Trial Breakdown: $20 Million Verdict | Gray Broughton Injury Law

Over two and a half years ago, our firm was approached by a father in Winchester, VA, with a case that had been rejected by at least three other law firms. 

We knew it would be a very challenging case, with very limited evidence. It was not a "typical" case with clear-cut medical or economic damages. Others would ask us over time why we said yes to taking it on, despite the odds and obstacles.

The short answer, of course, is because it was the right thing to do.

But beyond that, we measured this case from a different perspective: that the promise of accountability was the strongest argument for pursuing damages, to the tune of $20 million. 

Still, there's the framing of an argument, and then there's being able to actually implement it in court and get a winning verdict.

Today we bring together the team whose remarkable efforts, starting in 2023, ultimately led to this significant result. Gray Broughton, Zachary Grubaugh, Nathan Hittle and Lara Bradshaw join Sharif Gray to share their perspectives on the preparation, organization, tackling the various stages of the case through numerous obstacles, and ultimately getting the result that they did, for a very deserving young man and his father.

This is the story behind the case.

"The days of evaluating cases like insurance adjusters needs to end." - Sharif Gray

In this episode, we discuss:

◼️ Why Gray recognized that this was a case worth taking on, when so many others wouldn't.
◼️ The moment when everything shifted, and the case became the firm's top priority.
◼️ Why focus groups provided the ultimate breakthrough that showed we had a solid case.
◼️ How we were able to navigate not having experts, only lay witnesses, in a case with very limited evidence.
◼️ How the firm was able to tap into individual strengths and come together for a consummate team effort, all while juggling other cases at the same time.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
03:32 The Case Comes to the Firm
05:20 Case Facts and Client History
09:15 Focus Group Insights and Case Framing
17:32 All Hands Trial Prep
27:55 Trial Logistics And Motions
38:39 Opening Statement Impact
48:36 Deposition Shock Questions
56:07 Expert Witness Takedown
01:02:39 Closings and Rebuttal Flow
01:10:46 Big Numbers Perspective
01:14:27 Key Takeaways Roundtable

Courtroom Stories & Tactics | RVA Trial Lawyers
Available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and at RVATrialLawyers.com 

Based out of Richmond, Virginia, Courtroom Stories & Tactics by RVA Trial Lawyers exists for lawyers who try cases to juries on behalf of people. Through our podcast, we hope to learn from them, support them, connect them, inspire them, and preserve their work for future trial lawyers.

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Thank you!

Sharif Gray and Nael Abouzaki

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When Sharif stood up to give the opening, before we talked about Charlie, before we talked about Grafton, before we talked about what happened to Charlie, before we talked about the damages part of the case, what we did is we told the jury that this was a case about an institution that was trusted to take care of somebody and made a promise to take care of somebody and then broke that promise.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

This is Courtroom Stories and Tactics by RBA Trial Lawyers, hosted by Sharif Gray and Nial Abuzaki.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

Alright, before we get into today's episode, I want to take a minute and thank Maximum Medical Improvement Partners, MMI, for supporting the podcast. As many of our listeners know, one of the biggest drivers of case value for our clients isn't just proving liability, but it's whether the client actually gets the right medical care and recovers from their injuries the right way. As we all know, when their treatment is delayed or incomplete, their cases lose value. And maximum medical improvement partners help solve that problem.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

You're right, Sheree. My name is Dr. Stavniki, and I'm with MMI Partners. Our mission is to connect injured clients with the right clinicians and quarterback the clients' medical care from day one, leading to stronger recovery, clearer documentation, and increased case value.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Thanks, Scott. For our listeners who are interested in getting in touch with you all, how can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

You can visit us at MMI.partners. Again, that's MMI.partners.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

All right, we're back. And today we've got a special episode different from our normal episodes. We've got the Gray Broughton injury firm, specifically the trial team, that handled Clark v. Grafton a few weeks back in Winchester, Virginia, and got very much a significant verdict on behalf of a deserving client. And we wanted to take some time and talk about the case and the lessons learned. But before we get into that, let me go ahead and just introduce our team. So to my right in the blue shirt, we've got Gray Broughton. Gray started the firm seven, eight years ago at this point, and is very much a reason why we are able to do what we do when it comes to being trial ready and pushing cases into the courtroom. Lara Bradshaw, also Lara Croft. To my right is our senior paralegal, or excuse me, now you have a new title, right? Paralegal supervisor. So she's been promoted. So congratulations to Lara. As she was the paralegal who handled the Clark case. To my left, we've got Zach Gruba. Zach was the one who did all the grunt work on the case, the not fun stuff when it came to depositions, discovery, following this complex PTSO. Thank you, Gray Broughton. Yeah, which is that just should be like our first takeaway, right? You do not ever agree to a complex pretrial scheduling order. It's horrendous. And then Nathan Hittle, who joined our team a few months ago, and frankly, it's ready to retire. You've been had what? You joined us in November?

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

November had a$1.1 million settlement, beat an offer in a GDC case, had a$20 million verdict with us, and had a what is it, a couple hundred thousand dollar settlement recently in a sex assault case. So Nathan's been with us just a few months, but has already done more than I think most attorneys do in a lifetime.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

My biggest fear so far is that I've outpaced myself.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

And you have. Yes. You have. You have. Unless this is the new standard. But anyways, so let's get into it. And I figured the best way for us to do that is really just to take us back, Gray, to 2023 and this case coming to the firm. Can you tell us what did that look like?

SPEAKER_05 3:43

So yeah, at the time we weren't nearly as uh robust and big as we are now. This was in 2023, so before we all even started.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:54

So it was myself and had a paralegal. Charlie's dad, Michael, uh, called me up. He had already spoken with three, maybe even four other law firms. They had refused to take on his son's case. At the time we didn't have video, but he described the case and told me about how his son, who had suffered abuse as a very young child, horrible, just horrible abuse, and had been from facility to facility throughout his childhood. While he was at a psychiatric residential treatment facility, was physically abused. And described the abuse and it was shocking enough to me at the time to agree to take on the case. We didn't get the actual video until probably a month or so later. But there was something in talking with Michael at the time. He was very matter-of-fact. He was not a parent or client who just saw dollar signs. He was someone who was genuinely concerned about his child and who was genuinely concerned about children who would be there at that facility in the future. And so there was something about his candor and then just the conversation that we had that made enough of a connection that I really wanted to take on the case, explore it, see where we went. And I had no idea at the time that two and a half years later it would end up where it did.

SPEAKER_04 5:19

Thank you, Gray. And let's give everyone just a general idea of kind of what this case was. Zach, would you mind sharing a little bit about kind of just the factual summary of the case?

SPEAKER_07 5:30

So this case involved, as Gray mentioned, a a 13-year-old boy at the time who was a child who suffered an extreme amount of trauma as an adolescent. And because of that, he had a long history of going in and out of different psychiatric residential facilities. He'd been under the care of many different doctors and committed to different psychiatric facilities over time. He had a number of behavioral problems because of that. And Grafton represented a facility that in many respects was kind of the last hope for our client. They promised a sanctuary to him, a place that where they could protect him, and they promised healing rehabilitation. So his father, who in many respects was desperate to get his son the care that he needed, placed him in the hands of this facility, trusting that they would have his best interests in mind. And unfortunately, that's not how the story unfolded.

SPEAKER_04 6:30

So knowing me, I want to talk about the trial, and that's about it. And knowing many of our listeners, I expect they also want to hear about the trial too. And we're going to get there. But before we get there, Laura, Zach, I'd love to just learn more about the workup process. What was it like? And Gray, of course, chime in as well, but like what was it like dealing with the complex PTSO and everything that went into getting us ready to actually take this thing into a courtroom?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Yeah, I mean, thankfully Zach handled a lot of the complex PTSO harsh deadlines, but I did anything he needed to help get things filed in a timely manner. I mean, of course, when you have an individual defendant as well as a corporate entity, there's double of everything as well. So two discovery responses and double the pleadings, and so that's something we had to definitely keep organized as we went along. But the complex PTSO, I think it's more for medical malpractice cases. It was definitely the first I had seen of that, and it did complicate everything and make us have to be that much more thorough.

