How to Succeed as a Trial Lawyer, Third Edition

by Stewart Edelstein

Overview

Litigation is a challenging vocation. It demands not only intellectual ability but attention to detail, perseverance, creative problem-solving, persuasiveness, focus, integrity, and the ability to press the client's position with enthusiasm while maintaining sufficient detachment to provide the objective, independent advice the client requires. How to Succeed as a Trial Lawyer, Third Edition is an invaluable guide to each of these requirements and more.

Topics covered:

• Effective and ethical use of artificial intelligence
• Strategies for in-person and remote depositions, mediations, and arbitrations
• Compliance with updated ethical rules
• Strategic implementation of the most recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence
• Dealing with clients and others in a trial lawyer's professional life
• Principles applicable to all legal writing
• Drafting emails, letters, internal memos, pleadings, motions, and briefs
• All aspects of discovery, including e-discovery
• How to try a case, from jury selection through closing argument
• The art of persuasion
• Dealing with ethical issues
• Dealing with stress
• Marketing a law practice

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639055364
Publisher:	American Bar Association
Publication date:	01/21/2025
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Stewart Edelstein taught clinical courses at Yale Law School for twenty years, during his forty-year career as a commercial trial lawyer. He has frequently presented seminars for trial lawyers, and is the author and presenter of more than eighty articles, podcasts, and webinars for trial lawyers, as well as a book, now in its third edition, How to Succeed as a Trial Lawyer (ABA 2024). He has been on the Neutral Panel of the American Arbitration Association and has served as a Settlement Special Master in federal court and Counsel to the Federal Grievance Committee in Connecticut. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and Cornell Law School, where he was on the moot court team. At Stanford Law School, he completed the Advanced Course in Trial Advocacy, and, at Harvard Law School, he completed the Teacher Training Program, both under the auspices of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. He was admitted to the bars of the State of Connecticut, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.

Editorial Reviews

"Stewart Edelstein's excellent book should be on the desk - not on the bookshelf - of every attorney who is or aspires to be a successful civil litigator and trial lawyer."

- Stephen Wizner, Yale Law School William O. Douglas Clinical Professor Emeritus of Law

"Not a traditional text on civil litigation or trial advocacy, How to Succeed as a Trial Lawyer contains numerous pearls of wisdom, in checklist format, the do's and don'ts that effective litigators eventually learn 'on the job.' It shows you how to avoid the mistakes young litigators frequently make . . . . It has what the traditional texts miss: the actual how to do the various tasks of civil litigation and, just as important, the things to avoid doing."

- Professor Thomas Mauet, author of many articles and books on litigation-related topics

"This is the book I wish I had in my first 10 years as a trial lawyer. It's also the book I wish I could have handed out to trial lawyers while I was on the bench. Edelstein is thorough, concise, shrewd, and wise. The update of this excellent book provides wise and practical tips on up-to-the-minute advocacy issues - the use of AI, remote depositions, and on-screen hearings. As in his chapters on traditional trials, the author offers smart and concrete guidance."

- Beverly Hodgson, arbitrator, mediator, former Connecticut Superior Court judge

"How to Succeed as a Trial Lawyer includes everything you need to know that you didn't learn in law school. It is fantastically organized, refreshingly straightforward, and includes easy-to-use practice checklists at the end of every chapter."

- Nila Bala, Acting Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law

From the Publisher