Trial War Stories - Automobile Defects with James Lowe

In this episode of Trial War Stories, host Andy Goldwasser sits down with legendary trial lawyer James Lowe to break down a groundbreaking automotive product liability trial that reshaped vehicle safety in America.
The conversation centers on Lowe’s representation of Michelle Flume, a young woman who was catastrophically injured and left paralyzed after being ejected from a vehicle equipped with a dangerously flawed “passive restraint” seatbelt system. What followed was one of the first trials in the country to challenge the design and warnings associated with motorized seatbelts — a case that put Ford Motor Company on trial and forced the automotive industry to confront the consequences of bad engineering.

Together, these two lawyers walk through:

• The evolution of crashworthiness litigation and auto safety
• How defective seatbelt designs and inadequate warnings put lives at risk
• Trying a bellwether case against a major automaker with national defense counsel
• Creative trial strategy, including bringing a cutaway car into the courtroom
• Demonstrative evidence that made complex engineering understandable to jurors
• A dramatic mid-trial fire alarm that revealed the real-life consequences of paralysis
• Jury dynamics, settlement pressure, and the moment the verdict finally came back
• What it takes to prepare, teach, and win in a high-stakes product liability trial

This is a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how trial lawyers don’t just win cases — they change behavior, force accountability, and make products safer for everyone.

If you’re a lawyer, law student, or anyone fascinated by real courtroom strategy and the human stories behind landmark verdicts, this episode is a must-watch.

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Transcript

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One man, one trial changes an entire industry and not just some small industry. We're talking about the automotive industry because of his work. Cars are safer today. My guest is James Lowe. Every trial lawyer has that one case. The one that pushed them to the edge, changed how they practice or kept them up at night. This is trial war stories. And I'm your host, Andy Goldwasser. I sit down with great trial lawyers to unpack unforgettable cases the strategy, the chaos, the pressure, and the moments that turn the tide beyond the transcripts and verdicts. And now to the show. So I am so happy to be here with you, because first of all, I have two trial regrets. My first trial regret is never try and case with my father. The second trial regret is never trying a case with you. My guest today, James Lowe. My mentor, my friend and my former boss. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, it's so great to be with you, Andy, as always. Well, I appreciate it. For for people who don't know, you have dedicated most of your professional life really to crashworthiness cases going up against the automotive industry. And I don't think there's another lawyer, and certainly there's no other lawyer that I know that has done more for auto safety than you. You have tried cases literally across the country Texas, Las Vegas, Florida, certainly Ohio, involving really cutting edge issues that have made products safer. Right. For you. You have airbags, you have seatbelts, you have rollovers. You have I don't even know. The list just goes on and on. So thank you for doing all that you have done to make this country really a safer place. Thank you. Sandy. I have to tell you, I'm part of a group of lawyers nationwide that dedicates themselves to making motor vehicles in general, safer for people. And it has made a difference. Fuel systems are no longer behind the axle. For example, in automobiles, an unthinkable thing to have the fuel system behind the axle. But they were. Roofs are stronger so that if a vehicle rolls over, it's not as likely to collapse. I don't think honestly, I don't think airbags would have even been the technology that they are today without our forcing the issue as lawyers. Getting verdicts actually gets through to the auto manufacturers over time. I could not agree more. You know, when I hear criticisms of plaintiff injury lawyers, the first thing that I always think of is what you do. People don't realize how much safer this country is because of lawyers who are not afraid to go against, really, the biggest companies in the world to make this place a safer place. It's true. So, a quick story before we get started on this trial that I want to talk about today. So I was thinking about our conversation today, and I used to work with you and work for you. Really? I was fresh out of law school. You were kind enough to take me out in law during law school and then right after law school. I'll never forget, even though I didn't get to try a case with you, I did get to carry some of your stuff to trial. And it was. I'll never forget it, James. It was. You remember our old office, which was near Tower City? We are going to the old courthouse, which is about a 15 minute walk across Public square. And then you would walk through that alley by Lincoln in. The wind tunnel. It was a wind tunnel, and the wind would come right off the lake. And it was the middle of winter. It was freezing cold. You had me carrying not only your bag. I had to go back to the office to bring a giant screen over, and I was so miserable. But to this, to this day, James, I am so appreciative of those opportunities because I felt like I was part of the team. Like you, you