AAJ

Ken Presents at National Educational Seminar for Trial Lawyers

May 12, 2023 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

During the 2023 New Jersey Association for Justice’s Boardwalk Seminar, Ken Levinson presented on “Maximizing Damages in a Truck Crash Case.” Ken spoke during the trucking program, “A Peek into the Cabin,” on April 26, 2023.

The 3-day seminar took place from April 26, 2023, through April 28, 2023. Local and regional speakers presented 26 different programs for trial attorneys in attendance.

Ken founded his firm in 2014 in order to offer client-first legal representation for victims of personal injury from auto, truck, and bus crashes. Ken is a co- author of Litigating Major Automobile Injury and Death Cases, published by AAJ Press/Thomson-Reuters. Ken holds leadership roles with the American Association for Justice and the Chicago Bar Association. Ken also sits on the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association Board of Managers.

LEVINSON AND STEFANI INJURY LAWYERS FOUNDING PARTNER SPOKE AND MODERATED AT AAJ’S ULTIMATE TRIAL ADVOCACY COURSE

March 31, 2023 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Levinson and Stefani’s founding partner, Ken Levinson, was invited to the Association for Justice’s (“AAJ”) Ultimate Trial Advocacy Course: Art of Persuasion as a faculty member to present and moderate during the multi-day event. Ken’s topics were: Reaching Your Goal – Let’s talk Damages and How Focus Groups Can Help Your Case. In addition to presenting, Ken and other faculty members led small group workshops so those in attendance could further hone their trial skills.

AAJ’s 2023 Trial Advocacy Course: Art of Persuasion was held in Atlanta, Georgia, from March 25th to March 29th.

Ken Levinson to Teach at AAJ’s 2021 Depositions College

June 4, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Throughout the month of June, the American Association for Justice is hosting its Depositions College workshop, referred to this year as the ‘Depositions College: Implementing the Tools’ webinar. On the faculty lineup this year is Levinson and Stefani’s very own Ken Levinson.

Starting today, the online workshop will run each Friday in June from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. During each session, participants will receive insight into a certain new deposition skill through lectures during four separate two-hour workshops, and then have the opportunity to unpack that knowledge with a faculty member in small groups.

There is a variety of new skills that will be focused upon during this month of workshops, including: dealing with difficult or evasive witnesses, techniques for deposing non-party damage witnesses, taking corporate 30(b)(6) depositions, and methods for deposing medical experts or DME.

Some other faculty members teaching at the event include Karen R. Roberts of Roberts & Roberts in Texas, Jason Penn of Berman, Sobin, Gross, Feldman, & Darby LLP in Maryland, Yvonne M. Flaherty of Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP in Minnesota, Thomas W., Dillon of Konicek & Dillon, PC in Geneva, Illinois, and Seth L. Cardeli of Levin & Perconti, also in Chicago.

Each day of the program will begin with a lecture on the day’s topic, followed by a presentation from a sponsor, a live question and answer session, and finally the small group workshop led by a faculty member. AAJ’s four-part webinar will be able to be credited for 12 hours of CLE credit.

To register for the webinar event or for more information on the program, visit AAJ’s website here.

Levinson Volunteers with VPAC to Help Protect Voters

November 10, 2020 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

In firm news, Ken Levinson is partnering with the American Association for Justice to volunteer in its Voter Protection Action Committee.

AAJ is an organization working to bring advocacy, education, and a community mindset to trial lawyers working toward justice, and promotes fairness for injured victims while safeguarding their rights–especially their right to a trial by jury.

Within the Voter Protection Action Committee, AAJ works with state and national organizations to find law students, paralegals, and lawyers who can act as poll monitors, poll workers, call center volunteers, and more in order to protect Americans’ right to vote.

“I’m involved in the Voter Protection Action Committee in order to make sure that our democracy stays strong and that people get out and vote,” said Levinson. “We believe that our jobs lawyers goes beyond just helping clients.”

Levinson has been working throughout the month of October to help get people registered to vote in time for the election on November 3rd.

“Working with clients is a big part of [our job], but it’s also about helping the community, our system of laws, and our government and democracy,” Levinson explained. “Lawyers need to do their part. And this is one of the things we [at the firm] do.”

