The magic number: ruminating on my first 10,000 hours as a trial lawyer

“The further I get, the further I want to go.” — Nas

Enrolling in law school in my mid-30s was exciting, but at times frustrating. It's not easy to start over in a new career, surrounded by people at least a decade younger than you are. It's like showing up to an amazing party that started four hours ago. The clock is running. Why didn't I get here earlier?

So it feels good to be barreling toward the end of my fifth year as a trial attorney. I'm close to passing a milestone that some view as the minimum threshold for mastering one's profession. According to author Malcolm Gladwell, practicing at least 10,000 hours in a given profession is the "magic number of greatness” to achieve mastery. If this holds true, I'll achieve ninja status as a trial attorney in the very near future. 

Based on what I've learned since 2012 as a lawyer, my black belt will not fall from the sky. I am still a long way from mastery. In many respects, I'll never get there. But that's fine with me. My first five years of practicing law have given me a staggering amount of information, opportunities and new skills. I've spent every single minute at Jones Ward PLC here in Louisville. A few highlights: 

• Won a $12.9 million jury verdict against a drunk driver who killed three people in a fiery taxi cab crash near a casino. 
• Argued three other cases to jury verdicts, including one that I lost at trial and then got reversed on appeal. 
• Learned how to litigate class action lawsuits, with dozens of fact patterns involving everything from tire fires to cameras to bank fees, Internet scams, video games, and more. In one class action, a train derailment case that settled for $3.1 million, I had the privilege of personally handing out checks to hundreds of people in a small town in Kentucky where the derailment happened. 
• Met and worked with some of the nation's top trial lawyers, and had the chance to practice against some of the most skilled and experienced defense lawyers, including top-notch attorneys at BigLaw mega-firms like this one and this one and this one. There are plenty of things to complain about in our industry — stress, risk, unfair decisions by judges — but I'm constantly impressed by the professionalism and civility that most veteran lawyers possess. 
• Traveled like a mad man practicing mass tort cases involving medical devices and pharmaceutical products, the bread and butter of our law firm's practice. In just the last year, I've taken or defended depositions in Dallas, Baltimore, Boston, Seattle, San Jose, New Orleans and many other cities. 
• Helped hundreds of people injured by drugs and medical devices that I never even knew existed five years ago. As a mass tort attorney, I represent plaintiffs in almost every state in the nation. Seriously, I'm missing Alaska and Hawaii but I have cases pretty much everywhere else. Here's a tiny sampling of what I'm working on now: DePuy Orthopaedics Hip Implant Litigation (Ohio and Texas); Testosterone Replacement Therapy Litigation (Illinois); Boston Scientific Transvaginal Mesh Litigation (West Virginia); Biomet Hip Implant Litigation (Indiana); Xarelto Bloodthinner Products Litigation (Louisiana); Zofran Birth Defect Litigation (Massachusetts, Abilify Compulsive Gambling Litigation (Florida); Talcum Powder Ovarian Cancer Cases (California). 

While there is no ninja belt in sight, I feel great about my first five years and can't wait for the next five and the five after that. It's not the easiest profession, but the intellectual challenge of practicing law and the ability to help real people keeps me bouncing out of bed almost every day, ready for more. There is no magic number to being a veteran lawyer. On a couple of narrow points, I may very well know more than any lawyer in the country. On a zillion other issues, I know very little or nothing. I'm smart enough to realize I can't solve every problem, and confident enough to keep pushing toward victory on the issues I do understand. Perhaps more than anything, I'm grateful to be part of a fraternity of professionals who help each other, help people, solve problems, and hopefully make the world a better place in the process. I can't imagine being anywhere else. 

Advice from the top: what's your legal narrative?

One of our law firm's partners recently asked me an intriguing question: what is my narrative? As an English major and a former journalist, I can appreciate a good narrative. Tolstoy, Hemingway, Bukowski — those guys can sling a story. But my narrative? What the heck did that mean? Turns out, he wanted me to think about my future career trajectory as a lawyer. What is my focus? How do I find cases? Where do I want to be in five years? In ten years?

Thinking about one's career as a narrative isn't easy. I pondered it for a week or two. I'm still not finished pondering, but I did realize a few things about what I need to do in order to make it happen. Some of the building blocks in my narrative need to be stronger: more trial experience, deeper connections to the legal community, and a better understanding of the science behind the mass tort cases that are at the heart of my practice.

I also realized that my narrative is better than I thought. I just wasn't telling anyone about it. So, I grudgingly joined LinkedIn. I also revved up Google Plus. And I updated my online profile at our firm's Web site, which hadn't changed in a year. The new version is posted below. I'm sure it lacks a few things. But it gave me a better picture of where that narrative is heading. Got your own thoughts about your narrative? Plug them into the comments field at the bottom of this post.

