Introduction to Civil Litigation

Introduction to Civil LitigationIntroduction to Civil LitigationWhat Is Civil Litigation? When two or more parties become embroiled in a legal dispute seeking money or another specific performance rather than criminal sanctions, civil litigation is the result. They must instead head to the courtroom for trial so a judge or jury can decide the matter. A lawyer who specializes in civil litigation is known as a litigator or a trial lawyer. He represents clients across a broad spectrum of associated proceedings, including pretrial hearings and depositions, as well as arbitration or mediation before administrative agencies or court personnel. Arbitration and mediation are processes that attempt to guide the parties toward settlement without the time and expense of going to court. Types of Civil Litigation Civil litigation encompasses a broad range of disputes, and litigators generally specialize in one or two specific practice areas. Several common areas include Environmental lawLandl ord/tenant disputesProduct liabilitylawsuitsPersonal injuryclaimsIntellectual propertydisputesConstruction liability lawsuitsMedical malpractice claimsEmployment and labordisputesReal estate lawsuitsAnti-trust litigationWorkers compensation claimsEducation lawdisputesDivorce lawsuits Civil litigation can be loosely defined as a legal process in which criminal charges and penalties are not at issue. The Role of a Civil Litigation Lawyer The role and responsibilities of a civil litigation attorney can be challenging and diverse. It is an adversarial process with two or more parties pitted against each other. The attorney is his clients advocate, obligated to fight for him to achieve the best possible outcome on the clients behalf. Lawyersspecializing in this field must be willing to assume oppositional positions, to embrace conflict and controversy, and to effectively act as human pit bulls in defense of their clients. Attorneys and litigation paralegals in this field often work l ong hours, especially during a trial. Certain skills and knowledge are essential tolitigation practice.Key legal skillsinclude Knowledge of substantive and procedural lawStrong written and oral advocacy skillsAnalytical and logical reasoning abilitiesAbility to synthesize complex legal and factual materialsSuperior interpersonal skillsKnowledge of legal research techniques and softwareClient development skillsNegotiation skills The Life Cycle of a Typical Civil Litigation Case Civil litigation can be divided into several stages, including investigation, pleadings, discovery, pretrial proceedings, potential settlement or trial, and even appeal.Discovery is typically the longest and fruchtwein labor-intensive stage of a case. Unlike the way theyre often portrayed on television, civil attorneys spend comparatively little time in the trial. Much of their time is devoted to the discovery stage the exchange of information pertinent to the case through depositions, interrogatories, a nd subpoenas. The latter are demands for information or documents from third parties. Depositions and interrogatories involve questions posed under penalty of perjury to the parties in a lawsuit. Deposition questions are posed orally under oath. Interrogatories are written questions. Not every lawsuit passes through each stage in fact, most dont. The majority of lawsuits are settled by agreement of the parties and never reach the courtroom. Parties can settle during a trial, even after a jury has begun deliberating or has delivered a verdict. They can settle or stipulate to some aspects of the lawsuit, leaving others in the hands of the judge or jury. When a case does go all the way to trial, the entire process, from filing documents with the court to initiate the case through resolution, can take anywhere from a few months toseveral years.

Executives and integrity (according to their assistants)

