Colleagues had warned me to stay out of Centre County. Juries in central Pennsylvania, they cautioned, are loath to find that a physician in their community committed an act of malpractice. Young and a bit naive, I convinced myself that my case was the exception. It involved a knee surgery that had actually been videotaped by the defendant physician. A subsequent treating doctor of my client was willing to narrate the playing of the videotape for the jury and detail where he believed the treatment had been substandard.
I'd also been told that I might impede my client's success at trial, on account of my association with a Center City law firm, in a part of the state where the term Philadelphia lawyer was not a compliment.
I was on the defensive from the outset. The judge had conducted jury selection in advance of the trial's start. I remember him asking a packed courtroom of prospective jurors if anyone was familiar with the defendant or other members of his orthopedic practice. Most of the assembled raised their hands. The follow-up question was whether those who knew the physicians could nonetheless be fair to all parties, and every individual who had first raised a hand said yes.
The testimony lasted a few days. The defense lawyer was a local fellow, about as well-known to the jurors as the defendant, and he made sure to highlight my hometown. He was folksy, and he effectively portrayed my expert witness as a hired gun by extracting from him what he was being paid for his time to testify - which mirrored what he was forgoing in earnings from one day of surgery so he could testify.
