They conducted a lot of focus groups and studies based on Clotaire Rapaille’s work. Here is Rapaille’s home page. The basic concept is that we have the modern functioning brain that helps us with decision making and functioning in our current environment. Underneath that is our lizard brain. The reptilian brain.

The reptilian brain works on basic survival mode. Does anything threaten our survival or make us safe? Very basic instincts. Like the fight or flight syndrome. When a sudden danger appears, the body is pumped full of adrenaline and either stands ground to fight, or gets out of the situation.

By studying Rapaille’s work and applying it to the legal field, they’ve used the same arguments as before, but frame them slightly differently in an attempt to appeal to the basic lizard brain inside us all. It sounds very powerful. It takes the biggest tort reformers that were against us the most and turns them into our strongest allies. Wow. I’d love to see it in action. I have a trial next week and will apply some of the principles and we’ll see how it goes.

They are still working out the best way to present the information. I think the best solution is a one day seminar presenting all of the information followed by a 2 day seminar a few weeks later showing how to apply the theory to all aspects of your trial. It’s very good stuff and I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you do plaintiff’s work, you really need to check this out. The Book is here. The Seminar is here. The next seminar is in June in Dallas. While putting the link in, I just found out the Dallas seminar is full. You owe it to your clients and yourself to check out the next one.

As my readers know, I’m a plaintiff’s attorney and the tagline of this blog is ‘Using Technology to Be a Better Trial Lawyer’. My focus is being a better trial lawyer, whether it’s through regular trial classes, using technology or even running a better office. That splits the readership because it’s a somewhat scattershot topic area, but that’s what interests me. I think it also interests plaintiff’s attorneys with their own practice.

So I have held myself back from talking about interrogation and torture so as to not further spray the field, but it’s time to offer my opinion on this.

But why should you listen to me?

I was an interrogator in the United States Army from 1982–1989, just short seven years. I signed up for 3 years the first tour and 4 years the second tour. The Army taught me Arabic on the first tour and Hungarian on the second tour.

I taught interrogation at Fort Huachuca, Arizona from 1986–1989. While at the interrogation school, I taught basic tactical interrogation for the United States Army. There were also ocassional classes for the Officer’s Basic Intelligence Course and the Foreign Allied Officer’s Course, where we taught officers from other countries.

In addition to those classes, I was on the team that did course development for the USMC reserve interrogation course and also was on a review board for the interrogation MOS (job specialty) training.

So that’s why you should put some stock in my opinions. I went to law school in 1989 and am now a lawyer. Having the interrogation and a legal background is a good reason to listen to me. 

Here are the reasons to take my opinion with a grain of salt:  

I got asthma rather severely and received a medical retirement a year or so before Desert Storm in 1989, so while I taught interrogation for 3 years, I did not do any live interrogations.

All of my experience was with tactical interrogations and not strategic debriefing of high level detainees.

I worked on a tactical level. While I did teach interrogation for three years and know the doctrine cold, it was on a tactical level. I did not set policy at the national level in D.C.

You can give a new client access to their case information. If they have multiple cases, they can look up information on any of their cases. A co-counsel can have a filter that will allows them access to information on any of their referred cases.

What information do they have access to? Anything you want. You can set up a template as to what information to allow them, but also alter it for a specific client. For example, you can have them see the incident report, medical records, pleadings and discovery requests, but not correspondence.

The client would also have access to all of their medical records in pdf format. Many of our clients want copies of their medical recods for Social Security Disability hearings, or just to have for their records. Now, they’ll have instant access to their medical records and can save as a pdf just by right clicking on it.

Also, all of the Notes and progress made on the case can be e-mailed them automatically just by saving in the Notes. You can also determine whether it’s an appropriate Note to share with the client by the coding on the Note. There is some information that you might not want to automatically share with the client. For instance, an evaluation of the client as a witness, or certain aspects of a case evaluation with a client with unrealistic expectations. Not that you wouldn’t share that information with the client eventually, but a raw note as it happens might not be the most helpful.

