"A readable and enjoyable book of interest to the lay public, litigators and aficionados of trials alike...well worth reading."
-- "CBA Record"

"Delightful and insightful...He knows how to tell a story, and he knows that facts depend on perceptions."
-- "ABA Journal"

"Lubet's ability to downplay advocacy techniques while emphasizing the rich context of facts, story, and personalities is superb"
--"Choice"

"A delightful and insightful book [that] entertains as it instructs."
--"ABA Journal"

"This excellent set of essays, both scholarly and imaginative, offers a rare bridge between the parallel universes of legal scholarship and courtroom practice. There is no better guide to the enterprise of storytelling in the law than Steve Lubet."
--Marianne Wesson, Professor of Law, University of Chicago

Lubet's Nothing But The Truth presents a novel and engaging analysis of the role of storytelling in trial advocacy. The best lawyers are storytellers, he explains, who take the raw and disjointed observations of witnesses and transform them into coherent and persuasive narratives.

Critics of the adversary system, of course, have little patience for storytelling, regarding trial lawyers as flimflam artists who use sly means and cunning rhetoric to befuddle witnesses and bamboozle juries. Why not simply allow the witnesses to speak their minds, without the distorting influence of lawyers' stratagems and feints?

But Lubet demonstrates that the craft of lawyer storytelling is a legitimate technique for determining the truth andnot at all coincidentallyfor providing the best defense for the attorney's client. Storytelling accomplishes three important purposes attrial. It helps to establish a "theory of the case," which is a plausible and reasonable explanation of the underlying events, presented in the light most favorable to the attorney's client. Storytelling also develops the "trial theme," which is the lawyer's way of adding moral force to the desired outcome. Most importantly, storytelling provides a coherent "story frame," which organizes all of the events, transactions, and other surrounding facts into an easily understandable narrative context.

As with all powerful tools, storytelling may be misused to ill purposes. Therefore, as Lubet explains, lawyers do not have carte blanche to tell whatever stories they choose. It is a creative process to be sure, but every story must ultimately be based on "nothing but the truth." There is no room for lying.

On the other hand, it is obvious that trial lawyers never tell "the whole truth," since life and experience are boundless and therefore not fully describable. No lawyer or court of law can ever get at the whole truth, but the attorney who effectively employs the techniques of storytelling will do the best job of sorting out competing claims and facts, thereby helping the court arrive at a decision that serves the goals of accuracy and justice.

To illustrate the various challenges, benefits, and complexities of storytelling, Lubet elaborates the stories of six different trials. Some of the cases are real, including John Brown and Wyatt Earp, while some are fictional, including Atticus Finch and Liberty Valance. In each chapter, the emphasis is on the narrative itself, emphasizing the trial's rich context of facts and personalities. The overall conclusion, as Lubet puts it, is that"purposive storytelling provides a necessary dimension to our adversary system of justice."

In the midst of exclamatory headlines, such as "Son Sues to Divorce His Mother," "Surrogate Mother Refuses to Turn Over Baby" and "Facebook Divorces on the Rise," Statsky's FAMILY LAW, 7E helps you find an accurate picture of the state of family law today and your role, as a paralegal, within it. You examine issues truly impacting family law, such as no-fault divorce, the women's movement, and the impact of science and technology on concepts of parentage. Engaging changes, such as new mechanisms for pursuing parents not paying child support and the court's support of unmarried fathers seeking to undo their children's adoptions, keep you reading as you learn. In addition to presenting fundamental principles of family law and current nationwide legal practices, this edition provides state-specific assignments for applying family law in your local area. Legal analysis exercises, real forms, documents and cases further prepare you to work with the actual tools and processes family law professionals use today.

This fourth edition of the well-established practitioner text sets out what constitutes an electronic signature, the form an electronic signature can take, and discusses the issues relating to evidence - illustrated by analysis of relevant case law and legislation from a wide range of common law and civil law jurisdictions. Stephen Mason is a leading authority on electronic signatures and electronic evidence, having advised global corporations and governments on these topics. He is also the editor of Electronic Evidence and International Electronic Evidence, and he founded the international open-source journal Digital Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review in 2004. This book is also available online at http://ials.sas.ac.uk/digital/humanities-digital-library/observing-law-ials-open-book-service-law.

