Railroads
Railroad defense
The oldest part of the practice, and the only one that needed a page of its own rather than a paragraph here.
How I try a case
In every case involving an alleged personal injury that I've tried, the Plaintiff puts on two distinct types of evidence.
The first shows whether the plaintiff was hurt, and how badly. The second is designed to make the jury dislike the defendant, and it makes up far more than half of what the plaintiff puts in. It's a common strategy, but it assumes jurors are less sophisticated than I've found them to be. In my experience, once the tactic is exposed, most juries can be counted on to see it for what it is and decide the case on the relevant facts. It's so easy for showmanship or gamesmanship to sneak its way into a trial. I make sure my client's trial witnesses and experts are well prepared and understand that our strategy isn't to make the jurors laugh, or to like us, or to spin. Our goal is to be truthful, authentic, and to the point, out of respect for the jurors, the Court, and the case.
The size of the injury
Some people are badly hurt, and when they are, the case doesn't go to trial because the defendant says otherwise. It goes to trial because the parties haven't been able to agree on the damages. But in so many cases, the incident was an objectively minor accident: a 10 mph collision, no airbag deployment, no immediate medical treatment, and no injury reported the day it happened. Even then, plaintiffs are being advised by their lawyers to see whether a jury will give them seven or eight figures. In some places, juries will. Not as often in Indiana, which tends to be a conservative state when it comes to jury verdicts. When a case like that goes to trial here, I methodically walk the jury through the plaintiff's medical records to show how little objective evidence there is of the claimed injury. Along the way, I ask the jurors to put one question to each piece of evidence: does this show the plaintiff was hurt, or is it there to make me dislike the defendant?
The facts I'd change
In closing, I often tell the jury which facts in my client's case I don't like, the ones I'd change if I could. Then I explain why the verdict should be ours anyway.
The evaluation doesn't move
When I was a fairly new lawyer, I asked one of my clients what I could do to become one of their go-to trial lawyers for the long term. They gave me two pieces of advice. First, work as part of the team and don't make decisions on your own. As they put it, “We rise and fall as a team here.” Second, don't tell them at the start of a case that it should be tried, spend three years working it up, and then tell them just before trial that they should double what they're willing to pay to settle it. It was solid advice, and it has shaped how I practice ever since. The read I give you in the first months of a case is the same one I give you at the pretrial conference, adjusted only for what the evidence changed. And when the evidence does change, you hear it from me that day, not on the eve of trial. I keep you informed as the case develops, and we talk regularly.
"It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact."
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
At counsel table
Clients hire lawyers, not firms.
That has been my experience, at least. For example, a client may hire one lawyer for the liability witnesses and another, from a different firm, for the medical proof.
A good deal of my work begins that way. Sometimes I'm asked into a trial team that has been in place for years. Sometimes I'm paired with a lawyer from another firm and we divide the witnesses between us. Either way the client is asking for one thing, a particular set of skills at counsel table, and for the person who has them. It lets a client staff each part of a case with the best lawyer for it.
The docket
What I'm hired to do.
Premises
Premises liability
Falls and conditions of property, where the case usually turns on what the owner knew, when it knew it, and what the photographs taken that afternoon show.
Catastrophic
Serious injury and wrongful death
Coordinating the medical, vocational, and life-care proof that decides what these cases are worth.
Spoliation
Spoliation and preservation disputes
The argument about what was kept and what wasn't. These disputes involve overwritten video, retention policies, and whether a litigation hold went out in time.
There are now plaintiff's lawyers who do nothing else. They're brought into a case after it's filed, often by the lawyer who filed it, to work the preservation record and only that: the retention schedules and the hold notices. A defendant facing one of them needs a lawyer who knows that record at least as well.
Local counsel
Indiana local and coordinating counsel
For large companies whose lead counsel have no Indiana office, and for the firms themselves. Temporary admission, e-filing, local rules and local practice, covered appearances, and as much of the substantive work as you want me to carry.
Consulting
Outside counsel and consulting, in any jurisdiction
Outside Indiana, you can bring me in on defense strategy, on preservation, and on which experts will hold up, wherever the case is pending, working alongside your in-house legal and claims departments.
Consulting isn't always a telephone call. When you decide you want somebody at the site, I'll be there as soon as I can get there, whatever state it's in. How quickly that happens is usually the difference between preserving a record and reconstructing one later.
Employment
Employment law consulting
I advise employers before and after employment decisions on Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Indiana Civil Rights Law: accommodation requests, leave, discipline and termination, internal investigations, and retaliation claims.
When a charge does arrive, the EEOC position statement is written with the lawsuit in mind, because it's frequently the first exhibit the other side marks. And when an employment question surfaces inside an injury claim, over return to work or a personnel file the claim puts in issue, it gets the same attention.
Universities
State university defense
I've spent several years representing state universities, including in employment cases in federal court under the Family and Medical Leave Act and Title VII, and in injury claims by invitees. I work closely with my university clients, and we make the decisions in each case together.