New Jersey Trial Evidence and Procedure 2027

New Jersey Trial Evidence and Procedure provides a practical and comprehensive presentation of trial evidence as well as procedure, encompassing the rules and laws governing trial found in evidence rules, court rules, court decisions, and Model Civil Jury Charges. This volume provides important practice pointers and insights as to how evidence law plays out in the courtroom for the best chance of success.

The 2026 edition includes important updates to many areas of New Jersey evidence law and the Court Rules, including expert testimony, expert qualifications, adverse inference, lay expert testimony, net opinions, exclusion of evidence, the common knowledge doctrine, and cross-examination. Also included are updated discussion of the cumulative error doctrine, the invited error doctrine, punitive damages, spoliation, affidavit of merit, Patient Safety Act, OPRA, hearsay, procedures to adjourn trials, the surprise witness, self-critical privilege, and recusal of judges. Brand new sections have been added covering rebuttal evidence, standards that experts must be able to enunciate to avoid the striking of expert reports as net opinions, and the applicable standards for appealing a panoply of trial court adjudications.

Many critical evidentiary rules are found only in the New Jersey decisional law—for example, the parol evidence rule, the net opinion rule affecting experts, spoliation of evidence, and the adverse inference charge relating to witnesses, which are identified and discussed in this book.