Litigation Insights

Analysis and practical guides on litigation.

199 articles, checklists, and guides on litigation law, written by the attorneys at MC Law. Every piece is general information, not legal advice — for a specific matter, contact the firm.

LitigationMaritime Law

Admiralty Toolkit: Jones Act Claims, Limitation Actions, Liens, and Cargo Disputes

This toolkit collects the working documents of an admiralty matter: a crew injury statement and accident report correction, a seaman status evidence request, maintenance and cure demand and termination challenge letters, an evidence preservation letter and vessel inspection request, limitation action claim and privity discovery outlines, cargo notice of claim and joint survey requests with an extension agreement and package limitation analysis, a verified in rem complaint outline with an arrest checklist and letter of undertaking, a vessel purchase lien affidavit, a charter party clause review sheet, a casualty response memorandum, and a deadline calendar.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 17, 202613 min read

LitigationMaritime Law

Maritime Claim and Vessel Compliance Checklist: A Practical Checklist

This checklist runs maritime matters from the moment of an incident through arrest, limitation, and trial preparation. It covers the first hours after an injury aboard, the evidence that establishes seaman or longshore status, the maintenance and cure demand and what to do when payments stop, forum selection under the saving to suitors clause, responding to a limitation action, the preservation letter that must go out within days, the cargo sequence built around the delivery inspection and the one-year deadline, vessel purchase lien diligence, arrest procedure, and the operator's casualty response.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 10, 20268 min read

LitigationMaritime Law

Handling a Maritime Injury or Cargo Claim: A Practical Guide

This guide is the action sequence for a maritime injury, a cargo loss, or a vessel casualty. It covers what to do in the first hours aboard, why the accident report matters more than in any other injury case, how to establish seaman status with the evidence that actually decides it, how to demand maintenance and cure and what to do when it stops, how to choose a forum under the saving to suitors clause, how to respond to a shipowner's limitation action, the cargo claim sequence built around the one-year deadline and the joint survey, when to arrest a vessel, and how to handle a casualty investigation.

Casey Scott McKayFebruary 3, 202628 min read

LitigationMaritime Law

Maritime and Admiralty Law: Jurisdiction, Seamen, Cargo, and Vessel Liability

Maritime law is a separate legal system that has operated alongside the common law since before the Constitution, with its own jurisdiction, its own remedies, its own procedure, and a set of rules that surprise even experienced litigators. This article explains admiralty jurisdiction and the saving to suitors clause that lets most maritime claims be tried elsewhere, the three-part remedial structure available to injured seamen under the Jones Act, unseaworthiness, and maintenance and cure, how the Longshore Act covers everyone else on the waterfront, the death remedies, the shipowner's limitation of liability action, maritime liens and in rem arrest, and the cargo regime with its package limitation.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 27, 202628 min read

LitigationGeneral Litigation

Drafting a Settlement Agreement and Release: A Practical Guide

A settlement agreement converts a dispute into a contract, and the drafting determines whether the dispute is actually over. This guide covers the document clause by clause. It starts with the party definitions and the release scope, which is where most enforcement problems originate, then works through general versus specific releases, mutual releases, the waiver of unknown claims and the statutory language several states require, and the carve-outs that must be preserved. It covers payment mechanics including escrow, security, and the stipulated judgment structures used when payment is deferred, then dismissal and the jurisdiction-retention provision without which a federal court cannot enforce the agreement. Later sections address confidentiality and non-disparagement and their now-substantial limits, tax allocation and reporting, liens and third-party interests, multi-party settlements and contribution bars, and the provisions that make a breach remediable.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 26, 202626 min read

LitigationCross-Border Litigation

Serving a Foreign Defendant Under the Hague Convention: A Practical Checklist

Serving a foreign-based defendant is one of the first and hardest problems in cross-border litigation, and getting it wrong can cost personal jurisdiction or leave the plaintiff holding a judgment no foreign court will enforce. This checklist walks through the threshold Schlunk question of whether the Hague Service Convention even applies, the standard Central Authority route with its translation and timing demands, why the familiar shortcuts (mail, consular service, local agents) are foreclosed where a state has objected to Article 10, the live frontier of court-ordered email service under FRCP 4(f)(3) and the Schedule A cases, and the planning moves—the Rule 4(d) waiver, the SinoType contractual workaround, and a U.S. agent for service—that can avoid the treaty entirely. China is used as the leading restrictive example. It is general information, not legal advice; treaty membership, designated authorities, fees, and processing times change.

Casey Scott McKayJanuary 20, 202610 min read

LitigationDepositions

Preparing to Take a Deposition Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Taking a good deposition is one of the most demanding skills in civil litigation, and the outcome is largely determined before the witness is sworn. This checklist walks the deposing lawyer through the entire arc under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30: confirming the procedural limits (the one-day, seven-hour cap and the presumptive ten-deposition limit), noticing the deposition and compelling nonparties by Rule 45 subpoena with the witness fee, drafting a reasonably particular Rule 30(b)(6) topic list and conferring in good faith, preparing a modular outline keyed to the elements, organizing exhibits, conducting the examination with proven questioning techniques (funneling, looping, locking in testimony, commit-and-confront impeachment), handling objections and improper instructions not to answer, managing remote logistics, and capturing testimony usable at summary judgment and trial under Rule 32 and FRE 801(d)(2). Each phase is paired with the reason it matters and the primary authority. The result is a preparation routine that survives a hostile witness, an obstructive defender, and a transcript read back months later by a judge who was not in the room.

