NJSBA Family Law Section

Hello Family Law Section members,

The MCLE deadline will be here in two weeks, and the following seminars, each offered in three different locations can you help you get the CLE credits that you need.

Legal Ethics Is No Laughing Matter ... or Is It?: A Hilarious 2019/2020 Update Featuring: Sean Carter, Humorist-at-Law
Dec. 28 - Hyatt, Morristown
Dec. 30 - Doubletree Guest Suites at Mt. Laurel
Dec. 31 - New Jersey Law Center

Successfully Deposing the Vague or Emphatically Certain Witness: Getting What You Need Out Of“I Don’t Know,” “I Do Know”and “I Don’t Remember
Dec. 27 - New Jersey Law Center
Dec. 28 - Westin, Mt. Laurel
Dec. 30 - Wilshire Grand, West Orange

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Legal Ethics Is No Laughing Matter ... or Is It?: A Hilarious 2019/2020 Update Featuring Sean Carter, Humorist-at-Law
He’s back - with an all-new 3-part program, designed to fully satisfy your New York and New Jersey MCLE ethics requirement. Earn 4.0 ethics credits the fun way – attend Sean Carter's laugh packed program. He’s back again this year with a brand program, so reserve your seat today and laugh and learn.

Sean Carter
Sean Carter graduated from Harvard Law School in 1992. His 10 years of legal practice focused on corporate securities and mergers and acquisitions. During this time, he represented such clients as GNC, Experian, The Boston Beer Company Homeside Lending, Safelite Auto Glass, J. Crew and many others.

Most recently, he served as in-house counsel to a publicly-traded finance company. In 2002, he left the practice of law to pursue a career as the country's foremost Humorist-at-Law.

Since then, Carter has crisscrossed the country delivering comedic professional educational seminars for more than 250 organizations in three dozen states. Mr. Carter is the author of the first-ever comedic legal treatise, If It Does Not Fit, Must You Acquit?: Your Humorous Guide to the Law. His syndicated legal humor column has appeared in general circulation newspapers in more than 30 state.

Topics for discussion at this year’s program include:
• Technical Fouls: Even Minor Ethics Violations Can Have Major Consequences
When it comes to ethics violations, there is no such thing as a minor or "technical" foul. All ethics violations are serious matters, evidencing a breach of the trust that has been placed in the lawyer. As a result, lawyers must avoid falling into the mindset that a particular violation is "no big deal." To make this case, noted legal humorist Sean Carter will chronicle a number of recent ethics cases in which lawyers were surprised to discover that even minor ethics violations can have major consequences.
• Keep It Classy: Exercise Proper Restraint in Legal Marketing
With current technology, legal marketing has never been easier or less expensive. Anyone with a cell phone can shoot and distribute a commercial online in a matter of minutes. Moreover, lawyers can make their presence known on social media, blogs, law firm websites and lawyer referral sites. It’s never been easier for a lawyer to get the word out. Nor has it ever been easier for lawyers to run afoul of the ethical rules regulating legal marketing. In this fun multimedia presentation, legal humorist Sean Carter will show examples of lawyers who cross the
boundaries of legal ethics (or just good taste).
• Knowing When to Say When: Avoiding Vexatious Lawyering
While lawyers are expected to provide their clients with zealous representation, we are not allowed to become outright zealots in pursuit of our client’s objectives. Yet, time and again, this is precisely what happens as lawyers become fixated on winning at all costs. And as a result, they end up paying the ultimate price — the loss of their license to practice law. In this sobering but surprisingly funny presentation, legal humorist Sean Carter will distinguish permissible zealous legal practices from unethical legal zealotry. Moreover, he will provide helpful tips to overcome
the temptation (and sometime, client expectation) to play “hardball” and to avoid those situations that are most likely to cause lawyers to cross ethical lines.

