Just Verdicts

Professional wrestling, like trial work, comes down to storytelling. For a decade, plaintiff's attorney Max Petrunya also wrestled as the Gavel David Lawless, Esq., a villain character built on the lawyers people love to hate. Host Brendan Lupetin traces Max's path from early-career struggles and drinking to therapy, sobriety, and enrolling in wrestling school at 30. Max also shares the Denny's test, a lesson from a friend who helped train him to wrestle, which gives trial lawyers a simple but surprisingly useful way to gauge what jurors will actually remember about a case. Tune in for Max's take on why a trial lawyer's life doesn't have to fit in one box.

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• Max wrestled as the Gavel David Lawless, Esq., from February 2015 until December 2025 in five states, while practicing plaintiff's personal injury law and eventually running his own firm.
• After trials, Max couldn't work himself out of a depressive funk. He explains why he signed up for therapy, and why it takes the same commitment as going to the gym.
• Max modeled his wrestling character on arrogant, egotistical defense lawyers he had faced, and explains why love and hate sell tickets more than like and dislike.
• The tools Max used in his 90-second promos, including repetition and digestible points, are the same ones trial lawyer colleges teach.
• Although wrestling started as a creative outlet for Max, it grew into an unexpected referral source, leading to trademark cases and contract review for WWE and AEW wrestlers.
• A parody T-shirt sent Max to federal court, where he cross-examined wrestling manager Jim Cornette over Zoom and defeated a temporary restraining order.
• After a cervical spine diagnosis, Max chose to plan his own exit from wrestling, bookending his career against the same opponent from his very first match.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

What separates a pile of good facts from a winning case? Drawing on Trials and Triumphs: Lessons from Legal Giants by Chris Placitella and Lisa Blue, host Brendan Lupetin explores a shared lesson from trial lawyers Pat Malone, Keith Mitnik, and Mark Mandell: winning cases need a clear moral core that actually motivates jurors, not just strong facts. He walks through Greg Cusimano’s seven-step, bottom-up approach to building a trial story and explains why he sees the opening statement as the most important part of trial. Brendan closes with the preparation step he swears by before every trial — a move he credits with sending his win rate soaring.

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• Throwing every fact at the jury and hoping they sort it out is a recipe for losing, and Brendan explains what to do instead.
• Pat Malone warns that trying a medical malpractice case "just on the medicine" is a losing bet, so Brendan digs into what actually flips it.
• Drawing from Keith Mitnik, Brendan explores the real work of trial: shaping what happens in the space “between the fact and the conclusion” a juror reaches.
• Brendan explains how he won a snowstorm slip-and-fall by reframing which door actually mattered to the case.
• Greg Cusimano's seven-step, bottom-up method, as Brendan lays it out, runs from gathering the facts to testing the story against jurors' beliefs.
• Brendan stresses one focus group you must run before trial, and he explains why it can change the outcome.
• Could AI help you win over a jury? Brendan makes the case for using it to crack the metaphors and analogies that make a complex issue click.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

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Most cases are decided before they're filed. Working from that premise, host Brendan Lupetin builds a case-selection method around Berkshire Hathaway partner Charlie Munger's principle of inversion: "invert, always invert." Before falling in love with a promising file, Brendan argues, you should first figure out how you would lose it. He walks through the four questions he asks of every case, and confesses his rookie failure of not knowing what jury instructions even were — a mistake that taught him to review and write out those instructions before he ever drafts a complaint, then build the entire case around them. Figure out how you lose, Brendan says, and you will know how to win.

• Brendan opens with attorney David S. Casey's lesson from Trials and Triumphs: Lessons from Legal Giants: the most important part of any case is the detailed preparation done before you file it.
• Brendan borrows Charlie Munger's two-word mantra — "invert, always invert" — and applies it to case selection.
• Your first instinct on a promising case is to picture the verdict. Brendan explains why that rush of excitement is the trap itself, and how falling in love with a case subtly bends every fact toward the answer you already want.
• Every case hides landmines. Brendan reveals the four-question test he runs on each one before he'll commit years of his life and his firm's money to a single file.
• Brendan shares his rookie failure coming fresh out of law school, where he had to ask opposing counsel to explain what jury instructions were in his first-ever jury trial.