Executives and integrity (according to their assistants)Executives and integrity (according to their assistants)The Secret Power In The Office is a collection of responses from 200 executive assistants regarding the questionable behavior theyve witnessed over the course of their careers.An alarming 48% expressed a first hand-account of serious misconduct within the last year alone. Abuse of company resources, sexual assault, mishandling of confidential information, and operations that pose a conflict of interests made up the majority of the breaches indexed.Young professionals and consumers, in particular, were found to hold their respective firms to high standards as far as integrity is concerned. This means, in a bid to ensure a healthy pool of potential employees and acquired targets, employers purport a degree of ethical behavior that they rarely observe.The report states that 30% of upper management never, seldom, or occasionally upheld to the ethical standards they professed, w ith a little less than 20% claiming to abide faithfully. These reports speak to a developing enmity between workers and CEOs leading to a depletion of faith in leadership and decreased productivity.According to the report, the pervasive failure to properly abide by certain policies is fueled by a fear of not meeting fiscal expectations and buttressed by a lack of concrete understanding of what ethical standards actually are.Many of the instances of misconduct mentioned were believed by many to be par for the course for the corporate world 13% of executive assistants stated that lying and cheating is simply part of the culture.What can be done?The report used the data to attempt to conjecture several methods of remedying the ethical challenges plaguing the economic community.One of the things proposed welches eradicating the link between compensation and targets. Many have suggested in the past that incentive-driven targeting adversely impacts value creation. Additionally, key perf ormance indicators seem to be the nucleus of much of the misconduct detailed.Accounting for every conceivable form of misconduct by creating policies for all of them obscures the aim.As the report states Ahigher number of policies produces more incentive to bend the rules or find loopholes. It also takes away peoples own responsibility.Lastly, the report suggests all firms exercise muscles of discussion. Instead of excessive reprimanding and surveillance, habitual discussion on the topic of ethics and integrity with executive consultants should be a preferred method in order to change the culture from within.

Magnets Make the Motor

Magnets Make the Motor Magnets Make the Motor Magnets Make the MotorManufacturers need light, extremely strong magnets to power electric-vehicle murls, and they have long relied on the rare-earth metals neodymium and dysprosium to create them. But those metals are expensive and subject to wild price jumps and shaky supply chainsproblems that have become more acute as demand for electric cars grows.Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory say theyve found a solution. They recently built a powerful EV motor that uses common ferrite magnets rather than those made from the rare earth metals, which can cost up to 30 times more per pound.The new motor achieves 75 percent higher power than comparably sized commercial EV motors, the researchers said, and it could be ready for mass production in a year.ur main target was to reach the same or higher power density, keep within the same volume, and use cheaper magnets, said Tim Burress, project leader at ORNL.Most electric motors include two main components the stator, which is stationary, and the rotor, which moves. Like most stators, ORNLs was made from thin, laminated sheets of steel that form a hollow cylinder. A series of copper coils line the cylinder and produce a magnetic field when charged. The rotor sits inside the cylinder, surrounded by a series of magnets and attached to an axle. The stator and rotor repel each other magnetically, causing the rotor and axle to spin.ORNL researcher Tim Burress works on a prototype EV motor that uses magnets made from iron. Image ORNLTo reduce costs, the researchers used ferrite magnets that are readily available from most suppliers. Their finished magnets cost $3 a pound, compared with $90 per pound for those made from neodymium and dysprosium. Back in 2010, the prices of both metals skyrocketed after China, the main supplier of the metals, limited the export of rare-earth minerals.While prices have since dropped, they are mucksmuschenstill high and subject to sudden change s. But the researchers still had a problem. Ferrite-based magnets are up to 10 times weaker than rare earth magnets. It can take up to 10 times more ferrite than neodymium to make a magnet of equal strengthand that can make a magnet so heavy it flies out of the rotor, said Jason Pries, an ORNL research associate who worked closely with Burress.ORNLs rotor, for example, includes 16 magnets. Each of them weighs 175 gramsalmost four times the weight of the neodymium-dysprosium magnets in the rotor of a 2015 Toyota Prius motor, which the researchers used for performance comparisons.To secure the heavy magnets, the researchers machined bevels into the magnets and slipped them into S-shaped slots in the rotor. An epoxy prevented the magnets from bouncing around.The team offset the extra weight of the magnets by reducing the mass of steel and copper in the rotor. The motor weighed only about one pound more than the Prius motor, a difference manufacturers can live with, Burress said. The to tal cost of the magnets in the ORNL motor was $20, compared with $150 for the Prius motor.ORNLs motor was also more powerful. It generated 103 kW (138 hp) at 9,000 rpm, compared with the Prius 60 kW (80 hp) at the same speed. The researchers attribute the performance gains to powerful modeling, simulation and design tools, and the new class of optimized ferrite compounds. Optimization was the key to making this work, Pries said.Read the latest issue of Mechanical Engineering Magazine.Our main target was to reach the same or higher power density, keep within the same volume, and use cheaper magnets.Tim Burress, ORNL