Evidentiary Foundations

Evidentiary Foundations is a valuable supplement in any Evidence or Trial Practice course. It covers all the major evidentiary doctrines, and for each doctrine the text's treatment of the doctrine does three things:

First, the text provides a narrative description of the doctrine. The narrative explains the policy rationale for the doctrine, quotes the governing Federal Rule of Evidence provision, and cites leading precedents.

Second, the text breaks each doctrine down into a list of the essential foundational elements that the proponent must establish in order to satisfy the doctrine. The text helps the reader transition from a sentence in the Federal Rules to the foundational facts that condition the admissibility of the item of evidence.

Third, the text includes a sample line of questioning laying the foundation. The text teaches trial advocacy skills at the same time that it illustrates the evidentiary doctrine in question. If the proponent is laying the foundation on direct examination, each question begins with a capitalized natural interrogatory word such as what, which, when, why, how, and who in order to help the reader develop the skill of phrasing crisp, non-leading questions.

The new thirteenth edition includes numerous updates. It reviews the 2023 and 2024 amendments to the Federal Rules and discusses significant 2024 Supreme Court decisions such as Smith v. Arizona and Diaz v. United States. In addition, the thirteenth edition covers new topics such as the products of AI tools and satellite imagery technology.