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Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

The single biggest driver of a trucking verdict isn't always the injury — it's the "piss-off factor." Clancy Boylan, managing partner of Morgan & Morgan's New Jersey and Philadelphia offices, explains how a defense that refused to accept responsibility fueled a $26 million verdict in a case with only non-operative spine injuries and a mild TBI. Host Brendan Lupetin digs into the 2019 Route 30 crash in Lancaster, the snowy-conditions speeding violations under FMCSR 392.14, the deposition PowerPoint that trapped the driver and safety officer, and the bifurcated trial that produced a $25 million punitive award against the company. Clancy shares how jury anger and an unanswered "I'm sorry" shaped an unforgettable win.

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• Clancy Boylan built Morgan & Morgan's New Jersey and Philadelphia region from a one-man operation into roughly 30 attorneys and 130–140 total staff in about five and a half years.
• In the 2019 Clemens crash, an old-school driver who was fully off Route 30 with his four-ways on was rear-ended just after midnight by an Ecore tractor trailer.
• The client's injuries were modest—neck and back herniations and post-concussive symptoms, with no surgery—which makes the size of the verdict all the more striking.
• Snowy, icy conditions triggered FMCSR 392.14's "extreme caution" duty; the driver was going about 63 in a 55 zone when he should have been closer to 32–33.
• Rather than admit fault in a clear rear-end case, the defense blamed the parked client for a shoulder-parking violation—supercharging the "piss-off factor.”
• A bifurcated verdict delivered $1.2 million in compensatory damages—less than the pre-trial offer the client turned down—plus $25 million in punitive damages against the company.
• Clancy says the verdict rewired his strategy: on well-funded trucking defendants, his settlement demands now run sky-high to reflect uninsurable punitive exposure.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

A near-billion dollar Philadelphia verdict in October came down to a seatbelt engineered to add four inches of slack when only three inches separated Ru Amagasu's head from the roof. Houston trial lawyer Wes Ball of Farrar & Ball explains how his firm got there — and why he'd say the trials are picked for them rather than the reverse. Host Brendan Lupetin asks how Wes and partner Kyle built the practice with no mentors at all. Wes lays out the three kinds of focus groups his firm runs, why Philadelphia jury selection is about retention rather than strikes for cause, and why his opening rules are built to force the defense to answer before they stand up.

☑️ Wesley Ball

☑️ Farrar & Ball LLP

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• Wes and his law school friend Kyle opened their own firm in their late 20s, about three and a half years out of law school, with no mentor in the next room to learn from.
• Their training was entirely self-built — book after book, cross-examination after cross-examination, every idea criticized and critiqued between the two of them, then tested by trying small cases.
• In the toe case in Polk County, Iowa, they refused the settlement money on the table because it would never have moved their client, Yvonne To, out of a nursing home equipped for the elderly rather than a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic.
• Before the Philadelphia trial, the team ran a full focus group of roughly 30 people, recalculated their message, ran a second focus group, and then layered jury analytics on top.
• The Amagasu case turned on a seatbelt rip stitch designed to add four inches of slack when only three inches separated Ru Amagasu's head from the roof of the car.
• Mitsubishi's own owner's manual stated that a belt whose rip stitching had deployed even slightly was no good and had to be replaced.
• Jury selection in the Philadelphia trial took about four hours, and Wes didn't pick the jury himself — Kyle did, with a Philadelphia lawyer who had spent years aiding jury selection in that courthouse.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

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A 9-0 Supreme Court ruling in favor of injured plaintiffs — against a conservative court, with the Trump administration's Solicitor General arguing the other side. That's what Rena Leizerman and her firm pulled off in Montgomery v. C.H. Robinson. Rena, a partner at The Law Firm for Truck Safety and one of the country's foremost architects of freight broker liability law, joins host Brendan Lupetin to break down the 15-year battle that culminated in a landmark ruling affirming plaintiffs' right to sue freight brokers for negligent carrier selection. The episode covers the legal mechanics of the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act’s (FAAAA) safety exception, the strategic decision to frame the case around safety — not plaintiff's rights — and recruit conservative Supreme Court heavyweight Paul Clement, and what trucking lawyers must do now that the preemption fight is finally over.

