| Robert W. Bailey III has over 21 years of experience in visual communications and storytelling. As president and founder of Trial by Design, Inc., he has demonstrated visual storytelling at over 50 CLE seminars, state conventions and AAJ Education programs. Mr. Bailey has produced over 100 video brochures for settlement and trial. His expertise includes writing the opening statement, sequencing the trial story and visualizing damages.
Augustus F. Brown has a personal injury practice concentrating on motor vehicle collisions, professional negligence, defective products, negligent highway design, construction, and criminal defense litigation. He served on AAJ’s Board of Governors, is a Sustaining member of AAJ, and a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is also a member of the American Society of Trial Consultants. Mr. Brown is a frequent speaker for the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association and AAJ’s National College of Advocacy (NCA). Mr. Brown is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a partner in the law firm of Brown, Brown & Young in Bel Air, Maryland.
R. Eddie Davidson concentrates his practice in medical negligence, vehicular collision cases, fire and gas explosion cases, and tractor-trailer related vehicle collisions. Mr. Davidson was actively involved in the Honda ATV rollover litigation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is a Certified Civil Trial Specialist and a frequent lecturer on various tort topics. Mr. Davidson’s law office is located in Nashville, Tennessee.
Carrie R. Frank concentrates her practice in the areas of products liability and personal injury. She has authored numerous articles and spoken on auto design defects and trial skills. Ms. Frank is the past chair of AAJ’s Products Liability section and a member of the NCA Board of Trustees. She is with Beth Klein, P.C. in Boulder, Colorado.
Robert Gerchen brings more than 18 years of experience as an actor, director, and public speaker to the litigation consulting field. In addition to his courtroom communication training activities with firms and legal associations, Mr. Gerchen has worked with individual attorneys in case specific situations, assisting them in platform skills and storytelling, and applying that work to opening statements and closing arguments. His extensive work with witnesses focuses on helping them become more comfortable with testifying and on improving verbal and nonverbal credibility cues. Mr. Gerchen is the Director of the St. Louis office of Litigation Insights.
Patricia F. Kuehn, J.D., M.A., concentrates her practice in jury behavior research and related consulting services. Ms. Kuehn holds a Master’s degree in Social Psychology with an emphasis on jury behavior and is licensed to practice law. Ms. Kuehn designs, conducts, and analyzes research including focus groups, damages evaluations, and mock trial simulations. She uses her knowledge of juror decision-making and more than 10 years of trial consulting experience to advise clients on strategic jury selection, case strategy, case theme development, and courtroom persuasion. Williston, McGibbon & Kuehn is based out of Chicago, Illinois.
Steven C. Laird is board certified in both Personal Injury Trial Law and Civil Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and achieved Civil Trial Diplomate status by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in 1996. He is a sustaining member of AAJ, a Roscoe Pound Foundation fellow, and a director and fellowship member of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. Laird & Cummings, P.C. is located in Fort Worth, Texas.
Phillip H. Miller, Course Advisor, has an exclusively personal injury practice. Mr. Miller has tried 46 jury trials to verdict and handled a wide range of cases including trucking litigation, nursing home claims, pharmaceutical torts, and day care center child abuse. In addition to his law practice, Mr. Miller has extensive experience working as a trial consultant on a wide variety of cases. He is a member of AAJ’s NCA Board of Trustees and is with Phillip Miller & Associates in Nashville, Tennessee.
Mark A. Modlin, M.S., has 25 years of trial consulting experience and is a member and former Board Member of the American Society of Trial Consultants. Mr. Modlin has worked on over 6,000 cases, including more than 2,000 that have gone through mediation or arbitration, and he has conducted hundreds of focus groups and mock trials. Mr. Modlin teaches at the Salmon P. Chase College of law and has previously taught at Northern Kentucky University, Thomas More College in northern Kentucky, and the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Modlin is with Modlin & Jones Trial Consulting in Edgewood, Kentucky.
Kelly E. Naylor, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist with more than 10 years of experience in psychological research and clinical practice. She specializes in conducting focus groups to develop, test, and improve case presentations and trial exhibits, jury survey development and data analyses, and the application of jury and psychological research in legal proceedings. Dr. Naylor’s practice is located in Golden, Colorado.
Eric Oliver has concentrated in nonverbal, verbal and implicit communication skills for over 27 years—23 working with attorneys. Besides teaching effective communication skills to attorneys and their firms, he spends most of his time helping trial attorneys prepare and present morereceiver-friendly cases in court and for settlement presentations and discussions. He helps lawyers build a presentation plan for each case—adaptable to any venue—integrating the verbal, visual and personal parts of the trial based on jurors needs and expectations uncovered in focus groups and voir dire. Mr. Oliver is co-author of Courtroom Power: Communication Strategies for Trial Lawyers, and author of Facts Can't Speak for Themselves: Reveal the Stories that Give Facts their Meaning, now on audio CDs. He is the founder of the consulting firm, MetaSystems, Ltd., in Canton, MI.
Alexandra Rudolph is a litigation consultant who concentrates her practice in focus groups, including conducting and moderating in addition to being involved in all aspects of the research design and methodology. Ms. Rudolph is an active member of ASTC and is with DOAR, in New York, NY.
Paul Scoptur is a founding partner in the plaintiff's personal injury litigation firm of Aiken & Scoptur in Milwaukee Wisconsin. He is a past cochair of the NCA Board of Trustees as well as a past member of the AAJ Board of Governors. Mr. Scoptur is a member of the American Society of Trial Consultants, and is a founding member of Miller, Scoptur, Vesper & Shar, a case consulting and litigation support firm. Mr. Scoptur is a Diplomate of the NCA and was one of the first lawyers nationally to complete the Advanced Studies in Trial Advocacy Curriculum offered by the NCA. He teaches at Marquette University Law School in the areas of Pre-Trial Litigation and Trial Advocacy.
Frank Verderame is a certified specialist in injury and wrongful death litigation. He is a past president of the Arizona Trial Lawyers Association, a member of AAJ’s Board of Governors, and past cochair of AAJ’s Medicare/Medicaid Litigation Group. Mr. Verderame is also a former judge pro tempore for the Arizona Court of Appeals and Maricopa County Superior Court. Mr. Verderame is a frequent local and national speaker on continuing legal education programs. His firm, Plattner Verderame, PC, is located in Phoenix, Arizona.
Jacob Vigil concentrates his practice in the areas of medical negligence, products liability, and catastrophic injuries. Mr. Vigil is a past co-chair of the AAJ Medical Negligence Information Exchange Group. He is also a past president of the New Mexico Trial Lawyers’ Association and a past member of AAJ’s Board of Governors. The Vigil Law Firm, P.A. is in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Diane F. Wyzga is an R.N., J.D., and professionally-trained storyteller who works as a trial and ADR consultant. She helps attorneys develop their persuasive communication skills using the techniques and principles of storytelling to translate images into verdict action. With over 20 years’ experience, Ms. Wyzga founded Lightning Rod Communications to train attorneys to identify, shape and effectively deliver their stories using language with power, passion and precision. She concentrates her practice in compelling oral and written communications, case story, structure and theme, focus groups, and trail strategy. |
