HB Litigation News

Category: Procedural Law

  • Intellectual Property Trial Team Diversity with Tara Trask

    Intellectual Property Trial Team Diversity with Tara Trask

    Intellectual Property Trial Team Diversity with Tara Trask

    Diversity and inclusion initiatives aren’t just valuable for checking off compliance boxes and writing marketing copy. Those benefits are a distant second and third to the genuine value team diversity has on the success of a company or a project. That also means law firms and trials.

    A recent article published by the American Bar Association Tort and Insurance Practice Section hailed diversity of perspectives for how they improve a team’s ability to resolve legal issues, innovate solutions, and introduce  factors homogeneous teams may miss.

    The National Association for Law Placement reported that women and people of color are making great progress at major law firms. Nearly half of associates are women and, based on summer associate statistics, women are expected to break the 50% as early as this year or next. Black associates made impressive gains, but there remains room for improvement. At the partner level, however, Black and Latinx women and men remain stuck in the low single digits.

    In this episode we drill down even further to examine trial teams in the intellectual property arena. I was thrilled to speak with Tara Trask, one of the nation’s leading experts on IP trials and juries, having directly worked on or observed more of these proceedings than just about anyone. Tara has championed research on this topic as part of her work and presentations for the American Intellectual Property Law Association. The diversity spark lit up for Tara when she and her panelists enjoyed an enthusiastic reaction to an AIPLA conference session she moderated titled, “Perspectives on Diversity: Views on Trial Teams From the Bench, The Boardroom, and the Jury Box.”

    Listen to Tara’s insights based on analysis of her own cases, analysis of related studies, and expanded fact-gathering she is leading in collaboration with the association.

    BREAKING NEWS! This episode kicks off a series of guest-hosted sessions for which Tara will take the mic to interview professionals from her impressive network on legal team diversity.

    Now You Can Watch the Podcast

    WATCH IT NOW

    This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal on Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation Conferences and the Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm. The podcast itself is a joint effort between HB and our friends at Law Street Media. If you have comments or wish to participate in one our projects please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

    Tom Hagy
    Litigation Enthusiast and
    Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
    Home Page
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    Loved hearing what Tara said about this subject matter?

    Explore more content from Tara!

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    Tara Trask

    Tara TraskTrask Consulting

    Tara Trask is the President of Trask Consulting, a boutique litigation strategy, jury research, and trial consulting firm with offices in San Francisco, Houston, and New York. She focuses on civil litigation with an emphasis on complex commercial litigation, including intellectual property, antitrust, securities, breach of contract, and fraud.

    She has assisted both plaintiffs and defendants in cases involving products liability, insurance, and oil and gas. Tara has extensive experience in assisting institutions and individuals in matters involving regulatory enforcement and white-collar defense, as well. She has been involved in more than 500 jury trials.

    Tara Trask Consulting

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  • Modernizing Our Court System (but Don’t Attend Trial from Your Car) with Hon. Scott Schlegel

    Modernizing Our Court System (but Don’t Attend Trial from Your Car) with Hon. Scott Schlegel

    Modernizing Our Court System

    Photo by Ernest Ojeh via Unsplash

    The judicial system is overburdened for a number of reasons, and greater efficiency is a must if court systems are to achieve their important objectives.

    Technology and openness to all that it offers is a key solution, something that was tried, tested and proven during the Covid pandemic which closed courthouses and law offices around the nation. Along with technology, improvements can be made by reexamining their orthodoxies about how things should be done based on decades of “that’s how we’ve always done it.”

    This is a matter of importance to judges, lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, and numerous others whose lives are impacted directly or indirectly when either the civil or criminal justice systems are inefficient, cumbersome, costly, confusing, slow, and even inaccessible. If only we had an example of at least one judge who is trying to do something about it. But wait …

    Listen to my interview with the Hon. Scott Schlegelwho presides over criminal civil and domestic matters in Louisiana’s 24th Judicial District Court in Jefferson Parish. Judge Schlegel was elected to the bench in 2013, and quickly earned a reputation as a modern judge using technology to bring his court into the digital age, even before the pandemic forced the change on other jurists. He partnered with tech companies to develop efficiency tools like chat bots and online forms software. He launched courtonline.us and onlinejudge.us to consolidate his processes for the public. Judge Schlegel has received numerous awards and accolades, like the National Center for State Courts’ 26th Annual William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence. He was the American Bar Association’s 2021 Legal Rebel. And he received the Fastcase 50 Award for his innovative approaches to the administration of justice. Prior to becoming a judge, he was a prosecutor and litigator. Judge Schlegel graduated with honors from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

    This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal on Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation Conferences and the Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm. The podcast itself is a joint effort between HB and our friends at Law Street Media. If you have comments or wish to participate in one our projects please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

    Tom Hagy

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    Tom Hagy
    Litigation Enthusiast and
    Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
    Home Page
    LinkedIn

    Hon. Scott Schlegel

    Hon. Scott SchlegelLouisiana State Judge, Jefferson Parish

    Judge Schlegel was elected to the bench in 2013, and quickly earned a reputation as a modern judge using technology to bring his court into the digital age, even before the pandemic forced the change on other jurists. He partnered with tech companies to develop efficiency tools like chat bots and online forms software.

    He launched courtonline.us and onlinejudge.us to consolidate his processes for the public. Judge Schlegel has received numerous awards and accolades, like the National Center for State Courts’ 26th Annual William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence. He was the American Bar Association’s 2021 Legal Rebel. And he received the Fastcase 50 Award for his innovative approaches to the administration of justice. Prior to becoming a judge, he was a prosecutor and litigator. Judge Schlegel graduated with honors from Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.

