Trial Lawyers University

Orlando De Castroverde was done referring his best cases to other lawyers. A billboard lawyer and co-owner of a Las Vegas personal injury firm, Orlando had the cases — he just needed the conviction to try them. After stepping away from trials to build the business, he committed in 2018 to becoming a real trial lawyer, including through training on the TLU platform with founder host Dan Ambrose What followed: the last ...

Tim McKey is not a lawyer, but he’s been inside over 300 plaintiff firms, and he sees where lapses in operations mean lost dollars. A CPA by training, Tim and a colleague formed Vista Consulting to help law firms “de-bottleneck.” In this conversation with host Dan Ambrose, Tim describes the journey that led to Vista and how it achieves its mission of helping law firms. Tune in as he reveals the operational mist...

What happens when a DoorDash veteran with no legal background spots a logistics problem inside plaintiff law firms? He delivers “white-glove pre-litigation in a box.” Viraj Bindra spent eight years at the food delivery company before co-founding Finch, a tech-based platform that provides tools for growing firms so they can say “yes” to every case that’s worth taking. He visits with host Dan Ambrose to pull back the cu...

A thousand-pound gate falls on a woman. The last thing she remembers is being on the property and going down stairs. She suffers a TBI. The defense's theory: She’s a liar. So is her husband. So are the fire personnel who responded. And the bystanders. Sagi Shaked takes host Dan Ambrose through the play-by-play of how he exposed the defense’s “conspiracy theory.” The jury saw through it and awarded a $4.5 million verdi...

Little island. Big cases. Bigger verdicts. Russ Pate is a solo plaintiff lawyer in St. Croix whose career has included a combined $113 million verdict in two consolidated tobacco cases and $6.3 million verdict in a premises liability trial. He also worked with the Virgin Islands’ attorney general to pursue civil claims against the Jeffrey Epstein estate using the Virgin Islands' unique tax credit program. Taking a break from...

They offered $100,000. She demanded $450,000. They wouldn't budge — so she went to trial. The jury came back with $10 million. To this day, it remains the highest pain-and-suffering verdict in Luzerne County history. Meet Melissa Scartelli, the author of that verdict and many others. A 35-year trial veteran and founder of Scartelli Olszewski, Melissa has built her practice around medical malpractice, earning rare punitive damage ve...

Przemek Lubecki embodies the American dream. He and his family emigrated from Poland, living in Germany before gaining asylum in the United States in 1989 and settling in St. Louis. After trying over 100 cases during seven and a half years at a Chicago defense firm, Przemek transitioned to the plaintiffs’ side. TLU 2021 proved transformational, exposing him to plaintiff lawyers operating at the highest level. The following year, wi...

A former prosecutor who now runs his own firm, Andrew Pickett visits host Dan Ambrose to reveal his strategies for success in the courtroom and in business. From his origin story as a college swimmer to his 42 jury trials as a prosecutor to his recent $9 million wrongful death verdict, Andrew shares lessons learned. Tune in for his insights about how hiring a psychodramatist transformed his witness preparation and why...

Jeremy Babener helps plaintiffs and trial lawyers keep more of their settlements and verdicts through tax-saving agreements. In this conversation with host Dan Ambrose, Jeremy reflects on how he landed in this specialized field during law school – his evidence course was canceled, so he switched to a tax policy class. Before graduating from law school, he was already advising on $20-30 million settlements. He earned h...

Broadcasting from Cabo San Lucas, host Dan Ambrose gathers five participants in the recent TLU bootcamp to reflect on their experience and role-play techniques. The guests include Johnnie Bond from D.C., Matt Nakajima from Cincinnati, Mohamad Ahmad from Los Angeles, Alejandro Gonzalez from Miami, and Jared Smith from Kentucky. Tune in for their insights about discipline, self-coaching techn...

Over the past year, Kimball Jones has taken six cases to trial, securing more than $700 million in verdicts and settlements. In this conversation with host Dan Ambrose, Kimball breaks down the cases that led to a $550 million verdict, $114 million verdict, and $31 million verdict. Kimball explains that a huge part of his success is knowing what cases to take to trial and understanding how to frame cases to get maximum value. Nick R...

Picture learning trial methodology while fishing in the afternoon, shooting archery, and riding horses across 1,750 acres of Missouri ranch land. Celebrated trial lawyer Sach Oliver tells host Dan Ambrose how this "magical place" will host his intensive “Depositions Our Trial” workshops starting in November 2027. Before that, at TLU Beach in June 2026, Sach will share lessons about managing money that he learned from his grandparen...

Clashes with the judge. Nineteen expert depositions. Ten hours of court hearings leading to trial. Outcome: $51.3 million for a construction worker who was electrocuted on a job site. Mohamad Ahmad discusses the remarkable journey of the Maggio case and his career in this conversation with host Dan Ambrose. After getting no job offers after his UCLA Law summer clerkship and starting his own firm, Mohamad endured a decade-long droug...

Alex Ivanov’s journey to Angel Reyes & Associates in Texas started when he fled his native Belarus after refusing KGB recruitment, arriving in America at age 21 with $380. Just three years into trying cases, he secured his first seven-figure verdict on a non-surgical pain management case where the defense offered only $90K on a $250K policy. How? Leveraging strategies developed by host Dan Ambrose for his TLU platform to prepar...

Two North Carolina attorneys who served their country and are now serving their clients discuss what they gained from the Trial Lawyer University’s Joe Fried Trucking Bootcamp. Will Meekins, with two years of experience handling catastrophic injury cases in western North Carolina, and Ryan McCollum with three civil trials under his belt in Raleigh, both graduated from West Point. They met years later at a North Carolina Plaintiffs'...

In 1984, Eric Oliver was teaching persuasion skills to marketeers in computer firms. When he transitioned to trial consulting that year, he found a new audience. In two years, “lawyers took all my time…because nobody had ever taught persuasion, influence, and communication to attorneys at that time. They still don't.” In this wide-ranging discussion with host Dan Ambrose, Eric reveals how he accidentally discovered his calling. Now...

It was a longshot case. After all, the jury knew that John Martin’s client, suing for employment discrimination, already had retirement benefits. But this fight was about whether she was entitled to a different category of benefits. Confident they’d win, the defense rejected an offer to mediate. A jury awarded $1.75 million. “I just got the email this morning that they just mailed the checks,” John tells host Dan Ambrose in this wi...

“Every employment case is a story about betrayal,” says George Moschopoulos, who recently convinced jurors that the Los Angeles Unified School District failed to work in good faith to find his disabled client another role in the organization. Host Dan Ambrose unpacks the case, from the six-figure pretrial offer to the juror who compelled the team to pivot their strategy to the $3 million verdict. Tune in for George’s insights about...

Looking back on this month’s TLU Beach, Joe Fried says attendees and even vendors declared it the best program yet. The renowned trucking attorney from Fried Goldberg joins host Dan Ambrose to reflect on the event’s success and preview their five-day Trucking Bootcamp in August. That event will combine Joe's 20-plus years of trucking expertise with Dan's performance skills training, guiding trial lawyers through intensive hands-on ...