New LAW Books

November 2011

What motivates jurors to award big damages? Positive values motivate.

Despite this fact, most plaintiff attorney automatically default to talking about negative values, such as how much things like pain and suffering are worth. This is the wrong approach.

A better approach is to focus on the positive values at stake in your case and to engage jurors to protect those values by awarding significant damages. Jim Wren’s Proving Damages to the Jury gives you the tools you need to implement this more effective approach:

Understand how jurors think and build your damages message on the values jurors already believe to be right and significant:

What are the 5 crucial juror biases acquired from social conditioning? [§1:50-1:56]
What are the 16 biases that naturally occur in thinking? [§1:80-§1:95]
Community, personal dignity, and good health are positive motivators. What other positive values motivate jurors to award damages? [§1:71]
Why is “family” such an important positive motivator? [§1:72]
What is the proper way to develop juror anger as a motivator for damages? [§1:62]

Develop your damages case with juror biases and motivations in mind. Substantial verdicts for damages, particularly intangible damages, spring from the desire of jurors to make a statement about what is right and significant. Use these tools to help feed that desire:

1 simple exercise to identify the most powerful themes in your case [§3:15]
8 tips for finding the right damages metaphor [§3:140]
7 principles for developing the story of your damages case [§3:43]
Key damage issues to develop in the initial phone screening, written questionnaire and first meeting with a client in a personal injury case [§5:20], a wrongful death case [§5:30], a business injury case [§5:40], and real property damage case [§5:50].

Read more about the book.

Proving Damages to the Jury, book and CD $69

September 2011

Pattern Cross-Examinations

by Walter R. Simpson

The tips and techniques provided in Pattern Cross-Examinations will help you tackle these tough challenges of cross-examination with ease and finesse:

Dealing with the sarcastic or non-responsive witness
Handling the confrontational witness
Rattling the expert witness
When to ask an open-ended question
When to push a witness and when to back off

10 practice-specific chapters

Multiple pattern examinations are provided for each of the following specialties:

Auto accidents
Breach of contract
Civil assault and battery
Civil rights
Employment discrimination
Insurance policy litigation
Malicious prosecution
Medical malpractice
Premises liability
Products liability

Read more about the book.

Pattern Cross-Examinations, book and CD $69

August 2011

Drafting LLC and Partnership Agreements

by Joseph W. Boucher

Drafting issues vary materially industry to industry. Limited liability company operating agreements need to deal with those differing issues and reflect the characteristics of the particular business. Joseph W. Boucher’s Drafting LLC and Partnership Agreements provides pattern operating agreements, drafting advice, issue spotters, questions to ask clients, management issues to resolve, and drafting points – all tailored to the following industries:

Agricultural
Construction
Manufacturing
Wholesale
Retail s Insurance
Real Estate Development
Service
Technology
Medical Device
Computer Software
Technology Hardware

Read more about the book.

Drafting LLC and Partnershsip Agreements, book and CD $69

February 2011

Personal Injury Handbook

by Larry Booth and Roger Booth

As insurers grow more miserly, it is more important than ever to carefully select, investigate, prepare, and prosecute your cases.

Personal Injury Handbook is loaded with valuable practice aids and tips that will help you maximize the value of each of your cases. It contains innumerable tips, plus 140 forms and 60 checklists specific to these 14 types of cases:

Motor vehicle accidents
Railroad crossing accidents
Premises liability
Premises security
Construction site accidents
Electrocution accidents
Dog bites
Collisions with livestock
Products liability
Auto crashworthiness
Medical malpractice
Sexual molestation
Insurance bad faith
Industrial equipment

Read 22 tips excerpted from the book.

Personal Injury Handbook, book and CD $99

August 2010

Deposition Objections

by Joseph A. Ranney

Here is a quick-draw armory of dozens of objections and tactics to help you protect your witness and your case, including:

Attorney-client privilege
Attorney work-product
Proprietary and confidential information
Witness self-incrimination
Family communications
Communications with professionals
Privacy
Legal process privileges
Relevance
Vagueness, ambiguity, repetition, and lack of foundation
Legal conclusions

Also offers help with common deposition issues

Coaching and communications with the witness during breaks
Colloquies and stipulations among counsel
Instructing the witness not to answer a question

The book includes 82 forms in print and on CD. Read more.

Deposition Objections, book and CD $69

April 2010

Proven Jury Arguments & Evidence

by Karen Lisko, Ph.D

This ground-breaking book contains juror questions, proven themes, and pattern arguments that you can put to immediate use. For 9 different types of cases you receive, with recommendations specific to plaintiff and defendant: