Filing a Civil Lawsuit — Part Two
What to Expect as You Move Toward Trial
In Part One of this series, we discussed how to initiate a civil action and looked at the discovery process. So you’ve gathered all the evidence, deposed all necessary witnesses, and reviewed all documents related to the dispute. It’s time to go to trial, right? Not yet.
The Pre-Trial Motion Stage of a Civil Lawsuit
As we discussed in Part One, most court dockets are full. Furthermore, trials can be expensive and time- consuming. Accordingly, the courts have an incentive to either dispose of a dispute entirely before trial or to minimize the issues that need to be resolved. This is typically done through the use of pre-trial motions.
A motion is a written request to the court to take some type of action. There are generally two types of pre-trial motions—dispositive motions and evidentiary motions. A dispositive motion seeks to resolve all or part of a dispute, whereas an evidentiary motion seeks to limit or expand what types of proof a jury may be exposed to.
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