  • Full Ninth Circuit Removes Unwarranted Hurdles to Class Certification

    Full Ninth Circuit Removes Unwarranted Hurdles to Class Certification

    The Authors

    Jonathan Rubin

    Jonathan RubinPartner | MoginRubin LLP

    Co-founding partner at MoginRubin LLP, Jonathan Rubin focuses his legal practice exclusively on antitrust and competition law and policy. Based in Washington, DC, he has litigated and led trial teams in major antitrust cases throughout the country. He has published in influential academic journals and has spoken to numerous professional groups, including the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission, the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association, and the American Antitrust Institute.

    Dan Mogin

    Dan MoginManaging Partner | MoginRubin LLP

    Dan Mogin, founding and managing partner of MoginRubin LLP, concentrates his practice on antitrust, unfair competition and complex business litigation. He has served as lead counsel in numerous large antitrust cases, chaired the Antitrust Section of the California Bar, taught antitrust law and was editor-in-chief of a leading competition law treatise.

    Explore more from MoginRubin LLP!

    Blog: Emboldened by New Resources and Expanded Authority, Feds Continue 10-Year Look Back at Chinese Investment. By Dan Mogin, Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer Oliver, and Timothy LaComb. List

    OnDemand CLE Webinar: The Antitrust Case Against Google. Dan Mogin, Jonathan Rubin, Jennifer Oliver, Timothy LaComb, John Newman, Dr. Alan Grant

    Blog: FTC’s Case Against Facebook Will Test the Flexibility of U.S. Antitrust Law.Authors: Jonathan Rubin and Jennifer Oliver, MoginRubin LLP

    Blog: Full Ninth Circuit Removes Unwarranted Hurdles to Class Certification. Jonathan Rubin, Dan Mogin.

    Journal: Policy Derailed: Can U.S. Antitrust Policy Toward Standard Essential Patents Get Back on Track by Jonathan Rubin

    Webinar: Class Certification After Olean v. Bumble Bee with Jonathan Rubin, James Bogan lll, Jonathan Cohn, Bradley Hamburger.

    Journal: FTC v. Amazon: Market Definitions and Section 5 of the FTC Act

    Podcast: Algorithmic Software Facilitated Price Fixing with Jonathan Rubin

    Plus, additional insights from the MoginRubin Blog.

    Full Ninth Circuit Removes Unwarranted Hurdles to Class Certification

    “Nothing in Rule 23 suggests that the presence of more than a de minimis number of uninjured class members affects whether questions affecting only individual class members predominate. The Ninth Circuit’s en banc decision is a model of clear thinking and a welcome course correction in the law of class certification.”

    Excerpt:

    There was reason for optimism in August 2021, when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted rehearing en banc of a 2-1 decision that would have made it more difficult for antitrust claimants to secure class certification. The three-judge panel in Olean Wholesale Grocery Coop., Inc. v. Bumble Bee Foods LLC, 993 F.3d 774 (9th Cir. 2021) had determined that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) required a district court to find that no more than a de minimis number of class members are uninjured before a class may be certified. Having announced this de minimis rule in its opinion, the court then took the unusual step of inviting the parties to argue whether the full court should rehear the issue en banc.

    As we wrote last year when en banc rehearing was granted, with its de minimis rule, “the panel really jumped the median strip.” We argued that the rule conflated the question of whether issues common to the class predominate over issues unique to individual class members with the question of how the class is defined and that the Ninth Circuit’s new and unrealistic de minimis requirement erected an unnecessary procedural hurdle to class certification. Other commentators and amici argued that requiring proof that all but a de minimis number of class members are injured requires a determination on the merits, impermissible at the class certification stage.

    In welcome news for claimants and attorneys who bring antitrust class actions, the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc decided against the de minimis rule, for all of the foregoing reasons, in Olean Wholesale Grocery Coop., Inc. v. Bumble Bee Foods LLC, No. 19-56514, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 9455 (9th Cir. Apr. 8, 2022).

    In a thorough review of the requirements for class certification under Rule 23, the Ninth Circuit held that the movant’s burden is to prove the prerequisites of Rule 23 by a preponderance of the evidence, bringing the Ninth Circuit in line with the law in the First, Second, Third, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits …

    Read the full article on the MoginRubin Blog

  • Mega Verdict Threat: Tackling Damages Early Can Mitigate Outsized Jury Awards

    Mega Verdict Threat: Tackling Damages Early Can Mitigate Outsized Jury Awards

    Mega Verdict Threat: Tackling Damages Early Can Mitigate Outsized Jury Awards

    Abstract

    Why have medical malpractice verdicts in recent years reached such astronomical new heights? In this article the author addresses several of the factors that drive juries to return such punishing awards, discussing the unexpected impact of tort reform, the role of life-care planners and economists in determining damages, the ramifications of litigation financing, plaintiff attorneys’ utilization of the so-called reptile theory, and the influence of how the media reports on these verdicts. The author offers practical methods for defense attorneys involved in this litigation and insights that will benefit attorneys in any type of tort matter.

    Author

    Sandra M. Cianflone (scianflone@hallboothsmith.com) is an attorney at law firm Hall Booth Smith, P.C., whose practice primarily focuses on medical malpractice.

    About
    The Journal on Emerging Issues in Litigation is a co-production of HB, Fastcase, and Law Street Media. You can also hear the complementary (and complimentary) Emerging Litigation Podcast wherever podcasts appear. For questions, contact Tom Hagy, Editor in Chief, at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

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