Anyways, you can pick and choose exactly what information you want to share and then it happens automatically.

Referred cases and co-counsel cases? You can keep the other lawyer informed in the case and they would automatically get copies of pleadings, discovery, notes or whatever you want to send.

I would imagine I would have a few different templates. A template for high information clients, low information clients, co-counsel that wanted to be informed, and co-counsel that just want to touch base every now and then.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I would imagine it would be very easy to set up e-mail alerts to send them information about thier case or just personal injury cases in general on set intervals as well.

We often say that clients don’t understand how much work we do on the case. This can give them a way to see the work that’s being done. It also significantly increases the number of touches the client gets concerning the case they have and gives them a chance to provide more feedback to the firm.

I think it will take a little bit of tweaking and practice to get the right level of information. For example, do you want to just tell clients when you get their medical records? Or do you tell them you ordered the records, the follow up calls and letters to get the medical records? Or do you just tell the client when the medical records don’t come in and the law firm takes special efforts to beat them in? 

I don’t know if there’s a right answer and think it will take time to find the best mix. I also know there are people that appreciate the higher level of information and there are other clients that too much information just increases their stress levels. It will be interesting.

Anyways, I was blown away by this. I thought it really is the next step to take and in the next five years is going to become the gold standard. It costs extra, over and above the standard Trial Works price, but there’s a tremendous amount of work in getting it set up correctly.

I think this is a killer app for TrialWorks.

I looked at and reviewed over 30 case management programs. as all of my case information was going to be in the program, I stayed away from companies that used a proprietary data system and from one man shops. I decided to go with TrialWorks over Needles. You wouldn’t go wrong with either of the programs, but TrialWorks was just a better fit and seemed to be fresher and more up to date than Needles. I purchased TrialWorks, put half the money down and they converted my TimeMatters data.

About 3 years ago, I heard about an incredible program being developed by a plaintiff’s firm in New York. About a month after I bought TrialWorks, SmartAdvocate came out. It was the program I had heard about and it looked like it was an amazing program. I liked the features and the screen layouts, but the best feature was one that set up a mini-website for each client and notified them about their case. Here is their description:

The ability to automatically forward cover letters and copies of documents to clients either by e-mail or snail mail as the documents are received (pursuant to the rules each law firm establishes – hereinafter referred to as “Rules Based”). For example, if a police report is received, if the law firm rules require, a cover letter and a copy of the police report is e-mailed to the client automatically as it was received, based upon the police report icon being linked to an image. If the law firm is not scanning documents yet, then based on the date the police report was received being filled in with the date the report was received, the client will get a cover letter advising them of your receipt[pt of the relevant document. Same will be true for all documents designed by the law firm ie: hospital records, medical records, medical reports, deposition transcripts, expert reports, orders, etc.

SmartAdvocate™ automatically creates an Extranet website for each client so that a client, with a user name and password, is able to obtain, at any time, the status of their case, access to their case calendar, access to case documents, hypertext links to the staff working on their case (all Rules Based). Whenever their Extranet is updated with new information, the client receives an e-mail with a hypertext link bringing them back to their Extranet to see what changes have taken place in their case.

Well….those sound like great functions. I really thought that a web-based system was the wave of the future. It’s not a feature that I needed to have right now, but it’s something that would be important down the road.

I called Smart Advocate. This is a program that they built inhouse and decided to market to the rest of the legal community. They went to a trade show or two (Mass Torts Made Perfect). They have a great programmer, who was doing the in house work and also doing the installs. They were starting off with a few local/ in-state firms and he said to check back in a month. So I did…..then 45 days…then a month. The next thing I knew it was nine months later. I was told that they weren’t going to sell the program outside the state of New York. Wow.

I wrote sent two e-mails and made two calls to Jerry Parker, the senior partner and brains behind Smart Advocate and didn’t get a response.