Obtaining an accurate and comprehensive overview of performance throughout the firm is no easy undertaking - there are numerous aspects of the firm to inspect and many varying streams of information to consider. From individual partner performance to firm-wide cash flow, correctly measuring and managing performance involves a keen eye on both the micro and macro aspects of the firm. Measuring and Managing Performance for Law Firms offers an overview of the measurement and metrics that firms can employ to effectively manage their work force and firm-wide performance. Discussing a range of topics from metrics that stimulate innovative thinking, effectively managing high-performance teams and dealing with stress in the work place, and implementing "balanced scorecards" and "opportunity scoring assessments" to track firm performance and effectively utilize internal information resources.

This timely book explains how to plan, manage and evaluate the effectiveness of your firm's training programme. Designed to help your firm meet the continuing competence requirements, it provides a suite of tools to help with every aspect of the training process. It includes policies and tools for recording training and development plans in key areas such as: strategic planning trainees and the period of recognised training designing training delivering training organising training continuing competence. Expert commentary is included on how to use each of the tools, and the documents are provided on the book's accompanying CD-ROM, enabling them to be customised as needed.

"In-house practice is a growing area and the In-house Lawyers' Toolkit is the only precedent and toolkit resource available which is exclusively devoted to the requirements of this important sector. This unique toolkit provides an accessible, relevant resource for both new and experienced in-house practitioners to work from, adapt, and to act as a catalyst for their thinking to provide timely, high quality and cost-effective advice to their organisation. In particular, it will lead the practitioner through the processes of managing an in-house function, including: The development of a strategy for legal services in your organisation How to decide what legal services to buy, and from where Appointing, reviewing, managing and ending Panel relationships Working with alternative legal sourcing providers Managing the in-house team, and Leveraging and demonstrating value. The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM which contains valuable and time-saving precedents allowing the reader to identify and implement best practice in their own in-house environment, and to develop and adapt systems and processes as appropriate. "

The current surge of displaced and trafficked children, child soldiers, and child refugees rekindles the virtually dead letter of the Genocide Convention prohibition on transferring children of one group to another. This book focuses on the gap between genocide as a legal term and genocidal forcible child transfer as a catastrophic experience that disrupts a group's continuity. It probes the Genocide Convention's boundaries and draws attention to the diverse, yet highly similar, patterns of forcible child transfers cases such as colonial genocide in the US, Canada, and Australia, Jewish-Yemeni immigrants in Israel, children of Republican parents during the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, and Operation Peter Pan in Cuba. The analysis highlights the consequences of the under-inclusive protection granted only to four groups. Ruth Amir argues effectively for the need to add an Amending Protocol to the Genocide Convention to protect from forcible transfer to children of any identifiable group of persons perpetrated with the intent to destroy the group as such. This proposed provision together with Communications and Rapid Inquiry Procedures will highlight the gravity of forcible child transfers and contribute to the prevention and punishment of genocide.

Although legal innovation is critical for law firms, with clients pushing for more efficient, cost-effective, and automated services, very little has been written about how to drive successful enterprise-wide transformation efforts. As innovation and legal operations functions proliferate globally, Nicola Shaver has written the first definitive book to guide legal professionals through setting up an effective innovation function and driving successful culture change and initiatives across a legal organization. In The Handbook for Legal Innovation, Shaver, the 2020 ILTA Legal Innovation Leader of the Year and a College of Law Practice Management Fellow, outlines how to set up an effective strategy for innovation, provides practical guides for conducting current-state audits, establishes frameworks to help identify project priorities, and outlines how to build and grow the right team. With 20 years of experience in the legal industry, including a decade each of practicing law and driving innovation initiatives in large legal organizations, Shaver draws upon her experience as well as broad industry knowledge to inform this practical guide. In addition to strategy suggestions, the Handbook delves deeply into methodologies for change. Shaver provides an overview of effective methods drawn from other industries that can be leveraged within legal to support and supercharge innovation efforts, equipping lawyers and legal innovation leaders with tools that will help them drive real change within their organizations.

The law is a 'knowledge' business. The success of any law firm depends on the expertise and skills of the people who work in it. The Legal Training Handbook is a guide for anyone who has responsibility for any level of training in a firm or an in-house legal department. This concise handbook includes: what would-be employers can expect their prospective trainees to have been taught what is expected of 'supervisors' of trainees the standards trainees must achieve what training obligations qualified solicitors have to satisfy. A new addition to the Law Society's range of practical handbooks, this guide is fully up-to-date covering: the recent recommendations of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) the recommendations' initial implementation by the frontline regulators including the SRA the revised SRA Training Regulations and the new Code. This timely and user-friendly publication discusses why your firm should invest in training and how to measure the results. It analyses both the commercial and the regulatory aspects of training. Legal Education and Training Handbook is thorough and primarily suitable for medium to large size law firms in England and Wales.It would also be of interest to other legal professionals, such as barristers, licensed conveyancers and IP practitioners.