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1. Freight brokers like C.H. Robinson used a 1970s economic deregulation statute — the FAAAA — to argue that state tort claims for negligent carrier selection were preempted by federal law, threatening the ability of injured plaintiffs to go after brokers at all.
2. Rena's firm had been winning this argument in lower courts roughly 70–80% of the time, but the case that became Montgomery arose from a Seventh Circuit loss, and client Sean Montgomery — a truck driver who suffered a below-knee amputation after a Carib Transport truck ran him off the road — chose to appeal all the way.
3. The decision to take the case to the Supreme Court was as much an ethical question as a legal one: Rena had to weigh her duty to Montgomery against the risk that a loss could wipe out freight broker claims for plaintiffs across the country.
4. To win before a conservative court, Rena deliberately framed the case around safety and plain statutory construction — not plaintiff's rights — and recruited former Solicitor General Paul Clement, widely regarded as the LeBron James of Supreme Court advocates, to argue the case.
5. Twenty-eight states plus D.C. — including both California and Texas — filed amicus briefs supporting Rena's position, while C.H. Robinson's side managed to attract only two; the justices noted the unusual bipartisan alignment during oral argument.
6. The Trump administration's Solicitor General filed on the side of C.H. Robinson just days before oral argument, a move Rena describes as nearly devastating — until the court ruled 9-0 in her favor anyway.
7. With the preemption battle now resolved, Rena walks trucking lawyers through the new frontier: building a negligent selection case on the merits, including the discovery, expert, and causation requirements that will define future litigation.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

The "explainer-in-chief" doesn't try to out-medicine the defense experts — he makes the complicated simple, and lets the jury decide. That philosophy drove a $39 million birth injury verdict for Thomas Greer of Greer Injury Lawyers, a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates whose family legacy of law spans three generations. Host Brendan Lupetin sits down with Thomas to break down a case involving a healthy first-time mother whose son was born septic after physicians missed critical warning signs during a prolonged labor. The jury awarded $27 million in non-economic damages alone — $12 million more than Thomas asked for. Thomas walks through his “pay attention, recognize and respond” opening framework, the two client stories that outperformed every expert on damages, and his tactic of cross-examining the defendant about the defense's own upcoming expert to poison that witness before he ever took the stand.

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1. Thomas Greer of Greer Injury Lawyers is a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates — one of the top 100 trial lawyers in the country — who comes from a three-generation legal family in Dunlap, Tennessee, where his grandfather served as a circuit court judge and his father tried over a hundred jury trials.
2. The case, Berto v. UT Regional One Physicians, involved a healthy first-time mother whose baby was born septic after a prolonged labor during which physicians failed to recognize warning signs and act; the child, now nine, suffered intellectual disability and left-side impairment following a stroke at 10 months.
3. Greer built his opening around two standards of care — "pay attention" and "recognize and respond" — and delivered the case narrative in layers, telling the story in different ways to give the jury the repetition they needed without boring them.
4. Two small, human stories about the child — failing to notice his Chuck E. Cheese card had run out after an hour, and crying every time the family dog was taken to be groomed because he couldn't understand the dog would come back — proved more powerful to the jury than any expert testimony on the damages.
5. Greer used a "cross-by-proxy" tactic, questioning the defendant doctor about the defense's own upcoming expert to poison that witness's credibility before he ever took the stand.
6. In rebuttal closing, Greer incorporated a conch shell he had found on a Memphis sidewalk during the trial, using it as a live metaphor for the case: holding the truth up to the jury's ear and acknowledging that, like the shell, Cordell "wasn't supposed to be like this.”
7. The jury awarded $8.2 million for the life care plan, $3.8 million in economic damages, and $27 million in non-economic damages — exceeding Greer's ask of $15 million for non-economics — for a total verdict of approximately $39 million.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

A "completely defensible" gallbladder case the defense refused to settle became the second-largest verdict in Jefferson County in 222 years. Returning guest Victor Pribanic explains how he won $1.5 million in all non-economic damages for Sandra Whisman, a 47-year-old whose surgeon transected her common hepatic duct. With host Brendan Lupetin, Pribanic breaks down the tools behind the win: one voir dire question that surfaced jurors' expectations of a surgeon, custom surgical animations tied to the medical record, an opening that teaches rather than argues, a cross that trapped the defense expert, and a "man in black" closing on damages. Tune in for a masterclass in surgical malpractice trial strategy, from voir dire to verdict.

