Month: May 2021

I recorded my presentation on this topic for the May 28 seminar on Federal Court Practice earlier this week.

It draws from a paper I co-wrote with Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne several years ago. A number of years ago I started doing a presentation on motion practice in federal court, which I first presented with Judge Amos Mazzant at this seminar, and eventually decided that trial procedure was really the more fun topic since we were trying a lot of cases, so I traded up for the trial topic.

Both papers were originally envisioned as tools for a panel presentation with the co-presenting judge where their role was to heckle me when I presented the conventional wisdom on the topics, which I think is a good way to show attendees different perspectives on the topic from lawyers and judges. But Judge Mazzant was too nice to heckle me effectively, and Judge Payne was too effective at it (you wouldn’t think, but he really is), so I decided to pick up my slides and start doing the presentation by myself where I cannot be contradicted. I get enough of that in my day job as it is.

This year’s presentation is updated to reflect – in an anonymous sort of way – some of my experiences last month in trial in front of Judge Mazzant and Judge Gilstrap, as well as some of NDTX Chief Judge Barbara Lynn’s thoughts on lawyers being slobs in remote proceedings.

Information regarding the seminar – which streams starting May 28 – is above, and the actual paper and slides are below the fold.