included me enough to at least bring over something to trial. So it was it was great. And by the way, there's a lesson there. The lesson is for young lawyers. Be involved. Right. Even on the lowest level, because it will help you down the road. I have to tell you, the first job I had out of law school was with a lawyer by the name of Bernie Berkman, and he was so great talking to his clients that I would find some excuse to just go into his office and sit there while he was on the phone. And I can't tell you how much I learned just by watching him talk to his clients. So I. Appreciate your comments for sure. 100%. So you've tried all these cases. I asked you to come on this podcast and I said, pick one. What case did you pick? Why did you pick it? And tell us a little bit about the trial. I picked a case that's near and dear to my heart. I represented a young woman by the name of Michelle Flume, who was 20, I think, at the time of our trial. She had been a cheerleader in high school, and at the age of 16, she and, a couple of friends were in a 1990 Ford Escort. She was in the backseat during the day. And then at night, she got in the front seat and, they got off the road. Ultimately, the, the the vehicle got into the dirt. And, either the door open or through the window. Michelle was ejected, and she ended up paralyzed from the waist down. And the question was, why did that happen? Aside from the issue of whether she went through the window or went through the door, the concern I had was, what kind of a seatbelt allows somebody to be ejected if she was wearing a seatbelt, which she was. Well, it turns out that the federal government mandated that airbags be in vehicles starting in 1994. By 1997, they had to be on both sides. But in 1994, they had to be on the driver's side for sure. And in the meantime, from 1987 to the time that they went strictly to airbags and three point seatbelts like you have in your car today, they went to the craziest systems ever. There were two systems, one of which was what was called the spaghetti system, in which, GM and other manufacturers would tie the seatbelts to the door and they would supposedly remain, locked in. Basically, the latch plate would be in the buckle full time, and you'd have to kind of crawl in under the seatbelt when the door closed. Have a seat. What a terrible design. And what a terrible name. The spaghetti system tells you all you need to know. Well, they didn't call it that. Yeah, well. They called it a passive restraint. Everybody had to have a passive restraint, meaning that the occupant didn't have to do anything to protect him or herself. They would have the seatbelt. So GM made it so that if you closed the door and everything worked fine, there'd be a seatbelt attached to the door, both the shoulder harness and the lap belt, and it would be plugged in. The latch plate would be in the buckle, and you'd be seat belted without doing anything. Of course, that was so annoying to everybody that they just unplugged and didn't use the seat belt in, of course. So that was the GM system. And by the way, I had multiple cases with GM about the system because the door would come open. All you had to do was with your elbow, hit the tension rod in the door, which would open the latch and the door would open. And if the door opens, there's no seat belt at all. And there you go. The door? Yes. The other system, which, Toyota invented and Ford adopted was, a motorized belt. A design that had a mouse attached to the roof. And when the door opened, the mouse went forward toward the A-pillar, the little post by the windshield. And when the door closed, the mouse would take the shoulder harness belt back over your shoulder. I remember those seatbelts. And that was supposedly their passive restraint system. What people didn't really understand is that's just the shoulder belt. There's no lap belt associated with that at all. So you had to manually put your lap belt on, which of course nobody did because they thought they were protected by having the shoulder harness. Well, Michelle had been sitting in the back seat and then in the night time, she was in the front seat when this happened. She had the shoulder harness, on the on the mouse covering her. But she had no lap belt because she didn't know there was a lap belt. Okay. So that was the case that we brought against Ford Motor Company, and there were a lot of cases against Ford Motor Company about that system. But we were the first, I think, in the country to go to trial about it. And so let me stop you, though for a second, James, just so I understand. So was your claim both a design claim, meaning it's a bad design and also a failure to warn claim because they didn't warn the occupant that there is this other belt that needs to go across. Or was that your claim? That's exactly right. We alleged that it was a defective design. The defense to that is this is a design specifically approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which makes that case difficult. The other part of it, though, was that it was a failure to warn case, and that's the one that became the focus of the trial. And the trial had so many interesting aspects to it. We brought a, we brought a book into the courtroom, which is a partial car on wheels. That's amazing. And so people could see the car and they could see the seatbelt system that Michelle, flume was, using. Did you actually have that fabricated for trial? You have a car. Okay. And you take the engine out of it because there's no point in carrying an engine. With dangerous fluids into