AAJ’s Voter Protection Action Committee was officially established in 2010, and throughout 2020, nearly 1,200 trial lawyers have volunteered to boost and protect voters’ rights. During 2018’s voting cycle, the trial lawyer community helped to protect votes in 29 different states.

To do their part in protecting our democracy, trial lawyers, through the VPAC, have volunteered as poll workers, poll monitors, and call center volunteers; they have worked on-call to travel to battleground states when needed; they’ve volunteered to check voters’ registrations and have helped register people to vote across the country; they’ve helped voters request absentee and mail-in ballots; and they’ve helped review state-specific voter information to make the process as easy as possible.

“People rely on lawyers to protect their rights every day, their right to trial by jury, and the right to bring a lawsuit when they are injured,” said Jackalyn A. Olinger Rochelle, a VPAC volunteer out of St. Louis, Missouri. “The right to vote is no different. We have a duty and a fundamental obligation to protect the right to vote.”

Ken Speaks to Select Group of Trucking and Traumatic Brain Injury Lawyers

December 4, 2018 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Founding partner, Ken Levinson, was honored with an invitation to help teach other trial lawyers at a private program for attorney members of the American Association for Justice last week in our nation’s capital. Ken shared his knowledge and experience advocating for victims of serious truck collision and traumatic brain injury cases with his fellow practitioners in conferences held on Friday and Saturday.

Ken taught other trucking attorneys about his experiences running focus groups in Chicago. In one example, he discussed a serious injury resulting from a tractor-trailer crash. Ken detailed ideas and strategies to help a severely injured young man hold a driver and trucking company accountable for their careless actions.

Through his talk, Ken helped other lawyers by testing themes that would resonate with a jury and to craft arguments that would most effectively help to obtain a fair result for their injured clients. He shared exhibits, videos, photos of the crash scene, as well as examples of truck safety rules and regulations that were helpful in telling the young man’s story and how to best express to a jury how the defendants’ careless acts led to his condition. He also showed the approximately 80 lawyers in attendance video clips demonstrating how participants of his focus group reacted to his presentation and what they thought of the case.

On Saturday, Ken spoke to a group of trial lawyers about effectively representing clients in traumatic brain injury cases. Specifically, he shared his experience helping another lawyer with a case in a rural, conservative county, where even after the wife of a brain injury victim testified at a deposition, the insurance company offered no money for her husband’s tragic and avoidable injury.

After spending the day with the victim’s family and learning about what they have gone through and what they have been dealing with since this awful crash, Ken shared his experience with his colleagues of how he was able to help the family’s attorney, despite no offer to settle from the defense, to present the family’s testimony at trial in a more effective way leading to the jury awarding a record setting verdict in the case, by truly learning their story and helping share it effectively on the client’s day in court.

Sgt. Levinson? Ken Instructs Lawyers at Nursing Home Boot Camp

June 19, 2015 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Ken - AAJ Nursing Home — Partner Ken Levinson teaches lawyers at the AAJ Nursing Home Boot Camp

Ken, a drill sergeant? No way! But he is very active in the American Association for Justice, and was honored to be invited to the faculty of Nursing Home Boot Camp. The 3 day program held in Denver, CO, earlier this month was designed to have experienced lawyers like Ken share their stories and strategies on handling clients’ cases against nursing homes.

The nursing homes are highly regulated, and in many states, nursing homes are owned only by a few very large corporations. If you or a loved one are injured in a nursing home – or worse – because the nursing home provided substandard care or was negligent, you want to be able to protect your rights and hold the nursing home, its staff, and its ownership accountable. There is a complicated web of corporate entities and laws to go through in order to accomplish this goal, and having a skilled attorney familiar with how nursing homes operate – for example, how they are staffed, their management structure, and their record-keeping – is extremely important. There are also medical issues that are more common in nursing home patients – like bed sores, elopement (dementia patients wandering away), and injuries from falling while unsupervised.

Handling nursing home cases for people who have been hurt as a result of nursing home negligence is no small undertaking. Ken was happy to teach other trial lawyers how to better litigate nursing home cases and strongly advocate for their clients.