We are pleased to announce our keynote speaker is Ohio Supreme Court Justice Melody Stewart, the first African-American woman elected to the Ohio Supreme Court and one of two Democrats on the court.  Justice Stewart will also be swearing in the officers and board of directors.

We will be welcoming our new Treasurer to the Executive Team, Meghan P. Connolly, thanking our outgoing President Chris Patno, giving out the annual awards, and enjoying catching up with our fellow members.

Join us for the 2019 CATA Litigation Institute, Persuasively Presenting Damages at Trial, on April 12, 2019 from 12:30 – 4:00 at the Cleveland Ritz, with cocktails following.

You’ll earn 3 hours of CLE and hear from 3 masters of damages at trial:

Susan Petersen

Multi-million dollar settlements do not come unless the other side is afraid of trial, and they have good reason to be with Susan’s approach to digging into a case and getting results.  Damages are one area Susan excels with, as evidenced by the results she gets at trial. She has recovered more than $35 million for clients in the last three years alone. She has been a long-time CATA board member, was inducted into the International Society of Barristers, and has been selected as one of “Ohio’s Top 100 Trial Lawyers” by the National Association of Trial Lawyers every year since 2011.

Michael Jay Leizerman

Michael Jay Leizerman, author of “The Zen Lawyer: Winning with Mindfulness,” is a trial lawyer who has mastered the art of inspiring jurors in even the most conservative counties to return significant verdicts.  Michael has received record-breaking truck accident settlements and verdicts across the country: a $34 million Ohio settlement in 2014, a record $16 million Ohio wrongful death consortium-only verdict in 2013, and a $13.2 million Arizona wrongful death consortium-only verdict in 2012.

Gina Crawford, PH.D., J.D.

Gina M. Crawford is a practicing attorney and a licensed psychologist. Gina focuses her practice on litigation and trial consulting. She is particularly skilled in organizing the litigation timeline, developing trial themes and strategies, collaborating with demonstrative evidence teams, and preparing cases for mediations, arbitrations, and trials. Gina assists trial teams with jury selection, voir-dire, and courtroom observation. She also prepares witnesses to testify for grand jury investigations, depositions, and trials. She has testified as an expert witness and she understands how to teach effective courtroom presentation and communication.

Schedule:

Thank you to our Sponsor, SGS Planning!

Thank you to our sponsor for the Litigation Institute, including the after-party / cocktail reception, SGS Planning!

CEO Tom Stockett and Settlement Specialist Rimon Bebawi will be on hand to discuss how they can help structure settlements and attorney fees, and work with you and your firm to plan for your continued success.  Be sure to schedule a meeting with them or grab materials at the reception if you’re not already working with them.  Check out their information here.

Sign up now! #

Nicole helps lawyers build their brands and grow their businesses using videos and podcasting at Abboud Media. She’s been a featured speaker at Clio and Lawyernomics, and featured in publications like the ABA Journal and Daily Journal.

Early registrants will be invited to sign up for s special video marketing and branding strategy session during which you will work to create an overall marketing strategy for your firm with videos at the center. You will walk away with an understanding of what videos you should create, what topics to create videos around, and how those videos play into your current overall marketing strategy.

During this hands-on strategy session, Nicole will work with you to uncover the following:

• What your specific video goals are (aka what’s your brand about?)
• What subject matter/topics you should cover in your videos
• Structure/format of each individual video
• Where to post your videos once they’re ready
• What platforms you should use to best promote your videos to get the most mileage out of them
• Content calendar creation covering the next 3 or 6 months

Sign up now!

Schedule Details:

• Where: Hilton Downtown Cleveland
• When: Wednesday, March 14, 2018 from 12:15-1:35 (12:15-12:20 registration; 12:20-12:30 introductory remarks; 12:30-1:30 presentation; 1:30-1:35 wrap-up)
• Why: Marketing and Video 101!
• Who: You!

Laura Volpini will be sharing her Top 10 Financial Management Strategies for Your Contingency Law Practice at the February 7, 2018 CATA Luncheon CLE

Laura Volpini–an attorney and businessperson who spent 16 years in private practice before following her passion into business development and management–will be sharing her top 10 financial management tips for lawyers like us during our February Luncheon CLE.  Sign up now using the form below.

