As any good trial lawyer knows, the success of your case is greatly affected by your team, including co-counsel, local counsel, paralegals, jury consultants and expert witnesses, among others. I have had the pleasure of working with Ricardo Garza, one of the best engineering expert witnesses you’ll find anywhere, most recently during a 3½ -week trial in the West Texas town of Pecos. Our team represented Mesa Petroleum Partners LP in the hotly contested case involving oil and gas investments. That trial ended with a unanimous $146 million jury verdict on behalf of our client, and Rick’s expertise contributed to that impressive win.
A petroleum engineer for more than 40 years, Rick has been an expert in hundreds of lawsuits and has participated in more than 50 trials. I sat down with Rick to get his insights about trying a case when the subject matter is, to put it lightly, complex. The answer, it turns out, is equal parts expertise and arts & crafts.
One of the most important things is to be a good poker player so that you don’t overreact to what happens in the courtroom. Also, be respectful but don’t be a pushover. I’ve seen lawyers get very abusive, especially with expert witnesses, and juries definitely don’t like that. They don’t like abusive attorneys, but they also usually don’t have a very good opinion of any expert witness who comes across as a pushover.
But the most important thing is that the lead attorney needs to realize that he or she is the leader of a team, particularly once they make it to trial. You have a whole team of people – paralegals, appellate lawyers, local counsel, and others – and they’re going to be together for weeks, so it’s important that they work together as a team.
The best lawyers will schedule a team meeting at the start and end of each trial day to make sure everybody has their assignment. If the lawyer doesn’t do that, things start to fall apart after a few days, things get missed, and it’s difficult to get all the work done. It’s a separate function from being a lawyer and it doesn’t come up during the trial prep. I’ve been in trials where the lead attorney was an excellent trial lawyer but a poor leader who failed to get the team together and keep it together to get the job done. The lead lawyer, as the team leader, should be like the captain of the ship making sure the boat is always proceeding in the right direction and gets to where it needs to be at the end of the voyage.
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