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Welcome to Jersey Justice, a civil law podcast that shares

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practical tips and stories about personal and workplace injuries.

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Joined two of the brightest New Jersey injury attorneys, Gerald Clark

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and Mark Morris of Clark Law Firm.

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As they take you behind the scenes of.

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Justice and civil law.

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But first, a quick disclaimer.

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The information shared on this podcast is for general information purposes only.

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Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any

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individual case or situation.

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This information is not intended to create and does not constitute

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an attorney-client relationship.

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back to another episode of Jersey Justice.

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Today I'm here with Mark and Jerry, and we're gonna be

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talking about expert witnesses.

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We're gonna be talking about why they're important, what role they play, and

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what type of expert witnesses there are.

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And I think you guys are gonna find this episode very insightful, whether you

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are just the general public or you are in law school, or you're an attorney.

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But there's a whole art and sciences to expert witnesses and we're gonna

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take you behind the scenes today.

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So I'm super excited to be here with Mark and with Jerry.

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And we're gonna start the conversation off with Mark.

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Welcome back.

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And Mark, I'm gonna ask you, you know, what's the role that expert witnesses

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play in an entry case in New Jersey?

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Give us a little bit of that background for the audience.

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Sure.

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So, thanks, dimple.

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Thanks, uh, thanks for having us again.

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Expert witnesses.

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I know we've talked about it quite a bit.

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It's such a wide, wide field.

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You know, when we say expert witnesses, there's one, there's not

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one neat box that everyone fits into.

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I think we've talked about, normally an expert witness is someone who has some

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type of specialized knowledge that will help a jury to better understand a case.

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If it's something simple like, you know, you're not supposed to crash

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into the back of someone's car, you wouldn't necessarily need an

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expert witness to, to tell you that.

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Or to tell the jury that, but if it's something more complicated,

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like this machine should have had an interlocked device on it.

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So blades stop spinning so workers don't get their hands cut off.

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I normally can't stand up there and just tell the jury how that process would

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work or how that machine would work, and the jury's not gonna know, as a matter

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of course, how that machine would work.

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So a lot of times in a case like that, you would need an expert to come in because

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it's a specialized type of knowledge.

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So in an example like that, that would be, we'd call that a liability expert.

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Normally it's a professional engineer, someone that's worked either with

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machines, you know, or in some capacity around, uh, around component parts,

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different machinery, things like that.

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That's one small, small field of experts within that field.

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You could have someone that works with, cars.

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Someone that works with.

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Factory machine, someone that works with construction site

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saws, nail guns, whatever.

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There's a ton of subsets within that.

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So that would be something we would call a liability expert.

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And then if we were to go to another area of liability, there could be

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someone for talking about like if you fall on the sidewalk, if you slip on

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something saying either, Hey, this should be the coefficient of friction.

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Sidewalk can only be raised up this much before it's a dangerous condition.

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All these kind of little nuanced things where, where experts come into play

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and it could be something small where.

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It should seem obvious, but there's times where, where you definitely

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do need an expert and there's times where, where you don't.

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Yeah.

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Mark, thanks so much for sharing that.

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I think that's really fascinating because, you know, for, for the general audience

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who are not attorneys who don't practice law, like they don't know what's really

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involved behind the scenes of an injury case, and there's so much involved if

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someone gets injured, right, they fall.

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Like the incident we had where the woman fell, you know, from the steps because.

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There was deceptive markings and got injured.

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Like all of that information has to be evaluated by these expert experts, right?

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And they come in and they have the knowledge and the background and the

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training to actually assess, you know, what happened, what may have been

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the cause of a particular accident.

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And I think that's really important for our audience to understand that.

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Because, you know, if someone comes to Clark Law Firm and they're

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injured and then they're like, oh well, It should be a simple case.

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Like none of these cases are simple.

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I mean, they're very complicated, you know, and there's a lot of things

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involved behind the scenes that have to happen in order to, you know, get.

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Get through the case and get progress made.

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I wanna go to Jerry.

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I wanna ask him, you know, similar, like to piggyback off of what Mark

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shared, what are your thoughts on expert witnesses, and especially about the

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particular one that Mark just spoke about.

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So yeah, thanks, dimple.

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I got some thoughts on experts.

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First of all.

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, to bring a civil case in New Jersey, you know, you bring your

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case and then some point you have a trial and you go to trial.

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So the expert is needed basically for trial.

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And in New Jersey, before the trial, the expert has to write a report to

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kind of outline what the expert would he or she's gonna talk about in the case.

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So experts is like, It's kind of an interesting thing.

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First of all, there's different types of experts and I mean, just kind of going

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back to the big picture of things, so.

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We do, you know, personal injury lawyers and plaintiff contingency lawyers,

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we do these cases on contingency, so the attorney doesn't get any fee

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unless there's a recovery in the case.

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So there's like a lot of risk in these cases.

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It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of cost.

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So the practicalities behind the scenes with this is, If you get hurt or someone

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has a civil case or they've been wronged and they wanna bring it, you gotta

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try to find a lawyer to take the case.

