Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice

Social Media Update Webinar

No lunch plans tomorrow?

Well you have them now because I will be presenting Social Media Update via webinar tomorrow for the State Bar of Texas Paralegal Division.  The cost is $40 for Paralegal Division members and $50 for nonmembers, and registration is here.  

As the procedure is explained to me, I sit at my desk and talk on the phone for an hour while clicking through the slides for my presentation, which attendees can review my bio, my slides, and take notes.  The audience is expected to be mostly certified paralegals, who are gaining credit in civil, criminal, family and personal injury law.  The presentation will then be warehoused in the Paralegal Division's online CLE databank.

The presentation will be similar to the one I did in January at the State Bar Litigation Update seminar, but will contain a couple of sections I deleted this year for time reasons and because another speaker was handling them.  So I am optimistic I can use most of the time before going to questions from the audience, which are sent by email during the presentation.

 

Trial Procedure in Federal Court - 2013 Federal Court Practice seminar

Week after next I will be presenting a paper Trial Procedure in Federal Court at the annual State Bar Federal Court Practice seminar.  The seminar will be in its traditional home in Dallas, Cityplace Events Center on May 24, 2013.  As readers know, I have presented on motion practice for several years now, but I ask to fleet up to trial procedure after running into some interesting issues with the trials we have had in recent years.  

Also at the table with me will be U.S. Magistrate Judge Roy S. Payne of Marshall, who will be providing attendees with his insights from almost 20 years on the federal bench, as well his his experiences trying cases as a practitioner.

The program will have numerous panels and individual presentations of interest to practitioners in federal court, including by Judge Reed O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas on pleadings, and will feature a lunch judges panel with Judge Payne and district judges Kathleen Cardone from El Paso, Diana Saldana of Laredo, and Jorge Solis of Dallas.  More information on the seminar is available here, and you can register here or by calling the State Bar up directly at 800-204-222, extension 1574.

Social Media Update at Litigation Update this week

For anyone who's looking for some CLE credit this week, I am the lunch speaker on Thursday with a  topic of Social Media Update at the State Bar's Litigation Update seminar this coming week at the Four Seasons in Las Colinas.  (LC is actually part of Irving, which is better known as suburban Dallas). The brochure is attached here - Download 12 Liltigation Update

This paper was eating my lunch until I remember that we had done a special issue on social media in the Texas Bar Journal March before last, curated by John Browning of Dallas, who's also written a book on the subject, The Lawyer’s Guide to Social Networking: Understanding Social Media’s Impact on the Law (Thomson Reuters/West Publishing 2010).  With John's work to refer to, as well as knowledge of some recent online misadventures in this small town I live in, I think I've come up with a presentation that just might be worth a listen.  The subject is fascinating, and I've actually enjoying reviewing the recent cases and activity in the field.

State Bar of Texas Litigation Section's New for the Bar - Winter 2011 - featuring ... office toys?

Blog readers know that I am terribly proud of the work that the Litigation Section of the State Bar does with its publications, with the quarterly magazine The Advocate and the quarterly online magazine News for the Bar.  The latter has its new Winter 2011 issue out, which can be downloaded here: News for the Bar - Winter 2011 .  If you're not a member, you really ought to be, because this issue alone is a blockbuster with useful substantive articles acros the board for litigators, including witness prep, bankruptcy practice, appellate and federal updates, and so forth.  And at the very end because, let's face it - what could top it - is an article by yours truly about ... office toys.  (No, I can't believe I've sunk to this level either).

In this issue:

• Chair’s Message: An Overview of the Litigation Section Council and Its Work, by Linda McDonald
• What You’re Not Saying Says Everything: Lessons from Science on Prepping the Witness
  by Barry Nash and Jaine E. Fraser, Ph.D
• Crazy Like Hamlet, Or How A Little Short-Term Schizophrenia Can Improve Your Legal Work Product, by Gretchen S. Sween
• Crossing Over - A Civil Litigator’s First Criminal Trial: Prosecuting Warren Jeffs: An Interview with Fields Alexander, by Will Hailey
• Advice from the Bench: Tips for Practicing in Federal Bankruptcy Courts from Chief Judge Marvin Isgur, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, by Marcos Rosales
• Summer Internship Stipends Available for Legal Aid Providers
• Appellate Update, by Richard Salgado
• Federal Update, by Jason Fulton
• Misnomer v. Misidentification: Mistakes and Mislabels, by Robinson C. Ramsey
• Office Toys, by Michael C. Smith

Motions: Dispositive and Otherwise - State Bar "Federal Court Practice" seminar w/ U.S. Magistrate Judge Amos Mazzant

If it's Friday, I must be speaking at a State Bar seminar someplace.  Two weeks ago it was Houston and this week it will be in San Antonio on evidence & discovery, but last week it was Dallas at the State Bar Federal Court Practice seminar where U.S. Magistrate Judge Amos Mazzant of Sherman  and I co-presented my paper Motions: Dispositive and Otherwise.

