Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Trial Performance

• Author: Scott A. Hatch/Lisa Zimmer Hatch
• Profession: Founders of The Center for Legal Studies and developed their award-winning paralegal curriculum in 1980, offering it through 600 colleges nationwide
• Pages: 217-230

CHAPTER 14 Where the Rubber Hitsthe Road: Trial Performance 217

Chapter14

Where the Rubber

Hitsthe Road: Trial

Performance

Properly preparing for and carrying out the various tasks involved in trial

practice require enormous amounts of the paralegal’s time and energy.

When your employer specializes in litigation, you’ll concentrate on making

sure your supervising attorney is ready for trial, and you’ll be on hand to assist

both during and after trial. In this chapter, we describe the trial process from

developing a trial notebook and selecting a jury to presenting a case to a court and

collecting a judgment.

Creating the Ultimate Source of

Information: The Trial Notebook

Even before you know whether the client’s case is going to trial, your oce should

begin to develop a trial notebook (which contains all the information and docu-

ments pertinent to a client’s case). Make no mistake about it: The best law rms

IN THIS CHAPTER

»

Organizing a trial strategy

»

Selecting the jury

»

Presenting the case

»

Collecting on judgments