Joseph H. Low, http://www.attorney4people.com, has a national reputation for his expertise in trial law. He has conducted trials all over the country in Federal, State and Military Courts. He focuses his attention in representing people who have been bullied by corporations and the government. Areas of his trial work have seen him with victories for his clients including personal injury, medical malpractice, business litigation, civil rights violations and criminal defense.

Joey framed the value of this case by showing the jury who his client was and how she showed up for others. The value wasn’t about her age or how much time she had left on earth, but instead about the life she had led up until the accident. As Joey said, “it was important for the jury to see everything that was there, not just what wasn’t there any longer.”

A legal immigrant to the US, Joey’s client learned English, got educated, became a nurse and earned American citizenship. She had a “special connection serving others who couldn’t serve themselves.” After the accident, she had anxiety, fear, and isolated herself from her family and community. The accident not only changed her, it also changed other’s experience with her.

After showing the jury who his client was before the accident, Joey addressed the absence of proof of the accident by telling an intriguing story and asking the jury to determine, “who’s earned the right to be believed?”

Transcript of Episode 59, with Joey Low, Part 2

Scott Glovsky:

Welcome to Trial Lawyer Talk. I’m Scott Glovsky and today we have a great case on Trial Lawyer Talk. Joey Low is going to join us again. He previously told us a fantastic story about a criminal case that he worked on. And today he’s going to share with us the story of a civil case. Joey really is an expert at looking at a case and finding the story and looking at ways to frame the case and frame the story that will get to the heart of the universal truths of the case. This story is very insightful for all of us. So let’s get started.

Joey, can you share with us another story of a case that had a profound impact on you?

Joey Low:

Sure. I mentioned it a little bit on the way up the stairs. I had dinner last night with a very well educated and accomplished neurologist who specializes in traumatic brain injury. He was the expert/treater on a case I tried a couple months ago. What he said to me last night was as he shook his head and had a inquisitive smile on his face, he says, “I don’t understand.” He goes, “How did you get that much money for that old woman?” And I asked him, I’m like, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Well, I’ve been telling some of my colleagues what the result was and they do some forensic work, some med legal work. And they’re saying, ‘That’s not real. That’s not possible.'” I go, “What are you talking about?” He says, “Well, I tell them, I say the woman was 76 years old. She had all kinds of difficulties such as diabetes and early onset for Alzheimer’s and back issues, et cetera. She could be dead any day now. She’s not going to be alive that much longer.” Why would they give her $11 million? None of them can understand it.

Then he proceeded to say something complimentary and I cut him off again. I said, “Look, I don’t think you understand.” And he just looked at me and I said, “If we merely look at her like a cell phone whose battery is about to expire, it’s on the 1% mark, what you’ll feel is that, well, that person can’t do anything for me. They’re almost out of energy. For me, when I look at that cell phone, what I see is all of the people that they put that energy into so they could recharge those other people, they could make their lives better. They could show them love. And that is entitled to be respected and that dignity that goes with that kind of commitment towards others is what the real value of that phone is. Not what the battery life is. And that’s what they paid for, what she stood for and what she had been worth up to this point. And that’s why.”

“Then I want to ask that you tell your friends that or your colleagues, so that next time they actually are willing to take some person’s money in order to come in and tell the jury why this person’s health has value, that they’ll see everything that’s there, not just what’s not there any longer.” And with that he shook his head and I won’t bore you with a few other nice things that he said. But he changed, he saw the same set of facts, if you will, the same football game. But he now saw, he got up out of his seat and walked around and saw it from a different seat in the stadium. Instant replay has shown us all depending on where you’re sitting in the stadium, seeing the same set of facts can make all the difference as to what kind of truth you get out of that.

Scott Glovsky:

Tell us the story of that case.

Joey Low:

The story of the case was, the reason again it comes to me, is because the lawyer didn’t really want to try it. They were offering, I don’t know, about $450,000, $500,000. And the reason why, it’s a he said, she said case, which means that she’s got her version as plaintiff and the defendant has his version, there’s no other witnesses. And it’s a red light green light case, which means that depending on the car, the light determines who’s at fault. Problem is, there’s no proof of what the color the light was other than he said, she said. That’s it. And when you combine that with the fact that now you’re asking a jury for a lot of money as a result of what happened to her, instantly they’re going to assume, well you must be lying because you want a lot of money.

Those were some serious problems. But even more than that was again the age factor. Look, clearly if you can even prove that it’s not her fault, I mean, what are the real damages going to be? Sure, okay. Maybe she had a brain injury, mild traumatic brain injury, and sure, broke some bones in her hand, but she’s retired. She just sits at home anyway, who cares? And that’s what I decided to make the story about again, was it’s not about a car wreck case and it’s not about a broken hand or a mild traumatic brain injury. That’s an event that happened. The real story was about a woman who had come to this country because the one that she lived in wouldn’t give her or her family a chance to be able to eat three meals a day. Forget driving a car, having nice clothes, having functions. They struggled to see on a good day if they could actually have two meals. They didn’t really have to struggle cleaning the house because it had a dirt floor and let’s be honest, what are you really going to do with that?

But their village was alive with a lot of gossip and stories about this place, this land where the floors were made of shiny marble and that people were fat because they’d just eaten their sixth meal a day. They eat every two and a half hours thinking to lose weight by doing that. That they have nice clothes and they go to parties where people dance and play live instruments that can be amplified with electricity so that then you could feel them. I mean these were completely foreign concepts. She was able to come to this land legally, where she worked to get her citizenship. Where she didn’t speak the language, but she went to school at night to educate herself in English and then she went to school during the day to educate herself to be a nurse and she worked.

Then when she graduated she became a nurse and it was her decision early on that she just felt a special connection with serving others who couldn’t serve themselves. To be the kind of person where she would wash their feet, literally their feet at church, even though she had so much seniority and had done so much Bible teaching, if you will, at this point, that she’s the last person they’re having wash their feet. But it’s something she liked to do.

She cared for the sickest people that the hospitals had to offer and then there was a position that came open in the kitchen, which she really liked and she then would cook all the food for everybody in the hospital. Then also when she retired from that, wasn’t willing to stop working, decided to stay on as the janitor. Where again, she cleaned up all the garbage and cleaned up all the materials late at night after folks. And in service again with people, her sister, who she dearly loved, unfortunately lost her life to cancer and lost the struggle with breast cancer. Her sister had left behind a 13-year-old girl whose daddy wasn’t interested. So she took her in her house not thinking a thing of it.

What else would you do? She loves the girl and cared for her and took care of her, raised her up, gave her a great life. Go to all her cheerleading events, just showed up for her on everything. But was still a really good leader, mentor. Didn’t spoil her, never had to discipline her, but was very direct with what is a good way to look at something and maybe something requires some more thought. As the niece would testify, “My aunt was very good to me in a very direct way. I oftentimes wanted to do some of the things that young girls want to do and she’d never tell me no. She just helped me articulate the consequences that could come from bad decisions and then leave it to me to decide which. At that point, there’s really no decision but she had a different way. Very loving woman.”

We then talked about how now that she’d finally retired and saved all this money and had her house, what she was going to do, and her best friend told the jury about how she wanted to go back to where she was from and travel. She wanted to go to a few other countries where she learned through her studies, historical points that she thought were interesting and that she