Toiling in the vineyards of personal injury trial law over the course of more than three decades, I've seen trials, and I've seen errors. I've seen others commit errors, but I've certainly committed my fair share of errors. Here are some observations gleaned from decades of trials and errors.

It's All About the Client

If James Carville had been a personal injury trial lawyer, he no doubt would have told us, "It's the client, stupid." We can't ever lose sight of our clients' wants and needs. Plaintiffs' lawyers forget this when they fail to sincerely empathize with a client's loss, when they push a client to accept a settlement just to minimize the risk to the lawyer, or when they fail to provide the client with the necessary information to make a meaningful choice about whether to settle the case or to try it. Defense lawyers forget this when they forget the insured, not the insurance company is the client, when they represent the employee and the employer together in a case in which the employer set up the employee to fail, or when they allow cases to drag on simply to keep the billable hours running on the case.