Civil Procedure and Litigation Support: From Pleading to Judgment
Civil Procedure and Litigation Support covers the lifecycle of a lawsuit and the examiner's role in moving it. The CLE Entrance Exam tests the sequence of events, the deadlines that attach to each step, and whether you understand what each filing is for. Many items are deadline questions in disguise, so attach a number and a trigger to every rule you learn.
Pleadings and early motions
Federal notice pleading requires a short and plain statement showing entitlement to relief. A defendant may answer or move under Rule 12, including 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. The answer is due 21 days after service (60 days if service was waived), or 14 days after the court denies a Rule 12 motion. Affirmative defenses and counterclaims belong in the answer.
Discovery
Parties exchange initial disclosures 14 days after the Rule 26(f) conference. Tools are interrogatories (25 including subparts in federal practice), requests to produce, requests for admission, depositions, and medical or mental examinations by court order. Responses to interrogatories and production requests are due 30 days after service, plus 3 days if served by mail. A request for admission left unanswered is deemed admitted.
Dispositive motions and trial
Summary judgment requires no genuine dispute of material fact, with evidence read in the nonmovant's favor. Judgment as a matter of law comes after the evidence is in; a new trial motion follows a verdict. Litigation support work - chronology building, deposition digests, exhibit lists, trial binders, docket calendaring - exists to make these deadlines and records reliable.
Worked example
Plaintiff moves for summary judgment on a breach of contract claim, supporting the motion with its own affidavit. Defendant responds with a sworn declaration denying that the signed writing was ever approved. Read in the nonmovant's favor, that declaration creates a genuine dispute about a material term, so the motion is denied as to that element; the court does not weigh credibility at this stage. If defendant had offered only an unsworn argument in a brief, no dispute would exist on the record.
Traps that cost marks
Treating summary judgment as a trial on the papers, forgetting that Rule 36 silence admits, counting interrogatory subparts as separate questions, and serving discovery before the Rule 26(f) conference absent an early Rule 34 request.