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Month: March 2008

Impression vs logic

Impression vs logic

There are many lessons learned from the five week trial I just finished. One of them was re-enforcement of the principle that a trial is not a battle of logic, but rather one of impression. We now know that well over 90% of our decision process is done at a level we are not even conscious about. Gladwell’s book Blink is one of the better recent books on this subject. What we know is that people’s opinion process is driven…

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Legal malpractice laws in washington state

Legal malpractice laws in washington state

Last Friday, while the jury was deliberating, I was at the University of Washington Medical School giving a talk to physicians about medical malpractice. It had been scheduled for several months and so I was obligated to deliver it in spite of the stress of the day. A lawyer-nurse married to a physician talked to her husband about this idea and they both agreed it was something that should be done. I’m grateful to both of them for an opportunity…

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A verdict for justice

A verdict for justice

After 5 weeks of trial and 4 days of deliberations the jury came in with a verdict for our clients of $40,100,000. The multi-million dollar verdict was not only fair but reasonable in this very important medical device malfunction case. The jury did a careful job of studying all the evidence and arriving at a just verdict.