Defending Against Nuclear Verdicts: Strategies to Counter Reptile Theory, Litigation Funding, and Juror Bias

Todd G. Lezon | Walsworth LLP

Todd Lezon is a partner at Walsworth who focuses his practice on transportation and general liability matters. He is an accomplished trial attorney with extensive experience handling all phases of civil litigation, including case strategy development, discovery planning, depositions, and client representation in arbitrations, mediations, and trial.

Todd represents commercial drivers, motor carriers, and freight forwarding brokers in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases in state and federal court. He has represented Fortune 500 companies in a wide variety of truck accident cases. Many of his motor carrier clients are foreign companies that conduct cross-border operations hauling freight between the United States and Mexico.

Todd also has vast experience representing property owners and professional management companies in habitability cases. Many of Todd’s litigated habitability matters have involved high exposure claims, including lawsuits brought by over three dozen plaintiffs. Todd has taken habitability cases to trial and obtained favorable results for his clients.

Todd takes an aggressive approach to litigation by conducting extensive discoveries early in the case. He believes that the best way to minimize his clients’ risk is to obtain as much information about any claim at the outset of the case so that it can be resolved early.

Todd strives to keep his clients fully informed throughout all phases of the litigation. To keep his clients appraised for risk assessment in every case, Todd’s updates to his clients include recently reported jury verdicts for similar cases. This approach to risk assessment has a proven track record of accurately predicting the range at which a case will be resolved. Before he went to law school, Todd deployed twice to Operation Iraqi Freedom as a soldier in the United States Army.

David C. Shay | Vaziri Law Group Personal Injury Attorneys

Dave Shay is an experienced trial lawyer with a proven record of confronting corporations and their lawyers. He obtained tens of millions of dollars in verdicts and settlements on behalf of injured Californians and grieving families.

Dave’s work has resulted in his selection as one of California’s Top 100 trial lawyers by the National Trial Lawyers. He has also been recognized by his peers on nine occasions as a Rising Star by Super Lawyers.

Just this year, Dave obtained a $1,697,073 verdict against a trucking company. The defendant in that case denied liability for years and refused to make any reasonable settlement offers until Dave proved their negligence at trial. The jury found the trucking company 100% liable and awarded more than ten times what the defendants had offered before trial.

In 2022 Dave obtained a $1,730,000 verdict against a major transportation company in a motorcycle crash. Again, the defendant in that case denied liability for years and blamed the crash on the injured plaintiff, until Dave proved their negligence in court. Ultimately, the jury found the defendants 100% responsible and awarded more than twenty times what the defendant offered before trial. This case was selected as one of the Top 50 Personal Injury Verdicts in California in 2022.

In 2019 Dave obtained a $997,324 verdict against another trucking company. That case was also selected as one of the Top 50 Personal Injury Verdicts in California.

In 2017 Dave co-tried a case which resulted in a $3,100,000 verdict against a major shopping mall company, which was the largest trip and fall verdict in the state that year.

In fact, half of the cases that Dave has tried to verdict have been recognized by Top Verdicts as being among the Top 100 in their category. Dave has also successfully argued before the California Court of Appeals.

Dave is a graduate of the University of Maryland – College Park where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Geography. He earned his Juris Doctor from The George Washington University Law School. After graduating law school, Dave moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles where he began working for one of California’s most prestigious litigation boutique law firms. Dave moved on to work for one of the largest product liability litigation firms in the country.

Dave was once a rising star of the defense bar, having honed his skills representing Fortune 500 companies. As a result, Dave can look at every case from both perspectives, keenly aware of the weaknesses in any corporation or insurance company’s case. In 2016, Dave joined the firm so that he could help normal Californians like you fight for their rights. Now he spends 100% of his time standing up for injured individuals against the large corporations whose irresponsible behavior harmed them.

Dave has been a lead trial attorney with the Vaziri Law Group since he joined the firm. During that time, Dave has earned a reputation as an innovative trial attorney and a powerful adversary to corporate wrongdoers. Dave is committed to presenting juries with all the facts, not just those convenient to large and powerful corporate defendants. He prides himself on leaving no stone unturned and no defense untested. Dave’s approach has led to the discovery of multiple “case winning” documents which corporate defendants had attempted to cover up. He is known for his tenacious “leave it all in the courtroom” approach, because even when you can’t outsmart your opponent, you can always outwork them.

Dave lives in Manhattan Beach, California. He enjoys playing soccer, beach volleyball and impersonating a chef.

I. Reptile Theory arguments | 1:00pm – 1:20pm

II. Third party litigation funding | 1:20pm – 1:40pm

III. Personal injury attorney advertising | 1:40pm – 2:00pm

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

IV. Corporate misconduct and abuse | 2:10pm – 2:20pm

V. Social and political factors | 2:20pm – 2:40pm

VI. The value of human life and experience | 2:40pm – 2:50pm

VII. Surprise verdict prevention through empathy | 2:50pm – 3:10pm