As I Was Telling Fidel…
[This article originally appeared in The Trial Lawyer Magazine, Spring 2002.] By Walter "Skip" Walker Some 30 of us litigators trooped off to Cuba in early December under a program fully supported by the State Department. Yes, the embargo is still in effect, but, hey, even Cuba needs cultural exchanges. So we trial lawyers, almost…
Read MorePost 9.11: Personal Injury Litigation in the Aftermath
[This originally appeared in The Trial Lawyer Magazine, Winter 2002.] By Walter "Skip" Walker March, 2000, life was good. Life was "phat," as the kids were saying. It was certainly good for everyone in the San Mateo County courtroom. Except, of course, the plaintiff. She, after all, had lost her 14-year-old son in a drowning…
Read MoreLessons from the Great Cow Case – No Bull!
[Note: Skip Walker presented this at the Western Trial Lawyers Association Seminar in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, March 2020.] A woman walks into a corral.... Start of something great, huh? Well, it wasn’t for this woman. A mother cow took umbrage at her presence and rammed her into a fencepost, breaking eight of her ribs. …
Read MoreLessons From a Novelist on Picking a Jury
[Originally published in Plaintiff Magazine, January 2020.] The story you tell must be yours, not one that somebody else has told in another place at another time. In my “other” career, I write novels. Usually they are about lawyers. Always they have been published by major publishing houses. On more than one occasion they have…
Read MoreGreat Cases I have Lost – and the lessons learned
[This article originally appeared in Plaintiff Magazine in April 2018.] Lesson Number One In 1985, I tried the Alpine Meadows Avalanche case in Placer County for four and a half months. It took over two weeks to pick a jury in August, and in December the chosen 12 deliberated for two and a half weeks…
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