a courtroom, and you cut it in half and, and you bring in the half that matters. How did you get that? In the courthouse? There's a freight elevator and went up to the third floor, and we rolled it, and it was on a, skid, a dolly kind of a thing mazing. We did that in lots and lots of cases. Because otherwise, how does a jury really know what you're talking about? And did you when you would. I know getting ahead of ourselves and we will certainly go back when you would examine a witness, would you actually ask the witness to get off the stand, go to this exemplar model that you had brought into the courtroom, and actually demonstrate things? Absolutely. That that was part of the magic of that whole process. Yeah. We had some great witnesses in those days, some really great experts. And, they would demonstrate falling out of a vehicle. They would throw themselves out of a vehicle. We would set up barriers in front of the jury where we would slide a partial vehicle into the barrier, and and something bad would happen. That's so awesome. Because, you know, we try these cases and and you have the witness on the stand and it is dull. And, you know, you could still get up and you could use a whiteboard, but there's nothing like a witness getting off the stand and actually demonstrating what occurred. So I'm sorry to have interrupt you at all. Right. And I could like I could go on forever, but, stop me whenever. So here's what really became the focus of the case. Why didn't she put on her lap belt? It's there. People know about seat belts, and the answer is, she did not realize that there was a seat belt as a part of the system. And Ford's defense. Well, I started to say that this was the first trial, I think, in the country regarding this particular defect or design, at least. And so they brought in national counsel, to try the case. They did have local counsel. Thompson Hine and Elizabeth Wright were local council on the case. And, we, we argued about pretty much everything. But the case was tried before Judge David DeWitt in federal court in Akron. Akron? Yeah. He was a terrific, no nonsense judge. And so he ran the trial really, really well. So the issue became, why didn't she put on her manual lapel? And we said, because there was no warning of any consequence for her to have been advised that she needed to put on her lap belt. It's such an important issue. And again, I'll let you continue in just a second, because the reason why Ford is bringing in this, this National Council is your verdict is going to have a significant impact on the future design and the future warnings of these passive restraint systems. I mean, really, it's it's what's akin to a bellwether trial today. And some of these mass torts, it is a bellwether case that is going to have a really significant impact one way or the other. Absolutely. And there were a lot of these vehicles on the road, but everybody knew this was just a stopgap measure to get to airbags. So they really didn't put a heck of a lot of great engineering into designing these restraint systems. Can I ask you a question about that, James? So, you know, there's these I think they're called passive restraint systems, which are are designed to protect the occupant in the event of a collision. Right, absolutely. And then there's there's warnings like, I don't know, the little things you see on the side view mirrors or, our collision detection systems, those are designed to prevent a collision. Right? Yes. They're collision mitigation systems. Collision avoidance systems. Yes. And there's so there's a difference in the in the the passive restraint system really what we're talking about our seat belts and airbags, those are what happens if there's a collision. How do we pretend to protect the occupant. The other devices are to hopefully avoid a collision altogether. Oh absolutely. Well said. Okay. All right. Great. So anyway, we had this vehicle there and we're saying that the warning is no good. And there was a sticker on the visor above the passenger seat, and it was on a gray background with black lettering, and it was really pretty small. And so we were fortunate to be able to get the judge to agree to let us have the jurors come down and actually sit in the vehicle with the lights on like it would be maybe in daytime. And then we turned the lights out and they could get in the vehicle and see what it would look like to a young girl getting in that car for the in the front seat of that car for the first time. What would she have seen? And I have to tell you, one of the funny things that Ryan Fisher, one of the partners in my firm, just reminded me of yesterday. One of Ford's defenses, which is hilarious, was that notwithstanding the fact that it was at night, there's a dome light and it produces X number of lux. What's a lux? Some measure of illumination, which I'd never heard of, but they said it produced x lux, and therefore she could have read the warning if she just looked at it. We looked at our book in the courtroom. There's no dome light at all. It was so full of baloney that they brought in these really fancy people, including the head of the automotive safety office at Ford Motor Company, to testify in this case. And they hadn't even looked inside the car to see that that defense was absolutely. Oh my gosh, you talked about losing credibility. You talk about it. So anyway, so we had all kinds of of good things. We had great experts. Everything was going fine. And all of a sudden in the middle of the trial, there's a fire alarm you have. I don't mean to laugh, but you have a