Overview
The Procedural Terrain, State by State
State Procedural Updates is a quarterly editorial series produced by Holdsworth & Inkwell that tracks procedural and substantive framework developments across the states in which the firm practices. The publication exists because commercial litigators handling multi-jurisdictional dockets cannot rely on federal-level surveys to capture the state-level variation that increasingly determines case outcomes.
Editorial Scope
Each issue addresses one or more of the procedural and substantive frameworks the firm tracks across its 21-state footprint: comparative fault and apportionment, pre-suit notice doctrine, statute of limitations and tolling, anti-SLAPP and protected-speech frameworks, and the procedural mechanics that vary materially among the federal circuits and state supreme courts. The publication draws on both the firm's active matter docket and developments in the broader case law.
Format and Cadence
Issues publish quarterly. Each issue is an analytical piece grounded in current authority and intended for the working practitioner. Readers should expect concrete doctrinal substance rather than press-release summary, with citations to controlling authority and practice-oriented takeaways for trial and appellate counsel.
Issues
State by State, Term by Term
Each issue below takes up whatever actually moved during that period, examined on its own terms rather than sorted into last quarter's categories. Browse the individual issues to find the analysis that bears on your docket.
Comparative Fault in 2024: Tracking State-Level Allocation Reforms
Survey of comparative fault frameworks across eight states where the firm practices, addressing pure and modified comparative jurisdictions and the structural distinctions within each category.
Pre-Suit Notice Defense in 2024: A Five-State Comparison
A comparative survey of pre-suit notice frameworks across Arizona, Connecticut, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, with strategic implications for defense counsel handling multi-state dockets.
Pennsylvania's Fair Share Act After a Decade: How the 60% Threshold Has Shaped Multi-Party Defense
A decade into Pennsylvania's Fair Share Act, the 60% threshold for joint and several liability has produced a defense practice that operates differently than in any other modified comparative state.
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Where State Law Moves Next
A docket that spans several states does not move on one clock. Comparative fault rules, pre-suit notice requirements, tolling periods, and anti-SLAPP frameworks shift from state to state, and an approach that held in one matter will not automatically hold in the next. The federal-level surveys most practitioners rely on do not capture that variation until it surfaces in a ruling.
Each issue adds to a working record practitioners build over time, rather than a single read filed away. Its value grows over the years a docket, or a practice, actually runs.
Editors
The Judgment Behind Each Issue
Each issue of State Procedural Updates passes through editors who track these developments as part of their daily practice. Their judgment decides what counts as a meaningful shift in the law, and what is noise. The editors below apply that same judgment to every issue in the series.
Practice Areas
Where the Analysis Applies
Procedural shifts rarely stay confined to a single line of work. Each issue of State Procedural Updates ties to the practice areas its analysis actually touches, not to a fixed list assumed in advance. The practice areas below show where this series carries direct weight, whether that means one concentration or several.
State-level questions, direct answers.
When the Question Gets Specific
Procedural variation shapes strategy long before a matter reaches trial, and the questions raised here often trace back to work already underway on a client's docket. Our Commercial Litigation team follows this ground as day-to-day practice, not only in these pages.