Here is the most recent version of the practice guidelines for obstetric anesthesia as prepared by a task force of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
Great Legal Research Tip
Evan Shaeffer linked me to a great post in the (new) legal writing blog and I quickly determined that I needed to pass it on to you.
Raymond Ward from the Big Easy writes about writing. His post, "Owning your downloaded legal authorities," has some great ideas, including the recommendation that cases from electronic research sites be downloaded in a word-processing format. After you have done so, Raymond has several helpful tips, including "[i]nstead of writing in the margins of a hard copy, use Word or WordPerfect to insert comments. That way, your comments will be saved on your electronic copy."
Legal Malpractice Avoidance Checklist
I know I did a post on this subject a couple of weeks ago, linking to a site that had some techniques to help lawyers avoid malpractice claims. But here is another site with yet another handy list of fourteen ways to avoid a claim.
A sample taken directly from the site:
Do You Believe in Magic (Tricks During Closing Argument)?
A motion in limine to prevent your adversary from performing magic tricks in closing argument?
Read all about it here from the Litigation and Trial Blog.
SCOTUS Issues Opinion in Wyeth v. Levine
The U.S. Supreme Court has issued the opinion in Wyeth v. Levine, the product liability case against the manufacturer of Phenergan. Wyeth appealed from an adverse jury verdict saying that Levine’s failure-to–warn claims were pre-empted by federal law because Phenergan’s label was approved by the FDA.
The USSC held that federal law did not pre-empt Levine’s claim that Phenergan’s label did not contain an adequate warning about the IV-push method of administration.
Read the opinion here
Legal Malpractice Lawsuits On the Upswing?
This post from the New York Attorney Malpractice Blog includes the full text of an article from New York Lawyer titled "Legal Malpractice Cases May Surge as the Economy Tanks."
The article says that " [a] recent American Bar Association (ABA) study that looked at legal malpractice claims filed between 2004 and 2007 found that the total number of claims increased by more than 36% compared to the previous three-year period." CNA expects a increase in claims this year that are related to the downfall in the economy.
March 2009 Edition of the Tennessee Trial Law Report
The March 2009 edition of the Tennessee Trial Law Report is in the mail.
This edition includes a summary of 20 different cases addressing various aspects of the law of torts, civil procedure, evidence and trial as decided by Tennessee appellate courts between January 15 and February 15, 2009. The newsletter totals 47 pages, including 22 pages containing the full-text (in addition to our summary) of the three most important cases of the last month. We add the full-text of selected decisions because we think that they are significant enough that lawyers who seek to stay on top of tort law will want to read them in full.
The newsletter also includes (a) Part 3 of my three-part article of the law of motions In limine; and (b) a summary of the status of 22 cases of interest to tort lawyers that are pending before the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Court of Tennessee.
Animation of Crash of Flight 1549
Here is an animation of the crash of US Airways 1549 landing in the Hudson River prepared by Scene Systems. The simulation includes the audio from the pilot and air traffic control.
Scene Systems creates animations for litigation of all types.
E-Discovery Highlights
Kroll Ontrack, an company in electronic discovery and computer forensics business, has compiled a list of the 5 most important of the 138 reported electronic discovery opinions issued from Jan.1, 2008 until Oct. 31, 2008. A full 25% of the cases address the issues of sanctions.
To read a summary of the 5 most significant cases go and Kroll OnTrack’s analysis of the state of e-discovery click here.