Competing Trial Themes: The Plaintiff’s Frame and the Defense Counter

Frank Ramos, Partner | Goldberg Segalla

Frank Ramos is a partner in the Miami office of Goldberg Segalla, where he has defended clients in civil litigation for more than 26 years and has taken numerous trials and arbitrations to verdict or award. His defense practice centers on catastrophic personal injury, premises liability, trucking, and product liability claims, and he is widely known as the “Miami Mentor” for training hundreds of young trial lawyers.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Ramos earned his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from the University of Miami School of Law in 1997 and his Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from Florida International University in 1993. He is admitted to practice in Florida and before the United States District Courts for the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida, and he holds Martindale-Hubbell’s AV Preeminent rating.

• Recognition & Leadership

The Best Lawyers in America named Mr. Ramos the 2025 Personal Injury Litigation – Defendants Lawyer of the Year in Miami and the Miami Product Liability Lawyer of the Year for 2020 and 2023. He has been selected for Florida Super Lawyers every year since 2013 and was named to Forbes’ America’s Best-in- State Lawyers in 2025. The Florida Bar named him its 2025 Mentor of the Year.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Ramos is a longtime leader of the defense bar. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel as its 2026 Secretary-Treasurer, chaired its 2026 Winter Meeting, and has received the organization’s Andrew C. Hecker Award, President’s Award, and Joseph R. Olshan Award. He is a past President of the Florida Defense Lawyers Association, a former board member of the Defense Research Institute (DRI) and the Miami-Dade Defense Bar Association, and a member of the Association of Defense Trial Attorneys. He has written more than 500 articles and 20 books on litigation and law practice, including Deposition Drills (FDCC, 2020), and has delivered more than 400 presentations on pretrial and trial skills, claims handling, and litigation management.

• Experience

Mr. Ramos defends retailers, hotels, resorts, restaurants, developers, and fitness chains against negligent security, premises, catastrophic injury, and trucking claims, and he defends manufacturers and distributors in product liability and toxic exposure cases involving pharmaceuticals, medical devices, asbestos and silica, machinery, safety equipment, recreational vehicles, and automobiles. His practice also includes construction, employment, and commercial disputes.

Mary Simon, Attorney | Simon Law PC

Mary Simon is a trial lawyer at Simon Law PC in St. Louis who represents individuals and families in catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, including trucking and motor-vehicle collisions, medical malpractice, birth injury, and defective products. She concentrates on cases involving severe or permanent injuries, disputed liability, and substantial damages, and she teaches civil trial advocacy and jury persuasion as an adjunct professor at Saint Louis University School of Law.

• Education & Credentials

Ms. Simon earned her Juris Doctor from Saint Louis University School of Law, where she received the Academic Excellence Award in Legal Professions and the Community Service Award, and her Bachelor of Arts from Loyola University Chicago. She is admitted to practice in Missouri and Illinois and before the United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri.

• Recognition & Leadership

Ms. Simon has been named to the National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 and Top 25 Medical Malpractice Trial Attorneys, a Missouri & Kansas Super Lawyers Rising Star from 2024 to the present, and a Missouri Lawyers Media Up & Coming Lawyer in 2025, and she is listed in Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America. She received the peer-nominated John C. Shepherd Professionalism Award and the Missouri Lawyers Media Women’s Justice Award as a Litigation Practitioner.

• Professional Involvement

As Adjunct Professor of Trial Advocacy at Saint Louis University School of Law, Ms. Simon teaches Trial Advocacy I with an emphasis on practical courtroom skills, persuasive storytelling, and ethical, client-centered
advocacy. She is a member of the American Association for Justice, including its Birth Injury and Motor Vehicle sections, the Missouri Association of Trial Attorneys, the Inns of Court, the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis Women in the Law Profession, the St. Louis County Bar Association, and the Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater St. Louis.

• Experience

Ms. Simon’s trial results include a $27.5 million verdict in a motorcycle-collision case in Madison County, Illinois, and a $10 million verdict for a maternal birth injury. Her settlements include $10 million for a traumatic brain injury in a trucking case, $8 million for a motorcycle-collision wrongful death, and $7 million in a medical malpractice case.

SESSION 1 – Building the Plaintiff’s Theme: Safety Rules, Danger, and Damages Framing | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session teaches plaintiff attorneys how to build a trial theme around safety rules, danger framing, and damages anchoring. Attendees learn how the Safety Rule technique works from deposition through opening statement, where federal and state courts stand on Reptile-based arguments in 2024, and which anchoring strategies, including per diem arguments, are driving Nuclear Verdicts®. The goal is a plaintiff narrative that is persuasive to jurors and defensible in court, even as damage caps and tort reform reshape the rules.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Deconstructing Plaintiff’s Themes: Countering Reptile Theory and Anchoring | Frank Ramos | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session gives defense counsel practical tools to counter Reptile Theory arguments and inflated damages demands at every stage of the case, from initial discovery and deposition preparation through closing argument at trial. Attendees learn how to prepare corporate witnesses to survive the Reptile deposition, draft motions in limine that counter anchoring and preclude plaintiff’s non-economic damages arguments, and put Gregory v. Chohan, Georgia SB 68, and Florida HB 837 to work in exclusion and counter-anchoring strategies. The session closes with damages discovery and jury selection techniques that keep a case from becoming one of the next Nuclear Verdicts®.