67 – Brendan Lupetin – Masked Justice: Part 1

What this episode covers

In this Trial Lawyer Nation podcast, Michael sits down with trial attorney Brendan Lupetin out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Brendan, a self-proclaimed “trial nerd,” is one of just a handful of attorneys who has tried a case in the era of COVID-19, receiving a $10.8 million dollar jury verdict on his medical negligence case. They’ll discuss Brendan’s background, the details of the case, how he prepared, what it was like trying a case during a pandemic, and his advice for lawyers and courts across the country to start having jury trials again. https://triallawyernation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Back-of-Court.jpg () The episode begins with an overview of Brendan’s background and how he became the successful trial lawyer he is today. He explains how he began by trying about 10 bad cases where he lost “in brutal fashion,” and finally found his first victory with a $500 rear-end car case verdict. Since then, he’s focused on reading everything and anything he can on trials. Now, he’s tried 40 cases to jury verdict and has found great success in the last 10. As a self-proclaimed “trial nerd,” Brendan spends most of his free time reading and studying the work of other great trial lawyers and legal scholars, citing Rick Friedman, https://triallawyernation.com/episode/29-keith-mitnik/ (Keith Mitnik), https://triallawyernation.com/episode/36-david-ball/ (David Ball), https://triallawyernation.com/episode/09-artemis-malekpour-all-inclusive-trial-strategy/ (Artemis Malekpour), https://triallawyernation.com/episode/18-jude-basile/ (Jude Basille), and many others. He and Michael discuss the difficulties of implementing all the trial theories and strategies available today, but Brendan explains how his approach is to blend them all together to find what works best for him. A sentiment echoed by Michael and certainly a recurring theme on the show. Michael then asks Brendan about the details of the medical malpractice case he recently tried. While the difficulties of trying a case during a pandemic are apparent, Brendan insists his job was made easier by the fact that this was truly a great case. Brendan’s client, a 41-year old father and project manager, went to the hospital for an MRI. He had an allergic reaction to the contrasting chemical they injected him with. While the hospital had policies in place to protect patients in the event of an allergic reaction, none of those policies were followed and Brendan’s client was unfortunately left with a severe brain injury. Michael then notes that Brendan ended up with such a simple theory, which Brendan explains was a long road to get to. They originally had 3 defendants, but after numerous focus groups and hiring https://triallawyernation.com/episode/62-john-campbell/ (John Campbell) of Empirical Jury to run a study after Brendan “serendipitously” listened to his podcast episode 3 ½ weeks before the trial, they decided to drop one of the defendants because he complicated the story. Michael agrees that this was a smart move, quoting Rodney Jew by saying, “If you chase two rabbits, you won’t catch either one.” https://triallawyernation.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Front-of-Courtroom.jpg () Brendan also kept in mind https://triallawyernation.com/episode/64-mark-mandell/ (Mark Mandell)’s case framing theory throughout the trial and describes how he was tempted to dispute the defense’s timeline of events because he found they were about a minute and a half off. But after employing the case framing theory, he and his partner decided to leave that out because it drew away from the main focus of the case – ...