As I told the audience, the title says it's about dispositive motions, but the paper is really about rules in federal court, and how there are different lawyers and place for practitioners to look.  Especially if you're a state court practitioner, not used to the many levels at which important rules can lurk.  We used motion practice in general, and dispositive motions in particular to illustrate where you look for rules. 

Our panel was assisted greatly by following similar judge + lawyer panels on discovery (with Bruce Sostek and Judge Don Bush of Plano) pleadings (Tim Durst & Judge David Godbey) and the lunch panel consisting of Judges Mazzant and Bush and U.S. District Judges Ed Kinkeade of Dallas and Keith Ellison of Houston, who joined by speaker from his chambers in Houston, where he'd just taken a $94 million verdict in a trademark case.  (Not telling which judge asked to be addressed as milord in the courtroom.  He may never live that down).  Lots of good advice from pragmatic judges, each of which - coincidentally - claim they are the exception in that they let lawyers conduct their own voir dire.

Boldy Going Where No "Update" Has Gone Before - 2011 Federal Update on Evidence and Discovery paper

I made the long drive to and from Houston Monday night and Tuesday afternoon to make the initial presentation of my paper Federal Update on Evidence and Discovery at the State Bar's 24th annual Advanced Evidence and Discovery course at CityCentre.  There's another presentation week after next in San Antonio and then end of June in Dallas, with a video reprise in Houston in July (although why you would be going to Houston in July is beyond me). 

I followed Judge David W. Evans of Dallas, who did an excellent Supreme Court/Appellate Update, and proceeded to tell the attendees that my paper would be sort of a palate cleanser because my "update" would be caselaw-free.  (Enjoyed the brief visit to CityCentre in Houston, which is obviously a pretty hoity-toity place because it spells it "centre".  Any place where the Barnes & Noble, Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware stores are adjacent to each other is good in my book.  I managed to get out for only the price of a cup of coffee so it was a good morning). 

The reasoning was pretty simple - I couldn't find any appellate opinions on evidence or discovery that I thought were of general enough applicability to be worth covering (especially given the broad discretion district courts have in these areas), and I usually don't talk about district court opinions because they are so fact and judge-specific.  So since I only had half an hour, I thought the time would be better spent talking about recent rule amendments.  I covered the 2007 style amendments to the FRCPs, the 2008 adoption of FRE 502, and the relevant 2009 (time computation) and 2010 (expert discovery) amendments.  The latter in particular are of interest to practitioners as they change a lot of the ground rules we've been operating under with respect to expert discovery since 1993.  As always, preparing the talk made me study the rules a lot more closely, and I enjoying thinking through the hypotheticals of how they'd apply in practice - specifically to how they'd change the questions you'd ask - and of course the answers you could get - in an expert's deposition.

PLI seminar: Venue Based Patent Litigation Strategies

Things have been so busy recently with preparations for our firm's Marshall office moving across town into the historic Hub building that I didn't get a post up about this seminar until two days afterwards.

Wednesday morning I was pleased to participate electronically as a presenter in the Practising Law Institute's Venue Based Patent Litigation Strategies webcast from San Francisco.  Eric Kirsch from Cooper & Dunham LLP in New York moderated the discussion between myself on behalf of the Eastern District of Texas, Jack Blumenthal from Delaware, Gabrielle Higgins from Palo Alto for the Northern District of California, and Alexandra Mahaney from San Diego for the Central District of California.  We each had fifteen minutes to talk about our district, and then we had a roundtable for an hour, where we answered questions on topics including motions to transfer, pleading with specificity, claims construction, reexamination & KSR, and summary judgment and patentable subject matter. I enjoyed the rountable discussion very much, and hope we helped enlighten people about how these issues are being handled in different districts.

While the webcast is done, it's available for viewing for CLE credit by purchase through PLI here. 

State Bar of Texas Convention; Oklahoma Bar IP Section Talk on Eastern District; Corpus trip; new offices near occupancy

It's been a busy couple of weeks out of the office, but I'm back in catching up on recent developments in the Eastern District.

Week before last was the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, at which I handed off my duties as treasurer for the Litigation Section of the bar to Christy Amuny of Beaumont (who is thoroughly and understandably irritated at the development), and started new ones as vice chair of the Litigation Section and editor of the board of editors of the Texas Bar Journal.

On the way home Saturday morning I stopped off in Irving, where I had the pleasure of presenting a paper, Patent Litigation in the Eastern District of Texas: Past, Present and Future to the Intellectual Property Law Section of the Oklahoma Bar Association at their 2010 midyear meeting.  Since the Texas Bar's Litigation Section seems to have half our meetings in New Mexico, it was not a surprise that the Oklahoma IP law section meets in Texas every so often.  Reminded me of growing up in Marshall - we went to Longview for fun, but the Longview kids went to Tyler, and the Tyler kids to Dallas, while (paradoxically) the Waskom and Jefferson kids kids were coming to Marshall, and the Harleton kids were headed for Jefferson.  Greener pastures, I guess.