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If you can find a lawyer, that's a good thing That'll take your

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case on contingency so you don't have to pay out of pocket.

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Cuz most people can't afford to pay a lawyer out of pocket.

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And if you can get a good lawyer, that's an even that that is good in

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that area that you're looking for.

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That's even better.

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And the challenge often in getting.

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A lawyer to take your case is the need for experts, cuz experts are super expensive.

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So a lot of times when the insurance industry, or say the pharmaceutical

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industry or big oil or large corporations want to limit people's

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ability to bring cases, a lot of ways they'll do it is they will lobby.

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Senators and congressmen and, and the government to pass laws to make

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it harder to bring those cases.

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And one of the biggest ways they make it harder is by requiring vigorous

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experts and a lot of experts, and it's very expensive because then

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it financially disincentivizes people to bring those cases.

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And one of the biggest things is like in medical malpractice, they.

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Have passed tort reformed laws in the medical malpractice area that requires

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experts early on, experts to swear under oath that the case is, , meritorious.

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And then they create these hoops just to make it harder.

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So then they say the expert has to be in the exact field as the other expert.

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All these crazy things, which really just limit people's access to the court because

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they make it financially difficult.

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To bring a case that's kind of like a big picture part of it and something

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of a behind the scenes, part of it.

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And then there's different types of experts.

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There's experts that will actually, their business is just to be an expert.

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They're like a professional testifier.

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And they, they say, well, we do forensic work.

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But mostly the forensic work they're doing is te is testifying in court.

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So you can have experts that are engineers.

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You could have crash experts, you can have workplace injury experts,

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you can have law enforcement experts.

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And the thing is, And this is kind of interesting for anyone that's

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looking to get into the expert field.

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Anyone with particular knowledge, can be an expert in civil cases.

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My brother, he's run like a fitness sales business for years, and I remember an

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attorney I, knew called, called him up.

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And said, Hey, could you be an expert?

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It was a case where someone got hurt on a fitness equipment, machine.

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So he doesn't have a PhD in fitness equipment, but he has a college

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education in health and fitness.

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And he ran a, a retail store for years that sold fitness equipment.

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So that person qualified a as an expert.

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And I remember I had another case that I was involved in

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where the expert was a mechanic.

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It was a products liability case dealing with an auto part.

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And this expert did not have a college education, but he

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qualified as an expert in the case.

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So those are some thoughts on experts and I think that that

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could be helpful for people.

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Like if your attorney's listening to the podcast or just.

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Some people looking to think about a career and what areas

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they want to get involved in.

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You know, whatever someone's specialty might be.

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If there's engineering or science or math or you know, if someone's like a

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career lifeguard or something that has a lot of expertise in water safety,

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they could be an expert in like a pool drowning case, or they could be

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an expert in someone who's injured.

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Kind of doing water sports or something like that.

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And so you can have professional experts that that's their business.

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They write reports, they testify in court, but then you have other experts

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where testifying in court is just a smaller part of what they do for, for a

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living or what they do for a business.

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And it's funny, I remember when I was in high school, I read

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this book about World War ii.

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It was a great book.

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It had great pictures and it was really insightful.

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And they talked a lot about spies.

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And one of the points the book made is that the most effective spies in World War

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II were the ones that actually believed.

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So there was, there was a famous Russian spy, forget his name, but he really

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believed, you know, he was really against Nazi Germany and really believed it.

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And he was a double agent spy.

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And those are sometimes the best.

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Spies because they're the most convincing.

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And it's like that I find with experts too, if the expert doesn't really

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believe what the expert is saying.

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Juries can just pick up on that, but if they believe in it, so we have this one

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expert that we use from time to time.

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His name is Vince Gallagher.

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And Vince Gallagher is a workplace safety expert.

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He's an OSHA expert and I think we'll probably have him

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on the podcast at some point.

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He's a super, super interesting guy and.

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He is an advocate for workers' rights.

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He, he worked in El Salvador during the kind of communist revolution

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and the Civil War in El Salvador, advocating on behalf of workers' rights.

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He goes to Haiti a couple times a year and donates his time for the poor, and he

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really believes in these worker rights.

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And so when we have these cases and he ties in the exploitation of

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workers to violating the standards, it's, it's very convincing.

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And it's not convincing because he's like putting one over on the jury.

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It's convincing because he actually believes it.

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And those can be the most convincing experts.

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Yeah.

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And the, the hired guns, I think that Jared kind of mentioned.

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He, he's right.

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Like those guys, they could write to your report, give you a thumbs

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up, but then when it really kind of comes down to it and they're getting

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cross-examined, they might just give up all those points and just say, you

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know what, Hey, I got paid already.

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And they're not gonna be as passionate as those guys like

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Jerry talked about Vince Gallagher.

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So it's, it's a mix.

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So sometimes it gets tricky because if it's a really nuanced

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area, You might need to go.

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They have, you know, kinda like databases of experts, but you're

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gonna pay top dollar for that guy.

