Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Trial Advocacy

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New York Personal Injury Peter SagirOur Partner, New York Personal Injury Attorney Peter J. Saghir, recently served as a faculty member of the Northeast Building Trial Skills program for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy at Hofstra University August 7 – 12.

Each year practicing attorneys participate in the program to develop and hone their trial skills. Peter was asked to critique and provide insight to the attorneys participating in the program.

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Our Partner, New York Personal Injury Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz, was asked to lecture and share his experience with Supreme Court Judges at the New York State Judicial Institute. Each year the Judicial Institute provides seminars for sitting Supreme Court Judges. This year Ben was asked to provide insight on Medical Malpractice cases and recent updates on central issues in the field. Joining Ben as a featured expert are the Hon. George Silver, Elizabeth Cornacchio , Charles Bach and Jeff Korek.

NYC Personal Injury Attorney Ben Rubinowitz at recent presentation

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Personal Injury Attorney Ben RubinowitzOur managing partner, New York Personal Injury Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz, will be a faculty member at  the”Winning Cases in Federal Court” Program that will take place on two consecutive Thursday evenings, July 12 and 19, at NYCLA’s offices in New York.

During this seminar, participants will learn what they need to know to practice in federal court. The program is co-chaired by Joel M. Silverstein and by Hon. Sydney Stein.

On the first evening which covers Trial related subjects, Judge Stein will provide a “view from the bench” after each topic presentation.

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New York Personal Injury Attorney Christopher DonadioOur NY personal injury attorney Christopher J. Donadio has been invited to lecture at a joint American Board of Trial Advocates and Defense Association of New York continuing legal education event titled “Frye Hearings and the Effective Use of Biomechanical Experts” which will be held on Wednesday, May 30, 2018 at 5:30pm at Battery Gardens at 1 Battery Park, New York, New York. Mr. Donadio has been asked to provide a plaintiff’s attorneys perspective to the current trends in Frye hearings involving biomechanical experts.

A Frye hearing involves a hearing in front of a judge, where the judge is asked to determine whether an expert witness is permitted to testimony. The “Frye hearing” was established by the Federal District of Columbia Circuit court in Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923). “[T]he Frye test asks ‘whether the accepted techniques, when properly performed, generate results accepted as reliable within the scientific community generally.” Parker v. Mobil Oil Corp., 7 N.Y.3d 434, 446, 857 N.E.2d 1114 (2006), citing People v. Wesley, 83 N.Y.2d 417, 422, 633 N.E.2d 451 (1994).

Biomechanical experts are experts that are typically hired by defendants in motor vehicle collision cases who claim that an injured party could not have been injured by the collision due to the physics involved in the crash. Although biomechanical science has been generally recognized by the courts of New York as a science that generates results that are accepted as reliable within the scientific community, it does not mean that each and every biomechanical expert is offering testimony that is based on methods that truly are accepted.

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NYC personal injury lawyer Ben RubinowitzJeff KorekNew York Personal Injury Attorneys Ben Rubinowitz (our managing partner),  and Jeff Korek from Gersowitz, Libo and Korek will be co chairing the 2018 edition of the “25 Trial Issues That Keep You Up In The Middle Of The Night” Seminar. Organized by the New York State Trial Lawyers Institute for the third consecutive year, this program  is an informal panel discussion encouraging audience participation for attorneys trying cases faced with  the many challenges capable of keeping them up through the night.

Over two evenings, June 5 and June 12 2018 from 6:00 PM  to 9:00 PM, the Honorable George Silver and an elite panel of trial attorneys including Elizabeth Cornacchio, David Dean, Judith Livingston, Richard Maltz, Daniel O’Tool, Deborah Scalise and Evan Torgan will discuss an array of perplexing issues that attorneys face during trial that require fast, strategic thinking.

Some of the subjects discussed will include

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Personal Injury Attorney Ben RubinowitzOur managing partner, New York Personal Injury Lawyer Ben Rubinowitz, will be a member of the Faculty at the CLE Live Event “Case Framing, The Science and Art of Advocacy” that will take place May 4th and 5th at the Omni Parker House in Boston, MA.

Building a case a jury can believe in is fundamental to obtaining a favorable verdict. Renowned Rhode Island trial attorney Mark Mandell designed and built the Case Framing Model to do precisely that. This model is based on the idea that “just verdicts result when everything presented at trial is framed and sequenced to focus juror attention on the points you most want to make.” The key, then, is to focus the jury’s attention on what really matters.

Mark has created a two-day seminar to teach the fundamentals of Case Framing. The program begins with an introduction to Case Framing, then delves into the latest developments in decision science and psychology, and ultimately finishes with practical guidance on how to apply the model to your cases.

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New York Car Accident Attorney Marijo AdimeyOur partner, NYC auto accident attorney Marijo Adimey is a Program Faculty Member for “Keeping Current with New York Automobile Litigation “, a yearly seminar organised by the New York State Bar Association. She will be speaking Today at the Long Island Melvin Marriott and on March 1st at the CFA Society in Manhattan. During her presentation Marijo will demonstrate how to take a meaningful deposition in an automobile accident case. Other subjects covered in the seminar include:

  • Update and refresher on no-fault litigation coverage,
  • New York’s no-fault threshold laws,
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New York Medical Malpractice Lawyer Ben RubinowitzOur partner, Ben Rubinowitz, a nationally regarded plaintiff’s lawyer, recently lectured at the Winter Urologic Forum sponsored by Columbia University, Vanderbilt University, and University of California Davis.

One of the main topics in his talk focused on the issue of Concurrent Surgeries, or what is commonly referred to as Simultaneous Surgeries.  Although many teaching hospitals throughout the country participate in this practice, Rubinowitz made clear that it is not in the best interests of the patient to have the doctor leave the operating room while treating one patient to attend to another.

Although the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recently suggested that Concurrent Surgeries were safe for patients, Rubinowitz challenged that study.

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New York Personal Injury Lawyer Ben RubinowitzOur managing partner, New York Personal Injury Attorney Ben Rubinowitz is the director of a new program developed by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy. NTA Drills is a rapid-fire three-day program that focuses on direct and cross-examination of witnesses, including impeachment and expert witness variations, as well as methods for delivering killer openings and summations. It is designed for both new and experienced trial lawyers who want to improve and refine their skills.

The program will take place from December 11th to December 13th 2017 at the NITA Education Center in Boulder Colorado. Attendees will receive 23 CLE credits for their participation in this program.

The “learning by doing” method used during NITA programs ensures that every participant will learn and master amazing new skills such as how to use memory muscle to formulate great questions on the spot or how to think quickly and effectively inside the Courtroom.

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New York Personal Injury Attorneys Rubinowitz and TorganIn their Trial Advocacy Column in the New York Law Journal, NYC Personal Injury Attorneys Ben Rubinowitz and Evan Torgan write: “From a procedural point of view, the real goal of jury selection for the trial attorney is to preserve peremptory challenges. In civil cases in New York each side is allowed only three peremptory challenges; however, each side is allowed an unlimited number of challenges for “cause.”  This article was written in light of the recent political commentary on immigrant status. It is essential that the trial lawyer confront these issues directly or risk an adverse verdict. Unfortunately, certain political speeches have had the effect of improperly targeting immigrants. This article was written to assist Trial Lawyers to overcome such bias and bigotry.

Read the complete column in the “New York Law Journal”