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Before trial, how much does the trial judge actually know about your own particular case?
Would you like to learn the answer? Come join me as I share with you this great information.
Hi. I'm Gerry Oginski. I'm a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial lawyer
practicing law here in the state of New York. When you bring a lawsuit for an accident case
or a medical malpractice case or even a wrongful death case, during the course of your litigation
we have to go into court and let the judge know -- give them updates, status conferences
-- on exactly what's happening in your particular litigation. Keep in mind that every judge
in New York has a huge case load. Whether they have two hundred, three hundred, four
hundred cases they're handling at any one time, the point is that on most days during
the week they are holding conferences on each of these cases. So they may see twenty different
cases, thirty different cases in an entire morning. And now, they're going to have at
least two or three attorneys on every single case that comes before them. Do you honestly
think that they will be able to remember all the details of every single case? The answer
is of course not. So now when we've been assigned to trial and we've been assigned to a trial
judge, now the attorneys go before the judge for the purposes of letting him or her know
what this case is all about. Now we have an opportunity to tell the judge a lot of the
details that we didn't have the time before to go ahead during the status conferences
to let the judge know about. But here now we have the opportunity to explain to the
judge quickly what it is that we think was done wrong and what injuries you suffered
as a result of that. The defense likewise has an opportunity to defend what their defenses
are to this entire case. And in addition, we also provide the judge with something known
as a 'trial brief' and that's very important. A trial brief gives the judge a clear understanding
in written format of what our claims are in this case and what the injuries are that you've
suffered. In addition, a trial brief also includes key pieces of law that we think is
necessary to teach and educate the judge about the issues that are going to come up in the
course of this trial. Now many people believe that the judge knows all the law. Well the
reality is that the judge and his assistant, known as a law secretary or a law clerk, have
the ability to research any aspect of law in New York and outside of New York. So why
do I share this great information with you? I share it with you to give you an insight
and an understanding into what goes on during the trial process here in the state of New
York. A lot of people don't talk to you about this until you're actually involved at trial
and now you're trying to play catch up and learn what actually is happening during the
course of trial. You know, I realize you've got questions or concerns about your own particular
matter. Well if your matter happened here in New York and you do have legal questions,
one of the things that I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me. I can
answer your legal questions. This is something that I do every single day and I'd love to
talk to you. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com. That's
it for today's quick video. I'm Gerry Oginski, have a wonderful day!