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And sometimes it could be someone from Texas that's gonna

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have to fly into New Jersey.

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So it really is a balance, figuring out on what cases you need experts,

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and then who your experts gonna be.

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And Jerry gave the example of, you know, someone who's been a career lifeguard,

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they could be an expert in water safety, and uh, I think talked about some of

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the cases he's had where he kind of had to roll his sleeves up and go track

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down a kind of out of the box expert.

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And I had one a few years ago where a woman's arm got burned at a banquet hole.

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And she, it was a christening or something and there were self-serve

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stations set up and in front of all the, the food trays where people had

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to reach over and, and get the food to serve them, serve themselves.

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The banquet hall had put these candles, Tea lights.

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Tea lights, tea lights there.

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It shows how sophisticated I am, but they're tealight candles, and this woman's

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at a christening, so she's dressed nice.

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She's got this long flowy blouse on seeing family members she

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hasn't seen in a long time.

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So she's talking to a cousin or something and she reaches over to serve herself and

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her blouse catches on one of these candles and goes up in flames, burned her arm.

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She got this nasty.

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Scar.

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, I remember she was very holistic as well.

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I remember she put egg whites on it cuz that was supposed

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to help with the healing.

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And the pictures were very graphic in part because there was egg white on it.

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But, so this is a long way of saying in that case, you know, when we talk

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about experts, what we're almost always talking about is that there's standards

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in some industry or some field, there's, there's standards that need to get

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married to the facts of the case.

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And you have to say these are the standards.

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This is what should have been done.

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And then this is, this is what the defendants in the case did,

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and that's almost always where the expert's gonna come into play.

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And so this case was kind of close because if it's something, so obviously,

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you know, not smart, like don't put open flames in front of food stations

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where people will be serving themselves.

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You may not need an expert in that case.

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But here we wanted to be safe.

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It was a bad injury.

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And so we tracked down this guy, I think it was a friend of another

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expert we had used who was a chef.

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And he wasn't just like, he worked in, you know, some kitchen, he

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was a chef at like a country club.

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And so he would be the person in charge of orchestrating, you know, banquets

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at the country club, you know, more, I guess bigger events and things.

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And we got a report from him.

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To basically say, Hey look, this is what the standard is in,

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you know, the service industry.

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Don't put open flames in front of serving stations.

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And we ended up resolving that case.

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I think it was the day of trial for, for a good amount of

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money for what the injury was.

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And that guy, I don't think he'd ever testified before.

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And in New Jersey too, there's a court rule that you can kind of help your

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expert, you can work with your expert.

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It can be a collaborative process.

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So Jerry, I don't know if you want me to go.

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Down that road.

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I mean, the law kind of is what it is.

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If you get a report and you feel like he missed something, you can say, Hey.

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Exactly.

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That's, yes.

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Those are the things.

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And so just in case, uh, anyone thinks Mark and I are just actors

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and we don't actually work together, I remember this case, uh, it was

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Solar Anzano was the name of the case, and it was the wackiest thing.

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So you, you had.

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I mean, I guess the candles look nice, but as people reach over to get

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their glass now, now I'm going through some, some, injury pictures here.

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But as people are like reaching over to get their glass, to get

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their food, they have to reach over.

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Yeah, definitely a hazard.

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I mean, if you have long hair, even, I can imagine someone's hair catching on fire,

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like you lean over, your hair goes, you know, towards the candle catches on fire.

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I just don't know why they didn't think that part through, but I

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guess that's why we need attorneys because a lot of times people don't

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think things like that through.

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Yeah, Jerry, if you get into more of them, it was.

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And they on the website, the, the banquet hall, like promoted.

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They, we were like obsessed with fire.

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We found picture after picture of like, flamed everywhere.

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It was really, really bizarre.

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There's one picture, maybe I could share, maybe I'll share my screen.

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There's one picture.

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There's like a little kid that's like leaning up on the tablecloth with

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the candle right in front of him.

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I'm rushing to share though, and just, so, just so anyone thinks,

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oh, this is your slip and fall.

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This is, I mean, this woman suffered really bad burns.

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Like that's a, I think it was a sec.

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That's a third degree burn right there.

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Is that blister bec because what happened?

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Her, her, , the dress arm caught, caught the candle, right?

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Yeah.

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It was like, I don't know, say polyester or some type of material

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that was extremely flammable.

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And it was flowy and everything, and she's talking to a friend and she reaches

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over and it, it went up in flames and it was just totally, totally inappropriate.

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Like, there's old people, there's kids there, you know, the little

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kids gotta reach over these candles.

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And it wasn't like the, you know, the little blue flames you put

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underneath to keep the thing warm?

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It was decoration.

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They were like, oh, this will look nice to have all these candles in

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front of these serving stations.

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And it just, it was.

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Yeah, she and Jerry in that picture too, she pulled up, she had a tattoo

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on her arm and it's always, there's different ways you gotta look at cases

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and like things you, I don't know, as lawyers, we gotta think about like, so

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as a defense attorney, they're like, oh, who cares that she burned her arm?

