New York Trial Notebook

New York Trial Answer Book

Techniques, law, and forms for trial preparation and presentation.

The latest edition of New York Trial Notebook adds hundreds of new case citations, dozens of new tips, and many new and substantially revised sections. Turn to New York Trial Notebook for clear, concise explanations, practice tips, and recent case-based illustrations covering everything from preparing the case for trial through post trial motions.

Lawyers no longer have as many opportunities to polish their trial skills. Small cases rarely reach courtrooms, and specialists and public defenders now handle the criminal cases that used to keep civil lawyers trial-ready.

However, the procedures and cases governing New York courtrooms -- and the techniques that work in them -- must still be learned and remembered. Here is the solution.

Courtroom veterans Ed Birnbaum, Carl Grasso, and Justice Ariel Belen have blended their hard-won trial lessons with the law and rules governing New York trials in New York Trial Notebook. This practical work is heavily-supported with 2,000 cases containing parenthetical descriptions and pinpoint citations, more than 80 forms in print and via Digital Access, and dozens of practice tips. New York Trial Notebook delivers:

Expert witness disclosure

•   Boundaries of the treating-physician exemption from disclosure. §5:04
•   Good practice on requests for expert witness disclosure. §5:22
•   How much disclosure is sufficient. §5:41
•   When preclusion is the appropriate remedy for late disclosure, §5:50, and when it is not. §5:51
•   Tactics for admission and preclusion, with forms. §5:51


Eve-of-trial preparation

•   Case law for common motions in limine. §13.06
•   Responsive tactics. §13:23
•   Plaintiff's proven case themes for liability, §14:20, and damage. §14:21
•   Same for the defense. §§14:32 and 33
•   Themes effective in commercial litigation. §14:40
•   What to put in your trial notebook. §14:51


Expert witness testimony

•   When cumulative expert testimony is permissible. §15:81
•   Rules and cases on expert opinion evidence. §15:90
•   Frye hearings during trial, with forms. §15:131
•   Adequate and inadequate bases for expert opinions. §15:141
•   For medical opinions. §15:163
•   Is a complete factual predicate necessary? §26:53


Jury selection

•   Objecting to questions omitted in judicial voir dire. §20.13
•   Tactfully excusing jurors. §20.18
•   Procedures and tactics in White's and Struck methods. §20:31
•   How to conduct a skillful voir dire. §20:50
•   Pattern language for responding to negative comments about lawyers, size of awards, and the like. §20:56
•   Model commitment questions. §20.100
•   Batson-challenge cases and procedure. §20:141


Trial tips

•   Argument tips from the bench. §19:03
•   An easy way to obtain daily feedback during trial. §19:40
•   Handling forgetful witnesses. §23:20
•   Helping plaintiffs make a good impression. §24:20
•   A fallback question format to avoid leading-question objections. §24:60


Cross examination of lay witnesses

•   How to attack credibility when you must also bring out new evidence. §25.11
•   Questions for attacking the foundation for testimony. §25.20
•   Techniques for impeachment. §25:30
•   Scope of use of inconsistent statements. §25:32
•   Pattern questions for showing bias without overstepping. §25:52
•   Fair subjects for cross, §25:62, gray areas, §25:63, and matters not allowed. §25:64
•   The art of effective cross-examination. §25:90 et seq.


And much, much more. You'll receive detailed answers to the questions that frequently arise in the home stretch before trial, and that arise in the courtroom – qualification and cross-examination of experts, making and meeting objections, persuasive openings and closings, pretrial motions and motions during trial, jury selection and instruction.