Faced with the large amount of complex information being presented to them in trial, jurors will inevitably use “heuristics” – mental shortcuts – to help them keep up. Sometimes, these shortcuts lead to perfectly reasonable judgments. Other times, they create distorted perceptions and erroneous conclusions. One problematic heuristic is known as Hindsight Bias, or… Read More
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Does Humor Have a Place in the Courtroom?
Humor is a funny thing. A joke that works so well out of one person’s mouth can crash and burn out of another’s. That same joke can cause hysterical laughter in one situation and groans of annoyance or gasps of affront in another. Content, person, delivery, circumstance, audience – it’s a tough… Read More
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How to Choose the Best Witness Prep Consultant
To process the extensive, complex, and often unfamiliar information heard in trial, jurors tend to rely on heuristics (mental shortcuts) to reduce their cognitive load and draw conclusions more quickly. Not all of these heuristics are problematic for your case, but some can certainly lead to hasty assumptions and false judgments. And unfortunately, assessing… Read More
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4 Major Defense Weaknesses in Health & Safety Products Liability – Part 3
No sugar-coating it: the defense weaknesses we discussed in Part 2 are dangerous. If you don’t have solid, convincing responses to them, you’re looking at significant challenges for your case outcome. Finding the best solutions will, as always, depend on the specifics of your case. However, because plaintiffs’ main arguments… Read More
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4 Major Defense Weaknesses in Health & Safety Products Liability – Part 2
Now that we’ve covered how jurors tend to think about health and safety products liability cases (Part 1), let’s examine the 4 common plaintiff themes that can cause major trouble for the defense: 1. You Favored Profits Over People This argument tends to… Read More
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4 Major Defense Weaknesses in Health & Safety Products Liability – Part 1
When it comes to medical and safety products liability, the defense is inherently at risk. While we’ve basically seen it all from plaintiffs, where human safety is concerned, a defendant tends to be vulnerable to a common set of plaintiff arguments. But under the circumstances, in some ways this is actually good news. At… Read More
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LI News: Dr. Jill Leibold and Dr. Christina Marinakis Become Shareholders
We’re pleased to announce that we’ve added two shareholders! Dr. Jill Leibold and Dr. Christina Marinakis will join the current shareholders, Dr. Merrie Jo Pitera and Adam Bloomberg, in guiding the company toward continued and expanding success. Dr. Leibold and… Read More
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Why So Many Mediations Fail, and How You Can Up Your Success Rate
Over the last 23 years, I’ve attended plenty of mediations with clients to help them prepare and present their mediation presentation. But from what I’ve seen, there’s not much actual mediation going on. Instead, it usually goes something like this: Mediator: You never know what you’re going to get with… Read More
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Top 10 Travel Tips for Road Warriors
At our recent all-firm meeting, the topic of travel came up; not surprising, given that most of our team covers a lot of ground each year. Soon enough, we all began sharing our favorite travel tips, and were pleased to discover a few that even our hardened LI “road warriors” hadn’t heard of. Given that our average reader is no… Read More