U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn, the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, is a pioneer in incentivizing law firms to give oral advocacy opportunities to young lawyers. Around 10 years ago, Judge Lynn issued an order “strongly [encouraging] litigants to be mindful of opportunities for young lawyers to conduct […]
Michael Radler’s article in the New York Law Journal provides another interesting and insightful take on providing opportunities for junior attorneys to participate in meaningful trial advocacy. Mr. Radler expresses the view that allowing junior attorneys an opportunity to argue a motion in court or cross-examining a witness at trial not only ensures that there will be […]
On March 1, 2017, Mathias Samuel of Fish & Richardson filed a notice that a junior attorney would be arguing at an upcoming hearing—this time, before Judge Nelson in Minnesota District Court. The notice explained that Conrad Gosen, a fourth year associate, would be arguing the construction of several contested terms related to technology for […]
Junior Attorneys Argue Post-Trial Briefing Before Judge Kronstadt On March 6, 2017, second year associate, Oliver Richards, and seventh year associate, Joanna Fuller, argued post-trial motions before Judge Kronstadt in the Central District of California. The case began in 2013 when CH2O, a water treatment company, sued competitor Meras Engineering for infringing ITS patent on […]
Today, January 23, 2017, Judge Christopher J. Burke, United States Magistrate Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, issued the first Next Gen Order to come out of the court. The Order, repeated below, addresses concerns voiced by some in-house counsel and trial lawyers that negative inferences might be drawn […]
Friday August 12, Judge Alsup renewed his plea for parties to allow junior attorneys to participate in oral arguments and gain courtroom experience. His admonition came in the midst of a heated battle between Oracle and Google as counsel argued whether or not Oracle’s Java code can be copyrighted. A jury trial in May resulted […]
Litigation is not what it used to be. The vast majority of lawsuits tend to settle rather than go to trial, due in part to high cost and the rise of alternative dispute resolution. This “vanishing trial” trend, first coined by Professor Marc Galanter in 2003,[1] means less than 1% of civil cases filed in the […]
Though Judicial Orders play a key role in creating opportunities for junior lawyers, trial lawyers can also initiate the discussion with the court. We have advocated for lawyers to raise the topic in case management conferences, pre-trial conferences and other conferences focused on how the case or trial will be managed. Even without a conference […]
Judge Lynn makes the following part of her standard patent scheduling order: 11. The Court is aware of a trend today in which fewer cases go to trial, and in which there are generally fewer speaking or “stand-up” opportunities in court, particularly for young lawyers (i.e., lawyers practicing for less than seven years). The Court […]
In 2015, the ABA issued a report entitled First Chairs at Trial: More Women Need Seats at the Table. The report used data from cases filed in the Northern District of Illinois in 2013, concluding that only 24% of the lead counsel across both civil and criminal cases were women (23% in intellectual property cases and 15% […]
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