Litigation Insights
Analysis and practical guides on litigation.
286 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.
Expert Deposition Toolkit: Outline Frameworks, Reliance Material Requests, and Rule 26 Protection Maps
This toolkit collects the working documents for expert depositions in federal court, each introduced by its purpose, its owner, and when to use it, and followed by drafting commentary tied to the governing rules and cases. It starts with a Rule 26 protection map that sorts expert materials into protected and discoverable categories under the 2010 amendments, followed by model expert stipulation clauses, a Rule 34 reliance-material request, a Rule 45 subpoena rider, a notice and remote stipulation, and a fee agreement letter under Rule 26(b)(4)(E). The outline frameworks include a report audit chart, a master outline with a time budget, an opinion funnel worksheet organized by Rule 702 element, an assumptions and change-question chart, subject modules for patent royalty and software copyright experts, and an impeachment and learned-treatise script. For the defending side, it provides a preparation session agenda, model assumptions-section language, scripts for objections and instructions not to answer, and an errata and supplementation log. It closes with a post-deposition digest and a Daubert record map that turn the transcript into a motion, followed by answers to common questions, practical takeaways, and related resources.
Pleading and Attacking Standing in Federal Court: A Practical Guide
Standing is litigated badly more often than any other threshold issue, usually because one side treats it as a checklist and the other treats it as unavoidable. This guide sets out how to do it well from both sides: pleading concrete injury with the historical analogue identified, choosing between facial and factual attacks and when each is worth making, taking the narrow discovery that resolves it, deploying standing at class certification where it does the most work, and—the decision most often skipped—determining whether winning is actually good for the client, given that dismissal is without prejudice and state courts frequently apply looser rules. It covers the plaintiff's allegations, the defendant's Rule 12(b)(1) motion, the factual attack and its discovery consequences, and standing at the class certification stage. Worked examples show how the same facts read differently at the pleading stage and at summary judgment. It also addresses mootness, ripeness, and the strategic use of standing in removal practice.
Article III Standing After TransUnion: Concrete Injury, Traceability, and the End of No-Injury Claims
Standing is the first question in every federal case and the last defense many cases never survive, and the Supreme Court's decision in TransUnion changed what a statutory violation must show to get into federal court. This article explains the doctrine as it now operates: the three constitutional elements, what makes an intangible harm concrete, the historical analogue test and how courts apply it, and the requirement that every class member—not merely the named plaintiff—have standing for damages. It covers mootness and ripeness, organizational and associational standing, and the strategic consequence that most often surprises defendants, which is that winning on standing frequently sends the case to state court rather than ending it. It traces how the concreteness requirement reshaped statutory damages litigation, class certification, and removal strategy. It closes with what a standing allegation has to look like now.
A Practical Discovery Refresher: Mastering the Tools, Rules, and Pitfalls of Federal Civil Litigation
Discovery is the backbone of federal civil litigation and the phase where cases are most often delayed, sanctions imposed, and professional relationships damaged. This guide is a comprehensive, practical refresher on the core tools available under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure—public records requests, initial disclosures, interrogatories, requests for production, requests for admission, depositions, and third-party subpoenas—and on the objections, deficiency procedures, privilege practice, and document-handling protocols that surround them. It explains, in plain language and through a single running fact pattern, how to draft, respond, and object effectively, how to manage electronic discovery under the EDRM framework, and how the full Rule 37 sanctions machine actually works in practice. It incorporates the December 1, 2025 amendments to Rules 16 and 26 that move privilege-log planning to the outset of a case, and it is grounded throughout in primary authority and leading case law. Whether you are a seasoned litigator reviewing the fundamentals or a newer attorney or paralegal building a discovery practice, the aim is to help you conduct discovery efficiently, professionally, and in compliance with your ethical obligations.
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.
Making or Responding to a Time-Limited Policy-Limits Demand: A Practical Guide
This guide walks through a time-limited policy-limits demand from both sides of the table, step by step. For the claimant's lawyer, it covers confirming coverage and limits, building the evaluation package, quantifying liens, choosing between pre-suit and post-suit timing, drafting to the governing statute, setting deadlines and conditions, delivering the demand, and managing the response period. For the insurer, it covers logging and acknowledging the demand, checking coverage, notifying the insured, evaluating the claim under the correct legal standard, asking for information or more time without making a counteroffer, and accepting, tendering, or rejecting with written reasons, including in multiple-claimant cases. Separate steps address the obligations of defense counsel and the choices facing the insured, and a final step covers what happens after a demand expires. A timeline and cost table, a worked example involving a cyclist and a landscaping company's pickup, common mistakes, an FAQ, and takeaways close the guide.
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.
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.
Cross-Examination Preparation Checklist: A Practical Checklist
This checklist sets out, phase by phase, the tasks a litigator should complete before cross-examining an adverse witness, at deposition or at trial, in federal civil litigation. It covers defining goals from the elements, gathering intelligence on the witness, assembling impeachment material, controlling exhibits, confirming the governing evidence and procedure rules, and building a chapter outline. Separate phases address deposition-specific and trial-specific steps, expert witnesses, preparing your own witnesses against Reptile and Reid-style questioning, and an ethics check before the examination. Each item links the governing rule or case and adds a short practical note. Red-flag boxes, a deadlines table, a short worked example, and a list of common failure points close the checklist.
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.
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.
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.