Achieving success as a product liability lawyer requires the same skills as other trial work. Success comes from advocacy and understanding the decision makers. Being a trustworthy and credible guide through a complicated and confusing process is the essence of advocacy.

Unlike most commercial lawyers, product liability lawyers try their cases. Product liability lawyers are the best trial lawyers in this country. In order to effectively handle product liability cases, a product liability lawyer must understand the issues involving myriad products and learn a variety of scientific disciplines, such as electrical and mechanical engineering. A product liability lawyer must also be able to explain a product to a jury, as well as explain why the product is not defective, why the product was not improperly designed, or whatever the issue happens to be.

Communicating with a jury in a product liability case requires many of the same skills that a lawyer must have in his arsenal during any type of trial. Successful trial work is a matter of preparation, persuasion, plain speaking, trustworthiness and credibility. Those are characteristics of a preeminent lawyer who brings a high level of honesty and skill to whatever case is being tried.

Lawyers should be honest and keep things simple. The best thing a product liability lawyer can do is to break issues down so a jury can understand them. If the plaintiffs want to complicate the issues and are not as careful and factual as the defense lawyers are, then they will lose. When defending a company, the company’s attorneys need to maintain their integrity and allow a jury to trust them. The lawyer personifies the company he or she represents. That is both an honor and something that every lawyer should strive to do.

The last product case I tried was in a small quaint Dutch town in Iowa. The case involved two disabled plaintiffs who complained that an HVAC product polluted the interior air quality of their home. No one wanted to serve on the jury because it was going to be a multi-week trial and these people had jobs. For example, a woman who baked wedding cakes had a lot of orders coming up. She was the only one who did the baking and was very concerned about disappointing the mothers of the brides. Nevertheless, we assembled a jury of twelve citizens.

Those jury members, who were regular people, were faced with the difficult task of understanding the principles they were hearing about. Some of the leading experts testified about the various scientific aspects of the case. For example, immunologists testified about issues such as epidemiological studies on the lungs, and others testified about the installation and operation of the heating and cooling equipment. It was really rather fascinating for the jurors, and the lawyers were challenged to explain the principles so that the jury could understand them.

The jurors served for three-weeks. They found in favor of my client, the HVAC designer and manufacturer. The judge told the jury after the verdict had been rendered that serving as a juror in this case was a “life” experience and that they would probably never see or participate in anything like this again.