Litigation & Trial Practice
ACP specialty designations rotate, and litigation is one of the practice areas most often offered. This section tests whether you can move a case from intake to judgment without losing a deadline: the sequence of pleadings, the Rule 16 scheduling order, jury demands, dispositive motion practice, and the paralegal's trial-support role.
Core rules to hold
- Under the Federal Rules, the plaintiff must serve the summons and complaint within 90 days of filing (Rule 4(m)); the defendant answers within 21 days of service, or 60 days if service was waived under Rule 4(d).
- The court enters a scheduling order under Rule 16(b) within the earlier of 90 days after any defendant appears or 120 days after any defendant is served.
- A jury demand must be served no later than 14 days after service of the last pleading raising a jury-triable issue (Rule 38(b)). Miss it and the right is waived.
- Summary judgment under Rule 56 comes after discovery closes; local rules govern page limits and the separate statement of undisputed facts.
- Rule 58: judgment is effective only when set out in a separate document and entered on the docket.
Worked example
Complaint filed March 1, served March 20. The answer is due April 10 (21 days from service). The Rule 16 scheduling order must issue by the earlier of 90 days after appearance (June 18) or 120 days after service (July 18), so June 18 controls. If the answer contains a counterclaim triable to a jury, the jury demand is due 14 days after service of that answer.
Traps that cost marks
Running deadlines from the filing date rather than the service date; ignoring Rule 6(a), which excludes the triggering day, counts every intermediate day, and rolls to the next business day when the last day is a weekend or holiday; assuming a motion to dismiss automatically stays the answer deadline absent a court order; and importing state computation rules into a federal question case.