I did not want to let this conduct slide any longer, and rather than talk to the court attorney about our discovery disputes like we had done in the past, I requested that we talk to the judge. I remember one time, I was at a court conference with an adversary who had failed to produce documents despite several prior orders requiring that this attorney produce the materials. It didn’t even matter if my conduct was aimed at bettering my client, attorneys would still threaten to complain about my performance to the boss, and some actually followed through on this threat. Sometimes, if I was being a “hard charger” at a court conference or a deposition, an adversary would threaten me and say that they would complain about my conduct to more senior attorneys at my firm with whom they were friendly. However, when I worked at various firms, there were a number of different partners to which I had to report. One of the best things about starting my own law practice is that I no longer have to report to a boss. I ended up actually mailing him four apples and honey, and in my note I said, “I might need another week’s extension!” It was great to not be burdened with this assignment over the holiday, and everyone can make sure that people’s personal plans are not unnecessarily interrupted by legal work. He jokingly stated that he would accept two apples and honey for a week’s extension. I asked my adversary if he would give me an adjournment, and he didn’t want to, since the case had been delayed for years. My adversary was due to submit his papers right before Passover, forcing me to draft my response over the holiday. I don’t think my adversary even knew that I held off on serving the document for his benefit, but it was still the right thing to do.Įarlier in my career, I was on the receiving end of a similar courtesy. However, I waited until first thing Monday morning to serve the document, since there was no real deadline to serving it, and I did not want to bother my adversary over the holiday weekend. ![]() I finished writing a document on Good Friday, and I thought about sending it to my adversary that day in order to get this document off my desk. As a result, many people, including a number of lawyers I know, took vacations. From Lex Machina and Above The LawĪ few weeks ago, Passover, Good Friday, and Easter occurred over the same weekend, and a number of schools were off for Spring Break. Join us for a September 15th webinar, where we’ll take a deep dive into crafting winning appellate strategies using Legal Analytics. Such a move can strain relationships when it is time to settle a case, and it is just wrong to disadvantage people by employing this tactic. If you really trust your legal abilities, you do not need to employ sneaky tactics like hiding notices to admit in other materials. Although perhaps there is an innocent explanation for this, I think this was an attempt by my adversaries to make me overlook the notices to admit. On several occasions, attorneys have sent me massive combined discovery demands and other documents and hid notices to admit right in the middle of this large stack of papers. ![]() For instance, in New York, it is very important that notices to admit be responded to within the prescribed timeframe or a responding party could face serious consequences. One of the dirtiest tactics litigators employ is to hide important legal documents in the middle of other materials that party is serving on another. Watch this on-demand webinar to learn the latest on how your firm can benefit. Search-engine optimization continues to evolve.
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