SPEAKER_04 7:31

And Zach, can you just give us like a sense of like just how many depositions were taken? Uh, how much discovery was exchanged? What was I mean that the grunt work like?

SPEAKER_07 7:42

So to answer that question, part of the context that's important in this is that I joined Gray's firm. I think I'd been with the firm for about a month or two when I got assigned this case, and I was coming from the civil litigation defense background that I'd been doing for about you know four years, and before that a little bit of prosecution work. So I had no experience with personal injury or very limited experience with personal injury, and this was not a by any stretch, was this a routine personal injury case. This case was complex from the outset because this individual had been to so many different doctors, as I mentioned previously. So part of the process was gathering just thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of medical records over an extensive period of time from untold numbers of facilities trying to get in touch with different doctors, trying to piece together anybody that could give us an idea of what effect this event had on our client. I think at the end of the day, there was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of you know six or seven depositions that were done, many of which were corporate representatives that were employed by Grafton, some of which were you know folks that were in charge of his psychiatric care, and of course the individual named defendant in the case. So there was an extensive and probably to this day, maybe more records exchange in this case and production exchange in this case than any other case that I've worked on for the firm. And this was a period that stretched on for gosh, about two years before we were able to get into trial.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

Now I know one of the conversations that we had quite a bit prior to us running a focus group on this case was like, what is it? There was no offer. Right? I mean the defense very much acted like we had nothing. And there was a change once we put this in front of a focus group. Nathan, can you chat a little bit about kind of what that was like and what the reaction was from the focus group?

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah, I'd be happy to. I have a very distinct memory of that because it was my first focus group. And what I recall is that this case was one of three cases that were presented at to the focus group. The other two were fairly standard personal injury slip and fall type cases. And when we presented this case, the reaction from those on the focus group panel stood out. They were, I think, appalled by the conduct at issue, and they were ready at that point to award a lot of money based solely on the conduct. And I think their reaction changed the firm's perception of what this case could be, and also gave us some inkling of the best way to go about pursuing it at trial, and that's what we proceeded to do.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

And you talk a little bit about that. Like what did we take from the focus group when it came to how we went about framing our presentation?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Well, the primary piece of evidence they were shown was the video of what happened to Charlie. I think the thing that probably stood out the most was the conduct of the caretaker, Michelle Yates, who dragged Charlie across this dormitory floor by his shirt. But they also pointed out some other things that, frankly, I'm not sure any of us had noticed before they pointed them out, which was what the conduct of the other caretaker in the room was, what the conduct and the reaction from the other children in the room was, and they pointed out that to them it appeared as though based on those reactions, this was par for the course at this facility. And that told us that we need to make this a systems case. We needed to make this about Grafton's conduct, and we needed to make it about what they promised Charlie as opposed to what actually happened to Charlie.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

And Greg, can you talk about kind of just your reaction when you saw the focus group? I mean, I know it was shortly after the focus group, you basically said, All right, Sharif, you're gonna get involved in this case, Nathan, you're involved, we're dedicating the firm to getting a result in this case. What led to that and ultimately why did you choose to do that? I mean, it worked.

SPEAKER_05 11:54

So Yeah, and so even to just like back up a little bit, in the workup of the case, Zach was trying to get all these different medical records, but we were trying to retain experts, we we had consultants, we had experts, and we were really kind of striking out because the defense, you know, at the time was saying, you know, while it's unfortunate that this happened, this young man had problems before this, and he had problems after, and he had all these diagnoses before and all these diagnoses after. So it was very difficult to get an expert to say, okay, here is the difference between before and after. So that's sort of the backdrop going into the focus group is that we've got this case where the damages are not very clear. It's intuitive that it would have an effect on Charlie, the conduct, but what are the actual damages in terms of like a stereotypical personal injury case? You don't have medical bills, you don't have clear testimony from a psychiatrist saying, like, here's the new diagnoses that he has. So with that backdrop, we're going into the case, we're going into the focus group, we have these three cases, and quite frankly, the Clark one is kind of a like dark horse, we're not really sure what's going to happen with it. And, you know, we're watching the focus group, and I remember there was a focus group member who you know said at the time, what are they asking for? Because we're doing the focus group as though it's being put forward by this unbiased and hired company, and they ask, so what are the plaintiffs asking for? And the focus group member says, Well, then that's what we'll give them. And it's just that response where it's like, okay, we've been looking at this thing wrong for almost two years now, where we're looking at it from the standpoint of what are our damages. And yes, while the damages are important and we certainly put damages on in our case, at that point in time that I think we all determined, and I definitely determined that we need to completely shift our focus and go after the conduct. And so that's when I decided this is the best case that we have in our firm right now. And so we're gonna pour all the resources we can into it. It's coming up for trial in a few months, so we're gonna make it happen.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

I remember that focus group, and I remember that the guy that you were referencing, I think I presented the focus group the or the case to the focus group prior to the Clark case, right? That's right. And that gentleman, I mean, this was a failed railing case. Like liability, clear. Like the railing was rotted out, and there was reports, and the place never did anything about it. And I mean that same juror was like, eh, I think the guy's at fault. He should have seen the rot or whatever the erosion, whatever it was. And he was tough. And then for us to watch how he reacted and responded to the Clark case to just a piece of the evidence, right? Was eye-opening. So focus group ends, and we are I mean, Zach is still very much doing a lot of work because that beautiful complex PTSO, right? It kept Zach and Laura very busy, and then Nathan, you jumped in shortly afterwards to start helping, and then I jumped in and attempted to help, but uh Zach very much saved me a few times. But at that point, we very much got into trial mode, and there was no real discussion of settlement ever in this case. And to the extent that you were able to, Gray, would you mind sharing kind of just what the settlement posture was as we were getting up to trial?

SPEAKER_05 15:29

Essentially there wasn't one. We had escalating demands, like we weren't getting any responses. Two years have basically gone by, we've gotten zero response. So after the focus group, that was like one of the greatest things because not having this back and forth and not having the sort of cadence with negotiations, it made it so that I was able to tell you all on negotiations, forget about it, just go prepare the case and we're gonna try it. So in hindsight, it was nice to not even have to worry about it because it wasn't really wasn't an option.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Well, we also had the court-ordered mediation at some point, and I think that clarified as well that settlement was not likely.

SPEAKER_04 17:09

Yeah, it didn't seem, and we'll talk about this especially as we get into the trial, but at least from my vantage point, it seems we were just in two different worlds, right? Two completely different worlds. We believed the case had value and that the damages were real. Because I remember, I mean, the damages uh did we prosecute the conduct at trial? Absolutely. But there are damages. I mean, from the physical standpoint, it was bruising and scraping, right? I mean, that was it. Most personal injured lawyers would probably think, well, you don't have a case. Like, what are you doing investing your time? But from the mental anguish standpoint, I mean, that's where this case lived, right? The conduct and what that led to, and the loss of trust, the loss of hope, the loss of dignity, serious things. And so I actually was talking to a friend the other day, and he was telling me how their firm were chatting about, well, oh, there's just no way the Court of Appeals will uphold that case. I mean, this damages are too extreme for the injury. And my friend shot back an email in this group discussion and said, Well, what's the amount of money that you think is appropriate for abusing a child? And for the ramifications on that child's sense of safety, sense of trust, dignity, their mental anguish, their well-being, right? I mean, it's it's significant. And that's ultimately, I think, what we did to prepare this case. And it and we'll get into the choices that we made in framing and how we went about doing things and not having an expert and all that stuff, right? Laura, would you mind chatting a little bit about just from your vantage point as a paralegal gearing up? We had just had a trial, what, two weeks prior or a week and a half prior, right? On a car wreck case, which Zach and I got to the finish line and uh patting ourselves on the back. I thought we did a very good results. Yeah, we did a very good job. Yeah, well, thank you. Oh, I mean, I've we we also had some fantastic results last year, too, right? Yes. Yeah, I'm joking. No, you don't have the mic right now, so you're not allowed to say the name. But uh, anyways, no, we and you win, you lose. If you're gonna try cases, you're gonna lose cases. But the important thing is that you're you're getting into the courtroom for your clients when it's right. But Laura, from your vantage point, can you talk about like what was it like watching one the trial prep, and two, of course, I mean, very much having an integral part of getting the trial binders ready, making sure we have the subpoenas sent out, making sure we're crossing all the T's dotting all the I's.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Yeah, I mean it was like Grace said, it was like all hands on deck. I haven't been on a case this labor-intensive before, and it was necessary with that PTSO and just how big of a case it was, we all did need to be involved. So everything was a little bit more complicated than my average case. So I had thankfully a lot of help with the attorneys telling me kind of exactly what they wanted, but even the binders, it was like calling the clerk, confirming exactly how many I needed, because the PTSO is like, you need one for every jury member. And I call and they're like, No, you don't. So it was just a a lot of phone calls and also just making sure things are getting filed timely with deadlines, calendaring things. And like I said earlier, there's double of everything. So keeping the actual files organized as to who's sending what witness lists to who and getting things out so that we don't lose track of things. So it was a big effort.

