A jury trial is often described as a contest between competing stories, but a persuasive story cannot replace reliable evidence. Jurors must decide what…
Articles
Why Fact-Finding Matters In A Jury Trial
When Legal Strategy Meets Historical Context
Legal disputes are often presented as contests between rules, evidence and advocacy. Yet every rule has a history, every institution carries inherited…
The Supreme Court’s Role in Protecting Civil Liberties
Civil liberties are often described as abstract principles, yet they become tangible when a person is arrested, a newspaper is censored, a minority group is…
How to argue a motion for summary judgment effectively
A motion for summary judgment asks a court to decide whether a dispute needs a trial at all. The moving party says the material facts are settled, the law…
Why Legal History Matters in Everyday Legal Practice
Legal history is often treated as a specialist interest: useful for academics, constitutional lawyers and authors of biographies about judges, but remote from…
Environmental Claims in the Trial Court
Environmental litigation rarely turns on a single dramatic fact. A leaking tank, a plume beneath a factory, a fish kill or a contaminated residential block may…
The Constitution and the long rise of administrative power
When the delegates gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, they produced a document that said a great deal about legislatures, courts, and executives, yet said…
How American Culture Reflects the Realities of Its Legal System
The American courtroom has always been more than a place where disputes are resolved. It is a stage where the nation's deepest disagreements over power,…
The Art of the Opening Statement: Winning the Jury's Attention
The courtroom falls silent as the lawyer rises to deliver the opening statement. In that suspended moment, twelve strangers settle into their chairs, paper…
Lessons learned from decades of banking litigation
For close to forty years my professional life has revolved around disputes between borrowers and the institutions that fund them. The work has carried me from…