paralyzed client. Exactly. We had a paralyzed client. What did you. Do? So everybody has to evacuate the building. We're on the third floor of the federal courthouse in Akron. Everybody has to evacuate. You can't take the elevator, so everybody has to walk down the stairs. How does a paralyzed 20 year old girl in a wheelchair get down stairs? Well, she can't, so without somebody helping her, she would die. If there were a fire, she'd die in it. There's no no way around it. She had no way to escape. So we actually carried her down to the, outside of the building. Physically carried her, physically carried her down three flights of stairs. And of course, as we get outside, there are all the jurors standing outside to see this. So you couldn't script anything like that in a million years. But that's what happened. Well, you know what? It's such an important thing for the jurors to see. They would. It's hard. As a juror, I have to imagine when you're to try to appreciate what someone goes through on a day to day basis. But this is such a great example of, oh my gosh, there's an emergency, and this person can't even get out without help. Absolutely. It couldn't be clearer what one of the just, the, disabilities, the limitations that someone who's paralyzed has that you really wouldn't think of, but it's obviously pretty significant. Did Ford move for a mistrial after that? No, no, there was never a motion for a mistrial. There was something in the newspaper that said they were going to appeal, but they never appealed either. Do they even raise like an issue or an objection or anything associated with that? I don't recall that they did. I think they did not. Oh, so so yeah. So we had that. And then the trial went well. But it's not like Ford just sat on its hands. They tried everything they could think of to beat us. And the jury was out for more than a day. And we were starting to obviously worry that maybe this wasn't wasn't the greatest, victory I might have ever had. And were you did you stay in the courthouse? Yes. Okay. Yes. Because I actually we thought that there would be a verdict at any moment. I think the jury had a question at one time and they all came out, and one of the jurors was clearly crying, and I'm thinking, that's not good. We don't need anybody crying. Right? So anyway, Ford came to us and they made an offer of settlement to Michelle, who is 20 years old at the time. And I don't know what kind of courage was inside her at that moment. If that money would have made a big difference in her life, she easily could have ended the suspense and said, absolutely, I'll take the money. But she said, no, and and I just good for her. I just couldn't believe that she could be that strong. But she was rewarded because when the jury came back again with the verdict, they were smiling. Good. And, the verdict obviously exceeded the offer. And and, that's the end of that case. But, What an amazing case. Amazing trial. I want to I want to talk to you a little bit about your process, trying a case like that against a major automotive manufacturer, National Council, really a case that's going to have a significant impact on the future of automotive safety. So how do you go about what is your process? How do you go about preparing for a major, major trial like this after you're done with all the discovery? Well, honestly, I think that the most important thing to me in all of these cases that I've tried is that I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the technical issues in the case are. I have no engineering background, I know nothing, and so I'm a blank slate for all of our experts, and I need them to educate me. And I spend most of the time preparing for a case, just trying to be sure that I know the case better than anybody else in the courtroom. I know everything there is to know about Michelle in her life, and I know everything there is to know about that car. As it relates to the specific defect. And the lack of engineering background, I actually think is a benefit, not a negative, because if you could learn it, then presumably the jury can learn it if you have this engineering or scientific background, like a lot of the lawyers who do the kind of work that you do, I actually think it's a negative because they're it's so easily connected for them that they can't connect it to the jury. Well, you know, and he you have a pretty good genetic basis for thinking along those lines. Your dad, who was one of the great medical negligence defense lawyers of all time and actually beat our firm in a pretty significant case, thank you very much. Oh, you're. Well, but, but he was well known for knowing absolutely everything about the medicine in a case he knew more than anybody else in the courtroom. And at least that's my goal. And sometimes obviously have lost cases. And so, it doesn't always carry the day, but that's my goal, and I don't really have any other process. I just, kind of trust my instincts about what I need to show how I need to prepare a case, what experts I need to put on, at what point in the case, what other witnesses I need to put on it, what point in the case, and kind of just wing it today? That wouldn't be a very good way to go. I'd have to focus group at ten times. That's right. I mean, you didn't do that at least back then. And I mean, I probably wasn't well, and there wasn't a lot of that being done at that particular time, but it was available to you. But I think what you're saying is so true. I mean, you and my father are alike in that regard. We talked about this a little bit yesterday. The