SPEAKER_04 20:16

Yeah, what was it like watching it?

SPEAKER_02 20:18

Yeah, I mean, I've just never been more proud to be part of a team like this. It was incredible.

SPEAKER_04 20:23

They all you get another promotion.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Thank you. That was the goal here. They just all have different strengths, and I see that from my vantage point all the time. And I think with this case, they each were put in their sweet spot from prep work all the way through the end of the trial. And that was so evident in why we had the success we did, because we put everyone where they thrive. And I think they worked as a team so beautifully, just prepping. Nathan was coming in. I think when you have a new attorney, it helps because you have like a new perspective. So him coming in being kind of new, he found videos on the website that were just so good. And I remember when he showed me, I was like, Well, why have we not found this before? Zach obviously, him and I started about a week apart or so in 2023. So we've been on this journey for a while. And I think when you're on something this long, it gets to be like, Oh my gosh, I can't look at this anymore. But he just knew everything about the case, like anything you asked, he knew. He handled so much of it. Obviously, Gray's the reason we have the case, and Gray worked the case for probably the first at least year and a half, two-ish years, even maybe till the very end, because he's wears all the hats here. So then Sharif is just our trial guru and coming in, doing, you know, prepping the openings and and getting everybody organized for the actual trial. It was like everybody played a role and they crushed every aspect of the prep, and then obviously the trial, which we'll get to.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

Nathan, I want to talk about those videos. So tell us a little bit about what those videos were.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

The videos Laura's referring to are promotional videos that were on Grafton's website that they had put out themselves to promote their business to prospective parents and other providers and children. And they were on different topics. And I think we ended up using three different ones at trial that covered various topics, including the training that caretakers get in terms of not being hands-on with children, in terms of their knowledge of the type of children who come there to receive services at Grafton and the problems that they have, which lined up with the prior history Charlie had before going there. And then just their overall outlook and methodology. I thought they were very powerful to present at trial because they stood in such stark contrast to the conduct that happened in this case, both in regards to the direct abuse of. That Charlie suffered, but then also Grafton's conduct after the fact. And it allowed us to present them to the jury in a way that said to the jury, here's what they're telling people in public, but here's what they're doing behind closed doors. And I think that that contrast was very helpful for us as a frame throughout the whole trial.

SPEAKER_04 23:17

Let's talk about framing more. So, Zach, you kind of led the way in terms of trying to just get us all focused on how are we going to approach this case? Like what is the story we're going to tell? Can you talk about, I guess, one, how did you kind of corral us to do that? And then two, kind of what that was before we get into the trial.

SPEAKER_07 23:40

Sure, happy to. Some of the things that emerged in this case actually kind of emerged organically, and it just so happened that we were able to tie in some of the damages that our client experienced with some of the conduct that the institution put forth. So there actually was a cogent sort of cohesive theme here that I think worked very well. And I say that it emerged organically because in Charlie's deposition, where the defense, you know, hammered this kid for four hours, trying to pick out every little flaw that he had and trying to put their finger on what harms emerge from this event. He talked about trust. He talked about that this violated his trust, and he he mentioned something to the effect of, you know, once you lose trust, it's gone. It's not something that you can get back again. And then that, you know, we seized on that at that point because we knew we had something that was ineffable, that even though it's hard to quantify, it's real and it resonates with people, and people understand that on a human level, and that's what gives it an implicit value. So that was something that we grabbed onto. And the point I was making with there was a cohesiveness because it just so happened that not only did he lose trust, but there was a violation of institutional trust in this case as well that was powerful, you know, and that was the conduct element of the case that we were able to sort of highlight with respect to the defendant's conduct. And I will say, to give credit where credit's due, I mean, a lot of that came from Sharif too. I mean, he came into the case, he's got a very fresh perspective, and Sharif is very, very good at framing cases around a universal theme that is powerful and resonant with the juries. I remember he talked about this institutional violations, and he kind of talked about some ways to frame that, and I think it'd probably be helpful for him to talk about then in the opening statement because he really framed that very effectively. But we all sort of coalesced around this because, again, there was a cogent theme that flowed from the institution to the person.

SPEAKER_04 25:45

Yeah, and I think it might be helpful to share kind of how we went a bit. Not to say that what we do is the right way, but I do know that there was a deliberate way in which we approach preparing for this case. In law school, you're very much taught like write out the clear closing argument first, and then everything needs to add up to the closing, right? We took the opposite approach. For us, it was a team effort. The opening statement was a, without question, a team effort that we labored over, that we went back and forth on. Everyone in this room was involved with putting that together. And then we even, I mean, Zach and Nathan, you guys, actually Nathan, can you talk about it? I mean, you put it in front of our entire firm and got feedback that helped change things. Can you chat about that for a second?

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So the week before trial, we presented the opening. I presented the opening, even though Sharif, you did it at trial, I did it for all of our paralegals and staff at the firm and got their feedback. And that was very helpful. Some of them did not know anything about the case. So to see a fresh perspective on what we were putting forward, to see where it was clear to them what we were trying to say and where it wasn't, what was effective and what wasn't, we kept refining the opening almost right up until Sharif stood up to give it in court. And in fact, we we kept refining it because the first whole day of the trial was voidir, and there was an issue with using deposition clips in the opening, and we had to go back that night and refine it at that point. So it was always a work in progress. But by the time we presented it at trial, it was very tightly packaged, very effective, and put us in the lead from the get-go, I felt, with the jury.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

And it really was the I mean, roadmap is kind of the cliche phrase for but it was our roadmap. The opening, the process of putting that together unified our approach to the case. And actually about making last-minute adjustments. I mean, Zach and I, we had that trial, what, 10 days or two weeks prior? I mean, we had to make a last second adjustment, right? We weren't gonna play this certain audio clip, and then we found out, sorry, Stephanie, we found out through conversation that Stephanie was gonna, or the defense counsel was gonna play this clip, and we're like, well, we've got to get in front of it. So what? Like, like literally minutes before we had to give it, we made a switch and added that clip. So it's very interesting with trial work, and we talked about this, I think, a little bit in kind of the debrief, but you have to have a plan. You can't just wing it, but at the same time, you can't be over-prepared and over-scripted to the point where you can't adjust. I mean, I remember specifically multiple times during the trial where we would huddle and were like, do we let this piece of evidence in that the defense wants? We can keep it out, there's rules of evidence, and then at one point we're like, oh, look at that line, let's do it. And so we did. We're like, nope, no issues, go in, and suddenly we were able to score more points, right? So it's a very fine line of being prepared, doing the work, being diligent, but also allowing the flexibility to be present and to understand what's going on and what story is being told. Let's now get to the trial. So just from a I mean, Laura, can you comment just from like a logistics standpoint? I mean, what did that look like? We weren't in town. We had how many people go up there in all five of us? Yeah, right? So, I mean, can you talk a little bit about kind of what that was like?

SPEAKER_02 29:11

Well, I mean, the week prior, there were two motions hearings in the middle.

