Are there law firms that reputedly specialize in techniques or functions, rather than subject matter? By &quot;subject matter&quot; I refer to branches of law such as torts, criminal law, environmental law, etc. By &quot;techniques or functions&quot; I refer to things like cross-examination, or forensic analysis, that is constructing fact sets or time lines to beat the opposition. Or the following: Suppose I'm dealing with an opponent who has made mutually inconsistent or contradictory assertions in previous proceedings. Are there law firms that specialize in catching and highlighting such inconsistencies in court?
I think what you're talking about is probably quite rare. There are certainly law firms that market their ability to thoroughly investigate the facts, aggressively question or impeach hostile witnesses, present compelling evidence at trial, or make persuasive oral arguments. But I don't think I've ever heard of a firm that treats any particular litigation tactic as its specialty rather than treating it as part of its specialization in domestic relations, DUI defense, employment law, etc. If you think of litigating at different stages of a case as &quot;techniques or functions,&quot; then I'd point to the various firms that consider themselves trial specialists, or appellate specialists, or even Supreme Court specialists. Even then, though, any of those specialties is going to involve a variety of discrete techniques or functions. A trial lawyer needs to do investigations and cross examinations and closing statements, and a Supreme Court specialist needs to be able to petition for cert, draft merit briefs, and give oral arguments.
In the common law (The legal system used by the U.S. among many other nations), courts are &quot;adversarial&quot; as opposed to &quot;Inquisitorial&quot; like in Civil Law systems. What this means is that when in court the prosecutor and defense are pitted against each other in debating the questions of the case. All questions can be boiled down into questions of law and questions of fact. This is opposed to an inquisitorial system, where the prosecutor, defense, and judge are working to answer these questions in a fact finding forum. Because of this, in Common law, the judge takes the role of &quot;Trier of Law&quot;, i.e. he is the arbiter of what the law says. The Jury will talk the role of &quot;Trier of Fact&quot;. Essentially, if the prosecutor and defense attorneys are in a competition against each other, the judge will serve as the referee and decide whether something is allowed to be discussed in trial and whether the jury should count it. Because of this, the judge cannot call out objectional behavior by one side or the other as it would call into question his/her ability to be neutral in his assessment of the law. Thus it is the burden of the opposing party to object to something that is objectional. Failure to object means that the the side that should object is okay with this activity by opposing counsel, so the judge must allow it. Sometimes, objections are raised at trial for the sole reason that they will be part of the appeal of the case. Appeals can only call raise Questions of Law, which again, is the judge's domain. Thus the judge can't object, since we operate on the fact that the judge is neutral. If the judge is not neutral, than the case can be overturned easily by an appellant court. Essentially, the &quot;Objection&quot; is similar to a coach playing sportsball asking a ref to review a play on the sportsball field. Under this game rule, however, the judge is there to make the call if and only if he/she is asked to make it. Otherwise the objectionable action is permitted to stand.
Yes. Lawyers are generally subject to a malpractice lawsuit, essentially the same as doctors and other professions. A successful claim generally requires proof that the lawyer's services fell below the standard of care for attorneys, and that it resulted in some injury to you.
This is a great question because it's a useful vehicle for understanding a cross-cutting principle of law: baselines and exceptions. I find that thinking of law as a system of baseline rules and exceptions to these rules is a great way to organize and make sense of the mess that is 'the law.' A police officer testifying about what you told them, whether it helps you or hurts you, is hearsay. So, as you correctly pointed out, the baseline assumption is that that testimony can't come in. But, the hearsay rule is famous for having a ton of exceptions to it. Two relevant exceptions here are: (1) statements against interest, and (2) prior inconsistent statements. If what you told the police officer was a direct admission of liability, or a statement that contradicts the theory of the case that you're presenting to the jury, either or both of these exceptions are going to kick in and make that hearsay admissible. These exceptions are not going to kick in, however, for hearsay statements that help you. A humorous, but related, aside, is that there's some jurisdictional differences in how far the 'statements against interest' exception goes. In some jurisdictions it only applies to admissions of liability, but in other jurisdictions it also applies to simply embarrassing statements. My evidence professor illustrated this by, out of the blue, mind you, saying, in class, &quot;I stopped wetting the bed when I got to college,&quot; and then explaining that in the latter type of jurisdiction, that statement would be admissible. He then paused after the class had finally stopped laughing and said &quot;that's not true, by the way...I stopped in high school.&quot;
I'm sorry to deflate what is clearly a very philosophically interesting question, but the law is straightforward here. The truth, essentially, is the set of facts that you believe to be true. Yes. It means that you will not lie by omission, and that you will provide the relevant facts. No, you don't need to recount history since the first instant of the big bang. Only expert witnesses may answer by giving their opinion or evaluation. This is presumed accurate by their experience and where it is not accurate, the other side may present opposing expert witnesses to contest their conclusion or evaluation. Laypeople are permitted to answer only with their recollection of facts. Lawyers may not ask them what their opinion is, although by your definition every question is about opinion, since perception and memory is limited. But the question "What colour was Mr Smith's house?" and "What architectural style informed the facade of Mr Smith's house?" require different amounts of expertise and opinion. "Truth" isn't jargon, or even technical language here. I generally aim to be truthful, and so when someone asks me what time it is, I don't feel compelled to answer to the nano/picosecond. Would you call me a liar? Am I lying by omission? Similarly, if someone asks me what colour a car is, I don't feel compelled to say "I can't possibly know, because my perception may differ from yours. If you honestly feel that when someone asks you to be truthful about something, then you must either be lying, or lying by omission if you don't start your answer with the first instant of the big bang, your problem is not one of law.