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She's already gone and defiled her skin and gotten a tattoo tattoo.

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And for, you know, in speaking with her, she's like, this

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tattoo has a lot of symbolism.

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There's a lot of meaning.

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When I got this, I was so proud of it.

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Now I'm ashamed when people look at my arm, cuz all they see is this burn.

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So it's kind of putting a spin on where don't we have a video of the incident?

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Yeah.

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Yep.

Speaker: 00:17:34

There's a video trying to see too.

Speaker: 00:17:36

I think I, I had pulled out, yeah, it was a, it was a

Speaker: 00:17:39

christening, a kid's christening.

Speaker: 00:17:41

So there's very young children running around all these open flames.

Speaker: 00:17:45

You would think they'd get the fake tea lights, you know, that look

Speaker: 00:17:48

like real candles, but they're not.

Speaker: 00:17:49

That would've sufficed.

Speaker: 00:17:53

So as these people are serving themselves, bottom right there, you

Speaker: 00:17:57

can see in the, yeah, in the bottom right you can see there's a candle.

Speaker: 00:18:03

It's the, it's just the craziest thing.

Speaker: 00:18:05

How far into this video is it, mark?

Speaker: 00:18:08

I don't think it's too long.

Speaker: 00:18:09

I mean, it happens, right?

Speaker: 00:18:10

I think we, it spliced it down.

Speaker: 00:18:12

I think it's happening now.

Speaker: 00:18:12

No, I could see.

Speaker: 00:18:13

I could see her, her.

Speaker: 00:18:14

I could see it hanging over into the candle.

Speaker: 00:18:17

Look at that.

Speaker: 00:18:18

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:18:18

See that?

Speaker: 00:18:19

And it's like, cat, cat.

Speaker: 00:18:22

Oh my gosh.

Speaker: 00:18:29

You see her arm?

Speaker: 00:18:32

She doesn't even know it's on.

Speaker: 00:18:33

Look at this.

Speaker: 00:18:34

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:18:34

Holy crap.

Speaker: 00:18:35

Crash.

Speaker: 00:18:42

She got rip her shirt off in front of her, her family.

Speaker: 00:18:49

That was crazy.

Speaker: 00:18:52

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:18:52

So.

Speaker: 00:18:54

So that's a perfect example.

Speaker: 00:18:56

Like, like we're saying, like what's the expert, oh, well we're gonna have a

Speaker: 00:19:00

wedding expert or we're gonna have a food.

Speaker: 00:19:02

No, we got a guy that was in the food service industry.

Speaker: 00:19:06

He was a chef or something, mark.

Speaker: 00:19:08

Yeah, he was a chef at a higher end place that, I think it was

Speaker: 00:19:12

a golf club or a country club.

Speaker: 00:19:13

So he hosted events like this and he was able to speak to, you know, this is the

Speaker: 00:19:17

custom in the industry not to do that.

Speaker: 00:19:19

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:19:20

So, yeah.

Speaker: 00:19:20

So the way this works dimple is you'll, you'll have a case like that and.

Speaker: 00:19:25

That doesn't require an expert, in my view, because it was just, it's common

Speaker: 00:19:30

knowledge that you, it's like negligence.

Speaker: 00:19:33

It's like it was kind of dumb to do that.

Speaker: 00:19:35

You shouldn't put candles where people are reaching all over the

Speaker: 00:19:37

place and like you said, just get the fake candles with the thing I.

Speaker: 00:19:42

But what happens in these cases is the insurance company hires the defense

Speaker: 00:19:47

lawyers, and the defense lawyers will come up with whatever arguments they can

Speaker: 00:19:51

to have the insurance company not pay.

Speaker: 00:19:53

So you hear a lot in the news, like, oh, the McDonald's person was burned

Speaker: 00:19:57

with the coffee and frivolous lawsuits.

Speaker: 00:19:59

We've seen way more frivolous defenses than we have.

Speaker: 00:20:03

Frivolous lawsuits in my experience anyway.

Speaker: 00:20:06

And so what we do is we have to like dot all our i's cross

Speaker: 00:20:10

our T's and be triple sure.

Speaker: 00:20:12

So we get an expert in the case anyway.

Speaker: 00:20:15

And the defense wants you to have to get an expert because it ramps up the

Speaker: 00:20:18

cost of the case and makes it harder.

Speaker: 00:20:21

So they create these false hoops.

Speaker: 00:20:22

So we got an expert anyway, but the reality is, Do you really

Speaker: 00:20:25

need an expert to say that you didn't but to be double Sure.

Speaker: 00:20:28

We got one anyway.

Speaker: 00:20:29

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:20:30

So that's, that's the kinda thing that happens.

Speaker: 00:20:32

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:20:32

That was a big time.

Speaker: 00:20:33

Belts and suspenders.

Speaker: 00:20:35

Uh, approach getting an expert for that one.

Speaker: 00:20:37

But it, you know, we didn't have to fly to someone in from Texas for, you know, 10,

Speaker: 00:20:42

15 grand, whatever the heck it would be.