SPEAKER_04 29:14

Oh my god, I forgot about that Friday.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

So Zach had driven up Monday, I believe, and then had to go back on Friday, and they were there till nine at night?

SPEAKER_04 29:24

Uh I think it was yeah, I mean, what time was the hearing? Was it like one o'clock?

SPEAKER_06 29:29

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:30

So all three of us were up there, was it that Monday. That Monday. And that was not a short hearing. That was like a four-hour hearing, right? And then we had to go up again Friday, and it was like one o'clock. We were in court until like 8 30, or something like that. It was painful. But for a number of reasons. I I mean the judge, fantastic, the defense counsel, of course, were doing their job, but it it was a lot.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yeah, so they did that, and I was waiting to hear the results of some of the motions to know how to proceed with some of the exhibit binder things, and and so we all ended up here on Sunday preparing. The guys drove up that night to get there and get uh settled in, and then Gray and I went in the next morning. But just getting prepared with all the things, the the binders, the demonstratives. I was working with the print shop who we had all these snow days prior, so things were delayed. I mean, you just never know. And you just kind of have to allocate time for the unknowns, but sometimes you're out of control with that stuff as well. So yeah, logistically it was a lot, but once again, we kind of just were a team, and I don't know how they did it on the lack of sleep and the traveling, but I think you have adrenaline going as well with the excitement of a trial, and I'm lucky that I just got to sit and watch it.

SPEAKER_04 30:42

Yeah, it's I thought we had a good time, which is, I mean, I know trial work can be frightening, it's not the wrong word. It's fearful. And I mean, if you aren't fearful a little bit and don't have some anxiety going into it, then you're probably not cut out for it because I believe that the anxiety is synonymous with that you care, right? And that you want to do a good job for the client and you care about your pres the presentation, about for yourself, your firm, all that. But there was a lot of litigation prior to us a judge saying go. I mean, like prior to Charles starting. A lot. I mean every question in Voidir was objected to by the defense, and so we literally spent probably three hours, if not longer, at that motions hearing, the court rewriting our Voidir questions. We filed a 15-page motion to reconsider slash preserve the record just on the Voidir thing, that what that Saturday or Sunday. I mean, Zach, you had to deal with uh God knows how many expert designation fights. I know, Nathan, you dealt with a number of motions involving like them trying to exclude our ability to make certain arguments and preclude certain claims, and on the whole, I thought we did fairly well with the litigation, but it but it was a lot, right? It was quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

It was, and and as I'm sitting here listening to what we're discussing, both with the litigation, the pretrial preparation that Laura helped with, the minute-by-minute tactical decisions during the trial. I think the one thing that allowed us as a team to navigate all that successfully was that we were all very clear and very aligned on what the major truths in this case were and where we wanted to take it. And when you're clear about that, it allows you to make assessments in the moment with that in mind and stay on track and prioritize what's important and what's worth fighting for and what you can let go and still get to where you need to get to. For me, you know, you talked about being fearful. Of course, there's always fear, there's always anxiety, but if you're driving toward that truth, it'll keep you motivated and it'll keep you on track.

unknown 32:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

We did that as a team.

SPEAKER_04 32:57

Yeah, no, it was awesome. It was awesome. Again, like I it executed very well. Granted, I'm super biased, but the result speaks for itself, right? Greg, would you mind talking your impressions of just the first parts of the trial? Let's actually take it step by step. Let's do voidier, let's talk about openings, just to give the listeners a sense of kind of what happens. Because I think ultimately why we wanted to do this podcast was to I mean, we've gotten a lot of like curious looks, frankly. Or not necessarily looks, but questions like, how did you guys do that? I mean, you tell me you didn't have any medical bills, you didn't have any lost wages, you didn't have an expert witness, like, and you went to Winchester and you got a$20 million verdict. Like, how how'd you do this? So one of the motivations for us trying to come together and and do this episode is one, gives us an opportunity to continue to refine our practice and learn what we did and where we could improve, because there's always room for improvement. But two, to maybe share the things that did work well for us with others. So we're not the only ones going out and getting justice for people like Charlie Clark. So Grant, if you wouldn't mind kind of kicking us off with I guess day one, Bois deer.

SPEAKER_05 34:00

Yeah, so I mean, most people who try cases in Virginia, if you told them that you spend an entire day on Wardier, they would be surprised. Especially, I mean, it's not it's not like a capital murder case or or I mean it's a it's a case where ultimately we put on four lay witnesses. But honestly, you talked about the importance of the opening statement, and the opening statement was was absolutely important. I mean, I know you're a big proponent of this, is uh just as important. And having the right uh jurors who were right for that case sitting in the box was super important. And you all took the time, you you set it up so that you could get the questions asked that you needed to get asked, even though it wasn't in the format that you wanted. Honestly, I was probably defensive by the judge just because I think he probably wasn't used to seeing Voir Deer done the way we do Wardeer, and so I think it was probably just a not being familiar with us and wanting to maintain control, understandably. But yeah, the entire first day was spent doing nothing but voir dear, and it was it was tedious. Uh and I wasn't even the one doing it. But I think from my vantage point, from watching Wardire happen, the connections that were made during Voir Dire with the jury made all the difference in the world. So by the time that you got to the opening statement, the connection was there. The jury liked us, liked you. They had already determined which side is gonna tell us the truth, which side is gonna shoot it straight, which side is not gonna try to push too much, as you even said, during Voardiere for their side. And so to your credit, it was masterful in terms of the command of the law, the command of the facts, and just the humanity that was sort of put out there. I mean, there was something that was on LinkedIn last week about during Voirier, there was a an obligy lady who couldn't hear or see very well, and the judge is asking, you know, can you anybody have any trouble hearing or seeing? And and this old lady says, Your Honor, I'm I'm sorry, but I don't see very well. I all I see is a gray blob. And you know, you in typical fashion stand up and say, But a very handsome gray blob, Your Honor. And everyone, like just like we are now, everyone laughed. It was just a sort of like release, and this, you know, everyone knows that, okay, this is serious, but this can be enjoyable. We don't have to take ourselves too seriously, we can be human. And so, again, we didn't get to the opening statements until Tuesday, the next day. And in the typical cadence of a trial, it's like most people are thinking, okay, well, let's see if we can get through the opening statement before lunch. That's kind of like the typical, okay, here's what we're gonna go do. And then after lunch, we'll get right into that first witness. But this took more time and it was absolutely worth every second.

SPEAKER_04 36:54

Yeah, and we operate well, thank you. We operated as a team during Voidir, which I think is two things I want to say. So, yes, we operate as a team, and I'll let me talk about that. So I did the questioning, but there's no way in hell that you can do Voidir correctly on your own. We had Zach had the potential prospective jurors he was focused on. Nathan had the remaining, and we're taking notes and making sure to actually figure out who do we need to get more information about, where did we have concerns. We had Gray and Laura in the gallery, also observing, right? So Voidir is a team sport, without question. I mean, without question. And then the second comment I want to make is, and I think this is an important takeaway, is that we had to fight like hell for Voidir. Again, like uh I actually I thought the judge was fantastic, but a number, actually, most of what we wanted in Voidir, we weren't allowed to do for whatever reason. The defense certainly weren't helpful in that regard. I mean, they objected to almost everything, not almost, they did object to every single question, right? And so I think the takeaway is one, like, for us and hopefully for our listeners, is voidier is a team sport. And then two, you have to advocate for it. Like, because if you don't, no one, the judge isn't gonna give it to you, defense counsel isn't gonna give it to you. And if you got a panel who isn't gonna be receptive or open to the possibility of doing what you're gonna ask them to do, well then you you're done before the trial even starts. And so I know Virginia is fairly conservative when it comes to voidier, and that's but I challenge people that that's not because the law is conservative on void direct. The law is fairly open. Virginia is conservative on void directs lawyers have not pushed the envelope. And I'm not suggesting that we need the week-long voidier like they have in Florida or California or all that. I mean, length is does not equate to necessarily quality. But a meaningful voidier where you actually get to have real conversations with people to the point where the prospective jurors feel comfortable actually sharing information is critical. Is absolutely critical. Because otherwise, I mean, and it's an argument that I think Zach, you and I made a bunch. It's like, well, judge, like if we're doing what the defense wants us to do, then what's the point of Wadir? You're just gonna instruct them. Like you're just gonna instruct them, so why are we doing Wadir? Because the point of Wadir isn't to advocate for your case, it's to figure out if these people who are going to follow the law. And the law is the jury instructions. And so, anyways, a lot, I mean, we have briefing on that, and so if you want it, just reach out to us. But let's move on to opening statement. Laura, you had a chance to watch. Tell us what was that like?

