2025 January SAFE Educational seminar

Attend this seminar to earn credits to renew your SAFE membership for 2024 and renew your CFDE certification.

Topic: Surviving as an Expert Witness

Speaker: Michael Schwartz, Esq.

Bio:

Michael D. Schwartz is a trial lawyer.  He has selected over 325 juries and tried over 265 cases to completion and is a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.  He practices law at the Michael Schwartz Law Firm, where he tries civil and criminal cases with and for other lawyers and serves as a trial/jury consultant to other lawyers in trial. He teaches trial advocacy at law firms across the country through Trial Advocacy Group, LLC, which he founded in 1999.  His teaching clients include over a dozen Am Law Top 100 law firms.  He worked as a civil litigator at Morrison & Foerster, representing plaintiffs and defendants in state and federal court, and served as a prosecutor at the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, representing the People of the State of California in a wide variety of criminal cases.   He is an active member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, where he has served as President of the Barristers, as a Trustee of the Association, and as a Member of the Judicial Appointments Committee. He contributes to many legal publications and has been featured on the cover of Los Angeles Lawyer magazine.  He received the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s “Special Recognition of Excellence Award” for his service as lead instructor of the Trial Advocacy Project and received the “Prosecutor of the Year Award” from MADD. He graduated from the UCLA School of Law in 1987.  While in law school, he worked at Sidley & Austin and Morrison & Foerster as a summer associate, served as a judicial extern for the Honorable Irving Hill of the United States District Court, Central District of California, and represented indigent clients, pro bono, in unemployment insurance hearings through Westside Legal Services, a public services nonprofit organization.  He received a Bachelor of Arts with magna cum laude distinction in 1983 from the University of California at Los Angeles, where he studied International Political Economics, History, and Oral Advocacy.

Abstract

Mr. Schwartz will discuss expert witness testimony at deposition and in the courtroom.  He will cover what experts should do while testifying and, most importantly, what they should not do.  He will share stories from cases he tried and provide pointers on how to be the expert witness that everyone wants to hire.  He will cover the importance of re-direct exam and how to answer the “yes or no question” when “the answer is not a yes or a no.”