Secrets To Your Top Recovery

Secrets To Your Top Recovery

By

Morris E. Fischer, Esq.

Copyright © 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system – except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper – without permission in writing from the author.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is distributed with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice by this publication. If legal advice or other expert advice is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

ISBN: 0-9632171-7-8

Second Edition

Morris E. Fischer, Esq.

www.morrisfischerlaw.com

Smashwords Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. THE LEGAL PROCESS

2. UNDERSTANDING THE LEGAL ELEMENTS OF YOUR CASE

3. WRITTEN DISCOVERY DEMANDS

4. YOUR DEPOSITION

5. CRITICAL STRATEGIES IN MAXIMIZING DAMAGES AWARDED AT A JURY TRIAL OR AT MEDIATION

6. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION WITH YOUR LAWYER

7. SETTLEMENT

8. WHAT HAPPENS AT TRIAL

9. APPEALING A DECISION

10. LITIGATING AGAINST THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is difficult to thank all of the people who have helped me both personally and professionally over the many years of my life without leaving someone out. I thank my family for their support and efforts over the years, especially my parents and older brother Joe, who strongly encouraged me to become a lawyer. Aside from them, I acknowledge the following as the most influential people with whom I have had either a professional or personal relationship. Although some are from completely different walks of life, the one factor these individuals have in common is that they have been remarkably successful at their given endeavor. In no particular order:

Ms. Kathleen Williams (6th grade social studies teacher, Rochester, NY)

Dr. Max Rudansky (Head of Neurology, Huntington Hospital, Huntington, NY)

Dr. Jack Azar (former Vice President, Eastman Kodak, Rochester, NY)

Rabbi David Harris (Headmaster, Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim, Flushing, NY)

Keith Devries, Esq. (Master Trial Lawyer, New York, NY)

Walter S. Booth, Esq. (Top Criminal Defense lawyer, Bethesda, MD)

Jim Waide, III, Esq. (Master Trial Lawyer, Tupelo, Mississippi)

Mr. Alan Veingrad (NFL Superbowl Champion, Dallas Cowboys, 1992)

Jeff Morris, LLB (former managing partner BOYNE CLARKE Barristers, Toronto, CA)

Most of all I want to thank my wife, Aviva for marrying and putting up with me for the last eleven years. I have a wonderful practice and many friends, but I am not the easiest person with whom to be married. I would not be nearly as successful as I have been without my wife’s influence.

INTRODUCTION

I wrote this guide principally for clients or future clients office to inform them of the best and most productive ways they can help achieve success in their cases. When I began my legal career in 1995, I couldn’t have possibly written this guide without the extensive experience I have gathered in my career since then. Let me share with you a brief overview of my experiences in the legal profession.

In law school, I served as a law clerk for New York State Supreme Court Justice Kenneth D. Molloy. This clerkship was a phenomenal opportunity for a young law student because it provided me with a box seat view of trial work, litigation, and the inner workings of a court.

After graduation, I worked for the State-Wide Insurance Company in Hempstead, NY, where, among other duties, I was given small claims trials for the company, and I started keeping track of the reasons I was able to prevail in court. As I proceeded with my legal career in New York, I represented hundreds of clients from both the plaintiff and the defense sides of the cases. My final legal job in New York was with the law firm of Kramer & Devries, LLP. At the time, Lenore Kramer, Esq., was the President of the New York State Trial Lawyers Association. I worked a great deal with her partner Keith Devries, Esq., a phenomenal trial lawyer, from whom I learned a monumental amount. The firm was so high powered that it received referrals from Johnnie Cochran’s New York office. Although my experience there was short, for I left to marry and settle in Maryland, it was life changing. I will truly remember being part of Kramer & Devries as one of the great highlights of my career.

In Maryland, where I have now practiced for over ten years, I broadened my practice to encompass Federal, State, and Administrative employment law claims. I believe that one of the primary advantages that I have over most of my competitors is the great breadth of cases I have handled along with the different venues in which I have practiced. For example, I frankly don’t know of any other lawyer who practiced in the high-pressured environment of New York City on multi-million dollar tort claims and then later also secured a successful $870,000 trial verdict in Oxford, Mississippi.

I am admitted to practice in the states of New York and Maryland as well as the District of Columbia. On the federal level, I am admitted to ten federal courts, including the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

I have traveled to many states and have been in many court- rooms across this great country. I have had administrative employment litigations reaching the states of Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Montana, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia.

I have tried to learn from every experience, good or bad. At one point, I won twelve cases in a row on summary judgment for a highly reputable Park Avenue, Manhattan law firm. At that time, I asked myself, What do all of these cases have in common? I couldn’t quite put my finger on the answer at that time, but when I moved to Maryland in late 2000 and set up my own practice, I had the opportunity to continue to represent hundreds of clients with employment and business claims. This continued experience enabled me to develop a formula for achieving the best results for any given lawsuit.

Finally, after thirteen years of practice and over seventeen years in the legal field, I decided to write this guide to share my winning formula with my clients. I believe through effective cooperation that we can maximize our chances and recoveries for both of our benefits. This book contains the most vital information that defense firms don’t want you to know about and what other lawyers may charge you hundreds of dollars per hour to find out.

In 2011, after another three years or so of litigating exclusively in the employment law field, I decided to write the second edition for this book. Over this period, I notched several large and critical victories in which I tested a number of new litigation techniques. In April, 2011, I obtained a jury verdict in the amount of $250,000 in a case against the United States Secret Service, Mogenhan v. Nepolitano, United States District Court, District of Columbia, Case No: 98-0817. This was no ordinary case. For one thing, my client, Ms. Ann Mogenhan, litigated this case for nineteen years against the government. I am eternally grateful to Ms. Mogenhan for entrusting me with her case for the last seven of those years. At present, there is an attorney fee and interest petition before the court for an approximate $800,000.

I learned a great deal from the Mogenhan trial. I can’t wait for another jury trial against the government. In fact, in this second edition, I have dedicated a chapter to litigation against the U.S. government. I have learned from experience that their modus operandi for litigating employment cases consists of very similar patterns, no matter what the case. While I’m eager to share information for my federal employee clients, that which I’ve learned can apply in all employment law litigation, public or private.

Since this book’s first edition, my firm also had successes in Durham, North Carolina and Billings, Montana. In Durham, I won a trial for a federal employee, a registered nurse, from the Office of Veterans Affairs, Yvonne Glover v. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Matter No. 558/05. She obtained reinstatement into her position, all back pay and attorney fees.

In Billings, I successfully litigated a case against the National Institutes of Health at the Merit Systems Protection Board level. Melkus v. Department of Health and Human Services, M.S.P.B. Denver Field Office, Case No: DE-0752-10-0160-I-1. NIH terminated my client for expressing an opinion against preference hiring for Native Americans. The agency claimed that my client demonstrated himself to be ideologically against the aims of the agency. While this may have been true, he still had the legal right under the