Speaker: 00:20:45

This was someone that, you know, I think looked at the case and we talked

Speaker: 00:20:49

about before, kind of really believed in it could give us what we needed,

Speaker: 00:20:52

and I think in that case it would've been effective had it gone to a jury.

Speaker: 00:20:56

Because the defense there would've been, oh, it looked nice.

Speaker: 00:21:00

You know, we thought that's what they would've wanted.

Speaker: 00:21:02

It was a christening.

Speaker: 00:21:03

We wanted it to be a, you know, a good setting and this

Speaker: 00:21:06

is how we've always done it.

Speaker: 00:21:08

And she should have looked where she was reaching and it's her

Speaker: 00:21:11

fault and she should get nothing.

Speaker: 00:21:13

So if that's the kind of back and forth that's going on in a case like

Speaker: 00:21:16

that, it could have been helpful.

Speaker: 00:21:17

It may have been helpful to have someone get up there and say, Hi.

Speaker: 00:21:20

You know, expert blank.

Speaker: 00:21:22

The defense in this case is saying that these candles look nice and that

Speaker: 00:21:25

they always put 'em out, and that's just how it's done in the industry.

Speaker: 00:21:28

Is that true?

Speaker: 00:21:28

No, this is absolutely not how it's done.

Speaker: 00:21:31

We have those little fake candles that you mentioned, dimple, and the reason we

Speaker: 00:21:35

have them is you get the same aesthetic without risking members of the public,

Speaker: 00:21:39

like small children and elderly people.

Speaker: 00:21:42

And people wearing flowy blouses getting very, very injured when they're

Speaker: 00:21:46

just trying to go to a family party.

Speaker: 00:21:48

Yeah, and the thing is, and you know, I, I don't want the podcast to be like

Speaker: 00:21:52

an infomercial or anything like that for our law firm, but you know, we generally

Speaker: 00:21:58

will go the extra mile and kind of.

Speaker: 00:22:02

Put, put the case in the best position to get a good recovery.

Speaker: 00:22:05

I've actually heard there's attorneys, like there's a lot of attorneys that

Speaker: 00:22:08

won't take a case if they have to get a lot of experts or sometimes

Speaker: 00:22:11

they have to get any experts.

Speaker: 00:22:12

And I've also heard that there's attorneys, like in an auto accident

Speaker: 00:22:15

case, they'll be at trial, they'll about to go out to trial and they have to

Speaker: 00:22:19

send a check to the expert, you know, 10 grand to come to court and testify.

Speaker: 00:22:24

15 grand, 7,500, and instead of writing that check, they'll actually convince

Speaker: 00:22:31

the client to just dismiss the case.

Speaker: 00:22:33

I've heard of that.

Speaker: 00:22:34

I've heard of that from defense attorney, friends of ours that.

Speaker: 00:22:38

They just know who those lawyers are and rather than risk the money and

Speaker: 00:22:42

the time to try a case, they'll just convince the client to dismiss the case.

Speaker: 00:22:45

So it's important to get the right, the right attorney that has relationships

Speaker: 00:22:49

with experts and is not afraid to spend the time, uh, and money that it takes to

Speaker: 00:22:54

work with the experts to present the case.

Speaker: 00:22:55

Right?

Speaker: 00:22:56

Yeah, big time.

Speaker: 00:22:57

And.

Speaker: 00:22:58

Jerry, you said kind of going the extra mile, like Jerry had a case where two

Speaker: 00:23:02

workers got electrocuted working on power lines and he went out and bought a book

Speaker: 00:23:07

on basically electrical engineering, a textbook, like a thousand page thing.

Speaker: 00:23:12

And I'm pretty sure Reddit covered a cover.

Speaker: 00:23:14

Highlighted it, flagged it, and that ended up being a multi multimillion dollar case.

Speaker: 00:23:19

That resolved kind of the same thing, not to do an infomercial for us, or,

Speaker: 00:23:24

I wanted to make sure I gave Jerry his credit, but one of the bigger settlements

Speaker: 00:23:28

I ever had involved someone stage diving.

Speaker: 00:23:32

Mark, I have to interrupt you in case anyone thinks Mark's BSing.

Speaker: 00:23:35

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:23:36

Here's the book here.

Speaker: 00:23:37

It's the National Electrical Safety Code.

Speaker: 00:23:40

Well, that's the, that's the handbook to it.

Speaker: 00:23:42

And then the actual code itself is here.

Speaker: 00:23:45

And then we have another recent, uh, case involving that.

Speaker: 00:23:48

So I got this textbook about the guidebook for linemen and cable men.

Speaker: 00:23:52

Which is good.

Speaker: 00:23:54

So a lot of times if you want to be like an effective lawyer working with

Speaker: 00:23:58

experts, you should try to become an expert yourself and dive into it.

Speaker: 00:24:01

So, sorry, mark, I interrupted you.

Speaker: 00:24:03

No, no, I love that percent.

Speaker: 00:24:04

That's, that's the point.

Speaker: 00:24:06

I'm, I'm kind of, I'm trying to make, like, that was a huge, huge settlement.