fact that you would know the product. So well that you could go in and the jury is looking to you as the teacher. And to me, that's such an important lesson and valuable tool as a lawyer to gain that, that trust with the jury and being able to communicate it in a way that they actually understand which, to your credit, there's no one better. I mean, you're really fantastic at that, but it's because you worked hard, too. I mean, I've never when I was working for your firm, I was I try to come in to every Saturday and I never you were there every Saturday working your tail off. So that's probably the reason why when you would well, when you had this trial in federal court, a lot of federal courts don't allow a jury selection or four to your process. Were you allowed voir dire from Amber? Probably. I don't really remember too much, about that, but that means I probably didn't get much of a chance later in my practice, I, hired a guy from Miami to teach me how to do what I think is a really effective voir dire. But, at that time, yeah, I thought it was the weakest part of my trial skill anyway, so it wasn't as important to me as it has become over the years. In those days, it was kind of like, I'm going to get these jurors anyway. I may as well have to win. Them, put them in the box and let's go. Let's roll up our sleeves and, you know. And of course, federal court, in, in the whole country, you have to have unanimous verdict. So, I have tried cases in many places where getting a unanimous verdict is easier said than done. I've had a bunch of hung juries over the years and, to retry the cases. I had my first federal court trial this last year, last year. And it was it was a real eye opener for me, not only the unanimous jury for us, we didn't we weren't allowed any for deer. We had to stand at the podium the entire time, which is a very difficult thing for for me to do personally. And the exhibits. I don't know if this has been your experience of federal court, but the exhibits don't even go back to the jury unless they ask for them, which is was really odd to me. So so tell me about when you're determining the order of your witnesses in a major case like that, James, because you have so many witnesses, you have damage witnesses out the gazoo, you have these technical experts, not only on the design, but on the warnings and also probably all sorts of human factors issues. I can't even imagine the number of experts that you have. Who do you usually put on first to put all of this into context for the jury? It really does depend on the case. If I've had a very successful deposition of a corporate representative, I will frequently put the corporate representative on first and cross-examine that witness to establish, I think, a couple of things. One, to make the defendant unattractive to the jury and the other to establish some, I hope, important facts, that they can't escape. The, other thing has a lot to do with the attractiveness of a, of a client. The it depends on how attractive a client is as to where you might want to put them on. And then you usually have, somebody else to speak on behalf of the client in terms of how it's affected their life. But we would have a design, expert, a warnings expert, an accident reconstruction expert, what's called a biomechanical expert who connects the, actual body motion to the injury, and thereby connected to the defect or the failure to warn, and then you have at least one physician, maybe multiple physicians. You have, people who talk about the economic loss, what the future needs of the of the plaintiff are. It it it gets pretty significant. So you just really have to figure out in each case who are the witnesses, what do they look like in front of a jury, and when do they make the most impact? And it varies from case to case. So I love having this conversation. And I've talked about this on other podcasts. To me, I used to call the defendant on cross-examination first, in my case, all the time, the jury would look at me and say, why is Andy picking on this witness? We don't even know anything about the case yet. And so over the years, I've sort of changed that. And I now try to put on a witness who can give just a big picture overview of the case. That's what I try to do, but that's really hard to do in a product liability case like you have, you know, when we're dealing with take an automobile accident, for example, we could put on somebody on the stand who could talk about what happened, can talk about the incident. I mean, I guess theoretically you could put on your injured plaintiff, but I'm not sure you want to put on your plaintiff first in your case to talk about the incident itself. So how do you do that? Well, one thing for sure, I have learned maybe it's not right, but it's it's ingrained in me. Now, I don't want to talk about my plaintiff at all. In the beginning of the case, generally speaking, I want to talk about the defendant and what the defendant did wrong. Why? Why the defendant did something wrong. And, and and what they should have done instead. So I make it all about the defendant as best I can until I think that I've established everything I need to establish. And then we can talk about what they did to whoever I represent. Yeah, that's a good that's a really good approach at some point that you have to flip that switch. Absolutely. And and I guess you had just have to know from experience are you have to feel the room as to as to when to do that. Well, I let me just say that in Michelle Flumes case, she was so attractive as a human being. Every morning