The essential civil litigation handbook devoted to the "HOW TO's " of California procedure. The California Code of Civil Procedure, California Rules of Court, and Judicial Council forms are combined so that the reader learns for any given task: which form to use, how to complete it, and how and when to file and serve it. This step-by-step litigation handbook is used by attorneys, paralegals, and legal secretaries both as a quick reference and as a training tool, and has been adopted as a text by several California college paralegal and legal secretarial programs. Additionally, law librarians of numerous California county law libraries keep it on reserve to help self-represented litigants. Updated at least annually to reflect new rules and forms, the book contains over 390 pages explaining the various phases of a California civil case. Chapters include: Appearance by Plaintiff (preparing the Complaint and all required forms, filing and serving by all allowable methods); Filing and Service (filing and serving documents throughout the case); Default by Defendant (entering a default and obtaining default judgment); Appearance by Defendant (preparing, filing, and serving answers and cross-complaints); Motions (preparing regular motions, discovery motions, ex parte applications, demurrers, and motions to strike); Discovery (setting up depositions of parties and non-parties, preparing, serving, and responding to requests for admission, interrogatories, and requests for production); Settlement and Dismissal (notifying the court of settlement and dismissing the case); Pre-Trial (preparing case management documentation and subpoenaing witnesses); and Judgment and Enforcement (placing liens on real estate, noticing judgment debtor exams, obtaining costs of suit).

California Civil Litigation and Discovery (“CCLD”) is a 218-page coil bound book updated as of January 2020 (10th Edition) which takes a substantive approach to litigation, e.g., what the pleadings should say (naming parties, jurisdiction, stating elements of causes of action), rather than what they look like and how they are filed and served; discovery strategies and drafting hints (scope of discovery, discovery plans, drafting written discovery, objections, and responses) rather than format, limits, and deadlines, etc.-- from publisher's web site.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

In the wrong hands, math can be deadly. Even the simplest numbers can become powerful forces when manipulated by politicians or the media, but in the case of the law, your liberty -- and your life -- can depend on the right calculation. In Math on Trial, mathematicians Leila Schneps and Coralie Colmez describe ten trials spanning from the nineteenth century to today, in which mathematical arguments were used -- and disastrously misused -- as evidence. They tell the stories of Sally Clark, who was accused of murdering her children by a doctor with a faulty sense of calculation; of nineteenth-century tycoon Hetty Green, whose dispute over her aunt's will became a signal case in the forensic use of mathematics; and of the case of Amanda Knox, in which a judge's misunderstanding of probability led him to discount critical evidence -- which might have kept her in jail. Offering a fresh angle on cases from the nineteenth-century Dreyfus affair to the murder trial of Dutch nurse Lucia de Berk, Schneps and Colmez show how the improper application of mathematical concepts can mean the difference between walking free and life in prison. A colorful narrative of mathematical abuse, Math on Trial blends courtroom drama, history, and math to show that legal expertise isn't't always enough to prove a person innocent.

In recent years, stories of reckless lawyers and greedy citizens have given the legal system, and victims in general, a bad name. Many Americans have come to believe that we live in the land of the litigious, where frivolous lawsuits and absurdly high settlements reign. Scholars have argued for years that this common view of the depraved ruin of our civil legal system is a myth, but their research and statistics rarely make the news. William Haltom and Michael McCann here persuasively show how popularized distorted understandings of tort litigation (or tort tales) have been perpetuated by the mass media and reform proponents. Distorting the Law lays bare how media coverage has sensationalized lawsuits and sympathetically portrayed corporate interests, supporting big business and reinforcing negative stereotypes of law practices. Based on extensive interviews, nearly two decades of newspaper coverage, and in-depth studies of the McDonald's coffee case and tobacco litigation, Distorting the Law offers a compelling analysis of the presumed litigation crisis, the campaign for tort law reform, and the crucial role the media play in this process.