Since I was young, I have always been fascinated with puzzles. The process of assembling seemingly random pieces into a complete picture was fun from beginning to end. As I grew older, the fascination expanded into fixing things. Broken clocks and dysfunctional toys received a new life in my hands, no matter how long it took. I also spent years following repairmen around my house, learning more about fixing electrical fixtures and wiring, plumbing, and repairing and painting damaged walls.

The process of breaking down a problem with a watch or machine was always a welcome challenge. My hobby fit naturally with my legal career, since every case presented a problem that an attorney could, in theory, help solve. In addition to learning to assess credibility in people, each case had something broken to be identified and fixed.

In my time as a prosecutor, I focused on the defendant’s violent or sexually abusive tendencies to determine how the prosecution could fix the issue by incarcerating the defendant and removing him as a danger to his community. The irony of civil law is that often the only solution sought by a plaintiff is money. Despite this, I have resolved civil cases many times in the past without money, by using creative solutions involving construction repairs, land partition and even, sadly, termination of custody of children.

For most of the past 20 years in law, my cases have been defending personal injury cases where discovery helped identify questionable medical charges and unsupported diagnosis, as well as disparities between the allegations and the evidence. I look at each individual cause of action stated by the plaintiff as a puzzle to determine if the facts fit together as alleged, if the claimed medical issues are supported, and if evidence validates the claimed monetary damages. In each case, I use the jury instructions for the plaintiff’s causes of action as the picture that the factual puzzle pieces must fit together to match and prove the claim.

In a negligence action, causation is often the most critical piece of the negligence puzzle, with many subparts that must fit together. The link between the actions or inaction of the defendant and plaintiff’s claimed injuries requires that the facts be carefully identified. It is only then that we can see if they will fit together.

In some types of civil cases, the sub-concept of notice is a critical element of the plaintiff’s claim often skipped over by plaintiff’s counsel who rely on the broad, ambiguous concept of constructive notice. The factual puzzle pieces to establish constructive notice are often not present or are retroactively applied to the facts rather than prospectively by plaintiff’s counsel. Actual notice is usually a more clearcut element.

Even if the pieces of the puzzle establish notice, a plaintiff still must prove that the notice provided an opportunity to cure – the option for a defendant to act so that the plaintiff would not have suffered the injuries. Plaintiff’s counsel will often skip the need to prove the factual puzzle pieces that show the link between the alleged notice and the plaintiff’s injuries. In a workplace accident, those factual puzzle pieces can be easy to see if the notice was early enough.

But when an assault occurs, the key puzzle piece – the defendant’s prior knowledge of the abuser’s propensities – is rarely clear. Defendant entities rarely disregard known abusers, but plaintiff’s attorneys often try to rely on ambiguous facts or hearsay to complete the puzzle. If discovery is used correctly, a defense attorney can show that key puzzle pieces cannot be proven. This can allow dispositive motions to be used as intended to end “unproveable” cases.

My job as a defense attorney is to find all the facts to either assemble into the full picture of a valid cause of action or establish that the picture is incomplete because it lacks key pieces of the picture. It is then my job to advocate for early resolution of proven causes of action or vigorously defend the case through to trial. When the case is over, I continue my work on the latest watch or machine, keeping my mind active, looking for solutions for every puzzle I encounter.

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