Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts

The recently published Fourth Edition of Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts, Robert L. Haig Editor-in-Chief, consists of 14 volumes (three more than the Third Edition) with 25 new chapters. It is a comprehensive guide to topics that confront generalists and specialists. Any inside counsel who has engaged lawyers to handle complex commercial cases would benefit greatly by immersion in the subject areas they are confronting, either as plaintiffs or defendants.

There is a new chapter on mediation. Those of us who began practice before the late 1970s would have seen mediation as a proverbial flash in the pan; but once the idea took hold, it became increasingly popular. There is a section describing which cases the authors believe best suited for mediation.

Another important new chapter is the one on social media. It points out that a litigant seeking to access an opponent’s social media will have to deal with the Stored Communications Act, which places limits on what a service provider must disclose. However, the statute does not protect an account owner from disclosing relevant social media communications.

Finally, the chapter on Civil Justice Reform should be of interest to every participant in the civil justice system. As a former member of the Judicial Conference of the United States Civil Rules Advisory Committee, I found the discussion of efforts to fix problems in the 2015 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures quite illuminating.