Speaker: 00:24:09

And again, not to be an infomercial, but not a lot of law firms, definitely

Speaker: 00:24:13

not a lot of lawyers that would go that extra mile and get multiple,

Speaker: 00:24:16

sorry, multiple textbooks on electrical engineering to settle the case.

Speaker: 00:24:21

And my kind of, I guess, small.

Speaker: 00:24:24

Parallel to that is I had a stage diving case where, you know, again,

Speaker: 00:24:28

maybe you don't need an expert to say people shouldn't be diving off stages,

Speaker: 00:24:32

but in a belts and suspenders approach.

Speaker: 00:24:33

I found this guy from like way outta state.

Speaker: 00:24:36

I just had done a ton of internet research and found someone who'd

Speaker: 00:24:39

written a bunch of articles and actually ran a group that was designed

Speaker: 00:24:43

towards putting on like safe events.

Speaker: 00:24:45

And I bought his textbook and read that thing.

Speaker: 00:24:48

It talks about, oh, do this during lightning storms.

Speaker: 00:24:50

You know, have this many, all these different little nuanced things, and

Speaker: 00:24:54

I learned that those standards, what I needed to know kind of through and

Speaker: 00:24:58

through, and I didn't end up having to use the expert, but the case settled

Speaker: 00:25:02

early on for, you know, a couple million dollars because I think in large part,

Speaker: 00:25:06

we knew exactly what we're looking for and how to prosecute the case.

Speaker: 00:25:10

That, that's kind of the cool thing too about being a lawyer is like, you know,

Speaker: 00:25:13

it's a lot of work and everything, but.

Speaker: 00:25:16

You're in, you're in the world.

Speaker: 00:25:18

Like you're in.

Speaker: 00:25:18

You're involved in so many different things like that.

Speaker: 00:25:21

The case Mark was talking about dealt with a guy who was at a hard, a hard

Speaker: 00:25:25

rock concert stage diving, and someone staged over and landed on the guy's head.

Speaker: 00:25:30

So you're out.

Speaker: 00:25:30

You're doing these interesting things.

Speaker: 00:25:32

It's not just the same drab thing every day.

Speaker: 00:25:34

You know, the cases are different.

Speaker: 00:25:36

There's different stories, there's different characters.

Speaker: 00:25:39

And it's kind of cool.

Speaker: 00:25:40

And then it can get very sophisticated when you're working with like high-end

Speaker: 00:25:44

engineer experts and PhD doctors and, and, uh, highly educated professors

Speaker: 00:25:51

in different fields and getting all different perspective on, on life

Speaker: 00:25:54

and science and engineering and the way things work and medicine.

Speaker: 00:25:58

So that's kind of cool too, working with experts.

Speaker: 00:26:01

Yeah, big time.

Speaker: 00:26:02

Jerry and I tracked down a guy from upstate New York.

Speaker: 00:26:05

He was like a college professor that.

Speaker: 00:26:07

I don't think it'd ever been an expert, but it was, he was a, we got him as a

Speaker: 00:26:11

warnings expert in a case where, and I'm not sure how much of it we can talk

Speaker: 00:26:15

about, but there was a product that was being, can we talk about this case?

Speaker: 00:26:18

Jerry, do you remember?

Speaker: 00:26:20

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:26:21

I think you could talk about it without naming any names.

Speaker: 00:26:23

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:26:24

There was a product that was being sold as comparable to the other products.

Speaker: 00:26:28

It was next to on the shelf.

Speaker: 00:26:30

Um, it was oil, it was motor oil.

Speaker: 00:26:33

Yeah, and it would have on it like a racing flag, lubricates

Speaker: 00:26:36

and protects your engine.

Speaker: 00:26:38

And it would be like a dollar or two cheaper than the oil right

Speaker: 00:26:41

next to it, like the Penns oil, the Vaseline, the regular oils.

Speaker: 00:26:45

And on the front it's got a racing flag.

Speaker: 00:26:47

Lubricates protects your engine.

Speaker: 00:26:48

The S SAE 30, whatever it is, you flip it over on the back and there's all the

Speaker: 00:26:53

disclaimers like harmful of swallowed.

Speaker: 00:26:55

You know, don't let children play with this.

Speaker: 00:26:57

And then in small font, bird in there, it said, not suitable

Speaker: 00:27:00

for engines built after 1930.

Speaker: 00:27:03

And this stuff was being sold in like, you know, 2015 through, I forget how

Speaker: 00:27:09

long, but in like present day and the defense in that case is gonna be, oh,

Speaker: 00:27:14

well we told them, we warned the consumer.

Speaker: 00:27:16

It's right on the back there.

Speaker: 00:27:19

So we tracked down this guy.

Speaker: 00:27:20

I think the, the classification was ergonomics expert where he dealt

Speaker: 00:27:24

with the effectiveness of a warning.

Speaker: 00:27:26

And I forget how we found him or, or what, but like he was a college professor

Speaker: 00:27:31

at like a technical school that dealt with like product labels and things.