Casey Scott McKayDecember 19, 202510 min read

LitigationDepositions

The Art and Science of Depositions in Federal Civil Litigation: A Comprehensive Guide

This comprehensive guide is written for the litigator who must take depositions in federal civil cases, and it walks through the entire arc of an oral examination from planning to courtroom payoff. It explains the mechanics of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30, including the one-day, seven-hour limit, the presumptive ten-deposition cap, the nonparty witness fee, and when leave of court is required, then turns to noticing, Rule 45 subpoenas for nonparties, and the special discipline of organizational depositions under Rule 30(b)(6), with attention to the 2020 meet-and-confer amendment. The article develops a practical method for questioning witnesses—funneling, looping, locking in testimony, and impeaching with documents—and addresses exhibits, expert and hybrid witnesses, apex depositions, and the realities of remote and video proceedings. A dedicated section explains how to handle the deposition that goes sideways: the no-show, the witness who takes the Fifth, the witness who lies, and the emergency that ends the day early. It closes by showing how deposition transcripts become evidence under Rule 32 and Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2) at summary judgment and trial, and how to prepare so that every hour of questioning advances the case. Throughout, it cites primary authority and offers worked examples a judge, a lawyer, and a layperson can all follow.

Casey Scott McKayDecember 11, 202563 min read

LitigationDepositions

Preparing and Defending a Rule 30(b)(6) Deposition

A Rule 30(b)(6) deposition is the only discovery device that compels an organization to speak with one voice, and it is the single most dangerous deposition most companies ever face. The organization must designate someone to testify about matters known or reasonably available to it, prepare that person on subjects they may know nothing about personally, and live with the answers. This guide covers both sides of it: how to draft a notice that survives a motion for protective order, what the 2020 conferral amendment actually requires, how to select and prepare designees, what preparation means when the witness has no personal knowledge, how to defend the deposition and when to instruct a witness not to answer, and how the testimony is used afterward at summary judgment and at trial. The recurring theme is that the duty is to prepare the organization's answer rather than to produce a knowledgeable person, and that failing to do so is treated as a failure to appear.

Casey Scott McKayDecember 9, 202525 min read

LitigationOther Specialist Litigation

Premises Liability for Property Owners and Businesses

Premises liability looks simple and is not. Whether a property owner owes a duty at all depends on how the visitor is classified in that state, whether the hazard was open and obvious, and whether the injury was caused by the property or by another person. Whether the owner breached that duty usually turns on a narrow evidentiary question — did it know or should it have known about the condition, and how long had it existed — which is decided by inspection records and video that either exist or do not. This article covers the classification systems and the modern trend away from them, how notice is actually proved and defeated, the mode of operation rule, negligent security claims for third-party criminal acts and the competing foreseeability tests, the allocation of responsibility between landlords, tenants, and contractors, and the evidence practices that decide these cases long before anyone files suit.

Casey Scott McKayDecember 9, 202525 min read

LitigationCivil Procedure

Res Judicata, Collateral Estoppel, and the Preclusive Effect of Judgments

Preclusion doctrine decides which fights are over, and it does so through two very different mechanisms that practitioners routinely blend together. Claim preclusion bars an entire second lawsuit on the same transaction, including theories that were never raised, while issue preclusion bars relitigation of a specific issue that was actually litigated and necessarily decided. This article separates them, works through each element in the order a court will consider it, and covers the areas where the rules are counterintuitive: nonparty preclusion after Taylor v. Sturgell, the abandonment of mutuality and the discretion courts retain over offensive use, what preclusive effect a federal court gives a state judgment and what a state court gives a federal one, and when an administrative agency or arbitrator can decide something that binds a court. It closes with the pleading and waiver rules that decide these questions in practice.

Casey Scott McKayNovember 11, 202525 min read

LitigationCommencement and Pleadings

Drafting a Complaint That Survives a Motion to Dismiss

A complaint is a screening document. Its only job at the outset is to survive a motion to dismiss, and the plausibility standard means that the facts a plaintiff pleads matter far more than the causes of action they name. This guide covers drafting from the jurisdictional allegations forward. It explains what Rule 8 requires after Twombly and Iqbal, how courts separate conclusory assertions from well-pleaded facts, and the practical technique of pleading each element with the specific facts that support it. It then covers the heightened particularity Rule 9(b) requires for fraud and the claims courts treat as sounding in fraud, jurisdiction and standing, and the structural choices that determine whether a complaint reads as coherent or as a list. Later sections address exhibits and the documents a court may consider on a motion to dismiss, defensive pleading against affirmative defenses, alternative claims, the prayer for relief, and Rule 11.

Casey Scott McKayNovember 9, 202526 min read