Litigation
Cal. Litig. 2016, Volume 29, Number 2
Content
- Editor's Foreword Baby Steps: On the Path to Full Publication?
- Overview of State Bar Court Procedure
- Table of Contents
- Sweet Little Lies
- Masthead
- Secondments: a View from the Inside-Out
- From the Section Chair
- It's Time to Replace Summary Depublication by the California Supreme Court with Something Better
- Cacis Compel Litigators to "Do It In Reverse"
- Past Editors-in-Chief
- Managing Your Litigation Team for the Ultimate Benefit of the Client
- We Must Promptly Restore Court Reporters to Trial Courts Throughout California
- Litigation Section Executive Committee Past Chairs
- Thinking Beyond the Assignment: Selection and Management of Expert Witnesses
- Trial Ethics: Witnesses
Managing Your Litigation Team for the Ultimate Benefit of the Client
By Allen L. Lanstra
This year I’ve been counseling a college student who wants to be a lawyer. She asks a lot of questions and, to her credit, many follow-up questions. The discourse has caused me to reevaluate the advice that I give to younger attorneys. I realized that some of my oft-shared guidance has been capsulized over time into clever sayings that, although efficient, may fail to pack a full punch. So I set out to reexamine the underlying foundations of my common menu of advice.
[Page 15]
What I quickly realized was that the most enjoyable aspect about my law practice is also an invisible component of success in complex and demanding litigation â but is not a focus of law school curricula. It’s management, and specifically, the need and ability to manage a litigation team. With these reflections, I began to unpack what it means to successfully manage complex litigation. For several months I’ve focused some of my professional reading and committed self-improvement efforts on this topic. The best leaders are attentive to improving their craft, so I began digging deeper into one particular key to both my professional success and satisfaction. I had learned much about management at business school, but had not focused on it much since law school. It was time to revisit.