Mac Phillips Laundau Phillips, P.A.

When I was a first year litigation associate some 14 years ago, practically every legal issue was one of first impression for me. All assignments I received from the powers that be (the partners for whom I tirelessly toiled) required me to grasp the basic elements of various claims and defenses. Whether I was tasked with drafting pleadings, motions and memoranda or researching nuanced intricacies and obscure legal theories, I spent countless hours trying to get a handle on what was required to allege and prove to sustain or defeat a cause of action. And then I discovered the Florida Litigation Guide. And then life became a little easier.

The Florida Litigation Guide contains all of the elements for the most common (and some not-so-common) claims and defenses recognized by Florida law, and are broken down into simple, easy-to-understand statements. Each claim and defense listed in the Florida Litigation Guide sets forth the leading case law on the subject and brief blurbs of the holdings. As a very careful (read paranoid) lawyer, I always pulled the cases cited in the Guide to confirm their accuracy and continued validity. I never found a single case that was no longer good law or that stood for a different proposition than what was cited.

Now, almost 15 years later, I still regularly consult the Guide and am still regularly led in the right direction. This is a practice tool that should be part of every litigator’s arsenal.