So…..While I still thought that TrialWorks was the best program on the market, I really wanted a web-based or extranet solution. Switching case management systems is a huge undertaking and it’s not something I wanted to do twice in five years. So I decided that I’d sit tight for 2–3 years or however long it would take for that to become readily available.

While I still liked TrialWorks the best, I didn’t want to switch to it, then switch again when an extra-net program became available.

The TimeMatters website says it has an extra-net option, but when researching it, they really didn’t. Then I got a call from TrialWorks telling me they were adding an extra-net option and that I should check it out. I did and am now moving to TrialWorks.

With his Damages book, David Ball gave plaintiff’s attorneys a structured way to talk about damages and to present a case from opening statements throughout the trial. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say it revolutionized the courtroom for many plaintiff’s attorneys.

Following on the heels of that, Rick Friedman and Patrick Malone gave us Rules of the Road, a systematic way to approach liability. I liked Rules of the Road because it spelled out a number of things that I had been doing intuitively, but it gave a structured way to repeat and handle cases.

Well, there’s a new book coming out this weekend: REPTILE: The 2009 Manual of The Plaintiff's Revolution. If you click on the link, there’s a review from Lawyer’s USA in pdf format.

They did a ton of research and based on neuro psychology or cognitive psychology, have found a way to turn tort reform on it’s ear. A lot of people do not want to give money to ‘greedy plaintiff’s’ and ‘jackpot justice’, but if you show them community standards and how the defendants violate community standards, and how that affects the juror and their family, they will make the defendants pay.

Interestingly enough, people that were strongly against civil litigation and big advocates of ‘tort reform’ would still give solid verdicts when using this system.

A lot of research has been done in the past 10–15 years on social sciences, how people think and how people actually make decisions. The research in this book is based on deep in the id, the reptilian response to situations, which the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome is based on.

The book is coming out this week and I’ll be going to a seminar in Atlanta on it Friday and Saturday put on by Don Keenan and David Ball. I’m excited and looking forward to seeing what they’ve come up with. It meshes with everything I’ve read on NLP, neuro psychology and cognitive psychology. So it should be good…..Plus, it’s hard to argue with the track record of the authors.

Here is information for the Atlanta Seminar on May 8–9, although it might be too late to sign up. If you miss it, David Ball is giving the seminar in Dallas on June 12, 13.

If you just want the book, you can get it from their website, from Don Keenan’s publishing company, or from Barnes and Noble. It’s not on Amazon yet or Trial Guides, yet.

I’ll report back after the seminar. A lot of it is plaintiff’s attorneys only, so I might not be able to give all of the scoop, but enough to give some pointers (with the author’s permission) and enough to let everyone know whether it’s worthwhile.

We were in mediation today and the defense had topped out. After the first offer, it looked like they were going to top out in the $40,000 – $50,000 range. We would be okay with $50,000, but would not be okay with $40,000. As the offers and counters went back and forth, it looked very clear that they were going to top out at $40,000.

My client wasn’t happy about that, but was uncomfortable with going to court and wasn’t certain what to do. He said that if we could get more money than that, he would settle, but couldn’t see settling for $40,000.

But the defense pegged out at $40,000 and wasn’t going any higher.

I asked the mediator if he had a Consent Order of Dismissal in his computer. He said “Heck, Dave. I’ve got a blank one in my folder”. It was perfect. It had the caption and the signature lines of all involved and had a blank for the dollar amount.

I filled in $42,500 and signed it along with my client. Telling the mediator to tell them if they came up just a little, that it would resolve the entire case. And it worked.

I was involved in a mediation with Karl Folkens a few years ago when he did the same thing. I think that used sparingly and in the right situation, it’s a good way to squeeze a little extra out of the case. But I wouldn’t try that early in the mediation or on every mediation.

