Litigating in Federal Court: A Guide to the Rules, Second Edition

This book is designed to provide guidance to the law student or litigator as to the applicable rules—and the inter-relationship among those rules—for all of the stages of a federal civil lawsuit. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are not sufficiently organized or cross-referenced to allow law students or litigators to easily understand the relationships among the rules, or to make sure that all relevant rules have been consulted. Litigating in Federal Court seeks to remedy this deficiency. The second edition of this book includes all of the updates to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that have occurred since the last edition was published, as well as some additional material on changing litigation trends such as e-discovery.
As in the first edition, Litigating in Federal Court is divided into two parts. The first part of the book covers all of the stages of federal court litigation, including a short narrative discussion of each stage and one or more charts showing the applicable rules and their relationship to each other. These charts have been drafted and re-drafted based on Professor Woodley's experience as a federal court clerk, a litigation associate in a law firm, and a professor of Civil Procedure and Pretrial Advocacy for many years. The second part of the book contains multiple checklists for drafting most of the documents used in the pretrial process (which include citations of the basic relevant rules).
This extremely practical, yet analytically complex, guide to federal court litigation is a valuable resource for law students and litigators alike.