ABA, West Host Reception For AuthorsOf Business-Commercial Litigation Treatise

Thomson West and the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Litigation last month hosted a reception to honor the 190 authors of the upcoming second edition of the critically acclaimed treatise Business and Commercial Litigation in the Federal Courts.

The reception took place on August 6 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago during the ABA Annual Meeting.

The team of 190 authors included federal judges and litigators. Robert L. Haig of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP serves as editor-in-chief of both the first and second editions The large team of authors who wrote chapters in the first edition has remained substantially intact for seven years. In fact, the authors of 75 of the 80 chapters in the first edition also are authors of chapters in the second edition.

"It is difficult to quantify the authors' efforts on this treatise," Mr. Haig said. "It is conservatively estimated that the authors and their law firms have invested more than $35 million of their own billable time, calculated at their regular hourly billing rates, in working on the first and second editions of the treatise and its annual pocket parts."

Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courtsis a multi-volume, strategy oriented treatise that resulted from a successful joint project between Thomson West and the ABA Section of Litigation. The first edition was published in 1998.

The first edition of the treatise has been widely recognized as a unique resource and has become the definitive reference work in this area of law. It received an enthusiastic reception from the legal press, reflected in more than 130 book reviews in bar journals and legal newspapers throughout the United States.

Pocket parts for all 80 chapters of the first edition have been published each year since 1998. Due to the many changes over the last seven years in federal procedural and substantive law relating to business and commercial litigation, it become clear that a new edition of the treatise was in order.

The authors began work on a second edition of the treatise in the fall of 2004. The second edition is a step-by-step practice guide that gives the litigator coverage of every aspect of a commercial case, from the assessment that takes place at the inception through pleadings, discovery, motions, trial and appeal. Emphasis is placed on strategic considerations specific to commercial cases.