But it’s not something that I can realistically blog about. Let’s say I settle a case for $50,000. Maybe it was a case that I thought was worth $40,000 and negotiated it like crazy and got $50,000 for it. I then blog about it and the other side who thought they  might have done a pretty good job goes “Hey. Dave thought he got over on us….Next time, we’ll have to dig in harder.” Not good for my clients.

Or, let’s say I settle another case for $50,000. I had thought it was a $60,000 case and really, really wanted to get more for the client, but for whatever reason that was all we could get (…and don’t say Allstate). Well, if I blog about that, then people would say “Hey…..in this situation, Dave let his client get held over a barrel and so I bet we could do it to.” Again, not good for my clients.

And while over a period of time, you can get a pretty good feel for what a case is worth, you never know how much is on the table and whether you got all, or nearly all of it. And when you finish the case, all you can do is cash the check and give the money to your client. You can’t call up and say “How’d we do? Did you hold out on us and make your client happy? Did we settle to easy? Or did we get everything that was there?” Of course, they can’t tell you that, because it would be giving away their secrets just like blogging about negotiating would give away mine. Ah well… some fun stories that can’t be told.

What a great idea, I naively thought. The big day came and I had 5 cases with GEICO at that time. She didn’t even read the demands and medical records:

• Too Young – I can’t believe that such a young girl has such serious injuries and won’t recover. She’s young, she’ll get better.
• Too Old – I can’t believe that she’s having such problems from the car wreck. She has to have a ton of pre-existing conditions.
• Too Much Treatment – It’s clear she’s ‘milking it’.
• Too Little Treatment – She’s obviously not hurt.

Let’s play this ‘game’ a little more.

• If a person goes directly to the doctor – She ran to the doctor. Why is she doing that?
• If a person waits a day, to see how they’re feeling – They must not be hurt. If they were hurt, they’d go immediately to the doctor.

It took me awhile to realize that to a very large degree, the facts don’t matter to the adjuster. They’ll find anything they can to poke. After awhile you learn to document your case and if the adjuster won’t listen, then you just file suit, and move the case forward. The best way to settle a case is to prepare for trial.

I often get responses from adjusters on why they can’t pay a claim. Some of them are valid. Sometimes they need further documentation. However, sometimes adjusters decide they can’t pay the claim based on reasons where they just make stuff up. They quote law that’s wrong, fallacious and sometimes just plain ole made up.

Depending on my mood and how it’s done, it either annoys me, amuses me or really pisses me off. The main issue is to help the client and resolve the case. Most of the time, I will give them the right law and if they don’t want to accept it, or at least take the information and check into it, I’ll tell them. Okay, so what you’re telling me is that you just don’t want to pay the claim. You don’t have a valid reason for it, but you’re not going to pay the claim. We’ll accept that decision and move forward from there.

I was going to pull together a big list of ‘adjuster law’ claims, but instead, I’ll just add a category and add them as they happen. If you’ve experienced any ‘adjuster law’ claims, send them in and I’ll be more than happy to post them.

§ 42-9-20. Amount of compensation for partial disability.

   Except as otherwise provided in 42-9-30, when the incapacity for work resulting from the injury is partial, the employer shall pay, or cause to be paid, as provided in this chapter, to the injured employee during such disability a weekly compensation equal to sixty-six and two-thirds percent of the difference between his average weekly wages before the injury and the average weekly wages which he is able to earn thereafter, but not more than the average weekly wage in this State for the preceding fiscal year. In no case shall the period covered by such compensation be greater than three hundred forty weeks from the date of injury. In case the partial disability begins after a period of total disability, the latter period shall not be deducted from a maximum period allowed in this section for partial disability.

In short, you get 2/3 of the average weekly difference of what the client was making and what they can make now, multiplied by 340 weeks. Let’s see how that works. For every dollar discrepancy, the injured worker would get $.667. Over a 40 hour work week, that comes out to $26.68 difference per week. Let’s see how it runs out.

