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CLE: Effective Use of Expert Witness Testimony

Expert witness testimony can be challenging even for the most experienced attorney, never mind if you have little to no litigation experience. Understanding the evidentiary foundations for admissibility as well as how hearsay rules impact expert testimony can be daunting. But mastering the evidentiary rules can help you present clear and persuasive expert testimony. Eliciting expert witness testimony skillfully takes practice and artistry, and this seminar will provide you with both. You will be asked to participate by framing carefully tailored questions and using effective cross-examination techniques.

Join attorney, professor, and author Paul J. Zwier in this two-hour seminar and learn the differences and distinctions between lay and expert witness testimony. You will learn the importance of asking questions like, “why are you here?” and “how did you prepare to conduct your review to be insure its reliability?” In addition to taking away countless tools and strategies on how to conduct an effective direct and cross-examination of an expert witness, you will learn broader litigation strategies including:

  • how to decide if you need an expert
  • how to prepare an expert for a deposition
  • how to strategize about when to cross-examine an expert witness, whether in deposition or at trial, considering evidentiary rules
  • and most importantly, techniques and tips on how to properly elicit an opinion from your expert witness that is reliable and relevant

On Demand CLE available at: https://www.vacle.org/product.aspx?zpid=7671

Faculty:

Prof. Paul J. Zwier, Emory School of Law / Atlanta, GA

Paul J. Zwier II is Of Counsel to Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC with offices in Atlanta and Washington, DC. Mr. Zwier is one of the nation’s most distinguished professors of advocacy and skills training. He joined the Emory Law School faculty in 2003, taking on several roles. As director of the Advocacy Skills Program, director of Emory’s Program for International Advocacy and Dispute Resolution, and a professor of law, Professor Zwier joined the Emory University Law School faculty from the University of Tennessee Law School. He also teaches evidence, torts, products liability, and an advanced international negotiation seminar. He previously served as professor of law and director of the Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution at the University of Tennessee.  Prior to that, he taught at the University of Richmond School of Law from 1981 to 1999.

Mr. Zwier has served as former director of Public Education for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA) and has taught and designed public and in-house skills programs in trial advocacy, appellate advocacy, advocacy in mediation, motion practice, negotiations, legal strategy, e-discovery, supervisory and leadership skills, and expert testimony at deposition and trial for more than 25 years. In 1998, Mr. Zwier received NITA’s Prentice Marshall Award.

Mr. Zwier’s clients benefit from his expert advice on trial strategy, jury analysis, and negotiation and mediation strategy. He consults on a wide variety of disputes and topics including litigation involving bad faith insurance, products liability law, federal civil procedure, evidence law, the False Claims Act, securities fraud, patent litigation, MDLs, and other complex litigation matters. He is also an expert and consultant in the area of international dispute resolution. He has provided consulting services with The Carter Center (TCC), including its work in Israel/Palestine, in Syria, and in Liberia. In 2007 he was part of a TCC delegation working on the conflict in Gaza. In Liberia, his consultations included working with a delegation from Emory’s Institute for Developing Nations (IDN). This led to consultation and collaboration with the TCC in its collaboration with the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Mr. Zwier has trained judges and lawyers for the international criminal courts. He has also led training for Lawyers Without Borders and NITA, for the governments of Liberia, Tanzania, and in Kenya. He has also taught advocacy skills to international lawyers and judges in Yekaterinburg, Russia; Mexico City, Mexico; Quito, Ecuador; Monrovia, Liberia; Nairobi, Kenya; Tbilisi, Georgia; Northern Ireland; Scotland; England; and led seminars in negotiation and dispute resolution for black South African lawyers as part of a State Department program in 1999.

Mr. Zwier is the author of numerous books and articles including:

Mr. Zwier received his JD from Pepperdine University in 1979, LLM from Temple University in 1981, and BA from Calvin College in 1976.

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Webinar: Litigating False Claims Act Cases

The False Act (FCA) is a statute allowing citizens to sue in the name of the government to recover monies owed because of fraud or “false claims.” FCA cases are filed under seal and not initially served on the Defendants; this gives government lawyers an opportunity to investigate the claims and determine whether to intervene and thus take responsibility for the action. In recent years there has been an expansive use of the statute and in many cases the government is leaving it to private counsel to pursue claims that are viable and substantial.