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty honest with the guys, and I can be a harsh critic. And this was genuinely the best opening I've ever seen. Going back to Voidir, Sharif had to You get another promotion.

SPEAKER_04 39:51

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

I know. I'm working hard. Sharif had already built that rapport with the jury as well as Nathan and Zach. And when he did the opening, he just had a way of moving around the courtroom, and we had this beautiful PowerPoint that had visuals, it had the videos, it had all the things they referenced earlier. So the jury had just such a clear representation of what they were speaking on. And there was just a real human connection to it as well, that anybody in that room could be listening and entertained and fully engaged in what Sharif was saying at that opening. I always say that I wish it had been filmed because I think that it would be beneficial for any attorney to watch. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Maybe what you said, but not the actual visual of how you did it. But yeah, it was incredibly empowering. And I feel like in a lot of ways, we won the case at the beginning because of that opening and because of the way you set the tone.

SPEAKER_04 40:47

Well, and I think to Nathan's, well, thank you. And again, promotion, if I have the power, you're you own the firm now. No, anyways. Uh um sorry. Uh but what do you call it? Uh you have to pay Greg for it. Good luck. But uh anyways. Um But we made some intentional choices with what we did in opening. For example, specifically, like how we started. Actually, Nathan, do you mind sharing like why did we do what we did? Or I guess first, what did we do?

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Right. Well, you actually delivered it, so you may remember the exact words better than I. But generally speaking, when Sharif stood up to give the opening, before we talked about Charlie, before we talked about Grafton, before we talked about what happened to Charlie, before we talked about the damages part of the case, what we did is we told the jury that this was a case about an institution that was trusted to take care of somebody and made a promise to take care of somebody and then broke that promise. And we framed it in a way that, you know, it could be like in Charlie's situation, somebody in a psychiatric treatment facility, or it could be dropping a kid off at school, or it could be taking a grandparent to a nursing home. All of these situations are situations that are familiar to normal average people like our jurors and that they can relate to. And I think framing it in that way set us up for success when we got to the point where we told them what this particular case was about. And then from there, you know, we introduced Grafton, the promises they made. We talked about the promotional videos earlier. There was also some statements they made on their website about their values being accountability and integrity. We introduced Grafton, then we introduced Charlie, who he was, some about his background, and then we got right into the video of what happened to him. And from that point forward, we gave the juror some tools to assess the evidence, to think about the case. At the end, we told them what we were asking for, but all of it flowed from that initial framing of a betrayal of trust by an institution.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

I'm actually trying to find the words that we used at the beginning of the opening because I think they're important. And again, like I want to make clear that this was not just a me, this thing. This was, I mean, we all came together and decided that this is the approach we wanted to take. Zach, but while I'm looking up those words, can you share with us what was the first image that we showed the jury during opening?

SPEAKER_07 43:26

Which became an important theme in the case. And you know, happy to get into that.

SPEAKER_04 43:30

Yeah, and what I mean, so we recognize that like well Nathan, you made the comment earlier about system failures. We were very intentional about making sure that we did not get sucked into the very easy thing of just talking about the incident, right? Because the case, at least from our standpoint, wasn't just about what happened to our client. I mean, it certainly it was, but it's about trust and it's about the importance of that trust. And so what we did at the very beginning is we had this photo of AI generated, a man basically dropping off his kid at the door of who knows what it could have been, a school, a nursing, whatever it was. Well, probably not a nursing home, kid. But um, we used these words. So we said, good morning. Every one of us has been that man in that photo. Every one of us has taken a loved one, be it a child, an elderly parent, and taken them to a school, a treatment center, a nursing home, a hospital. We did our research, we spoke with the people there, we shook their hands, and ultimately we trusted that when we walked away, turned away like that man in that photo, that our loved one would be safe. The case that you're going to hear over the next couple of days is about an institution that offered that trust and then broke it. It's about an institution that not only broke that trust, but When asked for accountability, refuses it. And so that was, I think, ultimately the frame we were trying to put on the case. How the jury actually received it, I guess we'll never truly know, but certainly I'd like to think it did contribute to the result. Zach, would you mind talking about kind of just our case in chief? What did that look like? Why did we do what we did?

SPEAKER_07 45:19

So what we wanted to do for our case was really to contrast what the defense's case was. And we knew in going through the very painful exercise of the complex PTSO that the defense intended to put on about 14 witnesses. On the other hand, we had a very tight package. We had about four lay witnesses, and we knew that we had to keep our presentation succinct in some respects to offset the noise that the defense was going to put on in their case. So one of the things that we did right off the bat is we started with a sheriff's deputy in the case. And her testimony was particularly important because through the years that we had this case and working very closely with the father in the case, we came to understand and realize that there was the footage, the surveillance footage in the dormitory room that captured the event between our client and the caretaker. And after she dragged him across the room, she deposits him in a hallway and the door closes and he's by himself. Well, we come to learn that there's hallway footage as well. There's surveillance cameras in the hallway that captured the aftermath of this. And unfortunately, even when he was in the hall by himself, he then attempted to strangle himself with a shirt. But Grafton did not preserve this evidence. It was lost. It was something that they failed to download, and we never got to view it. Nobody has seen it on the trial team. Nobody in our office has seen it. But we were able to talk to other witnesses that had seen it. And one of those witnesses was the sheriff deputy who was able to talk to us a little bit about how she came to view the footage and what the footage showed in the case. And one of the things just talking about this more holistically, that I think we did effectively is that failure to preserve the evidence was something that we grabbed onto in this case and just did not let go of. We took every opportunity to beat them over the head with that because we were trying the conduct of this institution, and not only from what they did to our client, but their institutional failures along the way. And that tied in so well with our themes. And it also was a touch point, a friction point that we just didn't let go to, and it was extremely inflammatory. So that's how we opened. And then we, of course, brought on our client Charlie and his father to talk about their lived-in experiences and what effects this event had on them.

SPEAKER_04 47:52

And I mean we did not have an expert, right? We only had lay witnesses. And one thing that I want to hit on is we all know as plaintiffs' attorneys that oftentimes, and unfortunately, some of the weakest parts of our case can be actually our clients' own testimony. Greg, can you talk about from your vantage point watching our client and his father testify? How did that go? I mean, certainly we're biased, we think it went well, right? But like just knowing what you knew about our clients and the difficult position they were put in, and knowing what you know about how we prepared them, how did it go?

SPEAKER_05 48:32

It was exceptional. And to kind of go back a bit, early on in the case when I first got it, one of our biggest concerns was of course Charlie, who had given his background, his diagnoses, and his sort of like oppositional defiance towards authority, that that it was going to be very difficult to have him testify or meaningfully participate in the trial. But by the time he was on the stand in Winchester Circuit Court, he did beautifully. He did a million times better than I expected. And that's in no small part thanks to the preparation that went into making him feel comfortable and the processes that y'all sort of put him through. He endured hell during his own deposition. That was certainly much more difficult for him to endure than being on the stand. But he conducted himself wonderfully.

SPEAKER_04 49:31

I want to dig into that a little bit, the I mean what he went through during his deposition, because I think it's important. And it's something that w we actually made mention of during the opening statement. During his deposition, defense counsel asked a number of difficult things that I think they hoped would never be exposed. They asked Charlie, at least I'll mention the first one, and Nathan, if you wouldn't mind mentioning the second one, which these are the two things we isolated. They asked a 13-year-old boy who'd been abused since he was three by family members in the worst, most unimaginable ways you can't even fathom. One of the questions that the defense attorneys asked Charlie, I guess in an effort to try and downplay the impact the incident had on him, was were you ever normal to a 13-year-old kid? Were you ever normal? But that wasn't it. Nathan, I always butcher the second one. Would you mind saving me on this one?