can you hire a witness as your lawyer to exclude their testimony? That is pure fiction and misleading. Unfortunately scenes like that contribute to keep people ignorant about the law, which then makes it easier for courts to dissimulate their recurrent miscarriage of justice. But Purdue University v. Wartell, 5 N.E.3d 797 (2014) is an example where the Indiana courts did the right thing, and is pertinent to your question. There, Purdue University first assigned an investigator in regard to plaintiff's grievance, and thereafter the University tried to withhold information under pretext that the investigator was also its lawyer and thus that the information was protected by the privilege. Because that person hitherto had been portrayed only as an independent investigator, the Indiana courts concluded that Purdue University was estopped from invoking the attorney-client privilege (as well as the work-product doctrine). Thus, the guy in the film or series who said to be "screwed on Kardashian" reflects pure cluelessness about how the law supposedly operates. I have not seen the plot of that film or series, but the information that the friend-lawyer obtained prior to becoming O.J.'s attorney would not be protected by the privilege because it was not obtained in preparation for O.J.'s defense. If there were one star witness on the opposing side and they happened to be a lawyer, could you simply pay them off by hiring them as your lawyer? This question is somewhat unclear to me, but I will mention that lawyers have a duty to disclose to their potential or actual client any conflict of interests. The rules of so-called "professional conduct" discourage lawyers to ignore conflict of interests in that this conflict may impair their "services". And, as I explained previously, any information that a lawyer obtains as witness rather than as attorney in the matter is not protected by the privilege. Thus, as for If you committed a crime at a law-firm and everyone who witnessed it was a lawyer, is there any rule preventing you from just hiring all of them? the answer is: Nothing prevents the criminal from hiring all of them, but that information is not protected.
The main rules in a civil case are the rules of evidence, the rules of civil procedure, and a set of largely unwritten rules governing issues such as the order in which matters are presented in a trial and courtroom conduct. Basically, the rules of evidence are really a subset of a larger set of written and unwritten rules about courtroom conduct the unwritten parts of which are assumed to be known by people using them. Robert's Rules of Order do not apply to courtroom proceedings. The judge also has the "direct contempt" power to summarily punish disrespectful conduct in the courtroom without a trial, with fines or incarceration, even if it wouldn't be a crime outside the courtroom. But what if a party to the proceedings who does not "have the floor" wishes to do things like the following: Obtain a restatement (perhaps because it was unintelligible, or perhaps as a ploy for emphasis) of something uttered by another. If you are a party asking a question (or more likely an attorney for a party asking a question on behalf of a party) it is not improper to say, "I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you." It is also not generally improper for a non-questioning party to interject and state that they can't hear a witness to a judge. Obtain clarification of a statement. This can be done by a party only when it is the party's turn to cross-examine or redirect as the case may be. A judge can ask for clarification, but a party cannot do so when it is not their turn. Determine or clarify the purpose of an ongoing statement or line of questioning Generally the party not asking a question objects and the court asks the party asking the question to clarify the reason. Sometimes, in a jury trial, the party asked to clarify will say "may we approach the bench" and a private discussion will be held between counsel for both sides and the judge regarding an ongoing issue. Determine whether the judge will allow something later in the proceedings. (E.g., "At some point I hope to speak to point X. May I do that now? Or will I be afforded that opportunity at some later point before the conclusion of this hearing?") Lawyers are expected to know this for the most part without having to ask. Also, usually before the court starts to take evidence, and at breaks, the judge will ask "are there any preliminary matters that need to be addressed?" or "are there any procedural matters that need to be addressed?" and questions such as this can be raised at that time.
No, but the USA is special! In COMPARATIVE LITIGATION RATES from HARVARD, JOHN M. OLIN CENTER FOR LAW, ECONOMICS, AND BUSINESS, the authors J. Mark Ramseyer &amp; Eric B. Rasmusen argue that for routine normal cases, the US is no more or less litigious than anywhere else in the developed world, specifically, they make comparisons with Australia, Canada, France, Japan and the UK. However, they do say: Why, then, the American notoriety? It does not result from the way the legal system handles routine disputes. Instead, it derives from the peculiarly dysfunctional way courts handle several discrete types of disputes. In several discrete areas, American courts function in a manner one can only describe as disastrous. American courts have made the bad name for themselves by mishandling a few peculiar categories of law suits. In this article, we use securities class actions and mass torts to illustrate the phenomenon, but anyone who reads a newspaper could suggest alternatives. This strange and peculiarly American phenomena of courts making huge payouts for a small number of cases skews perception of risk and leads to, for example, US hotels dismantling water slides.