$1 per hour – Loss of Earning Capacity in 40 hour Work Week

$9,071.29 = $.667 2/3 of difference x 40 = $26.68 x 340

So we have the following, assuming a 40 hour workweek:

• $1 per hour = $9.071.29
• $2 per hour = $18,142.40
• $3 per hour – $27,213.60
• $4 per hour – $36,284.80
• $5 per hour – $45,356.00
• $6 per hour – $54,427.20
• $7 per hour – $63,498.40
• $8 per hour – $72,569.60

So it can add up pretty quick. So you need a vocational report to establish the loss of earning capacity and also according to Singleton v. Young Lumber Co. and Brown v. Owen Steel Co., you need to have more than one body part to bump out of the scheduled members of 42–9–30.

No problem, I thought. I’ll just get the best program out there, use the examples they have and then adjust and modify from there. It turns out that none of the case management software companies know anything about case management. That seems somewhat odd and surreal, but it’s true. You would think that they would compile a ‘Best of’ reports that seem to be the most popular for people and see the common interests, but they don’t. That’s not saying anything bad about any of the programs in particular, but against all of the software companies. I would ask about management reports and they would say “Yep. Got them”. Yes, but what……”Anything you want. We have a report writer that can do anything you want”. Yes, but what….”Anything you want. We have a report writer that can do anything you want”. Okay. ]]>

Anyways, there’s a lot of programs out there. Needles was the top of the line for a number of years, but I now believe that TrialWorks has knocked it off the perch and I like TrialWorks the best. My only gig with TrialWorks is that they are rabidly pro-MicroSoft. They use Outlook for their calendar and e-mail. I really prefer not to be in MicroSoft if I can avoid it and don’t use Outlook. I know the days of avoiding MicroSoft are long gone and as a lawyer don’t want to fight a losing battle on that, but we would have to switch everything over to Outlook.

I paid half of TrialWorks and they converted my TimeMatters data, but because of some trials that came up all together and some other issues, we held off on doing a final install on TrialWorks and starting to use it.

In the meantime, I saw Smart Advocate. While I liked both Needles and TrialWorks and thought that TrialWorks was by far the better of the two programs, neither one really grabbed me. Neither one reached up, grabbed me by the throat and said “Oh my God. You HAVE to have this program”. Smart Advocate did.

I have a picture in my mind of what a case management program should look like and do. TrialWorks and Needles did a lot, but there was a lot they didn’t do. Not Smargt Advocate. It matched almost exactly the picture I had for a case management program in my head. (And for an ex-programmer, that’s saying a lot).

THere’s a lot of features I like about Smart Advocate. The primary ones are I like the main overview screen, but I especially like that when a client comes in, it establishes a client specific mini-website that will automatically update the client. When you get the accident report in and save it, it will automatically e-mail the client and they can go to ‘their’ website and look at and/or download a pdf version of it. As you get the meds in, it will post a copy of the medical records to the client website and notify the client automatically be e-mail.

These are all automatic notifications and postings. This is all done without your staff having to do anything different, special or extra. The client will be kept up to date and can get a copy of all of their medical records without you having to make extra copies.

I strongly, strongly believe that the web-based approach is the way to go in the future. That’s a huge feature for keeping clients updated and informed. As far as I know, Smart Advocate is the only program doing it.

I also had heard about Smart Advocate about 2–3 years ago from an person doing legal outsourcing to India, who had been helping them with the program (or possibly had people working with the program). He said that the program was amazing and would blow the doors off anything that was commercially available.

So, I held off on finalizing TrialWorks and contacted Smart Advocate. They were very nice, but said they were doing a series of their first installs in-town (New York) and surrounding areas, so they could run out there and fix the problem if they needed to. Okay. Sounds good.

So, I gave them a month and called back. It appeared that they had a programmer on staff that was doing all of the in-house stuff and then also doing the work (and modifications) on installs for other firms. The firm didn’t give this programmer any additional assistance to work on technical issues for the programs sold, or even for a secretary / salesperson / trainer. In fact, when you called, you got the law firm and the receptionist didn’t even know anything about the software being sold.

