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Trial Work for Other Law Firms

We are trial lawyers who enjoy taking our cases to trial. Doing so is an invigorating challenge each time. We have found from experience that judges and juries at trial tend to reach fair decisions on the merits after seeing for themselves what the witnesses and attorneys have to say about the dispute at hand. Our task at trial is to organize the evidence, present it skillfully, and make sense of it all in the manner that will best help our client to obtain the most favorable possible outcome. If you wish, you can read more elsewhere on this site about our approach to litigation and the proper handling and presentation of evidence at trial.

William Markham and Dorn Bishop each have extensive experience as trial attorneys and superb track records in the many trials that they have conducted over the years. Working separately in smaller matters, or together in larger cases, they can readily try any case that cannot be settled. They can also take over a case six weeks before trial and expertly try it to conclusion, using our proven system for organizing cases and presenting them at trial.

If you are a lawyer, you may wish to consult with us about preparing for your own trial or hire us to try the case for your firm as your trial counsel. We cannot accept a case for trial unless we are engaged at least six weeks before the trial call.

For small and even medium-sized cases, we typically rely on a spare team, sending to court only a lead trial attorney, a trial paralegal, and a trial technician, all of whom are supported by a litigation team working in the office. In our experience, jurors are sometimes discomfited by the presence at trial of overly large teams of trial professionals. It is usually better to have a litigation team at the office who can support a smaller team of professionals who appear in court.

The trial attorney must have an intimate command of the underlying facts and controlling law. The lead trial paralegal must have a proficient understanding of the case and must be able to retrieve within twenty seconds any item that we might wish to use at trial (the “twenty-second drill”). The trial technician uses state-of-the-art technology to show the jury video clips of deposition testimony, demonstrative exhibits, and regular exhibits, doing so in a way that makes it easier for the jurors to understand what is being shown to them.

These three professionals must collaborate closely as a team and in a manner that calls attention not to themselves, but to the witnesses and the exhibits, save for special exceptions, when the jurors should be hanging on every word spoken by the trial attorney.

The entire effort depends on a successful underlying strategy, the adroit use of trial procedures, and the skillful handling of evidence, and all of these tasks in turn depend on the proficient use of a properly prepared electronic trial notebook, which we deem necessary to competent trial work. In larger cases, we use the same approach, except that we can dispatch a larger team of professionals to trial, where each professional will have responsibility for specified proceedings and tasks.

In the end, conducting a trial is not simply a series of techniques (although this work cannot be done properly without a mastery of the necessary techniques). Rather, conducting a trial requires a spirit of justice, an ability to recount confusing or tangled facts in a way that makes everything clear, and a talent for connecting the dots in a way that holds everyone’s attention and wins their sympathy.

It is all about telling your client’s story in a manner that is fully supported by the evidence and that elicits the understanding, approval, and compassion, or at least the lenience and forgiveness, of a bored group of restless, impaneled jurors, who by the end of the trial often wish only to go home, unless you have done your work well, in which case they will thoroughly understand the case and want to do the right thing because it is their duty and also in their power to do so. We embrace trials and always look forward to our next one.

If you seek trial attorneys, we welcome your call and will offer a free initial consultation about trying your case for you.

MR. MARKHAM’S ARTICLES ON ANTITRUST LAW

AN OVERVIEW OF ANTITRUST LAW (By William Markham, © 2000)

“Antitrust law is the law of competition and is perhaps the least understood law of all. This article provides an overview and explanation of the essential principles of antitrust law.”
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ANTITRUST EXEMPTIONS AND IMMUNITIES (By William Markham, © 2022)

“Over the years, Congress and the federal courts have established various immunities from federal antitrust law, removing from its reach specified commercial activities and even entire lines of commerce.”
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HOW THE CONSUMER-WELFARE STANDARD TRANSFORMED CLASSICAL ANTITRUST LAW (William Markham, © 2021)

“Since the late 1970s, antitrust law in the United States has been transformed out of recognition and rendered largely toothless by consumer-welfare jurisprudence….,”
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READ MR. MARKHAM’S ARTICLES ON TRIAL PROCEDURE AND CONTRACT LAW

MAKING SENSE OF THE RULES OF EVIDENCE AND PRESENTING YOUR EVIDENCE AT TRIAL (By William Markham, 2011)

“I try in this article simply to set forth a list of simple rules to explain the key points of the law of evidence. I also offer several pointers on organizing evidence in order to present it competently at trial.”
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ANATOMY OF A LAWSUIT (By William Markham, © 2007)

“This article is written for non-lawyers, young litigators, and non-litigator attorneys who wish to understand how a lawsuit works in practice from start to finish.”
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AN OVERVIEW OF CONTRACT LAW (By William Markham, 2002)

“Contract law lies at the heart of our system of laws and serves as the foundation of our entire society…. Our society depends upon free exchange in the marketplace at every level. Contract law makes this possible.”
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LAW OFFICES OF WILLIAM MARKHAM, P.C.
402 West Broadway, Suite 400
San Diego, CA 92101
Tel. (619) 221-4400
inquiries@markhamlawfirm.com

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