After Laura spent 16 years in private practice, she followed her passion into business development and management.  In 2006, Laura switched her focus to law practice management and began to build and manage a successful, boutique law practice in Cleveland, Ohio. In this role, Laura experienced first-hand the endless issues facing solo practitioners and small firms.  Realizing the demand for cost-effective solutions to practice management problems, Laura started a company to provide the “back office for your law firm,” JurisINK.

Sign Up Now

Schedule Details:

• Where: Hilton Downtown Cleveland, room Center Street Room
• When: Wednesday, February 7, 2018 from 12:15-1:35 (12:15-12:20 registration; 12:20-12:30 introductory remarks; 12:30-1:30 presentation; 1:30-1:35 wrap-up)
• Why: Improve your firm management and financial picture
• Who: You!

Lisa Crilley Mallis of Impactive Strategies will be sharing productivity hacks for lawyers at CATA’s January 10, 2018 Luncheon CLE.

Sign up below right now to make sure you don’t miss productivity guru Lisa Crilley Mallis presenting on Six Strategies to Work Less and Achieve More — For Lawyers — January 10, 2018, at the Cleveland Hilton Downtown.

You want to achieve more with less effort and without giving up your nights and weekends. You know you aren’t maximizing your efforts each day. In fact, you’d love to eliminate the guilt of not having enough time, rushing to get things done, and spending time with family when you feel you need to be working.

Participants will:

• Learn a new definition of productivity and understand why it matters.
• Understand how to increase focus without using “discipline.”
• Master Lisa’s No. 1 procrastination busting technique.

Sign Up Now

Schedule Details:

• Where: Hilton Downtown Cleveland, room Center Street A
• When: Wednesday, January 10, 2018 from 12:15-1:35 (12:15-12:20 registration; 12:20-12:30 introductory remarks; 12:30-1:30 presentation; 1:30-1:35 wrap-up)
• Why: Be more productive!
• Who: You!

Know you’ll want to come to the February luncheon, too?  You can register for that one here.

I’m pleased to announce our December 13 CATA Luncheon CLE presenter, Wayne Pollock, who will be presenting “Engaging the Court of Public Opinion,” an ethics CLE focused on how you can responsibly engage with public media in your cases.

Details:

• Where: Hilton Downtown Cleveland, room Center Street A
• When: Wednesday, December 13 from 12:15-1:35 (12:15-12:20 registration; 12:20-12:30 introductory remarks; 12:30-1:30 presentation; 1:30-1:35 wrap-up)
• Why: Learn to use public media responsibly to increase case value and outcomes (requesting 1.0 ethics CLE credit)
• Who: You!

Register now using the form at the bottom of the page, or read on for more event details!

Presentation

With the proliferation of online and social media, in 2017 attorneys represent their clients in a court of law AND the Court of Public Opinion. Engaging the Court of Public Opinion not only helps attorneys to favorably resolve their clients’ cases—it is required if an attorney wants to protect a client’s reputational and business interests in connection with a legal dispute.

When advocating in the Court of Public Opinion, attorneys must comply with Ohio Rule of Professional Conduct 3.6 (Trial Publicity). In this presentation, we will cover Rule 3.6’s restrictions, the U.S. Supreme Court’s take on those restrictions, Ohio case law and ethics opinions regarding the rule, and examples from across the United States where attorneys’ out-of-court statements were challenged as violating Rule 3.6.

About Wayne Pollock

Wayne Pollock founded Copo Strategies after spending over a decade achieving favorable public relations and legal results for his clients. Prior to starting Copo, Wayne was a litigation attorney at Dechert LLP, an Am Law 50 law firm with with more than 900 attorneys worldwide, and more than $900 million in annual revenues.

In his more than six years at the firm, he worked on high-stakes, high-profile matters that were often reported on by local, national, and international media outlets, including representing Takata (maker of recalled airbags), the ten former independent directors of Lehman Brothers, and the Marshall family (against litigation brought by Vickie Lynn Marshall a.k.a. Anna Nicole Smith).

