Jay Barron, Senior Counsel, just published an article in Orange County Lawyer, the official publication of the Orange County Bar Association.
Excerpt from the article, “Foxing Your Way to Trial with Statutory Preference”:
Civil litigation is not for the faint of heart, even when you have a good case. For parties and their attorneys, a civil lawsuit requires preparation, persistence, time, and money. You are only right on the merits if you win. While most cases settle before trial, and for justified reasons, that rarely is the goal when the lawsuit is filed. You file a case because you want to have your day in court, and get in front of a jury. But clients often discover that getting to that point is fraught with obstacles—uncooperative opposing counsel, endless discovery, a plethora of motions, lengthy scheduling delays, and repeat trial continuances. Meanwhile, court dockets are overflowing with cases. Judges and court staff are overworked and overburdened, while simultaneously being asked to adjudicate complex claims more quickly. Given these circumstances, it’s hard to get your case to trial. An increasingly powerful tool is a statutory trial preference found in Code of Civil Procedure section 36 (Section 36), especially subdivision (a), which applies to litigants over seventy years of age.