Hi, my name is David Stone and I am a civil trial lawyer here in Miami Florida. Melissa asked me to say a few words about Magnus, and I’m overjoyed to do that. The reason I am is that we’ve such a long and fruitful relationship. I first began to use Magnus, maybe 15 years ago in an extremely difficult plaintiff’s case, which involved really one of the worst injuries I had ever seen. A young man who was blinded, who was a quadriplegic and brain-damaged in an accident, and the issue in that case was really who was driving the vehicle. We had spent a lot of money working this case up. The case did not appear to be settling. The case appeared to be ready to go to trial and I just didn’t have a handle on the best themes to use and the best jury for that case. Through a mutual friend, who had utilized Magnus, we contacted Melissa and she was wonderful. She helped us establish the themes in that case. She helped us tremendously with jury selection. We sat a jury that turned out to have all the hallmarks of a favorable jury. The themes we developed apparently resonated with the jury enough that during the course of that case it settled. And, in fact it settled for a large amount, the first offer that we ever got. I think that Melissa, and Magnus had a lot to do with it.

I’ll tell you about another case that Melissa helped us on, and this is a case involving perhaps the worst plaintiff that I’ve ever represented. This is a guy who was a Hells Angel. It was a motorcycle-car crash. It occurred on a Sunday morning at 10:00. I’ll never forget this. At 10:00 our client was drunk, under the influence of cocaine, and marijuana. The issue was, he didn’t do anything wrong.

He was riding his motorcycle when a lawyer, in a car, ran a stop sign, struck our client, ejected him, and caused him to be a quadriplegic. The issue in the case was, how do we get case to trial with the issues of alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine and the Hells Angels? Let me just tell you also that this individual had a rap sheet – we were able to keep it out – which included murder and other assorted crimes. Well, Melissa worked with us. We developed a jury questionnaire. We did mock trials. We developed our themes and, in that case, we were able to get 41 challenges for cause. We knocked out 41 prospective jurors because of their biases dealing in one of the issues that I just mentioned. Melissa was really critical in doing that. We sat a favorable jury. In fact, one of the themes that Melissa developed was that this individual’s caretaker was his elderly mother. So we focused on getting elderly women on the jury. It was an issue that I would not have been sensitive to without Melissa. As a matter of fact, two of the six principal jurors were elderly mothers. That’s another case that settled during the course of the trial.

I will tell you that I have had occasion to refer Melissa to friends of mine who have been doing large cases and they were really overjoyed with her assistance. So I’ve been using Magnus and Melissa for over 15 years. I’ve been using them on all types of cases, cases involving professional malpractice, medical negligence, and catastrophic car injuries. I’ve been using them in cases where I represented the defendants as well as the plaintiffs, and I’ve been extremely satisfied with Melissa. I’ve been extremely satisfied with Magnus, and I urge you to use them. I think you’ll be satisfied as well. Thank you.