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Well, the context for the second question is that Zach mentioned that after the incident happened, Charlie was deposited in the hallway by the caretaker where he proceeded to attempt to strangle himself with his own shirt. And unfortunately, in Charlie's past, he had had prior suicide attempts or self-harm attempts, at the very least. So the question at the deposition that was asked was does it bother you less or the same or more when somebody else grabs a shirt that's wrapped around your neck and tries to strangle you with it as opposed to when you do it to yourself?

SPEAKER_04 51:15

Yeah. And so I think that's just an inside look as to how contentious this case was, and frankly, just to the level of advocacy that the defense was willing to go to to try and fight this case. So our case in chief was fairly short, right? A few witnesses. We introduced some evidence as well, of course. And as Nathan alluded to earlier, we weren't allowed to play some of these deposition video clips in opening, which actually I think ended up kind of working out to our benefit, because we just got to play them right after opening when our case in chief started. Let's switch over and talk about kind of the cross-examinations. We handled how many witnesses was it, Zach? Do you remember? Fourteen. I think fourteen witnesses. Can you talk about how that went? Actually, both you and Nathan, if you wouldn't mind. Because we, of course, I thought we were feeling pretty good once we rested. Things had gone the way that we had hoped and planned for. But I uh from our vantage point, I think things, frankly, got stronger. Actually, Nathan, if you wouldn't mind talking about some of the cross-of-the-fact witnesses, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Well, I don't know if I'll get to all of them, but I'll try to talk a little bit out. And just to echo what you said, I think all of us are in agreement that had the defense not put on any of those witnesses, it's probably less likely that we would have ended up with the verdict that we ended up with. We felt after each one of those witnesses that we scored points and strengthened our case. You can't always control what happens on cross, but in my opinion, it went very well, and each of us were prepared to handle the witnesses we were assigned. They were presented in groups, essentially. There was a group of witnesses to include the defendant, Michelle Yates, but also some other caretakers who dealt with Charlie on that day, were in the room when it happened to him, or dealt with him shortly thereafter. There was a nurse that saw him, and they were essentially fact witnesses to this incident. And with those witnesses, we knew to a certain extent that we were not going to be able to change their version of what happened, but we didn't really need to because it was on video. What we did was we used that as an opportunity to go at Grafton as to why this happened. Why did they not intervene in the incident? If they saw what happened, how come they didn't stop it? Why didn't they report it to other people afterward up the chain if they saw this terrible thing happen? So we were looking for opportunities to make our case through their witnesses. There was another group of witnesses who were essentially Charlie's psychiatric counselors at the facility after the fact. And they were put on the stand by Grafton to show that Charlie was not impacted by this incident, that he didn't talk about it in his counseling session, that there wasn't any noticeable change in his behavior, his outlook. What we did was we took that and used it as an opportunity to show the jury that they never asked him about it. They were aware of this incident, that it happened to him, but they didn't ask it how it impacted him. They didn't address it with him, they didn't try to treat him for it. And so each one of these categories of witnesses, we found a way to take what Grafton was trying to use them for to advances in a defense and turn it back on them to make our own case. I thought it was very effective and it really drove home the point for the jury. And, you know, talking about the truce and the themes for the case, you said one of them in the opening was that not only they allowed this to happen, but they're denying accountability for it. The reason that frame was so powerful was because every time they put a witness up to say that this incident wasn't that bad or that the impact of Charlie wasn't that great, the jury saw it for what it was, which was them not taking accountability for it from the time it happened right up through the trial and in the trial. And that only strengthened our case.

SPEAKER_04 55:23

Yeah, and we also made some kind of spur-of-the-moment decisions, right? And some of the questions we asked. I think one of the questions we asked at one point, we asked a Grafton employee, does Grafton take any responsibility for this? And defense went up in arms, objecting, and frankly, we didn't care, and I guess this is a takeaway, we didn't care what the answer was. Because we knew they weren't going to say yes, and at the same time, we also knew that an objection would frankly just prove our point, right? They're not willing to take any responsibility for it. Nathan, you did a fantastic job crossing the def the individual defendant. And one of the things I thought that went really, really well and what we had concern about, right, is this notion of I think it's a Jerry Spence quote, where you can play with the mouse, but you can't kill it. What do I mean by that? Or what did Spence mean by that? Well, uh what I believe it means is that unless the jury gives you permission, you can't destroy a witness on cross. Because the natural human reaction is to have sympathy. And I there's plenty I mean, everyone can probably, if we think back in life and think about like a time where somebody, even if it was well deserved, was punished or reprimanded so harshly that even if you didn't like the person or like you thought they had it coming, the punishment or the reprimand or the ridicule is so strong that you almost start feeling sympathetic. And so one of the things I thought that was very effective throughout, but especially with that cross, was that you didn't kill the mouse. You let the evidence and you let the questioning speak for itself. So that was great. Well, let's talk about the expert witnesses. So, Zach, you handled two of them. One pretrial that was ultimately ended up being a trial deposition that was, again, excellent, excellent cross that to Nathan's point I thought was able to advance our case because it was very clear that a Grafton employee, an MD, a psychiatrist who was supposed to help treat Charlie after the incident, never asked. I mean, never asked about the incident, right? Yet had an opinion that it didn't impact him. But I thought more impressively, there was an another expert witness that they had who was tough. I mean, she came in and similar opinion and wrote, how long was that report, like an 80-some page report or something like that? Super credentialed, it not easy to control, and you were able to one use her to establish what the appropriate standards are, and then indirectly but effectively show that what was done did not satisfy those standards and would have created a misleading representation of what happened. Can you talk to us just a little bit about how you went about putting that cross together and what you were trying to achieve?

SPEAKER_07 58:19

Happy to going into that, one the helpful context in this case, particularly on the defense side, is that they were making what was on its face a very callous argument, and that essentially Charlie, the client, was what we call damaged goods. That he had been through such horrific trauma in his past that this event was essentially a blip on the radar that had no meaningful impact on him. And of course, we had the converse viewpoint on this, that his past and his previous trauma is what made this conduct and this event so much more meaningful and impactful. And I think our argument was much more intuitive. But that was the defense's perspective, that his trauma history was so bad that this event could not have registered for him. It was essentially insignificant. So the defense's doctor who evaluated him in person had to deal with some uncomfortable truths in this case in arriving at the opinion effectively that this was a very minor thing for him, despite the fact that he had this terrible trauma history and had been dragged across the floor by a trusted caretaker. This didn't really affect him. It was a fairly minor thing. So I knew that that was going to be a challenging conclusion for her to defend in some respects. So what I wanted to do and kind of what I walked through systematically was getting her to agree at the outset of what constitutes an impartial evaluation and testimony, what constitutes a complete evaluation, what constitutes an objective evaluation. And the idea is that you're asking basically short, single questions each time that they have to agree to, and that these are just common things that they're not going to fight you on. What it does is it starts to build out some momentum. So by the time that you're getting into some of the controversial stuff, they're used to just agreeing with, you know, 30 or 40 or 50 questions in a row that start to establish this is what an impartial opinion looks like, this is what an objective opinion looks like, this is what a complete opinion looks like. And once you've set that up, then you pivot to, all right, well, let's take a look at what you did in this case. And what I was able to do with her then is to walk through and have her once again acknowledge all of the horrific history that this kid had been through, all the terrible trauma. We were able to talk about the fact that she'd been paid tens of thousands of dollars, the fact that the client didn't choose her, the fact that she's not his doctor, the fact that she didn't talk to anybody else that knows him to assess what impact that this had on him, and the fact that even some of her conclusions were incoherent. There was one point in her report where she talked about there was a comment made by a DSS investigator who told our client during the investigation that look, you know, there may come a time that you need to testify about this. And the expert in her report was up in arms about this. I mean, she at some point claimed that that comment from a DSS worker was so highly inappropriate that that could have caused trauma for our clients. And that was just an absurd conclusion in the face of being dragged across the floor by his neck had a minor impact. So what I was able to do ultimately, and kind of how I wrapped it up, was talking about how these words from this DSS investigator was so bad that that potentially traumatized our child, our client, but dragging him across the floor by his neck by a trusted caretaker had no impact. That's your testimony. And that's how I wrapped it up. She had agreed to it, and and frankly, she just wasn't credible at the end of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:18