The next day my wife Jamie and I were off with our three boys to Corpus Christi, where she was attending classes for her job as county treasurer here in Harrison County.  (She is up for reelection to her fifth term this fall, but for the first time in twelve years she is running unopposed, so no need to spend the summer raising campaign funds for her this year).  All kids need the summer road trip to the beach with hot, irritated, frazzled parents, and we did our best, but with back seat DVD players and Nintendo DSIs - we didn't hear a peep from them.  Well, until we discovered we'd only packed one charger for three DSes - that was a late night run into the Walmart in Wharton, Texas to resupply.  Corpus was a good trip, as I got to take my boys to see the museum carrier Lexington, which was one of the class I wrote my first book Essex Class Carriers in action about  (what, you thought all I did was blog about federal court?).  Another highlight was lunch at my friend Corpus lawyer Kathy Snapka's family's restaurant, Snapka's, complete with attorney-made malts and shakes.  (Best tacos and onion rings on the planet).

Back into the office in Marshall this week for our last full week in the South Washington offices as next week Siebman, Burg, Phillips & Smith LLP will be officially relocating its Marshall offices to our new space in the historic old Hub Shoe Store building in downtown Marshall (complete with balcony windows for my three boys to look out from their after-school work room upstairs - I'll post more on the fun little details later).  Notice I didn't say that the offices will be complete - just that we'll be moving in there next week.  Our space will be completed within a few days, I expect, but the office suite for visiting trial teams will probably take a few weeks longer.  But effective July 1, the new address and contact information for my office (including a new fax number, I note) will be:

Siebman, Burg, Phillips & Smith LLP,

113 East Austin, Marshall, Texas 75670

(903) 938-8900 (office); (903) 472-4301 (fax)

E-mail

"Motions: Dispositive and Otherwise" - Federal Court Practice seminar

Compared to the trip to New York the week before, Friday was a leisurely drive down to Houston and back for the annual Federal Court Practice seminar put on by the State Bar of Texas.  I even got to take in the federal judges panel at lunch with Judges Hilda Tagle, Xavier Rodriguez, Reed O'Connor and Ron Clark (one from each Texas federal district) and the panel on ECF best practices before presenting on "Motions: Dispositive and Otherwise."  Left after getting our boys ready for school, and got back in time to pick up pizza on the way in from Gucci's for our oldest's sleepover party for his 11th birthday (Gucci's chocolate chip dessert pizza is the birthday cake of choice locally, as you can see).

Although the theme of my presentation was really using motion practice - and dispositive motion practice more specifically - to illustrate the process of reviewing the different (although not exactly byzantine) applicable rules that practitioners have to comply with in federal court, the judges panel spoke at some length about how federal courts are courts of motion practice, so to address some of the issues that came up during the panel I shorted the "rules, rules and more rules" part of the presentation and spent half my time (a luxurious 45 minutes - I usually only get 30) talking about practice tips on motions practice.  Things like playing nice (avoiding excessive poison-pen rhetoric), writing text that judges can use (plaigiarism by a district court is the ultimate achievement for a written advocate), using the right kinds of cites, and what I think law clerks like and dislike in briefing (hint, shorter is better).  That sort of thing.

But an enjoyable drive, a good audience, and a topic that ended up being hopefully more helpful than I thought it was going to be.

"Dispositive Motion Practice" paper - request for help

Need some help from readers.
I have been asked to present a paper on dispositive motions at the upcoming State Bar of Texas Federal Court Practice seminar in Dallas on May 15, 2009.  The topic is a routine one, but I wanted to handle it a little differently, and use dispositive motions as an example of how motion practice differs between state and federal courts, and really more importantly, how it differs among federal courts.  We all know  that most federal districts have different rules on these types of motions, and nine years chairing our local rules committee has taught me that there are significant judge-specific differences as well.  Which brings me to my point.
So that I can illustrate the breadth of differences in the rules in this area I'd really appreciate it if readers would recommend to me (e-mail the rules, if you have them) the most lengthy, detailed, (some might say even compulsive/obsessive rules) you've ever seen a federal judge impose on dispositive motion practice (such as summary judgment motions, obviously).  While some of the Eastern District judges have more requirements than others, none are what I'm looking for - I want the most arcane, far-out, improbable and bizarre requirements you've ever seen (regrettably, our local judges aren't nearly eccentric enough on this subject).  Don't have to be from Texas, either - feel free to nominate your favorite jurist from anywhere.  (It would perhaps be small of you to consider this your chance to get back at a judge for taking you to task for not complying with such rules, but that's your problem, not mine).
As I suspect some of these nominations will accompanied by requests for anonymity on the part of the nominating attorney, no need comment to this post - just e-mail me at michaelsmith@siebman.com .