CLE Credits:
NJ CLE information: This program has been approved by the Board on Continuing Legal Education of the Supreme Court of New Jersey for 4.0 hours of total CLE credit. Of these, 4.0 qualify as hours of credit for ethics/professionalism.
NJ CLE: his program has been approved for 4.0 credits (50 minute hour), including 4.0 ethics/professionalism credits
PA CLE: 3.0 ethics credits pending ($12 fee – separate check payable to NJICLE must be submitted at the end of the program)
NY CLE (t&nt): 4.0 ethics credits

The general tuition is $220. Tuition onsite is $260.

Click here to register for Legal Ethics on Dec. 28 - Hyatt, Morristown
Click here to register for Legal Ethics on Dec. 30 - Doubletree Guest Suites at Mt. Laurel
Click here to register for Legal Ethics on Dec. 31 - New Jersey Law Center

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Successfully Deposing the Vague or Emphatically Certain Witness: Getting What You Need Out Of“I Don’t Know,” “I Do Know”and “I Don’t Remember
Whether at trial or in deposition, the "yes-no" question frequently constitutes a Scylla & Charybdis problem for the adverse witness because the "yes" response is a case-harming admission and the "no" response creates a risk of impeachment, maybe a BIG risk of a BIG impeachment. Thus, the willing-to-lie witness, perhaps coached by an unethical attorney, often attempts to avoid Scylla & Charybdis by claiming a lack of knowledge or lack of memory. As all experienced litigators well know, these claims are the all-time, every-case, toughest answers to prove are lies.

Much of the videotaped Q&A used to illustrate the presentation's scores of teaching points comes from two Bill Clinton depositions (the Paula Jones case & the Kenneth Starr "case"), but there are additional "guest witnesses," such as Brian Williams, Alberto Gonzales, Anita Hill, Bill Gates, George Bush, Lynn Westmoreland ... with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump making cameo appearances.

Check it out on Google ... there’s literally no other CLE presentation like this in the entire country!

FEATURING
Robert Musante
Robert Musante is the nation's foremost teacher of deposition cross-examination. He has taught the logic essential to taking great adverse depositions – of fact witnesses and experts – to more than 50,000 litigators in 43 states. He has made in-house presentations to the attorneys-general of 11 states and to the partners and associates of 100+ litigation law firms.

Take your deposition skills to the next level, including:
• Why depose
• How depose
• Making witness pick a chair: "Yes," "No," or "Maybe"
• Lawyers coaching the deceitful "I don’t remember"
• Cross-examiner must master word-hawking
• Why memory claims are so tough to attack
• Cross-examiner’s cardinal blunder re attacking "I don’t remember"
• Rosetta Stone Qs (12 lines of attack) vs. "I don’t remember"
• "I don’t remember" that reserves a bad surprise for trial
• Rosetta Stone Qs vs. “I do remember” that favors opposing party
• The several meanings of “I don't know”
• Four lines of attack vs. “I don't know”
• The invalid “I don't know”
• Rosetta Stone Qs vs. “I don't know”

CLE Credits:
NJ CLE information: This program has been approved by the Board on Continuing Legal Education of the Supreme Court of New Jersey for 7.3 hours of total CLE credit. Of these, 7.3 qualify as hours of credit toward certification in civil trial law.
NJ CLE: This program has been approved for 7.3 credits (50 minute hour)
Trial Attorney Certification: 7.3 civil credits pending
PA CLE: 6.0 substantive credits pending ($24 fee – separate check payable to NJICLE must be submitted at the end of the program)
NY CLE (nt): 7.0 professional practice credits

The general tuition is $299. Tuition onsite is $339.

Click here to register for Successfully Deposing the Vague or Emphatically Certain Witness on Dec. 27 - New Jersey Law Center
Click here to register for Successfully Deposing the Vague or Emphatically Certain Witness on Dec. 28 - Westin, Mt. Laurel
Click here to register for Successfully Deposing the Vague or Emphatically Certain Witness on Dec. 30 - Wilshire Grand, West Orange

Click here to download a form to register for either seminar.
Click here for a form to register a group.
For questions or to register by phone, please contact an association representative at 732-214-8500.

All the best,
Barbara

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Barbara Straczynski
Director of New Media and Promotions
New Jersey State Bar Association
New Brunswick NJ
(732) 937-7524
[email protected]
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