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13 Pub. Cont. Newsl. 1 (1977-1978)

handle is hein.journals/procurlw13 and id is 1 raw text is: SECTION OF PUBLIC CONTRACT LAW AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION Vol. 13, No.1, October 1977 FEDERAL STATE & LOCAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACT3 Copyright ' 1977 American Bar Association Martin J. Harty, Editor, 9926 Rand Drive, Burke, VA 22015 Edwin B. Neill, Assistant Editor CHAIRMAN'S COLUMN by Allan J. Joseph The 1977 Convention (reported elsewhere in the Newsletter) was extremely successful, as those who attended will attest. It was a fitting clinax to a fine year chaired by Roy Mitchell. The 1978 Annual Meeting will be in New York City and we were fortunate to secure the Plaza Hotel as the headquarters for our Section. If you have at- tended any one of the past A13A Annual Meetings, you should have received a brochure and application form by now which will give you priority for ieserva- tions at the Plaza. In order to get that priority, the form must be returned to the ABA by October 15. Tile first responsibility of the Section Chairman (actually done while Chairman-Elect) is the appoint- ment of Committees, Committee Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen. Acting oil tie advice of many former Chairmen, I sought to streamline the Committee structure. The number of general or substantive Committees, shown below, has been reduced to twenty. Based on individual preferences indicated in last year's survey, Section members will be assigned to these Committees. These assignments are expected to be completed within the next few weeks. If you are interested in serving on a Committee and have not previously so indicated, please drop me a note. One very high priority for this year is a continua- tion of the policy to emphasize state and local pro- curement. Ti is year's National Institute, which will deal vith state and local contracting, is planned for early May in Denver. The program and other ar- rangements are being handled by tile regional chair- men under the direction of Region I Chairman, Jim Myers. Currently, among those Committees very active is Dave Hirsch's group on the Acquisition Act. That Committee is now involved in the mark-up on the Bill. There is good reason to believe that the Bill will soon be reported out of Committee and brought to the floor of the Senate. The situation with disputes legislation is not as clear. It does seem likely that there will be hearings (continued on page 2) SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PREPARATION AND USE OF TRIAL PLANS by George S. Steele, Jr. of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia Bars Purpose The first and major purpose of preparing a trial plan is to compel the trial lawyer to analyze the case. It is a terrible feeling to be writing the post-trial brief and conclude, Oh, I wish I had thought of this theory before trial and gotten some evidence for it in the record! The way to minimize this feeling is to pre- pare a trial plan. A second major purpose of a trial plan is to assist the trial lawyer (or trial lawyers) ill locating docu- ments quickly during trial when they are needed in order to counter some new evidence or argument of- fered by the other side. A third purpose of the trial plan is to communicate with your client or support group. In large appeals (trials) you may have a group of up to 100, 150 or 200 people supporting the litigation. They may be in- vestigators, expert witnesses, document control groups, etc. They need a written document telling them what the claimant's theories are; what the defendant's theories are; and the work plan to do the investigation and preparation. Thus, in large appeals (we intend here the one and only trial before a board of contract appeals) the lead trial lawyer should consider all three purposes for a trial plan when he prepares one plan. Timing When should you prepare your trial plan? As !oon as possible. If you get the case before pleadings are filed, this is excellent. Start your trial plan at or be- fore you have to file the Complaint or Answer. At this stage your trial plan may be quite tentative and the major purpose it serves is to sharpen your analysis. However, if it is a big appeal and many peo- ple will be involved, you, as lead trial lawyer, must try very hard to do all the work possible to firm up (continued on page 2) Produced by the ABA Press

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