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☑️ Pribanic & Pribanic

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1. The defense called this gallbladder case "completely defensible" and made no offer; Pribanic took it to trial in Jefferson County, where defendants were counting on the local trend of low verdicts.
2. Dr. Denny Tang, the surgeon, insisted he had only cut the cystic duct and blamed "aberrant anatomy" — even though the common hepatic duct was transected and the common bile duct clipped.
3. One voir dire question — what do you expect of your surgeon? — drew out a juror's "magical answer" that Pribanic turned into a resonating theme for the whole case.
4. Custom courtroom animations, edited 15 times and tied to the medical record, showed jurors the “critical view of safety” and exactly how the surgery should have been done.
5. Following David Ball’s approach, Pribanic structured an opening focused on teaching rather than arguing and put his "cross-proof" client on the stand as the very first witness.
6. On cross, Pribanic had Dr. Tang write three undisputed facts in his own hand — including dissecting at least an inch of cystic duct — making the surgeon's story impossible.
7. The defense expert, sequestered and unaware of Dr. Tang's testimony, contradicted the defendant on the stand; the jury returned $1.5 million, 11–1 in favor of the plaintiff.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

Bryan and Jovan Maldonado came to the mainland United States from Puerto Rico to make better lives for themselves. They found work on a telecom construction crew – but at their very first job, swapping an antenna affixed to a Delaware water tower, they were killed when the boom lift they were on tipped over in high winds. To get justice for the brothers’ family, the trial team of Mike Zettlemoyer and Dave Kwass listened to focus group jurors who revealed what made them really mad about the case. “That was when we began to recognize, ‘Oh, wait a minute. This is what the case is actually about,’” Dave explains to host Brendan Lupetin. It wasn’t wind gusts or training failures. Tune in to find out what that was and how the team secured $18.2 million.

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1. After arriving in the mainland United States from Puerto Rico in 2020, the Maldonado brothers joined a telecom construction crew. Bryan’s 22nd birthday was November 2 – the day that he and his brother Jovan were killed at their first job.
2. The boom lift the brothers were on toppled over in high winds. The trial team's engineering analysis revealed that gusting winds created a resonance effect — like pushing a child on a swing in rhythm — that amplified movement in the 40,000-pound ultra boom until there was no point of return.
3. The defendants were Nexius Solutions, the general contractor, and Myndco, the firm responsible for training the crew.
4. The trial team found that Nexius had sent a replacement aerial lift to the site after the crew mistakenly believed the first was defective. In fact, the machine was locking them out because the crew was overloading it, a direct result of inadequate training.
5. A Nexius vice president shut down aerial lift work across the Northeast due to a National Weather Service wind advisory anticipating gusts up to 45 mph — but the region where the accident occurred was never contacted, and the work continued.
6. Mock jurors in a focus group were most angered not by the training failures but by the company's selective shutdown decision.
7. The jury awarded $18.2 million, including $2.5 million in mental anguish per parent per son and $1.5 million in pain and suffering per son.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.

In the second episode about Rick Friedman's “Becoming a Trial Lawyer: A Guide for the Lifelong Advocate,” host Brendan Lupetin takes a deep dive into Chapter 10. Titled “Forget Playing it Safe,” the chapter argues that there is no safe way to try a case — and there never was. Brendan shares two of his own trial stories: one where going all in on a single theory drew his client's fury before producing a strong verdict and another where the same bold approach backfired and ended in a loss. He closes by reviewing Friedman’s six-step framework for making tactical decisions grounded in your client's best interests, not your own fear of criticism.

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• Chapter 10 of Rick Friedman's “Becoming a Trial Lawyer” opens with a blunt declaration: There is no safe way to try a case, and tactical decisions will seldom feel safe.
• In a case with two viable theories, Brendan went all in on the stronger one after focus groups backed his instinct; his client berated him after opening statement, and he spent the entire trial second-guessing himself before the verdict proved him right.
• In a second case, Brendan made the bold call to go all in on "trying the lie" — a doctor whom he believed had written a CYA letter and hidden it in a drawer. It backfired, and he lost. But Brendan leans on Friedman’s philosophy that “in all tactical decisions, you give up something to gain something new.”
• Friedman's framework for tactical decision-making includes thinking through the problem thoroughly on your own, brainstorming with partners, focus grouping the issues, and continuing to weigh the pros and cons as the case evolves.
• The framework closes on two non-negotiables: Base every decision on your client's best interests and accept that you may look foolish for the choice you made — because if you're not willing to risk that, you have no business being a trial lawyer.

Ready to refer or collaborate on med mal, medical negligence, and catastrophic injury cases? Visit our attorney referral page at PAMedMal.com/Refer. We handle cases in Pennsylvania and across the United States.