Exam 8: The Duty of Diligent Representation

Cleo Paralegal has been trying to get Wayne King (bad guy) served with a complaint for two months. Wayne has been served before and is now the "King of Evasion." In order to find Wayne when he is not suspecting a process server, Cleo begins hanging out at a coffee shop near Wayne's sister's house. Cleo spreads around the idea that she is Wayne's "old girl friend from high school" who is looking to surprise Wayne. Cleo

Percy Paralegal is, among other things, in charge of the thousands of documents for a multi-million dollar contract litigation case. Document #78690757 is missing, but Percy remembers exactly what it looked like. Rather than get in trouble for losing a document, Percy re-creates the document using his computer and the law firm printer/photocopier. Percy

The Law Firm of Ubber & Pratt received a very large invoice from Court Reporting Agency. Rather than pay the invoice, the firm filed a complaint against the agency hoping that the probability of a long and expensive law suit will frighten them into just forgetting about the invoice. In reality, Ubber & Pratt have no problem with Court Reporting Agency. This tactic

Apolonia Paralegal's father owns a golf and tennis pro shop at a local golf club. Apolonia's law firm typically gets sports-types gifts wholesale (through Apolonia's dad) and gives them to the local court personnel at Christmas. This practice

Clara Paralegal is taking some routine information from a new client (Mr. Deal) when Deal suddenly opens his briefcase and shows her a handgun. He says: "This is the gun I used to kill my wife. I'm on my way to my bank to hide it in a safe deposit box." Clara says: "That's not a very smart place to hide it. It's the first place the police usually look! Give it to me and I'll hide it some place where they will never look and, as I won't tell you where it is, you have plausible deniability." Clara has

While interviewing a potential witness, Xavier Paralegal suggested that the witness did not see a "green" car, but instead showed her pictures of blue and turquoise-colored cars of the same make and model as the car the witness told the police she had seen at the accident. By the end of the interview, the witness was pretty confused about what, exactly, she had seen. At Xavier's request, then, she signed a witness statement saying that she really did not remember what the car looked like, contradicting the statement she made to the police. Xavier

The plaintiff, Leandro Rizzuto, climbed a ladder manufactured by the named defendant, Ladders, Inc. while shopping at a Buy-It-All store. The ladder collapsed suddenly and the plaintiff fell to the floor, incurring serious physical injuries. The plaintiff filed a product liability action against Ladders and the defendant, Buy-It-All, alleging that the ladder had been manufactured and designed improperly, and had been sold without proper warnings. Thereafter, the plaintiff asked the defendants repeatedly to preserve the ladder and to afford him an opportunity to examine the ladder. The defendants' expert examined the ladder and concluded that it was not defective. The defendants thereafter destroyed the ladder, despite the fact that the plaintiff had never had an opportunity to inspect it. Plaintiff will bring a motion for

Defendant Jonas was on trial for 1st degree manslaughter. The trial was 8 days long. The jury was then given instructions and went into the jury room to deliberate. Approximately two hours later, the jury sent a note out to the judge saying that they could not reach a verdict. After receiving the note, the judge met with the jury in a group and told them that they had not deliberated long enough, that they may be missing the importance of some evidence, or maybe were not looking at all of the evidence. After this meeting with the judge, the jury went back to deliberations and, five hours later returned a guilty verdict. The defendant

Bronson Paralegal is writing a motion that will be filed with the state court. He has located a case that holds exactly the opposite of the point he is trying to make. In order to rectify what Bronson sees as a losing motion, Bronson simply quotes from the case's ruling and inserts the word "not" at the appropriate place. Now the quote stands for the proposition that Bronson needs. "Unless the judge reads very carefully, he will never notice this small insertion," thinks Bronson. Just to be sure his supervising attorney doesn't get into trouble, though, Bronson tells the attorney what the case really says. Which of the following is likely to happen next?

Attorney Evans lost a motion for a new trial. In his anger, he wrote a letter to the judge accusing him of making the adverse ruling based on religious bias because both the judge and opposing counsel are Jewish, and Evans is not. While appealing the judge's ruling, Evans wrote to the judge:" I feel that your Ruling was either the result of your incompetence in the matter or perhaps worse and reflected a Jewish bias in favor of the Kaplan firm whose actions were in my judgment inexcusable in this cause. If in fact it represents incompetence I will drop the matter but if it is a Jewish bias I will file a complaint under the Rules for Handling Complaints of Judicial Misconduct or Disability." Evans:

In house paralegal, Dorothy, is asked by her company's personnel department if the old email backup harddrive, which is failing, can be erased and disposed of. As the personnel department has nothing to do with corporate dealings with shareholders or other people outside of the company, Dorothy does not see the harm in letting that old information go. She is