Legal Definitions - overtry

The term "overtry" refers to a situation where a trial lawyer, in an effort to win a lawsuit, expends an excessive amount of time, effort, and resources on presenting every tiny detail or piece of evidence. This often results in overwhelming the judge or jury with too much information, making it difficult for them to focus on the most important points of the case. Paradoxically, this overzealous approach can backfire, providing the opposing side with numerous minor details to challenge, thereby weakening the overall argument.

Here are a few examples to illustrate this concept:

• Corporate Patent Litigation:

  Imagine a large technology company suing a smaller startup for patent infringement. The larger company's legal team, wanting to demonstrate overwhelming evidence, decides to present thousands of internal memos, emails, and design documents during the trial. Many of these documents are only tangentially related to the core patent claims, but the lawyers believe that sheer volume will prove their point. This is an example of overtrying because the lawyers are expending excessive resources to explore minutiae. They risk overwhelming the jury with so much information that the key evidence gets lost, making it difficult for the fact-trier (the jury) to assimilate what truly matters. The startup's lawyers could then strategically pick apart minor inconsistencies in the vast amount of presented material, gaining arguing points by disputing these less significant details.

• Personal Injury Case:

  Consider a car accident lawsuit where the plaintiff's attorney aims to prove the full extent of their client's injuries and suffering. Instead of calling just the treating physician and perhaps one or two key specialists, the attorney calls ten different expert witnesses: a chiropractor, a physical therapist, a pain management specialist, a forensic accountant to detail every potential future lost earning, a psychologist to discuss every minor emotional fluctuation, a vocational expert to speculate on every possible career path the plaintiff might have taken, and several others. This demonstrates overtrying because the attorney is presenting an excessive number of expert witnesses to cover every conceivable angle, even those that might be considered minutiae or less central to proving the core injury and damages. This can overwhelm the jury with too much specialized testimony, potentially diluting the impact of the most crucial expert opinions and giving the defense numerous opportunities to challenge the credibility or necessity of each additional expert.

• Complex Contract Dispute:

  In a trial concerning a breach of a highly complex construction contract, one attorney spends an entire day cross-examining a project manager about every single change order, every minor delay, and every communication log entry over a three-year period. While some of these details are relevant, only a few key clauses and events are truly central to the alleged breach. This is a clear instance of overtrying because the lawyer is dedicating excessive time and effort to exploring minutiae. This level of detail can easily overwhelm the judge or jury, making it difficult for them to discern the most relevant facts pertaining to the actual breach. The opposing counsel could then use the sheer volume of minor details to create confusion or highlight insignificant discrepancies, distracting from the main arguments and potentially weakening the overall case.