Maximizing Damages in Admitted Liability Cases

David Ball, Ph.D. Related Seminars and Products

Trial Consultant

Malekpour and Ball Litigation Strategy

David Ball (Malekpour Ball Consulting) is the nation's most influential trial consultant. With partner Artemis Malekpour, he guides plaintiff's civil cases and criminal defense cases across the country. They are the nation's only trial consultants qualified to help attorneys with Reptilian methods and strategy, as well as with Ball's David Ball on Damages techniques and a wide range of other essential approaches. They have an unparalleled record in helping attorneys with every size and kind of case.

Dr. Ball is also a pioneer in adapting methods of film and theater for use in trial. His theater/film students hold Oscars, Obies, Tonys, and Emmys. His Theater Tips and Strategies for Jury Trials has been a bestseller for nearly two decades, and his Backwards and Forwards has been a foundation of theater and film training since 1984.

Dr. Ball wrote two of the bestselling trial strategy books ever published: David Ball on Damages and—with Reptile cofounder Don Keenan—Reptile: The 2009 Manual of the Plaintiff's Revolution.

Dr. Ball is an award-winning teacher for the North Carolina Advocates for Justice and the American Association for Justice's National College of Advocacy. He has also taught law students at North Carolina, Wake Forest, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, and Campbell law schools, and at Duke Law as a senior lecturer. He has long been the nation's most in-demand continuing legal education speaker.

Ms. Artemis Malekpour, J.D., M.H.A. Related Seminars and Products

Trial Consultant

Malekpour and Ball Litigation Strategy

Debbie Chang Esq., J.D. Related Seminars and Products

Athea Lawyers

Deborah Chang is the founder of Athena, a trial lawyer, and Of Counsel with Panish Shea & Boyle LLP in Los Angeles. She focuses her practice representing plaintiffs in complex catastrophic injury/wrongful death cases and has achieved some of the highest verdicts and settlements in the country.

Deborah has been an integral part of the trial teams in significant and important trials, including the Michael Jackson wrongful death case, the first ASR model hip implant trial tried in the country, and a nightclub liability case resulting in a $160,500,000 verdict that led to necessary changes to the security guard industry. Many of her cases of first impression led to vast improvements in standards and protocols that enhanced safety for the public, including the following:

•    A record $17 million verdict in wrongful death of adult child that ensured that visually impaired patrons using trains would be protected from falling in the gap between cars–thereby setting the stage for changes throughout the industry nationwide (Cuthbertson v. LACMTA).
•    After a nearly ten-year battle in the trial court, Court of Appeal and California Supreme Court, Deborah prevailed in a landmark case that established that colleges and universities in California have a duty to protect students from known dangers in the classroom (Rosen v. The Regents of the University of California).
•    Bringing the first class action in the country on behalf of prisoners with AIDS in a maximum security prison, which led to a landmark settlement that established medical, programming, and housing protocols nationwide and was cited with approval by the 1991 Report to the President and Senate by the National Commission on AIDS. She thereafter drafted enacted Connecticut legislation that permitted the release of terminally ill prisoners, and established the first medical scholarship for individuals pursuing a nursing degree to work with patients with AIDS.
•    In 1996, she brought the first lawsuit in the country based on the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. section 13891 (VAWA) and successfully argued for the uphold¬ing of the constitutionality of the statute in the first federal court to consider the issue. After reaching a settlement in the case, she lectured extensively on the issue of gender-motivated violence, and was a guest commentator on several national television shows regarding the statute, both before and after the United States Supreme Court eventually ruled that the civil remedy portion of the statute was unconstitutional.

Prior to her practice at Panish Shea & Boyle LLP, Deborah represented both plaintiffs and de­fendants throughout the country in products liability, commercial litigation, professional liability securities fraud, and complex torts cases. She previously served as local, regional, and national counsel for a variety of companies, insurers, and manufacturers, including AIG Excess and Ford Motor Company. Understanding how defendants and insurers analyze and prepare cases has been invaluable to Deborah, and helped her achieve record settlements and verdicts.
As part of her trial practice, Deborah has been extensively involved in jury research and focus groups. In 2000, she helped conceptualize and launch one of the first companies to provide online focus groups from a unique database of nearly 3.5 million Internet users. The service is used by trial attorneys and insurers in prominent cases pending throughout the country, and was recognized by The National Law Journal as a helpful tool for assessing the strength and value of cases. For over a year, she served as its CEO and General Counsel.