Alex C. Davis

Associate
alex@jonesward.com

Tel: 502-882-6000
Fax: 502-587-2007

Marion E. Taylor Building
312 South Fourth Street, Sixth Floor

Louisville, Kentucky 40202

Alex has lived in Kentucky since 2003. A native of Akron, Ohio, he graduated Cum Laude from the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville, where he was Notes Editor of the school's flagship law review.

As an associate at Jones Ward PLC, Alex helps clients to recover from devastating injuries caused by metal-on-metal hip implants manufactured by DePuy, Biomet, Stryker, Smith & Nephew, Zimmer and other companies. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky, and represents clients across Kentucky and Indiana, and from Florida to New York to Washington, as well as Maine, Tennessee, Michigan, California, Illinois, and many other states.

Alex also assists clients with medical malpractice and personal injury cases, including auto and truck accidents, as well as wrongful death, nursing home negligence and insurance bad faith. As an avid motorcycle owner and bicyclist, Alex has a particular interest in representing injured cyclists.

In his class action practice, Alex represents plaintiffs in cases involving train derailments, student loan servicers, and banks that offer payday loan products. He also has been involved in the following Multi-District Litigation (MDL) cases:

• DePuy Orthopaedics ASR Hip Implant Litigation MDL 2197
• In re: Yasmin and Yaz (Drospirenone) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation MDL No. 2100
• In re: Chantix (Varenicline) Products Liability Litigation MDL 2092
• In re: Prempro Products Liability Litigation MDL 1507.
• In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon," MDL 2179.
• In re: Higher One OneAccount Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, MDL 2407

Alex previously worked for more than a decade as a daily newspaper journalist in Ohio, Oregon, Indiana, and Kentucky. His work as a professional writer took him across the United States and Mexico, investigating stories about political corruption, natural disasters, immigration, and many other topics. He spent the last six years of his journalism career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky.

While in law school, Alex received the top grade in Advanced Trial Practice, and founded a student chapter of the American Association for Justice. Alex also holds a bachelor's degree from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, where he was a four-year member of the men's varsity soccer team and received the school's scholar-athlete award.

Alex is active in the American Association for Justice, the Kentucky Justice Association, and the Louisville Bar Association. He is a professionally trained photographer and videographer, and speaks conversational Spanish. He volunteers his time with the following community organizations:

• Highland Youth Recreation
• Burrito Riders of Louisville
• Highlands Cub Scout Pack 40
• Board of Trustees, Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church (2008-2010).
• Class Chair, Earlham College Class of 1998

Alex lives in the Original Highlands neighborhood of Louisville with his wife and two sons. You can follow his personal blog at this link.

Metal hip implant cases moving forward

I've spent most of the last three years learning about how metal hip implants injure people. These medical devices were promoted over the last decade as the best thing since sliced bread. They were pitched as a product that would last forever. Turned out that many of them had a higher than normal failure rate.

Now, hip device companies are facing a mountain of lawsuits from people with a nasty condition called metallosis, which can injure the kidneys, destroy tissue and bone, and cause memory problems. Here's a blog post that I wrote for our law firm, Jones Ward PLC, earlier today about the latest twist in the mass tort world of hip implants.

"Dozens of lawsuits over failed Biomet hip implants are being merged together in a federal court in Indiana, over the objection of Biomet.

The cases, including some from Jones Ward PLC, involve failed metal-on-metal implants made by Biomet. The most common type is the Biomet M2A Magnum. Lawyers for the Indiana company argued that the cases should not be merged together, in part because they claimed the devices were not as defective as other metal-on-metal implants such as the DePuy ASR.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation, or JPML, disagreed. The panel, in a ruling filed Oct. 2, 2012, wrote that Biomet's efforts to settle some cases involving failed Magnums were "dwarfed by the almost 70 cases currently pending in federal court."

That number will almost certainly grow in the coming months as lawyers with Jones Ward PLC and other leading mass tort law firms seek compensation on behalf of those who have been injured by failed metal-on-metal Biomet implants. Sadly, the problems with these implants are similar to the problems with other metal-on-metal implants made by DePuy, Zimmer, and other manufacturers. In certain patients, the metal parts rub against each other, shedding tiny particles of cobalt and chromium into the patient's bloodstream, which can lead to a dangerous condition called metallosis.

The only permanent cure for metallosis is surgery to have the metal implant device removed. Although the cases against Biomet will likely require extensive litigation over the coming years, the recent ruling by the JPML is a step in the right direction toward getting injured implant recipients the compensation they deserve. Unlike a class action lawsuit, these cases will be merged together in Indiana just for the purposes of handling pre-trial testimony and the exchange of evidence, which is called discovery. In theory, each case would return to a local court once the merged case in Indiana is complete. If you or a loved one have been injured by a failed metal-on-metal hip implant made by Biomet, DePuy, or another company, call Attorney Alex Davis at 502-882-6000 for a free case evaluation, or email him at alex@jonesward.com."