I waited from April through December for a total of nine months. I was finally told that they had decided not to sell it outside of New York as they couldn’t support it otherwise. I found that a bit odd. We have broadband and a tech savvy crew. Our primary tech guy is in Myrtle Beach, but does 95% of his work remotely and I’m sure they could deal with any issues remotely as well. I was told that a lot of people were calling and wanting the program, but that a single programmer could only do so much at a time, monitoring the installs and making changes and upgrades to the inhouse programs and that they had a stack of people clamoring for the program.

I sent an e-mail to Jerry Parker, the senior partner of the firm and never heard back from him. So……after an abundance of patience, I decided it was time to move on. I was sort of shocked to learn that I had been waiting 9 months. I had thought it was about 6 months, but I referenced the date on the initial post about Smart Advocate in my e-mail to Jerry Parker and realized it was about 9 months.

I received an e-mail from TrialWorks inquiring about going live and finishing the TrialWorks install. I asked them about a web-based solution and if it was in the works or at least in the intermediate future to have a client specific website and never got a response.

So…..what to do. My thinking is that the web-based solution is the best, but Smart Advocate doesn’t want to sell their program and TrialWorks won’t have that feature. I would have to believe that some program will have that feature in the next 2–3 years.

While I still believe that TrialWorks is the best program on the market and recommend it to people on a regular basis, switching case management systems is a major undertaking. I don’t think it’s smart to switch case management systems twice within a five year period. So, I’m going to hang out in TimeMatters until an appropriate web-based solution comes along.

I’ve upgraded from TimeMatters 6 to TimeMatters 9 and also upgraded our Out of the Box templates. We’ll work on getting exactly the reports we want and to put some time and effort into making the program work like we want it to. We’ll switch to a good web-based solution when it becomes available.

And that’s what I’ve been up to on my ‘case management summer vacation’.

I really do hope that Parker and Waichman decide to get serious about selling Smart Advocate and decide to run that as a business as opposed to a side hobby and I can buy that program. As it is, it makes it difficult to put my entire firm on a program where the people writing it are only half committed to.

iPhones have a glass front that is easy to scratch. If you drop it, they break pretty easy.

Unfortunately, the glass front of the iPhone is not covered under warranty. Even if you get the Applecare Protection Plan, the broken glass is not covered under the warranty. Apple charges $299 for any out of warranty service. Ouch. That’s $299 to get the front glass repaired.

However, you can get a third party to repair the glass a lot cheaper. IpodJuice seems to be the best vendor out there. They’ll replace the glass and the digitizer (the part that makes the glass touch sensitive) for $139. That’s a lot bettter than $299.

IpodJuice will also replace batteries for any of the iPods or iPhones for a very reasonable price. They use all Apple parts, but of course having a third party make the repairs can potentially void the warranty. But by all accounts, they do a real good job.

It turns out that Wal-Mart (of all places) sells a Go Phone. This is a pre-paid phone that allows you to get a cellphone without a contract or a credit check.

BUT, if you take the SIMM card out of your iPhone and place it in the Nokia 2610. It works perfectly. You can make and receive calls to your cellphone number without calling AT&T and changing, activating or calling AT &T.

You just charge up the phone, pop in the card and away you go. The Nokia has text messaging, e-mail, caller ID, call waiting and a lot of other features. In fact, they really try to upsell the games, ring tones and anything else they can sell you on. I ignore all of that and have an iPhone replacement for $15. They had a number of different Go Phone options, but I decided to go with inexpensive. I can live with the Nokia for the 2–3 days it takes to get a replacement iPhone.

I’ve received quite a bit of encouragement on the exercising and diet. I’m eating healthier and still exercising. I’ve lost 25 pounds and 5 inches off my waist. My cardio endurance is up 30% and I’ve reduced my body fat by 5.5%. I’m not quite ready to run a triathlon. Apparently, I had let my health go farther than I realized. But we’re making lots of progress and I’m staying with it.

