Unfortunately, our society tends to have a "blame the victim" mentality. Psychological studies have shown that when a person initially hears about someone else suffering a catastrophic injury, that person has an internal response of self-preservation and tries to reconcile the victim's tragedy against their own fear of facing the same fate in the future. The observer does this by rationalizing how his or her own behavior would have been much different from that of the victim.

The observer often fails to consider that the cause of the victim's injury may likely have been the reckless and often greedy behavior of another person or corporation. Sadly, it is all too common nowadays that people act recklessly and corporations act greedily. For example, we have all seen people yapping away on a cell phone while speeding through a red light. One only need to turn on the television or to spend 30 seconds on the internet to learn that some financial institution has been caught stealing from the retirement accounts of individuals, or to hear on the radio that a car company was skimping on inexpensive and proven safety measures simply to save a few dollars for its shareholders.

At Ellsley Sobol, our focus from the beginning of the case is deeply investigating these bad actors and obtaining the necessary evidence needed to prove to the decision-maker that had the same actions not been taken before the fateful incident, our client's life would not have been destroyed. We frame the evidence so that the trial is a trial of the Defendant.

Our presentation raises the following key questions: "What did the defendant know and when did they know it?", and "Why did the Defendant not take the minimal steps required by applicable law, industry standard, or in many cases, their own rules and procedures, that in all probability based upon the Defendant's own experience would not have caused the horrible incident?"

Throughout the litigation, from cases involving nursing home neglect and elder abuse to cases involving dangerous products and pilot errors, we use the defendant's own policies, procedures, and guidelines against them to show just how wrong the conduct was that caused our client's injuries.

We make sure that the focus of the trial is one in which the jury is judging the decisions, actions, and omissions of the Defendant and not focusing on what the Plaintiff might have done to avoid becoming a victim.