"Trying a case is an incredibly exciting and terrifying experience. While thorough preparation is crucial to performing effectively in court, the trial is a dynamic process that often requires even the most comprehensively prepared attorneys to adapt on the spot to the shifting sands in the courtroom. This book teaches fundamental trial advocacy skills, and it helps readers both prepare systematically for what they can expect to face in the courtroom and handle those sands as they shift. The authors offer tips on how to sharpen and shape one's advocacy for different settings as well as creative strategies for trying a case with limited financial resources. An entire chapter devoted to using courtroom technology is also included.A CD, Casefiles for Becoming a Trial Lawyer, authored by Steven Grossman and Michele Gilman, accompanies the book. It contains five full casefiles and three mini-cases designed to let readers practice the skills and strategies discussed in the substantive book.These realistic simulations include both civil and criminal cases and include a summary of the case, the relevant law, witness and expert depositions and statements, and a wide array of exhibits. The CD's detailed teacher's manual includes suggestions for how to use these materials, summaries of the particular skills that each casefile is intended to develop; and comprehensive analysis of the direct and cross-examinations of every witness in each case. Taken together, Becoming a Trial Lawyer and the casefiles provide invaluable materials for readers wanting to take that significant first step on the road to becoming an effective courtroom lawyer."

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.

Trial and Error is a legal memoir that gives an unvarnished account of life as one of America's leading trial lawyers; detailing the path from nervous novice to the top of the legal profession. In 1958, John C. Tucker began a legal career that would lead the Chicago Tribune to call him "one of Chicago's finest and most idiosyncratic trial lawyers." Now, in a book reminiscent of Scott Turow's classic One L, Tucker employs painstaking honesty and fascinating detail to illuminate the difficult steps in learning the trial trade and the reality of life as one of the country's leading civil and criminal trial lawyers. Free of the impenetrable language and self-congratulation found in the memoirs of many trial lawyers' memoirs, Tucker skillfully chronicles an extraordinary variety of engrossing cases. From the infamous 1969 trial of the "Chicago Eight" war protesters -- including Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden and Bobbie Seale, heard before the notorious Judge Julius Hoffman -- to one of the most important civil rights cases of the era, the Supreme Court decision that spelled the death knell for the corrupt political patronage system in Mayor Daley's Chicago, Tucker's career spanned three decades of legal landmarks. In Trial and Error Tucker becomes the star witness whose crisp prose and penetrating voice carries readers rung by rung up the legal ladder, altering common misconceptions of lawyers and their craft. Relating both the highs and lows, while also recounting tales from the trial of a giant Mafia gambling ring to a legal showdown with heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, Tucker gives aspiring young attorneys, law students, recent graduates, and all fans of courtroom drama -- and comedy -- the chance to see it all through the eyes of the man in the middle of the ring.

Basic trial advocacy is the classic text on the presentation of civil and criminal cases in court. Since its publication in 2005 it has been used in countless law school and continuing professional education programs to impart with clarity and simplicity the basic skills of effective trial presentation. It is a useful guide and refresher even for the experienced practitioner when going to court.