EU law is an autonomous legal system. It requires its own methodology. The contributions to this volume provide elements of a genuinely European legal method. They discuss the foundations of European legal methodology in Roman law and in the development of national legal methods in the 19th century as well as the economic and comparative background. Core issues of legal methods such as the sources of law, the interpretation of EU primary law and secondary legislation, the concretisation of general clauses, and judicial development of the law are also analysed. The temporal effects of EU directives on the one hand and of judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the other raise specific issues of EU law. Contributions are also devoted to issues of a multi-level legal system. Beyond general aspects, directives, in particular, raise special questions: what is their impact on the interpretation of national law; and what are the methodological consequences of a transposition of directives beyond their original scope ('gold-plating')? Further contributions inquire into methodological issues in contract law, employment law, company law, capital market law and competition law. They illustrate the general aspects of European legal methods with a view to specific applications and also reveal specific issues of methods which occur in these areas. Finally, legal methods from national perspectives of different Member States, namely France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, are examined. The authors reveal national traditions of legal methods and national preconceptions and illustrate the application of EU legal methods in different national contexts.

Since the publication of its first edition in 2005, Advocacy Practice for Social Justice has served as a clear, comprehensive, and practical resource for social work courses in advocacy, community practice, and macro practice. Now in its fourth edition, this text provides extensive information on the value base for advocacy; an examination of why people get involved in advocacy; and step-by-step instructions for social workers and others who want to impact laws, regulations, and policies at any level. Bearing in mind the National Association of Social Workers' Code of Ethics' requirements to advocate on behalf of vulnerable populations, readers learn that advocacy is a problem-solving technique similar to that used in social work practice of all types. The book moves through the stages of advocacy: getting involved; understanding the issue; planning; advocating through education, persuasion, and negotiation; presenting information effectively; monitoring and evaluating results; and integrating advocacy into a social worker's everyday practice. The fourth edition's inclusion of new topics and solid foundation in social work values make it a must-read as social work students and practitioners work diligently to maintain the profession's focus on successful advocacy for social justice.

Beyond the Courtroom provides a compilation of articles and chapters by a dispute resolution scholar who has made remarkable contributions over his thirty-year career. Professor Abramson has focused his research and practice on parties trying to resolve their own disputes. This book includes publications that have contributed to launching the then new field of mediation representation with special attention on how attorneys, as gate keepers to mediation, can effectively represent clients. The book also includes his original publications that have contributed to the emerging field of intercultural and international mediation and the already robust and mature field of negotiations.

The contemporary legal landscape is no longer a rigid hierarchy composed of limited and complacent behemoths, but rather an ecosystem, filled with a wide variety of players that facilitate disruption and revolution and jostle for clients' attention with agility and innovation. This includes - but is certainly not limited to - entities such as technology companies, consultants, alternative legal service providers, and paraprofessionals. Law firms are not the only ones in this environment that must adapt or fail; the legal department and in-house counsel, too, must transform in order to remain relevant and competitive. The world of the general counsel (GC) has already seen massive shifts - ever-increasing globalization has meant more legal issues and corporate activism, which in turn has generated new challenges and heightened demand. The GC cannot simply act in the role of outsourcer of work to external counsel, as in the past. With the growth of legal departments (it is now not uncommon for legal departments to number in the hundreds or even thousands, often formed of expensive lateral hires) the GC must now wear a number of hats, including that of the "CEO" of their department. The introduction of data analysis into the legal space and the oft-repeated mantra of "less with more" has meant that the GC must now think in terms of spend and budget more than ever before, transforming the legal department from a cost-center to a value-add. They must cultivate a breadth and scope of vision, able to organize and lead their department as an innovator. The flourishing legal ops role also provides yet another challenge for the GC. As the incorporation of legal ops within the law department becomes increasingly essential, the GC must work to ensure alignment and manage change. The present time has been hailed as the golden age of in-house lawyering, yet - and perhaps because of this - it is an uncertain and challenging time for the GC. Tipping Point: Transformation and Innovation in the Legal Department is intended as a handbook for the GC looking to build a truly modern legal department and revolutionize their role. Encompassing aspects from leveraging influence with the c-suite to reimagining organizational hierarchies and seeking the right operational professional, this publication features contributions from those at the frontiers of the profession as it transforms and embraces new areas of expertise.