It was a masterful job and not an easy, and arguably probably one of the most difficult things that we had to deal with during the case was her testimony. Now, what's interesting is that the defense at this point, their offer, I think it was 500,000 that expired before trial, and then they, or maybe it was during, and then they reduced it. Like, so we were they were do I think their offer was 250,000. And I remember like sitting around chatting and I was like, are we like delusional? Like, do they know something that we don't know? Like, what is going on? Because we think we're doing great, right? I mean, obviously you still don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, you could still feel like you do did great and and and ultimately get nothing. But the defense was still very obviously very, very confident in their position, which was just wild. So Monday was all day jury selection. Tuesday was really our case, and then we rested towards the end, I think, of Tuesday.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:10

Then they played a two-hour video. Oh, right. They put the jury to sleep with a uh two-hour debate.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:16

Right. Yeah. Now they yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, uh happy to try a case against them again, right? So uh anyways, this time we'll have some new LinkedIn posts they can read into the record. But anyways, and then I mean they took a long time on their case, and then ultimately we did closing arguments Thursday night. Yeah. Was that it? Greg, can you talk a little bit about kind of just from your vantage point closings and how those went?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:40

Yeah, so the closing and the rebuttal, yeah, the way we had set it up is that Shreef did the sort of the front loading in terms of the voidier and the opening, and then Nathan did the closing, Zach did the rebuttal. All of them were perfect in their own way and they and were appropriate for the the time that they came in the case. And so the opening had sort of it really ended the void here, it really set the stage. And then of course the putting on on the evidence and the cross-examination of the witnesses went extremely well, I think better probably than any of us expect expected. But basically that allowed Nathan to come in in the closing and say, here are all these things that we talked about prior to any evidence going on, and we have delivered. And one of those things that you had even brought up in the beginning is who's pushing too far. We had four witnesses who all testified about the impact on Charlie and of course the video. They had fourteen witnesses who were doing everything except for taking accountability. And so really in the rebuttal, I mean Zach gave a very impassioned rebuttal basically just speaking about how incredulous the defense was and in their defense, and then how ultimately no one was taking accountability and what was left behind and what was done to address it all was this young man, this boy who had been abused.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:07

And one of the things that went really well and the takeaway is we found an analogy to help us explain damages. We approached this case as we approach all of our cases. Our firm, every one of our lawyers, has been a prosecutor. And so, no surprise, we don't try our cases like the typical personal injury lawyer. We prosecute our cases, so conduct is a big focus. And for the defense lawyers listening to us, admitting liability is actually something we don't like. So uh, anyways, uh, which is which is kind of funny. So please don't listen, just don't admit liability with us. We prefer to actually put on a liability case, which I know sounds counterintuitive, but we've got our reasoning. But in coming up with a way to explain damages, I mean there's a few different things that we did. One, we didn't really try and separate the case into two parts, right? I mean, one, it was all the same thing. So, and I know that sounds messy, but i if you take a step back and you think, oh, we we never clearly delineated conduct and damages, right? It was it was kind of blurred. But two, Nathan, and I I I was able to find it, and we came up with an analogy that ironically, when Nathan joined the firm, he kind of had come up with a version of this on his own, and then he started sharing it, and I remember I was like, Nathan, you know that's like the briefcase analogy, right? And he's like, Huh? What are you talking about? And then I like I get on YouTube and I'm showing him and Zach, I'm like, dude, like people do this all over the country. This is like the rallies of the world. They do this, what you just came up with. And I've got the words that you use from the transcript, Nathan, and it's the briefcase analogy, and it was beautifully done. And it goes like this Consider this. Imagine December 20th, 2022. A man shows up at Michael Clark, Charlie Clark's father's door. Michael answers the door. There is a man. With a black briefcase. He says, Is this Mr. Clark? Mr. Clark says, Yeah, what are you doing here? The man says, I have something for you. There's$38.4 million in this briefcase, and I want you to have it. And Michael Clark says, For what? Nobody just hands somebody that kind of money. The man with the briefcase says, You're right. This isn't for free. We're going to take something from your son tomorrow. There's going to be an incident. His trust in his providers is going to be broken. He's going to have bruises on his arm. He's going to try to strangle himself. And not only that, after it's over, you're not going to really see what happened to him for months. You're not going to know the extent of it for months. And once you do, you're going to find out that he has trouble seeing other therapists, that he has trouble trusting women. Charlie's dad says, I don't want the money. I don't want any part of that deal. He shuts the door. But the knock gets louder. And finally, the man says, You don't have a choice. You, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, do have a choice. You have a choice to hold Michelle Yates and Grafton accountable for what happened to Charlie. Charlie's had a rough life. He's had his trust broken by his mom, his half-sister, the treatment providers, who knows who else. And then he comes to Grafton, and it's his last best hope. And instead, his dignity is taken. It's at the end of the road. He was pushed off a ledge. And despite all of that, he had the courage to come in here and talk to you, who are his last best hope. You are it. We only have one shot at this. One shot for the rest of Charlie Clark's life to get accountability for what happened to him. You have the choice that he did not have. I ask you to hold them accountable. We ask you to return a full and fair verdict, and we ask that it reflect the true value of what was taken from him. And so I remember actually watching I was like, wow. Like n I mean, you could sense like the energy in the room. Like it was Gray, I forgot how you explain it, but it was I got chills watching it.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:32

And you know, one thing that you can't recreate here is that while Nathan is doing that, he's standing at the lectern, which is a you know wooden sort of box lectern, and he's rapping on on the box, recreating that really bringing home that image of the man with the briefcase showing up in the dark of night at Michael Clark's door. And I mean even just now you reading it from your phone, I kind of get chills again just hearing it. And it was so powerful because it really the jury is is putting themselves in Michael's shoes and in Charlie's shoes. One thing we always like to say to clients is that we wish we had a time machine. We wish we could go back and make it so that this never happened, but we can't. And the next best thing and the only thing that really our system allows is money damages. The way that was delivered and the way it was written made it so that the ask, and then you notice in there that there wasn't an ask. There wasn't an ask for$38.4. That had been already put out there in opening. And so it didn't come across as crass. It didn't come across as slimy, it came across as genuine and authentic.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:57

Well, as the one who delivered what Sharif just read, the experience of hearing somebody else say it was interesting. The phrasing of it and the order of it almost was an out-of-body experience because for me it was an honor to get to do it for Charlie and his family, and for all of you who worked on the case much longer than I did. So it was a privilege to get to do it. And I think it was our answer to your friend's question that was posed earlier about, well, you know, the verdict was way too high for what happened. How is this going to get ever get upheld? That's how.

unknown 1:11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:41

No, absolutely. Well, it's funny how uh I remember that focus group guy when we were our last focus groups we did, and we asked for like what their verdict was, dollar amount, and it was like it was something very it was low, relatively low, tied to the medical bills. And then we asked him, like, all right, well, what if this happened to you? How much money would you want? And what did he say? It's like, oh mil 30 million dollars. It's like, oh really? It is funny. And actually, Gray, when we were getting interviewed for the shooting case we have, the reporter asked us, this was what, a week or two ago? Reporter asked us, like, well, 143 million dollars, however much we sued for, 143.7. Yeah. So I she didn't say that is that too much, or like, is this worth or but the question kind of implied like that's a big number. And I think our response was like, Well, how much would you take to get shot 10 times? Right? Like, I mean, would you take 143 million dollars to get shot 10 times and almost die? I don't know. And probably not. Yeah, probably not, right? So again, uh I mean, I thought the team executed very well. And it's funny, Nathan and I were chatting with a lady at actually Zach, I'm embarrassed and somewhat shamed to say this, but we were speaking with someone who went to Virginia Tech yesterday. And uh I we made it clear that like we weren't fans of Virginia Tech. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Nathan and I were we made that very clear, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:03

