Today’s
post is written with law students everywhere in mind. Many of you are facing your first summer
legal jobs, or perhaps you are getting ready to join the workforce. In all
events – congratulations!
We
wanted to bring to your attention (and to remind others of) three resources
published as part of the American Jurisprudence series: (1) Proof of Facts; (2) Trials; and (3) Pleadings and
Practice Forms Annotated. The
purpose of all three of these resources is to prevent lawyers from “recreating
the wheel” – a poor practice that results in lost time and unhappy supervisors.
American
Jurisprudence Proof of Facts (“POF”),
now in its third series, helps the litigator to ferret out the facts that are essential
to winning or defending a case, and explains how to prove those facts. All
types of litigation are described, including personal injury, various types of
employment matters such as discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination,
real estate litigation, to name just a few. The publisher (Thomson Reuters)
states that the articles are written by “judges, attorneys and
experts in technical, scientific and medical fields.”
To find an entry on your topic, use
the 5-volume print index. Let’s take a look at one entry – “Establishing
Elements for Disregarding Corporate Entity and Piercing Entity’s Veil,” 114 Am.
Jur. POF 3d 403. Each entry starts with an Introduction outlining the scope of
the article, and providing a grounding in the particular area of law. The one
for this subject includes a useful section on tests for applying the piercing
doctrine. The next major section is about establishing the elements for
disregarding an entity’s veil. Other sections go on to describe pleading
requirements, burdens of proof, and examples of how to prove the elements. You
might not think of POF as a place to
look for sample discovery, but it is – all entries have sample discovery
requests as well as sample examinations and cross examinations.
Two unusual volumes come with this
series – an Attorney’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, and the Fact Book.
Chapter 1 of the Fact Book consists of medical illustrations; Chapter 2 has product
liability facts; Chapter 3 has statistical information; Chapter 4 has
information on how to obtain birth, death and divorce records; and Chapter 5
provides information about various engineering, legal and medical associations,
all included with the aim of aiding the practitioner in bringing or defending
various types of lawsuits.
American Jurisprudence Trials contains articles on successful
techniques and strategies used in actual cases. As is POF, Trials is written by
prominent trial attorneys, judges, and legal experts. The set consists of more
than 100 volumes, and guides researchers through every step of litigation from
preliminary considerations to motions for costs. It even covers aspects of
trial often overlooked by novice litigators, such as the section dealing with
body language for trial lawyers. This chapter gives practical advice on how to
move from a sitting to a standing position. Readers are reminded: “your movement from one area of the courtroom
to another radiates dozens of different messages to jurors and judge, ranging
from ineptitude to confidence, from amateurism to professionalism, from fear to
courage.” The chapter also explains how to read the cues coming from the judge
and jurors, so you can adjust your actions based on how you are being perceived
by your audience.
One of
the best features of Trials is the
illustrative forms, or examples. One of
the most frequently-asked questions that we get here at the Law Library from
our students is: “I need an example of __________[fill in the blank with
anything imaginable]." Trials is full of examples of complaints,
depositions, interrogatories, and all types of motions. There’s a good chance
that researchers will find exactly what they need. Most topics also have
checklists for trial preparation. Trials
comes with a multi-volume index and some volumes contain an individual index in
the back of the volume.
The last
resource we want to bring to your attention is American Jurisprudence Pleading and Practice Forms Annotated (State
and Federal) (“PPF”). PPF describes
itself as “a comprehensive … collection of pleading and practice forms,
including jury instructions and checklists, … designed to provide dependable
forms for all types of pleading and procedural steps...”
Here is an example of
how this resource can be useful. Say you have a client who wants to contest a
will because the client believes the testator was the victim of undue
influence. Find the volume covering Wills, and by going to the table of
contents for that volume you will discover a number of petitions in opposition
to probate due to various kinds of undue influence. Now, we would not normally
suggest that you start your research by consulting a table of contents, but in
this instance, the Index is poor, despite being multiple volumes. For example,
we were unable to find material on “undue influence” in the Will context using
the Index but could find that material by going through the Table of Contents
in the Will volume. We would be happy to have someone double check us and prove
us wrong about the Index, but at this point, we think it is lacking. Even the
index in the back of the Will volume did not have entries for duress.
All three of these resources are available online at WestlawNext. We hope
you find this post useful. Good luck with your summer jobs!
Nicole and Renee
