Just Verdicts

When a brain injury plaintiff earns a promotion and turns up in social media at a Beyoncé concert, how do you prove what she lost? Tom Feher of Feher Law tackles that question with host Brendan Lupetin, breaking down his $20.7 million verdict for a physician assistant struck by a falling metal stud outside a San Francisco hotel. Because she was so high-functioning before the accident, her decline from exceptional to barely average was easy to miss. Tom explains how calling a dozen witnesses from her work and personal life helped make it visible, and also shares how voir dire shaped his opening. Listen in if you’ve ever had to prove an injury jurors can’t see.Learn More and Connect☑️ Tom Feher | LinkedIn☑️ Feher Law APC | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook☑️ Brendan Lupetin | LinkedIn☑️ Lupetin & Unatin, LLC☑️ Connect: Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube☑️ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeEpisode PreviewTrial work appealed to Tom early on because, like contact sports, it’s competitive, and it lets him give a voice to people without power.At Gerry Spence's Thunderhead Ranch, Tom embraced the idea that your attitude about a case shapes the energy you give off. Fear, he says, shuts down creative thinking and problem solving.The case centered on Vanessa Oliveira, a physician assistant who was sitting on a bench outside a San Francisco Marriott when a metal stud fell from a scaffold missing its netting and toe boards and struck her head.Although the emergency room saw no need for imaging, Vanessa's worsening headaches, dizziness, and nausea sent her to a neurologist about five weeks later.Vanessa's case first went to trial more than a year earlier. But midway through voir dire, the lawyer representing the general contractor and a subcontractor announced a conflict of interest and walked out, and the judge granted a mistrial.How do you respond when the defense neuropsychologist administers only the tests your client already did well on? Tom turned to what that exam left out: years of persistent, documented deficits.To bring the scene into the courtroom, Tom set up a big-screen display of the hotel scaffolding with a chair standing in for Vanessa's bench, and soon the defense was using it, too.Jurors' own brain injury stories from voir dire, like a person who seemed fine for a while and then got worse and worse, became the framework for Tom's opening statement.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.Produced and Powered by LawPods, a podcast marketing agency for law firms

A gunman ignored a convenience store’s cash register and went straight for a pencil case holding $14,000 — money used to pay winners of the store’s slot machine–like “skill games.” That detail helped Bob Zimmerman of Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky win a $15.3 million compensatory verdict for the family of store worker Ashokkumar Patel. Looking beyond the shooter, Bob traced the danger to the companies behind the games, which set the rules and profited from refills while workers handled the cash payouts. Joining host Brendan Lupetin, Bob explains why he framed the machines as “dangerous by design” and how that theme shaped the case. Tune in to hear the simple question a defense executive refused to answer at trial.Learn More and Connect☑️ Bob Zimmerman | LinkedIn☑️ Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | X | YouTube☑️ Brendan Lupetin | LinkedIn☑️ Lupetin & Unatin, LLC☑️ Connect: Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube☑️ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeEpisode PreviewAshokkumar Patel had worked at the Hazleton, Pennsylvania, gas station for about a week when the incident happened. Part of his job included monitoring an all-cash skill game betting operation.For the skill game’s payouts, the store held thousands in cash in a pencil case under the register. On the night of the incident, it held $14,000 — and a gambler who had lost thousands at the store walked in at closing.Bob explains that while casinos have cameras, armed security, and locked cashier cages, none of those physical protection measures exist in the "gray area" skill game world.With the legality of skill games still unsettled at the time of trial, jury selection centered on how jurors felt about gambling and whether it’s regulated enough. Their answers shaped which jurors Bob struck and how he themed the case in its late stages.Even with Ash’s family more than 5,000 miles away and no client in the courtroom, Bob found a way for the jury to feel their loss.In one of the most impactful moments of the trial, Bob showed a picture of the skill game called "Living Large" and asked whether it looked like a slot machine. According to Bob, the defendants’ corporate designee “killed his credibility” with his answers.Although the jury apportioned 20% of the verdict to the two trial defendants, Bob had it molded so they also bear the murderer's share, and the trial court agreed.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.Produced and Powered by LawPods, a podcast marketing agency for law firms

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.Learn More and Connect☑️ Max Petrunya | LinkedIn | Facebook☑️ Brendan Lupetin | LinkedIn☑️ Lupetin & Unatin, LLC☑️ Connect: Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube☑️ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeEpisode PreviewMax 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.Produced and Powered by LawPods

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.Learn More and Connect☑️ Brendan Lupetin | LinkedIn☑️ Lupetin & Unatin, LLC☑️ Connect: Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube☑️ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeEpisode PreviewThrowing 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.Produced and Powered by LawPods

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.Episode PreviewBrendan 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.Learn More and Connect☑️ Brendan Lupetin | LinkedIn☑️ Lupetin & Unatin, LLC☑️ Connect: Facebook | LinkedIn | YouTube☑️ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTubeReady 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.Produced and Powered by LawPods