she'd come into court in her wheelchair and she would jump from her wheelchair by using her arms to to push her off into a regular chair. She wouldn't sit in her wheelchair for the whole trial. She sat in a regular chair like a regular person, and she had this absolute glow about her the whole time. So putting her on the stand was just such a joy. It was so easy. And she was humble and and sweet as could be. And so those kinds of moments, you don't have those in every case. You just don't. But those. Are the moments that the record never reflects. Right? But they change a case. They change the entire dynamic. I mean, if if Ford is looking at just the record, they're thinking, okay, well, it wasn't that great of testimony. But if you watch a witness like that, it wows the jury. Absolutely. Yep. And that was her, by the way. What a dangerous move by Ford, right? I mean, if they're going to take a bellwether case of trial, don't take one where you have a great plaintiff, a young plaintiff, an attractive plaintiff who's paralyzed. Not a good idea. Trouble for Ford was that I also had another very attractive plaintiff with the exact same injury and the exact same facts, for all practical purposes, that I would have been ready to try in a heartbeat also. So you pick your poison, right? So because you didn't use focus groups back then, and I know you try, you would learn the science and engineering behind all of this. How would you go about developing a theme for trial. In those days? I hadn't learned yet about the whole concept of developing a theme, so I never had one. Okay, I never had a theme probably until the last 15, 20 years, where I learned that that's something you need to do. And I learned about the the power of threes where everything's in threes. And so it's everything is for me has been such a learning process, an evolution of learning. I go to seminars. I still go to seminars. I always learn something I wish I had known 25, 30 years ago. And so I don't know if I ever had a theme in the 80s or 90s, but I can develop them now. It it is so fun to talk to someone like you who. Still learning and the craft of trial work has changed so much, and you have seen it really firsthand. I have, and now I have actually used Copilot and Claude, to. Actually using AI. I am and, very tentatively, I don't really, I'm scared to death of it. And I sure don't want to be one of those lawyers who misuses it, in court and gives the judge something that is what's called a hallucination. I'm scared to death of getting something wrong like that, but, yeah, I'm tiptoeing into it, and, and it it's fascinating. And really, it does things that I would never have imagined possible. And to me, it's a little bit scary in terms of what it portends for the future in our world in general, but it sure can do stuff. So what's the plan for James Lo, you, you. I know you were recently gearing up for a pretty significant trial. You're still doing your thing. You're still getting cases. You're still working. You're still. Yeah. Ready to try. Them? I can't tell you how disappointed I was. We settled two cases, both of which, were going to be fun for me. I don't know how they would have turned out. One of them, I'm pretty sure would have turned out very well. But, I really, really would have liked to have tried the cases. But sometimes when you really want to try a case, you don't get the chance to do that. So now I still have some cases. I'm not sure whether I'll get any more. You know, at some point, at some point I should ride off into a sunset somewhere. Don't do it. But, But I still like what I do. And I have cases I really like with clients I really like, And so we'll see what happens with them. And, and if, if those end up, going away somehow will so be it. I want to go back to something you mentioned that's not really related to your specific trial, but it's your voir dire process where you hired that that consultant in Miami, because it's a really I know about it from you, and I know about it from your former partner, Dennis Mulvihill. I, we both think the world of who's just an exceptional lawyer and really has spent a lot of time really mastering that voir dire process and probably is one of the leading experts in the country on it. Right. Can you tell us about that process? Because it's so different? Yeah. Me too. And, I love Dennis and he is a great lawyer and a great guy and a great friend. And he and I kind of learn together because we were trying cases in Florida together. All right. Well, I know that because, as I mentioned from the outset, I always wanted to try a case with you, but I always got pushed to the back because of Dennis. He was a he was older than me. So he had he had first crack I started and he and he was a great choice. He he was he was great to work with when the funny thing is we would get in the elevator to go up to the courtrooms and in, West Palm Beach and, and Broward County and Fort Lauderdale. And inevitably people in the elevator would look at him and say, how tall are you? Right. And he'd say, six, eight. And they would just look at me and like, who are you? What are you doing with this guy? Exactly? It's a very odd. Look for, for for sure and. Yeah, for sure. But we had a great time. But anyway, this, consultant, his name was Jabbawockeez. Retired now. He taught us a method of wire deer, which is focused exclusively on getting people to really tell you that they can't be fair. And that my word, deer is in writing. It's 54 pages. You know, many, many, many courtrooms. I can do the whole thing. And I pretty