Civility and Litigation

There's a good article about civility in this month's Illinois Bar Journal: "Uncivil Action," by Helen W. Gunnarsson.

Some tips from the lawyers interviewed for the article:

• It's a waste of time to try to outbully a bully; make a decision not to respond to incivility with incivility;
• You can't reform the small percentage of lawyers who use incivility as a litigation tool; those lawyers, though, will become known for their incivility, which will tend to make it harder for their strategy to work;
• Your own bad behavior will come back to bite you; always treat people with courtesy, even when they're inept at doing it themselves.

Here's my own tip: get more sleep. In my experience, many of the ugly outbursts I've witnessed at depositions, which often lead to apologies later, are caused by stress exacerbated by lack of sleep.