In the November 2008 issue of Arizona Highways there is an article about Martin Litton, age 90, who is a river guide in the Grand Canyon and has been rowing the river for over fifty years. He is an uncompromising environmentalist and I was struck by the wisdom of his unyielding position on the subject. The article relates that in 1985 he was waiting to speak to a group of river guides on an enviormental issue in Arizona. Former Arizona…
Dr. Jerome Groopman, M.D. has written How Doctors Think (Mariner Books) It has some helpful information for lawyers. I was interested in the following description of how doctors are trained to make a diagnosis. He says: "Medical students are taught that the evaluation of a patient should proceed in a discrete, linear way: you first take the patient’s history, then perform a physical examination, order tests, and analyze the results. Only after all the data are compiled should your formulate…
I’m a great believer that lawyers must use a checklist for every deposition they take no matter how experienced they are. If seasoned airplane pilots use checklists, lawyers should too. It’s too easy to get side tracked during a deposition and forget some area of questioning. What follows is an example of a verybasic and simplistic outline for the deposition of an eye witness in a damage case. I take an outline like this and revise it by adding areas…