much do. So how'd they take you? It might take you a couple days to get through it. It had, you know, a couple of cases in Florida. They actually took weeks. We would start with 300 jurors in, a couple of cases. And ultimately we had a, a jury of I guess it was, they I guess it was 12 with a couple of alternates kind of a thing. I can't remember for sure if that's what it was for you. Because you're not a scripted lawyer, but you would follow the script. I memorized it, I absolutely did, and I did follow the script. And then, you know, you'd modify it from case to case, on certain things. But, I'm going to give you a quick example, if I may, please. I had a wonderful client, Carla Cox, who, was driving home from Orlando, in a 15 passenger van. She was, she had a master's in social work, and she was bringing, back to their group home, a group of, abused and neglected kids, which is where she worked to help these kids. And, all of a sudden, in this 15 passenger van, her left rear tire blew. She went off the road slightly, rolled one half roll onto the roof, and the roof caved in on top of her. She was fully belted, the roof caved in on top of her, and she was rendered quadriplegic. The voir dire in her case. And and she was a spectacular client of a wonderful, wonderful person. But she was going to be quadriplegic for the rest of her life because the roof had crushed her. When when they found her, the roof was still on her head with her chin on her chest. I mean, it was that bad. And she was only five feet, four inches tall in a big van, you know, with what's called, green space above her head. She had, like, a foot above her head, and she would have been fine if the roof hadn't collapsed on her. So the long and short of it was, one of the questions I would ask is if if we're talking about a one vehicle accident. And so we're talking about maybe the captain of the ship, how many of you believe to any, degree or feel to any degree, that if you're the captain of the ship and there's one, one vehicle, collision or something, that at least you must bear some responsibility for. What happened to you, regardless of any other facts, if you're the captain of the ship, you got some responsibility. And so many people would say, of course you do. You're you're in charge. It's obviously it's at least partly your own fault for being injured. And of course, that's not true. In her case, she didn't do anything wrong whatsoever. But it's pretty important to test that and say, how strongly do you feel about that? Tell me about it. How strongly do you feel about that? If if we were to suggest to you that Carla Cox doesn't have any responsibility whatsoever for her own injuries, would that cause you some difficulty? Tell me how strongly you feel about that on a scale of 1 to 10. And who else feels the same way as juror number seven? You know, that kind of thing? And, and even if the judge were to instruct you, you know, I could go on. But even if the judge were to instruct you that, you're not to consider her, fall, would that create a problem for you? Would you have a hard time following the judge's instructions? I'm not doing it exactly the way you would do it, but I think you get the idea. So those people who say they feel strongly that Carla Cox should have some responsibility for her own injuries, they are not going to serve on this jury. They're going to be excused for cause. And I don't have to waste a peremptory challenge on them. You only get, generally speaking, three peremptory challenges. So they're very precious to get rid of people you can't otherwise get rid of through clause challenges. But you know we'll never vote for you. Yeah. So cause challenges are are just that they're challenges. It's hard, at least in my experience, to get people removed for cause. Because inevitably either the other lawyer or the judge rehabilitates the witness and basically says, notwithstanding all of that, can you still be fair and impartial? And of course they say, yes. And there, there you go. But your method, as I understand it, that you learned and the dentist learned is almost a cross. It's almost a cross-examination of the veneer, the potential jurors. You're right. And and you're doing that because you want to know how they feel on a skilled system. And if you can get them to a certain point, you can excuse them for cause. Is that the method? It is. And the whole idea is to insulate them from that whole rehabilitation nonsense. You know, notwithstanding the fact that you said you hated the plaintiff ten times, you can still be fair and follow the judge's instructions, right? Right. I mean, that's always been nonsense, but you have to you have to force that, juror or potential juror to, indicate that that they feel enough, strongly about the issue, that nothing is going to change their mind. No juror. No, defense lawyer is going to change your mind. No judge is going to change your mind. This is how you feel about this. That's a hard thing to do because we are taught, get up there, get the jury to like you and get the jury to like your client. And here you are really testing these jurors to the point where they may look at you and say, you know, screw this guy. I don't like. Him. Yeah, that is absolutely a risk because you're not trying to make friends with anybody. You're trying to get people to tell you that they can't be fair and, and that they're going to, judge your client unfairly regardless of what the law and the facts are. And so you have got to get rid of them because they're never going to vote for you, even if they liked