Litigation Support Success Story
Based on the Medical and Scientific Solutions team’s extensive experience collecting physical evidence, the team was engaged to facilitate the transfer of pathology materials from a plaintiff’s counsel to a defense expert witness.
The team provided chain of custody documents to the plaintiff’s counsel with detailed specifications, including the requirement for photographic documentation of the pathology at the time of transfer. Relying on these required photographs, the defense counsel succeeded in making a spoilation claim based upon the broken seal of a specimen container.
Expert Research Team Success Story
The Charge
Locate, vet, and report on potential expert witnesses in various fields in nationwide litigation involving an MDL and hundreds of state court cases.
The Action
A client engaged Medical and Scientific Solutions to locate, vet, and report on potential expert witnesses in various fields for nationwide litigation involving an MDL and hundreds of state court cases.
After collaborating with national counsel and establishing a detailed assessment of the areas of expertise needed, the team researched legal databases, scientific and medical directories, and professional associations to identify the leading experts in the desired fields.
Once identified, the team reviewed the experts’ credentials and licensing, national and local media presence, publications and social media activity, potential conflicts of interest, research grants and publications, and prior legal work as an expert or party. The team specifically reviewed court opinions, pleadings, testimony, and other litigation documents to determine the outcome of any Daubert challenges, identify any testimony by an expert that had been excluded, or verify if a court had admonished the expert.
Partnering with national counsel, the team created a database of over 2,700 potential experts covering 65 different specialties, establishing an expert witness pool with credibility and depth. Approximately 90 experts were ultimately retained for expert consultation in the litigation.
Research Team Success Story
A client engaged Medical and Scientific Solutions to read, analyze, and translate the intricate scientific issues involved in nationwide toxic tort litigation.
The team’s PhD scientists meticulously reviewed hundreds of scientific papers and articles to identify the key findings, potential weaknesses, and validity of the studies. They translated complex scientific jargon into clear, concise explanations for attorneys and created a database of relevant disease-specific research.
Working closely with counsel, they provided real-time insights and answered questions to ensure the soundness of potential defenses based in science.
Project Management Success Story
A client approached Medical and Scientific Solutions seeking comprehensive assistance with project management, specifically tailored to navigating the complex landscape of multi-state Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) regulations. Initially, the project focused on enhanced project management oversight and reporting. However, the scope expanded to include creating a dashboard of prioritized objectives with status tracking, building a timeline of critical deadlines impacting the client, and coordinating with multiple organizations.
The resulting business value for the client included identification of multi-state requirements, a tracking mechanism to ensure regulatory compliance, and ongoing reporting to the client management team demonstrating progress and risk mitigation of ESG expectations.
Medical Analysis Success Story
For a client, resolving a matter pre-litigation hinged on their ability to credibly disprove the allegation that the client’s product caused a patient’s death.
Medical and Scientific Solutions nurses utilized the decedent’s medical records to demonstrate that death was overwhelmingly consistent with drug overdose, rather than the alleged toxic effects of the client’s product. By further distilling the hospital records and identifying inconsistencies with the survivor’s allegations, the team determined that a single caregiver had suggested that the product caused the decedent’s death, which had then influenced the impressions and diagnoses documented by subsequent caregivers, despite the fact that decedent’s history of product use was not known to cause the alleged injury. The team consulted with multiple expert witnesses, all of whom concurred with the causation theory of drug overdose.
The matter was resolved satisfactorily without litigation, with contributions from the specialty services of the team.
Expert Research Team Success Stories
Whatever issue you face, Womble’s Expert Witness Services Team can find the expert you need.
A parking deck operator faced tough scrutiny from local elected officials about alleged safety concerns at one of their decks.
The Medical and Scientific Solutions team went to work finding an expert witness who could help the client make the case that their parking deck complied with local safety regulations. The MSS team realized that a human factors witness (in this case, a psychologist) would provide the best possible testimony about suicide prevention. The team also found an engineer to address these issues from a construction standpoint and to speak on additional relevant safety issues., Thanks to the MSS team’s versatility and understanding of the client’s business, the client entered the regulatory meeting completely prepared.
Under terms of an existing agreement, a decommissioned nuclear power plant will dump wastewater into a body of water. Several respondents opposed to this activity have contacted the EPA.
The MSS team assembled detailed profiles on these respondents, including their social media presence, publications, and past legal history. Should the need arise, power plant officials are well-prepared to counter any opposition to their operations, which comply with approved regulatory guidelines.
The MSS team worked with the firm’s new Nevada partners (formerly of Lewis Roca) to help a client find various expert witnesses, including an orthopedist to address injuries and treatment as well as psychologist/psychiatrist to review mental health records.
A construction industry client needed guidance regarding friable and non-friable asbestos in sheet rock and caulking. The MSS team found experts to review and determine if these substances were handled in a way that could cause injuries. The team also identified a toxicologist to determine if the manner in which the asbestos was handled presented a risk to people in the surrounding vicinity.
Regulatory Guidance Success Stories
MSS provides key research and insights to an FDA-regulated client on a timely basis. Every business day, MSS collects all peer-reviewed scientific publications related to a client’s FDA-regulated business. This information is sent to an industry client as a daily digest, summarized and analyzed. This mission-critical information goes to the client’s External Relations and Scientific Research teams.
The MSS team also identifies and breaks down the week’s most helpful article for the client and produces in-depth white papers that dig deep into scientific issues and research.
The MSS team helps the client stay on top of the ever-evolving, fast-moving science. For example, the MSS team received an urgent request from a company official in Oregon. The state has a bill that would restrict the company’s business. Within hours, MSS attorneys and team members identified and tracked down two studies that helped the client make its case before state lawmakers.
