One thing I like about David Ball’s “Damages 3” is his willingness to talk about tough issues that personal injury lawyers deal with but no one really talks about in polite conversation much less in a trial advocacy book. In his book, Ball writes about attacking stereotypes head-on with juries.…
It is becoming cliché to say that social media is the next big thing in litigation discovery. In personal injury cases, I think social media captures the imagination of insurance adjusters and in-house counsel who inflate the likelihood of finding evidence on Facebook and Twitter that will be a game…
The Maryland Court of Appeals decided another case in the ongoing saga that continues to burn forests that is the Maryland Local Government Tort Claims Act. First, it is worth noting: the LGTCA is stupid. Really stupid. There is just no reason in 2015 why we put unreasonable burdens on…
I’m not in the habit of offering advice to injury defense lawyers. Okay, actually I am. So here goes: defense attorneys, it is highly impolitic to combat a study suggesting that people who live near mountaintop mining operations are at higher risk of birth defects by saying the study didn’t…
We got an order in Anne Arundel County requiring a recidivist defense expert to produce his financial records before examining the Plaintiff. I think there is the assumption that my firm is involved in some jihad against IME doctors. Self-referential as this may be, I think we have done more…
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals reversed last week a Harford County judge’s dismissal of a claim against the state of Maryland for negligent failure to maintain, repair and reconstruct a bridge where accidents were beyond commonplace. Here, the bridge was the site of a fatal crossover car accident collision…
I have an unbelievably tragic wrongful death car accident case. A very good man with an unbelievably good family – here’s a clue: they were/are very concerned about injuries sustained by the man that caused the car accident – was rear-ended by another car at a high rate of speed in…
Women are bad drivers according to a new University of Michigan study. The study is too politically correct to say just that. These are serious people, not bloggers. But, really, it is impossible to ramrod any other conclusion from this study. The study looked at 6.5 million car accidents and…
On Tuesday, Medicare and Medicaid set forth new and revised conditional payment final demand letters that are reported to comply with Haro v. Sebelius, No. CV 09-134 TUC DCB, 2011 WL 2040219 (D. Ariz., May 9, 2011). The word on the street is that Medicare has six new conditional payment…
I have started a little series on David Ball’s Damages 3 book on how to prepare and try a case. I will keep that going. But, today, I will turn to another “must-read” book for plaintiffs’ lawyers (and, shhh, probably for defense lawyers too): Polarizing the Case by Rich Friedman.…