Prior to Dechert and law school at Georgetown, Wayne practiced public relations for four years at a national marketing communications firm where he worked with media outlets on a daily basis.

About Copo Strategies

Copo Strategies is a limited scope, boutique law firm with a niche practice: helping other attorneys and clients make those clients’ cases in the Court of Public Opinion. Working as consultants to other lawyers and their firms, or as limited scope co-counsel to clients, the firm provides legal strategy and services in the form of communications strategy and services. The firm’s advocacy supports the favorable resolution of clients’ legal disputes while also helping to minimize the reputational harm to clients caused by those disputes.

Register for the December 13 CATA Luncheon CLE

Thanks for your patience.  I think the Jury Improvement Project is going to be worth the effort.  You can read more about the Civil Jury project here: http://civiljuryproject.law.nyu.edu/

You should show up, instead, to the CATA Social with the Case Law School on Thursday, November 16, from 5:30-7:30 PM at ABC Uptown located at 11434 Uptown Ave, Cleveland (University Circle/Uptown). RSVP to Ellen at ehirshman@loucaslaw.com!

Details:

• Where: Hilton Downtown Cleveland, Hope Ballroom E
• When: Wednesday, October 11 from 12:15-1:35 (12:15-12:20 registration; 12:20-12:30 introductory remarks; 12:30-1:30 panel discussion; 1:30-1:35 wrap-up)
• Why: Better case valuation
• Who: You

Our lineup includes:

1. Westfield Insurance’s Complex Claims Specialist covering the state of Ohio, Wanda Huberman, who also spent about 8 years working on the plaintiff’s side in the past.
2. Medical malpractice defense lawyer named Best Lawyer’s 2018 Defense Medical Malpractice Lawyer of the Year, Greg Rossi, partner at Hanna Campbell & Powell.
3. Collins, Roche, Utley & Garner (CRUG) law firm managing partner focusing on personal injury and trucking defense, Patrick M. Roche

Register now below!

Kwame Christian will be presenting at the September 13, 2017 CATA Luncheon CLE Series on negotiation tools for plaintiff injury lawyers.

I’m pleased to welcome Kwame Christian to our first CLE Luncheon of this season.  Kwame, a master negotiator, will teach us how to maximize case value by using powerful persuasion techniques.  Drawing on the latest research in negotiation, Kwame has consulted with lawyers and businesses to close large deals, including settlement negotiations and mediations.

The luncheon starts at 12:15 pm on September 13, 2017, at the Cleveland Hilton Downtown, 3rd floor (Room Hope C).

If you’d like a sneak-peek at some of Kwame’s powerful persuasion techniques, check out his podcast Negotiate Anything, in which he interviews successful entrepreneurs, lawyers, and experts on best (and worst) negotiation techniques. With over 110,000 downloads and listeners in 140 countries, it is the top ranked negotiation and dispute resolution podcast in the nation.

Complete this form to RSVP now to register.  You MUST RSVP to attend!

As an attorney who regularly uses focus groups, I found Ken’s presentation to be enlightening. Ken obviously knows how to manage a group–including ours!–in a way that opens them up to providing candid feedback.  He gave away valuable tips from his own experience, as well as examples of how they have gone form focus-group gold to trial wins.

Recognized by Super Lawyers as one of the top 100 lawyers in Illinois, Ken is a graduate of Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyers College, and a member of the Trial Lawyers College Alumni Board and The American Trial Lawyers Association. He is the author of the latest edition of Litigating Major Automobile Injury and Death Cases, published by AAJ Press/Thomson Reuters, and has been invited to speak by the American Association for Justice and multiple state bar and trial lawyer associations. In addition to representing clients, Ken is often retained to create focus groups and assist lawyers in the presentation of their case.

Thanks to CATA Secretary Cathy Bolek for putting the presentation together for our members.

Please take a moment to give Ken some feedback, or even ask questions.  I’ll let him know we’re using this post for that purpose so he can respond.

Thanks!