Skills and Tactics for Case Preparation, Investigation and Discovery in New York

Careful pre-suit and pre-trial evaluation, research and investigation can make a significant difference in your clients’ cases. Attorneys need to make early decisions in their cases to find and secure evidence for trial. Attorneys also must prepare to counter and frame evidence that may be used against them. Once in suit, attorneys must make proactive decisions to structure discovery demands and maximize their effectiveness.

This course discusses techniques associated with client intake and case evaluation. Here, attorney Clifford Tucker reviews certain strict deadlines, which apply to representing injured people, and discusses the basic forms needed to obtain medical and other private information. He will also address managing client expectations and review how to use the client interview to identify other sources of evidence and to learn issues in the case.

Clifford discusses tactics to find evidence and to secure it against disappearing or spoliation and review spoliation law in New York, as well as using the Freedom of Information Act and the New York Public Officers’ Law to obtain evidence from the government. In that context, he reviews the “no contact rule” N.Y.R.P.C. 4.2. Finally, Clifford addresses skills and techniques in drafting discovery demands and building a record to compel production of discovery.   

1. Discuss client interviewing and case intake
2. Recognize essential areas for pre-suit research and investigation
3. Identify skills and tactics for goal-oriented case development
4. Build successful discovery demands
5. Effectively compel discovery
   

This course originally appeared as a part of our September 2016 Bridge the Gap Event.