The Litigator’s Guide to Evidentiary Objections: When to hold them and how to avoid mistakes

Debbie S. Champion | Rynearson, Suess, Schnurbusch & Champion LLC

Debbie Champion is a founding partner in the firm Rynearson, Suess, Schnurbusch and Champion, one of the 20 largest law firms in Missouri. Ms. Champion actively practices in Missouri and Southern Illinois state and federal courts. She has argued before the Missouri Supreme Court and the Eastern, Western and Southern District Missouri Courts of Appeals, and the Illinois Court of Appeals. She has also argued in the federal court of the United States District Court for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri, and the Eighth Circuit and the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. She is a member of the Bar of the United States Supreme Court.

Ms. Champion has been named to the top 50 attorneys in St Louis and the top 100 attorneys in Missouri. She honored by the St. Louis Small Business Magazine as a Wonder Woman and by the St Louis Business Journal as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Business Women in St. Louis. She is recognized on the Missouri Lawyers Media Power List in Business defense since 2021.

Ms. Champion has been selected to the Best Lawyers in America, and she appears on the Best Lawyers list in Personal Injury Litigation-Defendants, Insurance Law, Government Relations, and Litigation-Insurance. She is currently the Lawyer of the Year in Missouri for Personal Injury-Defense. She was 2020 Lawyer of the Year for Missouri in the area of Litigation-Insurance. She appears in the America’s Top 100 Attorneys List and received the Lawyer’s Lawyer Award by the Women’s Justice Awards. Champion has been designated as an Acritis Star. She is on the Power 30 list of Civil Defense Attorneys-an award recognizing the 30 most powerful civil defense attorneys in the state.

Ms. Champion is a Senior Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America, and a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. For several years, Ms. Champion has been named as one of the top 50 Women Lawyers in Missouri and Kansas by Superlawyers. Champion achieved the most Defense Verdicts in Missouri in 2012 and 2013 and one of the largest Defense Wins in 2011 and 2019. In 2016, Champion received an award for Outstanding Litigation Practitioner by the Missouri Lawyer’s Weekly’s Women Justice Awards. She was honored as one of Ten Outstanding Young St. Louisans by the St. Louis Junior Chamber of Commerce. She is rated as Superb on AVVO.com. In 2013, she received the CLMP certification as a certified litigation management professional from her study at the Columbia School of Law in New York.

In addition to her heavy trial calendar and office responsibilities at the firm, Ms. Champion devotes many hours to community and charitable causes, and she actively provides legal services to the indigent. She is a recipient of the William McAlpin Pro Bono Award, an Outstanding Volunteer Award from Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and the Missouri Pro Bono Publico Award from the Missouri Bar Association. She was recently honored by the Women’s Law Caucus of Washington University for her commitment to the advancement of women in the law. She was selected as an Outstanding Young Alumni of Washington University in 2012. She was awarded the Peter Perlman Award for 2019 for the Litigation Counsel of America, an award highlighting a career of community service.

Ms. Champion serves on the Board of Lift for Life Academy, the first charter school in the City of St. Louis. Ms. Champion is founder and president of Tools for Schools, a not-for-profit corporation which provides stipends to public school teachers who strive to provide enrichment to their classrooms. She has served on numerous boards for business entities and non-profit companies in the St. Louis area.

Ms. Champion servers as an expert witness on insurance bad faith and vexatious refusal to pay cases. She has authored several published articles and book chapters. She often presents educational seminars to clients and to the legal community, including several annual conference presentations to industry groups each year.

Ms. Champion is an Advocate member of the American Board of Trial Advocates, a national association of experienced trial lawyers and judges dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the civil jury trial. She is a member of the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance. She is a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation, and she is proud to be a Master in the Theodore McMillian Inns of Court.

I. Evidentiary objections at trial | 11:00am – 11:30am

II. How to make objections at trial in front of the jury | 11:30am – 12:00pm

Break | 12:00pm – 12:10pm

III. Factors to consider before making objections | 12:10pm – 12:40pm

IV. How to avoid impropriety in front of the jury when asserting objections | 12:40pm – 1:10pm