But she was as a fellow as a fellow Wahoo, I have due respect for those who went to Virginia Tech, but I have to represent the Cavaliers.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:12

She asked some question about like I don't know if it was necessarily about the case, but it was like, what did we enjoy about this work? And Nathan, correct me if I get this wrong. And Nathan and I, we were driving down to Norfolk, so Nathan could go get sworn in at the federal court, which for whatever reason they let you in. So but can't wait to the Coast Guard ceremony. That's gonna be huge when we get you in the Coast Guard. All of our listeners, please reach out to Nathan at Graybrought.com and encourage him to join the Coast Guard Auxiliary. So great thing that he knew he we need his service.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:44

Do they have a band?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:45

We can make it happen. I'll buy you a clarinet or whatever the thing or no, the um what are the things you get in elementary school? Recorder. Yeah, a recorder. That thing. I'll get you two. Okay. That's right. That's right. I just want to go, yeah. Um, but anyways, she asked us, like, well, what's the most the fun part? Like, what do we find rewarding? And I could be butchering this. Nathan, feel free to jump in if I mess anything here up. And it wasn't the result. I mean, we're we were proud of the result, but it wasn't the result. I think what we enjoyed most and found, frankly, some of the most value in was the teamwork. It was the nights in the lobby, brainstorming, putting together the plan for the next day, making some tactical decisions, weighing pros and cons. That's what I think, when it's all said and done, is what I will remember and probably be proudest. It's like how the team came together, everyone played their part, and ultimately were able to take a very challenging case with very limited evidence and get the result that we did for a very deserving young man and his father. So I'm very proud of what this firm did, and I'm also very optimistic that what we did was not an anomaly and can be repeated by us and can be repeated by anybody who's willing to put in the work, walk into a courtroom, and put on a strong case for their client. The days of evaluating cases like insurance adjusters need to end. And I think if the plaintiff's bar is able and willing to do that, we're gonna make a big difference for a lot of people. So before we close up, I know this has been a long episode, but hopefully it's been valuable. Just would love to get kind of just takeaways. Like if you could share one lesson that either you learn or you want others to know about the process of working this case up and taking it to trial, what would that be?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:42

So for me, being on the sidelines, I think it's knowing the strengths of your team members and putting the right people in the right seats. Everyone did just a masterful job in their given assignments. And also, you know, I'll echo what what you said, Sharif. You know, the the teamwork, the bonding apps, especially if you're you're on the road, you're you're all staying at the same hotel, uh, you're eating together, there's nothing like it. And so I say this frequently, you know, in talking to members on our referendum, but like I genuinely enjoy coming to work every day. And you know, if you're stuck out of town, staying in a hotel with other folks, is you want it to be people who you you know have your back and that you enjoy being around. But yeah, my biggest takeaway was that knowing the strength of your team members, we went all in on this trial and it paid off.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:39

Yeah, I I think that this case was a really clear reflection of our firm culture and also the work everybody puts in to better themselves outside of the office, the CLEs, the trainings, whatever it is that they do to have more knowledge, it's showed in a case like this. And as somebody that's mentoring and training paralegals, these kind of cases give me ways to help teach them how to think outside the box with how to prepare their cases from intake, pre-let, et cetera. It starts with them and it works all the way through to the trial. So it's just been extremely excitable. I'm lucky to have such great teammates, and I'm looking forward to more wins.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:21

Zach gun. This case, in many respects, represents a sea change in the making in terms of how I view a case from a damages perspective. And much of that has come with training and exposure to different ideas, and much of it is from the lunacy of Sharif, the guy sitting to the right of me, that has caused my own thinking to evolve. Part of the reason why the defense team was so far apart from us on this case is that they very much evaluated this case through the lens of a traditional, almost like a motor vehicle personal injury case. Where are the medical damages? Where are the experts? Where are your economic damages? How are you going to prove this case? Oh, you've got none of those things, so this case is worth zero dollars. And that's how the defense team evaluated the case, and that's how a number of personal injury attorneys evaluate the case. So if I had a clean takeaway from a case like this, is that the jurors, the lay people, do not think about these cases like that. They don't care about economic damages. They don't think about them in terms of the context. Well, he's got 20,000 in medical bills, so I'm going to multiply that times three. They care about things that are purposeful, that are impactful, that make a difference to them. And if you can put on a case that tells a story that focuses on awful conduct and that empowers the jury to do something that is impactful and important, they will rise to that occasion and they will punish the defense for the conduct, even if it's not a punitive case. And they're not for one second going to sit in the back room and deliberate and say, we'd love to give millions of dollars, but they just didn't put on any economic damages in this case, so I don't see a path forward. That's not how they think about the case. So my takeaway is don't get boxed in and adopt that paradigm because that paradigm is what led the defense to think that this case was worth no money at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:33

I kind of have two that go together. One is what I learned from the trial itself was how relentless we are and were at pursuing at each stage of the trial with every possible witness from void dire through rebuttal closing what we thought was important and what we wanted the case to be about. We pushed it at every possible point. And I think that helped us keep it front and center for the jury and drive those points home. And I think at the end of the day, it made a lot of difference. So the relentlessness of that and the clarity of that is the first thing. The second thing is, you know, Gray talked about our team, Laura talked some about our preparation. I think those two things together allowed us to go into court and present this case joyfully and not to be so bogged down in, oh, am I going to forget to ask this question? Am I going to remember this one piece of evidence? Once you realize that you know the case, that you know what you're trying to achieve, and that you can focus on what is happening right in front of you, it allows you to connect with the jury. After this trial was over and the$20 million verdict was announced, we all went downstairs and the jurors came downstairs and they came right up to us and wanted to talk to us about this case because they felt a connection to us after having spent a week listening to us talk to them about this case. This case had thousands of pages of documents and horrendous facts in terms of what Charlie went through. But that doesn't mean that in the presentation of the case, you can't develop a human connection, you can't do it joyfully, you can't do it with some good humor. And I think that redounded to our benefit at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:28

I think the biggest takeaway for me, and it's not just about this trial, it's it's kind of about the last few trials that we've had, or really the last two, and also just reflecting in my kind of my own growth, not height, that hasn't changed. But um but thanks, Laura. No more promotion. Anyways, um, if you are willing to go get the experience in the courtroom, and you are also willing to couple that experience with going to the CLEs, reading the books, listening to the podcast, of course, this one, and doing what you need to do to learn, you can make massive improvements and deliver exceptional results, even if you don't have the gray hair to back it up. I think that's true for all of us. I mean, again, every lawyer at our firm was a prosecutor. The majority of our careers were not spent as personal injury lawyers. And as our firm, I mean, we've only been doing this in this way for a couple years now and are able to get results that far exceed law firms who've been in the game for many, many, many years. So I say all that not to say, look at us, but to say that if you're out there and you're like, how can I start getting results like this for my clients? The answer isn't, were you born to be able to do this? The question that you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to put yourself in a position where you can get the experience? Like, are you out of place that's going to get you into the courtroom? And if you're not, are you gonna find a way to make that happen? And then two, are you willing to take the time, take the money and take the energy and put that into your development and grow as a trial lawyer and learn from others what works, what doesn't work, and what is the best way to put these cases on. I believe wholeheartedly, and I think our firm is a good example of this, that if you're willing to do those things, you can make big, big changes in a very short time and get real justice for your clients. So, well, guys, so with I know we've gone for wow, an hour and a half. That's that's a long time. It's been a lot of fun chatting with you about this case. I'm really hopeful that this podcast will be able to add value to our listeners. And so hopefully we're gonna hear more results in more cases like this getting tried in Virginia in the near future. So thank you guys for joining us.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:02

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:03

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:05

Thanks for listening to Courtroom Stories and Tactics by RVA trial lawyers, hosted by Sharif Gray and Niall Abuzaki. Please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or any major podcast platform. Together, we're building a tribe of trial lawyers to remind the world what human life is truly worth. One verdict at a time.