This seminar will address the following:

  • Investigating and preparing a case on the assumption it will be litigated
  • Pleadings issues that are germane to FCA cases
  • Addressing issues of materiality and presentment
  • Discovery and evidentiary concerns
  • The non-intervened government as a partner

To register or for more information visit https://www.nacle.com/CLE/Courses/Litigating-False-Claims-Act-Cases-1990

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Webinar: Non-state actors and global environmental governance in China

Understanding China’s stance on environmental governance is more pressing than ever.  Not only is China the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, it plays a crucial role in global supply chains and also faces ongoing water and biodiversity challenges.

Non-state actors such as profit-making organisations and business associations have grown in number and legitimacy in the last decade. Yet their role in Chinese governance has attracted little attention, according to the authors of Non-state actors in China and global environmental governance.

Hear from the book’s editors – prominent governance, law and international relations scholars – and senior figures from two of the book’s case studies at this upcoming webinar.

For more information visit: https://www.monash.edu/business/events/non-state-actors-and-global-environmental-governance-in-china

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GBB News: Mass. General pays $14.6 million to settle whistle-blower suit over concurrent surgeries

Boston Globe, February 18, 2022

Massachusetts General Hospital on Friday agreed to pay $14.6 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging it fraudulently billed government insurers for surgeries performed by trainees without proper oversight because supervising surgeons were working in another operating room.

The settlement marks the third time since 2019 that the renowned Harvard-affiliated teaching hospital agreed to pay millions of dollars to resolve a claim stemming from the controversial practice known as concurrent surgery, or double-booking, in which surgeons juggle two operations simultaneously. The three out-of-court settlements total $32.7 million.

The latest claim was brought by a former MGH anesthesiologist, Dr. Lisa Wollman, who alleged that at least five orthopedic surgeons regularly kept patients under anesthesia longer than medically necessary — sometimes more than an hour longer — because the doctors were working in two operating rooms. Wollman said she repeatedly witnessed and complained about the practice from 2010 to 2015, when she left MGH and filed a federal whistle-blower suit on behalf of the US and Massachusetts governments.

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Her lawyer, Reuben Guttman, of the Washington, D.C., law firm Guttman, Buschner & Brooks, said Wollman’s suit will help set “a new standard of care in informed consent for overlapping surgeries.”

She sued under the False Claims Act, a federal law passed during the Civil War that enables a private citizen to bring a case on behalf of the federal government for fraud. She will receive about 25 to 30 percent of the settlement, Guttman said, and the rest will go to the federal and state governments.

Read more here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/18/business/mass-general-pays-146-million-settle-suit-it-defrauded-governments-by-leaving-surgeries-unsupervised-trainees/

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Public-Private Litigation for Health

By Liza Vertinsky* & Reuben Guttman**

Public health litigation can be a powerful mechanism for addressing public health harms where alternative interventions have failed. It can draw public attention to corporate misconduct and create a public record of the actions taken and the harms done. In an ideal world, it could achieve compensation for past harms and incentivize deterrence of future misconduct. But the full public health potential of these lawsuits is rarely achieved, even when the suits are brought on behalf of federal, state, and local governments with the ostensible goal of protecting the health of the citizens. The increasing involvement of private attorneys in public litigation only adds to the challenges of using litigation to achieve public health goals.

While there are continuing debates over the desirability of litigation
partnerships between state attorneys general (AGs) and private counsel,
as a practical matter, the involvement of private law firms in public
litigation is unlikely to disappear any time soon. This Article fills a critical
gap in the literature on the privatization of public litigation by showing
why, despite their shortcomings, arrangements between state and private
lawyers have the potential to satisfy public health goals that might
otherwise remain out of reach. It provides a theory of legal research and
development to show why these arrangements are not only likely to persist
but are also most likely to occur in high-impact public health litigation.
This Article then examines how the incentives of both state AGs and
private law firms influence choices along the litigation pathway in ways
that may undermine the potential to achieve public health value. It
concludes by proposing a novel impact-based approach to public-private
litigation, providing a decision-making framework that AGs can adopt to
increase the role of public health objectives in the litigation process.

Download the full paper here. (PDF, 1 MB.)

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*© 2021 Liza Vertinsky. Associate Professor, Emory Law School.
** © 2021 Reuben Guttman. Founding member of Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC. This Article draws in part from Mr. Guttman’s decades of experience representing numerous whistleblowers under False Claims Acts in various states, working in partnership with state attorneys general.