the witness was wrong.

Litigation in Croatia

Lawsuits are submitted to the Commercial Courts based on the type of dispute. Courts monitor real jurisdiction ex officio, so as soon as the Court receives a complaint, it must first check whether it actually has jurisdiction.

Comments on Recent Cases: March 2023

Litigants are generally given only one chance to litigate their claims. Once a court issues a final judgment on a matter, restrictions limit the litigant’s ability to argue the case again in another court. One such restriction is in the U.S. Constitution, which requires each state to give “full faith and credit” to the judgments other state’s courts. This restriction, however, has limits.

Legal Vendors

Some lawyers before a jury trial use jury consultants or focus groups to get insight into how a real jury may consider the facts and what themes may be more persuasive than others. This is especially helpful for lawyers who may come from different social backgrounds from members of the jury. This is also helpful because some things that may seem irrelevant to a lawyer (such as where a witness works or lives) may have significant impact on their credibility to some jurors.

Initial Phone Calls

Most of my calls do not end with me getting a new client. I don’t want to take people’s money for a case they cannot win. But I want people to remember me when future issues arise. So I try to be a sympathetic ear for their problems and a source for an honest view of how I see their case. My hope is that people appreciate that.

Litigation in Iran

There is no pre-trial discovery in Iran. The first time a litigant sees opposing witnesses is at the trial before the judge. I can, however, use the electronic platform to review the documents opposing litigants submit to a court.

Comments on Recent Cases: February 2023

Litigation News published an article I recently wrote about the process of fighting an arbitration award in court. Although courts generally do not second guess the decisions of arbitrators or give litigants a second chance to present their case, there are limited circumstances when a court will refuse to issue a litigation judgment based on an arbitration.

Cross-Border Issues in Judgment Enforcement

Litigants frequently seek to domesticate foreign judgments in the United States because defendants often have accounts at American banks. The United States may also seem like an attractive place to domesticate a judgment because nearly every major bank in the world has an office or does business in the United States. But just because a bank is subject to jurisdiction in the United States does not mean that courts will definitely enforce foreign judgments against the assets they hold.