Speaker: 00:27:35

I don't think he'd ever testified before, but he was moved by the case.

Speaker: 00:27:39

He's like, what a scam.

Speaker: 00:27:41

And came on, wrote a great report and.

Speaker: 00:27:44

Helped, you know, resolve the thing for, again, many, many

Speaker: 00:27:47

millions of dollars for consumers.

Speaker: 00:27:50

All that's fascinating for the audience because, I mean, this

Speaker: 00:27:53

is really behind the scenes.

Speaker: 00:27:54

We're taking you behind the scenes.

Speaker: 00:27:56

So what it's like, you know, to be an injury lawyer in New Jersey

Speaker: 00:27:59

because you know, when you see things on TV shows, they don't show you

Speaker: 00:28:04

half the stuff that happens and, and I mean, behind the scenes it's.

Speaker: 00:28:08

There's a lot of, you know, complicated things and information and fact finding

Speaker: 00:28:13

and expert witnesses and interviews and things that have to be done.

Speaker: 00:28:18

So if you guys are enjoying the show, make sure you share it out with your

Speaker: 00:28:22

audience and subscribe so that we can producing more amazing content for you.

Speaker: 00:28:26

But I mean, that story just even, you know, what we talked about so far?

Speaker: 00:28:30

Like some of these things are common sense, but.

Speaker: 00:28:33

People don't use common sense, which is why the woman at the banquet hall,

Speaker: 00:28:37

you know, burnt, got burnt and her arm got caught on fire and all that.

Speaker: 00:28:41

But that's the thing.

Speaker: 00:28:43

But what I think is brilliant is actually, you know, Jerry's being

Speaker: 00:28:47

a little bit geeky, but it's okay.

Speaker: 00:28:49

He read the whole book on this electrical stuff, but that just shows you like the

Speaker: 00:28:55

difference between a mediocre lawyer, And a brilliant lawyer because you

Speaker: 00:29:01

know, I always talk about like the term brilliant lawyer because there's a lot

Speaker: 00:29:04

of lawyers, but that let's just be real.

Speaker: 00:29:05

They're not all brilliant, but brilliance comes from really thinking outside of

Speaker: 00:29:10

the box of what you're gonna do and how you're going to tackle a particular

Speaker: 00:29:14

case or problem and go above and beyond.

Speaker: 00:29:18

So that that example's above and beyond.

Speaker: 00:29:20

Cuz I don't know how many lawyers are sitting around reading whole

Speaker: 00:29:22

textbooks, but you have proof, you have the books, you know.

Speaker: 00:29:25

Thanks.

Speaker: 00:29:26

Yeah, that was brilliant lawyer.

Speaker: 00:29:29

All right.

Speaker: 00:29:29

We talked about a couple of the different types of expert witnesses.

Speaker: 00:29:33

Are there any other expert witnesses that you wanted to, to tell us about?

Speaker: 00:29:37

Or was there an actual case that you were gonna pull up Jerry talk about?

Speaker: 00:29:40

Or was that the one?

Speaker: 00:29:42

Yeah, I mean, you know, experts, it's a funny thing because like

Speaker: 00:29:46

I said, you want to get an expert that really believes in it, but.

Speaker: 00:29:51

At, at some point, like a trial becomes, it's like, it's kind of like war on paper.

Speaker: 00:29:58

You know?

Speaker: 00:29:58

It's not war, but it's, it's, it can be very contentious.

Speaker: 00:30:03

It can be, it can be like almost a sporting event in a way.

Speaker: 00:30:08

And you wanna win, you know, your side wants to win.

Speaker: 00:30:11

See, we, we don't, If we don't believe in the case, if we don't

Speaker: 00:30:15

think it's a good case, if we don't think the person was truly wronged,

Speaker: 00:30:18

we're not gonna take the case.

Speaker: 00:30:19

And so we, we believe in our cases, and you wanna win,

Speaker: 00:30:26

you want to help the person.

Speaker: 00:30:27

And at the end of the day, we're generally representing a person of

Speaker: 00:30:31

limited means against a well-funded defendant, insurance company, corporation.

Speaker: 00:30:39

And we wanna win.

Speaker: 00:30:40

So, While you want to get experts that are well qualified and believe in what

Speaker: 00:30:47

they're saying, you need experts that are experienced because the defense lawyers

Speaker: 00:30:51

are gonna pull out a lot of tricks.

Speaker: 00:30:53

They're gonna try to put words in the mouth of the expert.

Speaker: 00:30:56

They're gonna try to twist what the expert says.

Speaker: 00:30:59

They're gonna try to, in some ways, they'll try to bully the expert into

Speaker: 00:31:03

flipping the side and going with them.

Speaker: 00:31:05

So you also need experienced experts that know how to testify, that know,

Speaker: 00:31:10

and, and you need your expert to stay strong on his, his or her opinions

Speaker: 00:31:14

that they put in their report.

Speaker: 00:31:16

So that's kind of like another aspect to it.

