DELVACCA Presents
LITIGATION 101 FOR THE NON-LITIGATOR
Abbe F. Fletman
Shareholder
Flaster/Greenberg
Marilyn Heffley
Chief Litigation Counsel
Sunoco, Inc.
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I. Considerations Upon Receiving a Complaint
A.
Location of the Lawsuit
1.
Personal Jurisdiction
2.
Venue
3.
Removal
a. Petition must be filed within
30 days after
receipt of initial
pleading
b. Need complete diversity and
consent of all
defendants
B.
Parties
1.
Joint representation issues
2.
Undertaking for corporate
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officers
I. Considerations Upon Receiving a Complaint (cont’d)
C.
Document Preservation
1.
Duty to preserve arises when a party
knows or should know that evidence
may be relevant to litigation it
reasonably anticipates
2.
IT meeting
3.
Litigation hold
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I. Considerations Upon Receiving a Complaint (cont’d)
C. Document Preservation
4.
Spoliation risk
a. Micron Technology, Inc. v. Rambus, Inc., 255 F.R.D. 135 (D.Del. 2009)(ruling
that
defendant destroyed documents and barring it from enforcing
patents against plaintiff).
b. Qualcomm Inc. v. Broadcom Corp., 2008 WL 66932 (S.D. Ca. Jan. 7,
2008)(imposing
$8.5 million in sanctions to corporation based on finding that six of Qualcomm’s
outside
attorneys “assisted Qualcomm in committing this incredible discovery violation by
intentionally hiding or recklessly ignoring
relevant documents, ignoring or
rejecting
numerous warning signs that Qualcomm’s document search was inadequate, and
blindly
accepting Qualcomm’s unsupported assurances that its document search was
adequate”),
vacated in part and remanded, 2008 WL 638108 (S.D. Ca. March 5, 2008).
c. United States v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 327 F.Supp.2d 21, 25-26 (D.D.C.
2004)(imposing
million fine and barring testimony of witnesses who violated
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court’s preservation order and company’s document retention policy).
I. Considerations Upon Receiving a Complaint (cont’d)
D. Selecting Outside Counsel
E. Responsive Pleading
1. Answer
1. Motion to dismiss
1. Motion for a more definite statement
1. Motion for judgment on the pleadings
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I. Considerations Upon Receiving a Complaint (cont’d)
F. Judge or Jury?
G. Preserving the AttorneyClient Privilege and the WorkProduct Doctrine
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II. Managing the Litigation
A.
Budgeting and Setting Reserves
B.
Staffing of legal matters
C.
Status reports
D.
Investigation and Analysis
E.
Early Case Assessment and Settlement
Opportunities
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II. Managing the Litigation
F.
Discovery
1.
Document Requests
2.
Interrogatories
3.
Requests for Admission
4.
Depositions
a) Corporate Designee
b) Preparing a corporate witness
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II. Managing the Litigation
G.
Summary Judgment
H.
Alternative dispute resolution
I.
Alternative fee arrangements
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Any Questions?
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Thank You!
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