Nuclear Verdicts & The Reptile Theory
Ends at Thu, Feb 23, 2023 02:00 PM
Presented by:
Paul Bigley, Partner, Freeman, Mathis & Gary, LLP, Los Angeles, CA
Edward Schwartz, Ph.D. M.S.L., Blueprint Trial Consulting, West Hartford, CT
Nuclear verdicts are multi-million-dollar awards, usually for a person’s subjective and immeasurable pain and suffering, at a level that far exceeds an amount that reasonably compensates a person for an injury. This webinar will focus the insurance professional on the unique tactics and strategies employed by plaintiff attorneys in achieving such verdicts and will highlight best practices, counter-tactics, and strategies that the claims professional should be familiar with and embrace to defeat this ongoing threat to the insurance industry.
About the Speakers
Paul Bigley is a Partner of Freeman Mathis & Gary, LLP and is Chair of the Downtown Los Angeles office. He has 35 years of experience defending cases in California's state and federal courts involving: catastrophic injuries in the transportation, products and premises liability arenas; insurance bad faith claims; professional liability; directors' and officers' liability, sexual abuse, and entertainment litigation. Mr. Bigley represents a wide array of clients from individuals to Global 100 companies and has an extensive record of successful jury verdicts (over a dozen in the last few years alone).
Dr. Edward P. Schwartz is a Partner and Senior Litigation Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting.
Dr. Schwartz is noted for his ability to blend the strategic focus of game theory and decision theory with the real-world insights of social psychology to gain a complete picture of how people process, analyze, and retain information to evaluate and decide important cases. In his role, Dr. Schwartz conducts quantitative and qualitative analyses of pretrial jury behavior to provide clients with actionable feedback on case themes, strategies, evidence, witnesses, and presentation style. Further, he consults on case evaluation, provides advice on trial strategies, and assists with jury selection. Dr. Schwartz has consulted on hundreds of cases, spanning more than 25 states, including several high-profile criminal trials.
Dr. Schwartz is regularly asked to provide insight on jury trials in the news, having been interviewed by CNN, the Associated Press, the New York Times and many regional media outlets. Dr. Schwartz has published numerous articles about the American jury system in law reviews and peer-reviewed journals and has taught about juries and jury trials to undergraduates and law students at Harvard, Yale and Boston Universities. Dr. Schwartz has a Ph.D. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School.