Your First Practice Tip of 2012!

Welcome to the apocalypse 2012!

Your first practice tip of the year comes courtesy of our newest federal jurist, Judge Scola -- we're of course delighted he's on the federal bench and thrilled he's finally able to write opinions that are published and available in the future as precedent -- you know, that whole "rule of law" thang.

Here he is helping an insurance company defendant on how to do basic research and brief writing, especially in the context of a motion for reconsideration:

After appearing at a calendar call on December 27, 2011 and announcing ready for trial and after being told the case was the number one case for trial on Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 9:00 a.m., QBE filed this motion on Friday afternoon, December 30, 2011. In its Motion for Reconsideration, QBE takes no issue with the court’s ruling granting its motion for summary judgment in part. QBE claims, however, that the court’s order granting Ocean View’s Corrected Motion on QBE’s second and third affirmative defenses - which are premised on Ocean View’s alleged failure to comply with the policy’s post-loss obligations prior to filing this law suit – was wrongly decided. In support of its Motion for Reconsideration, QBE cites numerous opinions from the Southern District of Florida in cases involving this very same Defendant -- none of which were cited by QBE in its Response to the Corrected Motion for Summary Judgment. It boggles the mind to consider how QBE could not be aware of opinions in its own cases from the same federal district court and yet not cite those cases until after receiving an adverse ruling from the court.

You mean that's not a basis under the rule?

(At least it was worth burning up the midnight oil over the holidays both preparing for trial and scrambling to crank out a motion for reconsideration that went over like a Led Zeppelin.)