you, they're still going to vote for the other side. Yeah. And I and I love the way I know this because Dennis gave me the outline, which I unfortunately tried. I say unfortunately tried to use it because if you're not trained on it, yeah, if you don't do it somewhat regularly, you fail miserably. And I failed miserably through this process, you know, trying to explain the, you know, that they might be right for a different case as opposed to this particular case, that they could be fair and impartial people. Right? Maybe not fair and impartial for this particular case. And we'd go through the old George Bush hating broccoli example. And it's all part of the process. You obviously do know, the system. Well, I know. Because it was so it was it was so bad for me. But it's a great method if you're willing to work on it. You absolutely have to do it over and over and over again. One thing about this guy, Jay Burke, the dentist would tell you as well. He made us do it over and over and over and over again, until he was satisfied we would not mess it up. So, yeah, we were absolutely committed to every part of it. And. And you don't leave any part of it out. It you just do exactly what he said, and it works. And I we'll get off this topic, but I just have to ask our judges receptive to it, or do they give you pushback because it's so long? Because you're really moving, quite regularly to excuse jurors for cause, which they don't like. You're not kidding. And that is absolutely critical. If you have a small venire, a small group of potential jurors, and you start getting rid of people or making it obvious you're about to get rid of people for cause, and you are going to blow the, the, the whole veneer so that the judge doesn't have enough jurors to go forward with the trial. No, they don't like that. But even more more to the point, I tried a case in Volusia County, which is in Daytona, Florida, and in Florida. The the method, the cause challenge method that we've been talking about is everywhere. Everybody does it every every plaintiff's lawyer does it similarly. And judges let you go for hours and hours or days and days. I mean, it takes a while, obviously, depending on how many people you're getting for class, and they just keep bringing in more jurors kind of thing. So, but this judge apparently had never seen it, and he didn't like it at all. And at the end of the first day of my doing this, he looked at the defense lawyers and he said, this is all your fault. You didn't make an objection all day, and what am I supposed to do? And if you're not going to object, I have I have no power to do anything. So of course, when we came back the next day to start the rest of our voir dire. Objection, objection, objection, objection! Every single word out of my mouth. Sustained. Every objection. Sustained, sustained. I hate when judges do that. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to let a lawyer try their case, let them try the case. Don't telegraph something for the other side. Well, the judge obviously became so agitated and angry about the whole thing because he saw its jurors, being challenged for cause. And he didn't like it. He got himself literally out of control and had to recuse himself. He actually had to step aside. That that's that that's great. Well, I will get off this topic, but I know that just for people that are listening, one of the things that the dentist taught me through this method is if you're going to use it, not only learn it, master it, but also present a trial brief or a memo to the judge in advance of trial explaining this is the your voir dire method. And here's the law. Chan challenges for cause. Here's the statute so they understand that this is not something that's novel. This is something that's embedded in the law. And it's absolutely true. It is the law in Ohio and pretty much everywhere else. One other thing we always do is at least call the judges, office and tell them, you know, don't bring up 24 jurors, because that's not going to work. You need to bring in 75 jurors, something like that. Smart. And sometimes they tell us no, it's smart. So I'm gonna leave you with the last question, which is going to be a hard one because I'm putting you on the spot. I'm going to apologize in advance for putting you on the spot. You have been a mentor to a lot of lawyers, including me. You have an amazing way about you because lawyers have come and gone in your firm, yet you've maintained relationships with all of those lawyers, even after they left me included, which is not really a typical thing for a boss to do. So. So thank you for that. I bring this up in your capacity as a mentor. If you had one thing about the trial practice today that you think young lawyers could take away from this podcast, what would it be? Hopefully excitement, hopefully energy, hopefully optimism and joy. I think the trial practice, at least for plaintiffs lawyers, is exciting. It's fun. It's very rewarding because, my wife always said, how can you represent, these people who are so badly hurt? Doesn't it make you so sad and I said, they're already hurt. The key for me is that if if possible, I can make a major difference in their lives. And there is great joy in that for. Me, there really is. And that's such a it's such an important lesson. One of the reasons I do this podcast is because I love talking trials. Why? Because I find the practice of trial work exciting. James, thank you. Thank you very much for doing this. I love to having you. Thank you so much, Andy. I really had a great time being with you. Good.