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Issue February 2013

February 2013

CHINS reform: What the statute changes mean for your practice

On Aug. 7, 2012, Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law Chapter 240 of the Acts of 2012, reforming the Child in Need of Services statute. An overhaul of the 38-year-old CHINS program was supported and worked on by advocates for nearly seven years.

The work-product doctrine after McCarthy v. Slade Associates

Attorneys generally like to think of their work product as being sacrosanct and immune from discovery. Although the work-product doctrine, as codified in Mass. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3), provides only qualified protection for materials prepared in anticipation of litigation or trial, there are relatively few decisions ordering the disclosure of bona fide work product. That is, in part, because courts have been instructed that protecting work product "enhance[s] the vitality of an adversary system of litigation by insulating counsel's work from intrusions, interferences, or borrowings by other parties."1