Among the men who rose to power in France in 1789, lawyers were heavily represented. To a large extent, they also shaped the evolution of French political culture of the ancien regime. Lawyers and Citizens traces the development of the French legal profession between the reign of Louis XIV and the French Revolution, showing how lawyers influenced, and were influenced by, the period's passionate political and religious conflicts. David Bell analyzes how these key "middling" figures in French society were transformed from the institutional technicians of absolute monarchy into the self-appointed "voices of public opinion", and leaders of opposition political phamphleteering. He describes the birth of an independent legal profession in the late seventeenth century, its alienation from the monarchy under the pressure of religious disputes in the early eighteenth century, and its transformation into a standard-bearer of "enlightened" opinion in the decades before the Revolution. Lawyers and Citizens also illuminates the workings of politics under a theoretically absolute monarchy, and the importance of long-standing constitutional debates for the ideological origins of the Revolution. It also sheds new light on the development of the modern professions, and of the French legal system. Based on extensive primary research, this study will be of interest to historians and legal scholars alike.

The SRA's latest report on financial stability (February 2014) said its engagement with firms found poor financial management that ranged from "naive to reckless". They have also seen poor practice in the management of client accounts. This toolkit will help firms to address those common financial issues facing many firms. This toolkit will cover the following: What the requirement to maintain financial stability will mean in practice for firms. What are the danger signals and how can action be taken to remedy them? The steps that need to be taken to take control of cash management in order to achieve financial stability. Part of our popular toolkit series, it will contain a mixture of draft policies, procedural checklists and other instruments to assist practitioners in demonstrating sound financial management. The aim is to produce a working resource which practitioners can use to monitor the financial health of the firm. It will form part of a series of toolkits branded with the livery of the Risk and Compliance Service.

How do practitioners draft a contract of employment that is both comprehensive and comprehensible? One that covers necessary complexities but is clear? Save time and money by following the tried and tested guidance and clauses in Drafting Employment Contracts. This invaluable book offers practical and thorough coverage both as a tool to draft employment contracts and also as a guide for creating policy and executing it. Fully updated, this new third edition includes new precedents on checks on job applicants, a new policy on whistle blowing and also covers: * major changes on sickness and absence * changes to the law and case law on maternity, paternity and shared maternity leave * new flexible working rights * changes to drafting of email internet abuse and social networking policies * new case law includes: status of worker; whether refusing time off to attend religious festivals constitutes indirect religious discrimination; travel abroad and employer's duty of care and guidance.

It has never been more important for law firms to plan for the future. A highly competitive market, an aging profession, the changing ambitions of younger generations, many of whom place greater importance on work-life balance than reaching top leadership levels, and a long-held reluctance to discuss retirement and succession, all combine to create what some are calling a succession crisis. It is time to face the issue head-on and start putting systems in place to ensure the long-term success and health of lawyers and their firms: succession planning is the answer to this. A successful succession encompasses two core elements: transitioning firm management to a new generation, and transferring client relationships. This title provides guidance not only on how these two transitions can be achieved effectively, from the perspectives of both individual partners and the firm, but also on the plethora of issues involved in preparing for the departure of retiring partners and transitioning in new leadership, including compensation, the role of diversity and inclusion and financial considerations. It also considers situations where more specific and specialised plans may be required, such as managing the succession of a rainmaker or a founding partner. A strong and effective succession plan ensures that clients are retained over the long-term, retiring partners leave optimistic and satisfied, future leaders are in place and prepared for their roles, and the firm continues to grow and flourish. The shift to a more remote work environment has also made the institutionalising of processes such as succession planning even more important. By providing a thorough understanding of its many elements, this title explains how effective succession planning can be implemented and ensure smooth leadership and client transitions, securing and enhancing the current and future success of partners and their firms.

Advocacy skills, which are learnt in the moot court, as a precursor to the effective communication of persuasive legal argument, are essential for those seeking a career in law. The skills associated with successful mooting, cover the entire range of the domains of human activity: intellectual, physical and emotional. This informative book examines the theories relevant to the development of skills necessary for effective participation in competition moots. By consideration of underlying theories, Mark Thomas and Lucy Cradduck develop unique models of the skills of the cognitive, psychomotor and affective domains and effective team dynamics, emphasising the importance of written submissions. The authors use this analysis to develop a unique integrated model that informs the process of coaching moot teams according to reliable principles. The Art of Mooting distils the theories and principles that support successful moot performances, grounding these in practical examples of how a mooter's skills may be developed and improved. It is an essential guide for moot coaches, law and advocacy students and academics seeking to improve their skills, and new and existing practitioners.

