Plaintiff Trial Lawyer Tips

The Seattle Times recently reported that Washington state’s tort lawsuit payouts and legal costs have set another record, reaching nearly $614 million in the past fiscal year. It reports the state paid out more than $537 million to settle lawsuits and tort claims alleging government misdeeds in the 2026 fiscal year. That’s up roughly $500 million from 2025. In addition, the state paid about $76 million for legal defense costs, up from about $58 million the previous year. There is…

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I was asked for advice about a new lawyer who would like to be a great plaintiff’s trial lawyer. In addition to providing articles and advice, I thought the ideas of my late friend Gerry Spence would be helpful as well. I didn’t find any examples of his actually giving that advice to an individual, so what follows is what I think he might have advised. This is an outline version of what he taught, written in his voice and…

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After two weeks the  jury trial I was involved in was ended by the judge declaring a mistrial. With over a hundred motions before trial and multiple motions during trial it finally just was stopped as a mercy killing. The judge decided that he should not have allowed evidence about the driver’s past driving and criminal history and  that as a result he felt he had to grant a mistrial. The entire experience reminded me of a Kafka novel  and and the…

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