DISCOVERY & DEPOSITIONS IN CIVIL LITIGATION (PRMD9212)
2 credits. Seminar.
Prerequisite: Evidence.

The vast majority of cases are not won or lost at trial, but rather are won or lost during pretrial discovery.  This is the reason why more than 90% of all civil cases settle before the trial. "Discovery and Depositions in Civil Litigation" will initially teach the students how to promulgate and respond to all forms of paper discovery in complex cases involving science, medicine and technology. The vast majority of the course will be devoted to teaching the students how to skillfully take depositions in such complex cases.  As the vast majority of trial lawyers spend far more time taking depositions than trying cases, this course will provide law students with the valuable skills needed to assume active roles in pretrial discovery immediately upon passing the bar.  This course will utilize the case study method based on the record of three actual cases. The initial portion of the course will comprehensively but quickly review the federal and New Jersey rules of pretrial discovery, including those rules regulating use of interrogatories, depositions, requests for documents, requests to admit, and subpoenas.  Each student will be required to prepare a short paper to demonstrate their knowledge of these rules.  Each student will then be required to draft and respond to each type of pretrial request for discovery utilizing the facts of one of the actual cases.

The majority of the time spent in the course will be devoted to teaching the students how to properly and comprehensively take the pre-trial depositions of the parties and experts in the actual cases. The course will first examine the case law regarding pretrial depositions. The students will then be required to prepare deposition outlines and take the depositions of the plaintiffs, defendants or the experts in the actual case. The parties and expert witnesses will be portrayed by either an instructor or a student, and counsel for the witness will also be portrayed by an instructor or another student who will defend the deposition. Each student will be obligated to take at least four depositions in front of the entire class. Mistakes, e.g., improperly or poorly worded questions and tactical errors or omissions, will be corrected on the spot and redone until proper. For the first two case studies, the students will initially be given, in addition to the medical or other relevant records and expert reports, the transcripts of the depositions of the parties or experts that were actually taken by the lawyers in these two cases. However, for the third case the students will be expected to demonstrate that they have mastered the ability to take a deposition without the benefit of the actual transcripts. The students will be graded on their preparation of a pretrial discovery memorandum, various pretrial discovery documents and several deposition outlines. The final exam will consist of taking the deposition of a defendant or expert in the third case study.