Jennifer (my wife) and I have converted the garage into an exercise room. We’ve put down a 3/4” mat, and I’ve put in a Life Fitness elliptical, a Vasa swimming trainer and a bike trainer so i can train for and do an entire triathlon without leaving my house. We also put a tv with cable and dvd, so that we can watch exercise videos or movies while exercising.

I’ve learned a lot. If I exercise my butt off and eat perfectly, the weight will jump off. But that’s difficult to keep up on a consistent basis. It seems like exercise is the key. If I exercise a moderate amount and eat moderately healthy, then the weight will come off. Without the exercise, I have to eat perfectly to lose weight, and I mean perfectly.

So progress is being made and we’re sticking with it. Jennifer is going to the same trainer as I am and she’s also doing a cardio-boxing class that she likes. We’ve also put up an angle (mushroom) heavy bag for her. It appears that she likes hitting things. Keep reading if you want to see the equipment we got. ]]>

This is the elliptical that we got. I got it from a company in Wilmington that delivered it to the house. It’s a $4,000 commercial elliptical, that was used from Duke Fitness Center. We got it for $1,295. Not a bad price. If you get the Life Fitness 9500 HR, make certain you get the newer model with the two cupholders on the bottom.

This is the swimming trainer. It looks a bit goofy, but is used by a number of college swim teams and also the U.S. National swim team.

It’s basically a ‘treadmill’ for swimming. You lay on the board and then there’s a flywheel and you mimic a swimming motion. There’s a computer and you can time yourself for distance. You can also track your power and stroke length. It’s pretty neat and allows me to practice swimming without leaving the house and spending time away from the family.

I can get my swimming training done in less time than the travel time and changing time to get to the pool. Plus, I can do it while watching tv. Neat stuff. There are some triathletes that do 85–90% of their swimming training on the Vasa.

This is basically putting the bike up on blocks. I also put a front block to even out the bike. On the advice of friends, I actually got the special pedals and bike shoes that clip in.

Again, with a computer to track my pace, I can ride my bike without leaving the house (and watching tv).

I’ve used iTunes to catch up on shows that I was interested in, but hadn’t watched, or watched only sporadically. House, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Dexter, Mad Men, 30 Rock, Picket Fences, Battlestar Galactica…

So the cardio and iTunes has allowed me to catch up on tv watching.

We also have a number of general exercise equipment. Bands, situp bench, bosu ball, physio ball and other stuff. Plus, youth punching bags for the girls. After Kung Fu Panda, they like hitting and kicking stuff too. So we pretty much have a full fledged gym at home and are ready to rock and roll.

It’s been six months now and the enthusiasm and dedication has grown and waned as life and work has happened around it. But we’re been sticking with it. The consistency over a period of time has made a huge difference. I’m leaning out, getting more muscular and just feeling better.

A combination of deep tissue massage with trigger point therapy, chiropractic adjustments (my trainer is a chiropractor, so I get an adjustment with every session) and exercise has made a huge difference in my back. It had pretty much locked up before and I had very minimal mobility in it. But the three things over a period of time has helped my back tremendously.

So other than practicing law, that’s what I’ve been up to. The training has been going well, the eating has been going well and life is happy.

It’s good enough for good doctors to be good doctors. However, we have to explain to the jury the mechanism of the injury, the treatment, causation of the injury and other medical issues to people unfamiliar with these topics.

Some doctors can explain things better, some can’t. It’s as simple as that. If I can’t have the doctor at trial, I would prefer to have a good, credible, well spoken doctor on videotape. If the doctor hems and haws, is uncertain of his or her opinions or has not reviewed the file, it’s probably better to just take the deposition and not videotape it.

David Ball is of the opinion that trials are human events and that it is better to read the deposition in to the record and have a live person read it, than have a talking head on a big screen.

I think in the long run it comes down to a judgment call.