Brian Panish Esq., J.D. Related Seminars and Products

Trial Lawyer

Panish Shea & Boyle LLP

One of the country’s leading trial attorneys, Los Angeles personal injury lawyer Brian Panish has obtained some of the most significant jury verdicts in United States history on behalf of plaintiffs. His courtroom victories include a $4.9 billion record verdict in the landmark products liability case Anderson v. General Motors, over 100 verdicts and settlements in excess of $10 million, six verdicts in excess of $50 million, and more than 250 verdicts and settlements over one million dollars in personal injury, car accident, wrongful death and business litigation cases.

Mr. Panish consistently serves in a leading role in the largest personal injury cases in California and the country — he currently serves as Plaintiffs Co-Lead Counsel in the Woolsey Fire litigation,  Plaintiffs Co-Lead Counsel in the Southern California Fire Cases litigation arising from the 2017 Thomas Fire and subsequent debris flows in Montecito, California and serves on the Plaintiffs Executive Committee for the 2017 North Bay Fires in Northern California. Additionally, Mr. Panish has been appointed as Co-Lead Trial Counsel in the Porter Ranch/Aliso Canyon Gas Well Blowout Litigation and has served in leadership roles in the Asiana Airlines Crash Litigation, the Olympus Superbug CRE Litigation and DePuy ASR Hip Implant Litigation, among others.

Since 2011, Mr. Panish has obtained more than $500 million in verdicts including, among others, a landmark $53,745,374 verdict for two Southern California brothers who were severely injured following a head-on collision with CRST big rig, a $41,864,102 jury verdict and subsequent $46,000,000 settlement for a United States Air Force Captain who suffered catastrophic injuries after being struck from behind while on his motorcycle and then dragged the length of a football field and a half by a Southern California Gas Company truck, a $36.5 million jury verdict against Schneider National for a big-rig crash that left a woman with severe spinal cord injuries, a $34.5 million verdict for a man who suffered a below the knee amputation after being hit by a tractor trailer, a $21,503,420.48 jury verdict for a Southern California man who suffered catastrophic injuries after a vehicle illegally exiting the 405 Freeway HOV lane struck his motorcycle and sent him careening across three lanes of traffic and into a passing flatbed trailer, a $17.4 million verdict for a Ph.D. student who suffered brain and jaw injuries during a rear end chain collision accident, a $17 million jury verdict against the Los Angeles MTA in the wrongful death of a visually impaired passenger, a $17.845 million award in a wrongful death case involving four family members killed when a Marine jet crashed into their home, a $20 million jury verdict for a woman who suffered a brain injury in a hit-and-run accident involving a J.B. Hunt tractor trailer, a $17 million jury verdict for a 84-year old man hit by a bus resulting in a leg amputation, a $15.3 million jury verdict for a woman and her daughter after the woman was severely injured on a negligently driven Alameda Contra-Costa Transit District bus, a $10.45 million jury verdict for the family of a security guard killed on the CBS studio lot and a $8.3 million jury verdict in the first DePuy ASR Hip Implant case to go to trial.

Because of his expertise in personal injury, wrongful death, mass tort and product liability cases, Mr. Panish has been appointed to serve on the Plaintiffs’ Steering and Executive committees in numerous high profile mass torts and major disaster cases, including litigation involving train crashes (co-lead counsel in the the Chatsworth Metrolink disaster, the Glendale Metrolink crash, and the Placentia Metrolink collision), airplane disasters (Alaska Airlines Flight 261 and Singapore Airlines Flight 006 crashes), pharmaceuticals (Vioxx and diet drugs), and defective product cases (Welding Rods, DePuy ASR Hip Implant Litigation, and Toyota Unintended Acceleration cases.)  He is currently handling numerous cases involving the Asiana Flight 261 plane crash as well as serving as Plaintiffs Co-lead Trial Counsel, representing over 7,000 clients in the Porter Ranch Gas Leak litigation.