Verdictsearch California Reporter

In this book, 78 leading attorneys in California and New York describe how they evaluate, negotiate and resolve litigation cases. Selected for their demonstrated skill in predicting trial outcomes and knowing when cases should be settled or taken to trial, these attorneys identify the key factors in case evaluation and share successful strategies in pre-trial discovery, negotiation, mediation, and trials. Integrating law and psychology, the book shows how skilled attorneys mentally frame cases, understand jurors’ perspectives, develop persuasive themes and arguments and achieve exceptional results for clients.

This volume brings together leading research articles in to the theory, research findings and applications of modern dispute resolution. The articles relate to a wide variety of settings and cover the primary processes of negotiation, mediation and arbitration, as well as exploring combinations and hybridization of those processes. Also included are articles on the search for 'value-added' or 'pie-expanding' creative solutions; the choosing of strategies, based on game theory, economics and social and cognitive psychology; how foundational theories have been altered or modified, depending on contexts, and numbers of parties and issues; and what issues are raised by the 'privatization of justice'. The articles span both the 'science' and 'art' of dispute resolution, consider the relationship of peace to justice and include both empirical (descriptive) and normative (prescriptive) assessments of how these processes of dispute resolution function.

Let us endeavor to see things as they are, and then enquire whether we ought to complain. Whether to see life as it is, will give us much consolation, I know not; but the consolation which is drawn from truth if any there be, is solid and durable: that which may be derived from errour, must be, like its original, fallacious and fugitive. Samuel Johnson, Letter to Bennet Langton (1758) Attorneys and clients make hundreds of decisions in every litigation case. From initially deciding which attorney to retain to deciding which witnesses to call at trial, from deciding whether to ?le a complaint to deciding whether to appeal a verdict, attorneys and clients make multiple, critical decisions about strategies, costs, arguments, valuations, evidence and negotiations. Once made, these de- sions are scrutinized by an opponent intent on exploiting the consequences of any mistake. In this intense and adversarial arena, decision-making errors often are transparent, irreversible and dispositive, wielding the power to bankrupt clients and dissolve law ?rms. Although attorneys and clients may regard sound decision making as incidental to effective lawyering, sound decision making actually is the essence of effective lawyering. An attorney’s knowledge, intelligence and experience are inert re- urces until the attorney decides how to deploy those skills to serve the client’s interests. Those decisions, in turn, largely determine a case’s course and outcome.

Written for legal professionals, this comprehensive desk reference lists, categorizes and describes hundreds of free and fee-based Internet sites. You'll find it useful for investigations, depositions, and trial presentations, as well as company and medical research, gathering competitive intelligence, finding expert witnesses, and fact checking of all kinds.