"Legislative Learning" breaks new theoretical and descriptive ground in examining the political perceptions, policy principles and power plays of the influential 104th Republican freshmen in the U.S. House. This even-handed book builds on the work of leading congressional scholars, and provides a detailed evaluation of coalition politics, freshmen style. Barnett shows how political environments can produce legislators who place a premium on their policy-making goals through a nuanced exploration of factors undergirding member perceptions, policy ambitions, class cohesion, and legislative learning.

Select Legal Topics is a compendium of legal journal articles covering a wide spectrum of topics in the fields of criminal law, evidence, civil procedure, family law, labor and employment law, civil rights, tort law, and federal procedure. For example, the reprinted criminal law articles include analyses of suppression motions and the requirement that the criminal defendant be afforded a speedy trial. The section on evidence includes articles that analyze polygraph and DNA evidence. The civil procedures articles consider the requirement of filing a notice of claim when a municipality is the subject of a lawsuit, and developments in trial by jury. Articles covering family law consider artificial insemination and paternity, as well as child abuse and child negligence. The labor and employment articles include analyses of discrimination in the workplace and trial by jury. The civil rights articles mainly consider the Civil Rights Statute 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. The articles focusing on tort law include analyses of loss of consortium, the intentional infliction of mental distress, and baseball liability. Finally, the federal procedure articles consider eminent domain, pretrial orders, the finality requirement in federal appeals, and an analysis of rules 15 and 16 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This book will serve to inform laymen, students, lawyers, law professors, and perhaps, the judiciary, of ideas and developments in these fields of law.

Every year firms close for a variety of reasons, including sale or merger, but what happens if you haven't prepared to exit the market? The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has stressed the need for firms to have an exit strategy in place to prepare for this eventuality, meet regulatory requirements and good practice standards, and avoid potential fines. The Exit Strategies Toolkit contains a mixture of commentary, procedural checklists, such as a notification checklist, draft policies and precedents, including sample letters to PI insurers and the SRA, to help you to prepare for this eventuality.

Increasing international cooperation in tackling the worldwide problem of child abuse and neglect has helped to raise the profile of this important issue. Scholarly literature on the problem is growing, yet there is still a pressing need for a legal comparative commentary on the issue of child abuse claims in tort. Addressing this omission, this valuable work investigates how the factual circumstances as laid out in the landmark English cases of X v. Bedfordshire County Council and Barrett v. Enfield London Borough Council have been dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights and in a number of key jurisdictions including the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, France, Germany and Italy. Examining the substantive tort law in these jurisdictions, the book highlights differences in procedure and compares alternative, non-judicial sources of compensation for claimants. It also offers suggestions for reform, providing a work that will greatly benefit all those working within this specific area of law or having an interest in the subject.

"For those lawyers who fall into that group of wanting to better understand AI, there may be no better starting point than Robots in Law" -Robert Ambrogi, Above The Law Although 2016 was the breakthrough year for artificial intelligence (AI) in legal services in terms of market awareness and significant take-up, legal AI represents evolution rather than revolution. Since the first `robot lawyers' started receiving mainstream press coverage, many law firms, other legal service providers, and law colleges are being asked what they are doing about AI. Robots in Law: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Legal Services is designed to provide a starting point in the form of an independent primer for anyone looking to get up to speed on AI in legal services. The book is organized into four distinct sections: Part I: Legal AI - Beyond the hype Part II: Putting AI to work Part III: AI giving back - Return on investment Part IV: Looking ahead The first three present an in-depth overview, and analysis, of the current legal AI landscape; the final section includes contributions from AI experts with connections to the legal space, on the prospects for legal AI in the short-term future. "AI is here now. And going to work in law firms. In the second half of 2016, hardly a week went by without some firm, academic or start-up announcing an innovation. Anyone inclined to dismiss this entirely as hype should read Robots in Law. In 150-odd pages we get a clear round-up of what is happening plus (perhaps more interestingly) some predictions from the best human brains in the business about what it all means." - Michael Cross, editor, The Law Society Gazette Along with the emergence of New Law and the burgeoning lawtech start-up economy, AI is part of a new dynamic in legal technology and it is here to stay. The question now is whether AI will find its place as a facilitator of legal services delivery, or whether it will initiate a shift in the value chain that will transform the legal business model. "This book, is recommended for all those wanting to catch up with AI, or those needing to catch up (whether they want to or not). That is pretty much all of us." - Laurence Eastham, Editor of Computers & Law, The Society for Computers and Law Magazine