The Library

Well, it appears that the Carnell Construction case is not over yet, and it continues to create interesting construction law precedent. The Fourth Circuit is sending the case back down for trial number four! This case is starting to remind me of the famous Zubulake cases, with its several important e-discovery opinions numbered Zubulake I through V. A quick look on Google Scholar shows fifteen Carnell opinions! So, let’s take a look at the latest iteration (perhaps, we should call it Carnell XV) as it relates to construction law. Note that there are many interesting (and apparently controversial – check […]

The Supreme Court’s Expansion of Warrantless Searches in Fernandez v. California Put yourself in the following situation: you hear a knock on the door and open to find the police requesting to search your home for a robbery suspect. Your spouse consents and you refuse. The police then arrest you and take you from the scene. Can the police search after you have been hauled away in cuffs? According to the Supreme Court (and surprisingly) the answer is now yes … so long as the police were justified in removing you from the scene and did not do so solely […]

In my 46 years of practice in the litigation area, I have prepared literally hundreds of witnesses, usually my clients, to be deposed. Among the myriad admonitions I give to such witnesses in preparing them for their depositions is the following: “Listen to the questions, make sure you understand the questions, and then answer only the questions that are asked; do not volunteer information.” To drive home this instruction, I frequently use the following illustration: “I meet you on the street and, being acquainted with you, ask you where you are going. You answer that you are going downtown, to […]

E-Discovery has been a hot legal topic over last several years, and it has impacted most all areas of the law. For the non-lawyers out there, discovery is the exchange of information during litigation, and it has changed drastically because the way we (as a society) keep information has changed. Our important information used to be all on paper, but now it is primarily digital. And, so, we have e-discovery, which is more complicated than just sending the lawyer on the other side a box of documents. Now, we need to be able to understand all of the places where […]