Obtaining evidence before your trial takes place is governed by a thorough set of rules found in the California Code of Civil procedure and known as the Discovery Act. The Discovery Act is meant to make evidence equally available to all parties, and allow for a more transparent trial. And while that may be true, […]
Subpoenas are the weapon of choice for uncovering the truth. Subpoenas are different from other types of discovery because they are focused on non-party witnesses. That is, people or businesses that have information relevant to your case, but are not part of the lawsuit directly as a party. For example, in nearly every accounting case […]
Have you ever had a conversation that was noticed twenty days in advance, where you had to bring very specific documents, you were asked a series of questions that made little sense, someone copied down every word you said, someone else video taped the whole thing, and another person kept interrupting the conversation every thirty […]
Imagine this: a system where every party fully discloses the facts, witnesses, and documents they have so each side can fairly evaluate their case and prepare for trial. That was the primary purpose of the Discovery Act being passed into law—to make trials more fair and evidence more transparent. Unfortunately, the reality of gathering evidence […]
Expert opinions do not come cheaply. In fact, an expert may be one of the most expensive parts of your Trust or Will lawsuit. In part, the expense is due to the fact that you are hiring a professional (either a doctor, CPA, lawyer, or financial planner) and good ones don’t come cheap. In part, […]
How do you work with an expert witness? Very carefully. There’s two types of experts in the legal world: consulting experts and testifying experts. Consulting experts are those people who look at the facts and give you advice on how best to proceed in your legal case. Consulting experts can tell you where to look […]
There are more expert witnesses than you know what to do with in most cases. In Trust and Will litigation cases, we usually focus on the most relevant experts, which comes down to mental issues, financial issues, fiduciary issues, and accounting/asset tracing issues. For mental issues we turn to physicians who are trained at examining […]
Generally, estate planning attorneys who draft California Trusts and Wills can only be sued for legal malpractice by the client who hired them. But there is a narrow exception to this general rule where an estate planning attorney’s mistake harms “intended beneficiaries” of the Trust or Will—even though the intended beneficiaries were never the attorney’s […]
What if you could file a simple motion at the outset of a lawsuit and have a court decide the case in your favor? Sounds good to me. But ending a lawsuit quickly is not as easy as you may think. In part, that’s because of our Constitutional Right to Due Process, which means each […]
A motion for summary judgment is a technical device used for asking a court to rule on your case before conducting a full-blown trial. Summary judgment can only be used to decide questions of law—not fact. For example, if everyone agrees that a joint account was titled in the name of two people, then the […]