Speaker: 00:31:18

And in the next, episode, I want to show you guys , a pretty cool story

Speaker: 00:31:23

about dealing with experts and, a defense expert because, A lot of times

Speaker: 00:31:29

on the defense side, they're just gonna support the defendant no matter what.

Speaker: 00:31:32

And you'll have these because they're being paid by the insurance

Speaker: 00:31:35

company and that's their business, and they keep getting all these

Speaker: 00:31:38

cases from the insurance companies.

Speaker: 00:31:39

So no matter what, they're going to say stuff to hurt the plaintiff's case and

Speaker: 00:31:43

to try to help the defendant's case.

Speaker: 00:31:45

And it doesn't matter how strong the case is, a lot of those defense experts are

Speaker: 00:31:49

still gonna do that, and then they'll just say the most ridiculous, silly things.

Speaker: 00:31:55

And sometimes juries actually believe it.

Speaker: 00:31:57

So it's up to the plaintiff lawyers to expose that and

Speaker: 00:32:01

expose 'em for what they are.

Speaker: 00:32:03

And in the next episode, I'm gonna show you guys , a pretty cool story about that,

Speaker: 00:32:07

or a little vignette about that dimple, if you're looking at me for anything to add.

Speaker: 00:32:11

Any final thoughts?

Speaker: 00:32:12

Yeah, my, my only final thoughts are when Jerry says what we

Speaker: 00:32:16

do is like, Going to war?

Speaker: 00:32:18

I have, there's two things I think about with that.

Speaker: 00:32:20

Number one, he's absolutely right, like we literally have

Speaker: 00:32:23

opponents called adversaries.

Speaker: 00:32:25

And then the first case I ever tried with Jerry, we were driving the

Speaker: 00:32:28

court and he, I had my pen, I had my highlighter, I had my legal pad.

Speaker: 00:32:34

He asked me if I had, These little, these little flags.

Speaker: 00:32:37

And I didn't have those with me.

Speaker: 00:32:39

And he said, mark, we're going to war.

Speaker: 00:32:41

These are your weapons.

Speaker: 00:32:43

You don't have your weapons with you when we're going to war.

Speaker: 00:32:45

And so I have here, uh, the same thing and just to share that all this is real.

Speaker: 00:32:51

I have an entire bag filled with office supplies that goes into my

Speaker: 00:32:56

briefcase whenever I go to court.

Speaker: 00:32:58

Make sure I have all my weapons for Wait, show us, show us that bag one more time.

Speaker: 00:33:02

You know, let me get, let me get the good one.

Speaker: 00:33:04

I've got one more time.

Speaker: 00:33:05

It'll be interesting content for our short form stuff because we're really taking

Speaker: 00:33:12

you guys behind the scene so you can see what it is, like, what's in that bag.

Speaker: 00:33:16

Pull some of that stuff out.

Speaker: 00:33:17

Mark for a moment.

Speaker: 00:33:18

Give us a demo really quick and then Sure.

Speaker: 00:33:21

And Jerry's got his stuff too, so the audience can see.

Speaker: 00:33:23

Cuz in the bag, they can't tell what's in there.

Speaker: 00:33:26

All right.

Speaker: 00:33:27

We've got, we'll do an unboxing.

Speaker: 00:33:29

Let's do unboxing.

Speaker: 00:33:31

We've got low post-its, we've got multiple, multiple, four

Speaker: 00:33:36

color Clark Law firm pens.

Speaker: 00:33:39

There are highlighters, rubber bands.

Speaker: 00:33:47

I don't know if we're sponsored by these guys, so I'll say, , nutrition bars in

Speaker: 00:33:51

case you get hungry when you're at trial.

Speaker: 00:33:54

We've got cough drops for my coworker, , a flash drive.

Speaker: 00:34:00

You guys are prepared.

Speaker: 00:34:02

Flash drive just in case.

Speaker: 00:34:04

And then these guys that, that I pulled out, so nice.

Speaker: 00:34:09

Nice.

Speaker: 00:34:09

Jerry, what does your stash look like?

Speaker: 00:34:15

Well, I w I was saying that you can never have enough paperclips, but,

Speaker: 00:34:18

but my bag is, a lot like marks.

Speaker: 00:34:21

It's love it.

Speaker: 00:34:22

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:34:23

And if you forget that you're in trouble, it raises you have a tough time.

Speaker: 00:34:28

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:34:28

It raises questions when you get on a flight and you pull this

Speaker: 00:34:31

bag out of your backpack too.

Speaker: 00:34:34

But you gotta, you should name it a lawyer or something.

Speaker: 00:34:39

Okay, so I guess this one's a wrap, you guys.

Speaker: 00:34:43

Yeah, we're good.

Speaker: 00:34:44

Thank you.

Speaker: 00:34:45

All right.

Speaker: 00:34:46

See you guys next time.

Speaker: 00:34:48

See it.

Speaker: 00:34:51

And there you have it, folks.

Speaker: 00:34:52

Another episode of Jersey Justice Podcast.

Speaker: 00:34:55

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Speaker: 00:35:19

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