Pre-Trial Strategies for Success: What Every Trial Attorney Should Know

Over the course of 25 years of practice, Lee Hollis has learned how to be trial tough and solution savvy. Clients come to Lee because he is a problem-solver. Some of those problems can be solved through negotiation; others require motions, trials and appeals. Lee works with clients to determine their goals for each matter and develops a strategy to achieve them in the most efficient manner.

After successfully trying numerous product liability, personal injury and commercial cases to verdict and resolving countless more through motion practice or settlement in jurisdictions across the country, Lee has learned that if a client wants to settle a case short of trial, the best way to achieve the most favorable settlement is to be represented by an attorney with the experience, reputation and ability to take the case to trial. A credible trial threat gives the client a stronger position in settlement negotiations and the ability to take the case to trial when it can’t be resolved. Too often, clients hire litigators who are happy to work a case up and settle it. When opposing counsel knows that attorney can’t or won’t try the case, they use that to extract a higher settlement or to obtain a large verdict at trial. The best way to prevent that situation is to hire a lawyer who is ready, willing and able to try the case if necessary.

Lee uses that trial tough and solution savvy experience to put together the right team with the right experience and skill set needed for each case. That approach gives him leverage to negotiate favorable results for the client. But when negotiations fail, he is ready to take the case to trial and, if necessary, appeal. Lee cares about winning as much as — or more than— his clients. He brings a creative approach that ensures that his client’s message is heard, and he leaves everything on the field.

Lee has always been very involved in the firm, having served as the chair of the Recruiting Committee for many years. He currently serves as a member of Lightfoot’s Executive Committee and chairs the Marketing and Business Development Committee. Lee has been the firm’s longtime representative in the Network of Trial Law Firms, where he has served as secretary, treasurer, vice-chair and chair, and led the organization through a successful nationwide search for a new executive director.

Lee is a member of the International Association of Defense Counsel, the Defense Research Institute (DRI) and the Alabama Defense Lawyers Association (ADLA), where he served as co-chair of the ADLA Trial Academy for two years. Lee is a member of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church and the Tocqueville Society of The United Way of Central Alabama. He has an amazing wife, Katie, and three wonderful children who, unfortunately, inherited their father’s lawyering/negotiating skills at a very young age. In his free time, Lee enjoys hunting, college football, golf and scuba diving.

John Jerry Glas is the Chair of the Civil Litigation Department. He has tried more than 70 jury trials to verdict, and serves as lead national trial counsel for the worldwide leading manufacturer of conducted electrical weapons.

Jerry represents national insurance and excess insurance companies, trucking companies, grocery and restaurant chains, and law enforcement agencies when faced with pending litigation. Over the last 18 years with the Deutsch Kerrigan, Jerry has successfully handled a number of matters involving police liability, product liability, and serious traumatic brain injury and class action lawsuits.

He has been admitted pro hac vice to handle cases around the country, including California, Connecticut, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia. He recently authored “Feeding Lions During Closing Argument,” Chapter 19 in the ABA’s 2015 peer-reviewed textbook: From The Trenches: Trial Tips From 21 of the Nation’s Top Trial Lawyers.

Born and raised in New Orleans, Jerry taught religion at Jesuit High School before attending law school. Jerry joined the firm in 1999 after serving as a Senior Assistant District Attorney for the Parish of Orleans, and enjoys teaching trial practice as an Adjunct Professor at Loyola University College of Law.

In her more than two decades of practice, Jill C. Owens has handled complex commercial litigation in federal and state courts nationwide. She concentrates her practice in the areas of class-action defense, products liability and trucking litigation, FINRA arbitration, directors’ and officers’ liability, and insurance-coverage litigation. Jill has appeared on behalf of a range of clients, including Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and individuals.

Jill has litigated numerous class actions nationwide in all phases, including class discovery, class certification, successful appeal of class certification determinations, and through class notice. She has made law at the federal appellate level concerning application of the Class Action Fairness Act. In addition, she has achieved favorable settlements of putative class actions as individual actions and has been an architect of creative class-wide settlements.

Jill also has extensive litigation experience representing major national and international companies in transportation, mass tort, and individual products liability actions involving cigarettes, and prescription products including birth control, diet drugs, and ophthalmic solutions. Transportation clients frequently call on Jill to conduct rapid response investigations of trucking accidents, and she recently served on a New York State Bar Association Auto and Truck Claims, Accidents, and Litigation panel, where she addressed ethical issues arising in automotive and trucking claims.

Early in her career, Jill gained valuable experience as special counsel with New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Division of Enforcement, where she conducted investigations of and litigated disciplinary matters involving regulated entities and registered representatives alleged to have violated NYSE Rules and other governing laws.

Sawnie McEntire has over 40 years of experience handling complex civil matters in federal and state courts throughout Texas and across the United States. Sawnie has tried dozens of difficult cases to jury verdict on a variety of subject matters, such as commercial, products liability, pharmaceutical, and real estate claims. Sawnie has served as national, state-wide, and regional counsel for many of his clients, has received many national and local accolades for his advocacy accomplishments, and has authored several publications on advocacy skills.