What good will money do? A damages award may never make an injured plaintiff whole, but jurors who understand how the award will improve your client's life are more likely to provide just compensation.

The cornerstone question, "What good will money do" must be answered in every personal injury or medical malpractice case. But before expecting a jury to answer the question, you must be able to do so. How will a damages award improve the plaintiff's quality of life? Will it make the person more mobile and thus able to attend a child's school play or soccer game? Will the amount of the award be sufficient to care and provide for the family of a deceased parent?

All jurors know--and every defense attorney will remind them--that money will not raise the dead or cure the permanently injured client. But you can show the jury the good that a damages award can do. Use the following suggestions to help your injured clients get the compensation they deserve.

Understand the injury and its effects. You must understand the medical principles that apply to your client's injuries to be able to effectively present and explain relevant evidence to the jury. You must be a student of medicine before trial and a teacher of medicine at trial.

For example, if the plaintiff is a brain-injured child, you must communicate to jurors that brain cells, unlike other nerve cells, do not regenerate after they are severely damaged. Brain cells die and are never replaced, so children with brain injuries have significantly reduced neurological reserves, and their brains are predisposed to early aging. When you understand this, you can stress in closing argument that today's moderately impaired child will be tomorrow's senior citizen with premature dementia.

You must also truly know the plaintiff to help jurors understand the effects of the injury. Spend time with your client and perhaps visit his or her home. These visits allow you to see the plaintiff as he or she really is and appreciate the sacrifices the family must make because of the injury.

In a wrongful death case, such a visit may demonstrate the depth of the family's grief. When a child has died, for example, his or her room often remains untouched, even after years have passed. Giving jurors this insight will help them understand the importance of a just damages award.

Prepare the jury in voir dire. Introduce the case's damages theme during voir dire. For example, I often use a family values theme. I begin voir dire by asking potential jurors if they believe that family values are extremely important and if they recognize that injury to one family member tends to inconvenience and hurt the rest. Most jurors readily acknowledge that family is one of the most important aspects of life. I then ask potential jurors how an injury to a member of their family would affect them.

I point out that loss-of-consortium and wrongful death claims generally embody their legislature's recognition of the importance of family values. I ask potential jurors how they feel about laws that provide for money damages for loss of earnings, medical bills, loss of companionship or society, and past and future pain and suffering, such as wrongful death statutes specifying such recovery.

This line of questioning enables me to determine which potential jurors will not be willing to award damages for these types of claims; these jurors may be challenged for cause. This technique must be used carefully, however, because you may seem greedy and overzealous if you appear to be asking jurors to commit to a damages amount before hearing the evidence.

Use demonstrative evidence. A day-in-the-life video provides powerful visual evidence of the extent of injury and its impact on the plaintiff's daily life. The video presentation should be less than 30 minutes long to avoid the risk of losing jurors' attention, and it should be filmed by an experienced videographer.

The video should include scenes from the plaintiffs current routine and scenes that were filmed shortly after the injury. This comparison demonstrates the tediousness and difficulty of recovery, the inconvenience caused by the injury, and the amount of equipment and therapy the plaintiff needs.

You should not be present during filming. Your presence may suggest that the film is your creation rather than a true account of the plaintiff's life. And the defense attorney might imply, in cross-examination of a participant in the video or a witness, that the video was tainted by your involvement.

Slides of the plaintiff before the injury should also be shown to demonstrate what he or she lost, such as a happier personality or an active family life. Jurors can put the injury in context when they have seen the person in a normal, active state. When showing the slides, consider placing a title slide before each, such as "Johnny's sixth birthday," "Johnny with his sister at age 10," and "Johnny in the nursing home." Show the slides while an appropriate family member is on the stand, in case comment is needed.

Develop and present a life-care plan. Often, the best evidence that a damages award will benefit an injured plaintiff is a comprehensive life-care plan. The plan should address the plaintiffs short- and long-term needs and fully document all costs that he or she will incur over his or her remaining life expectancy. These costs should include medical care, therapy, and all other support needs, such as counseling, medications, corrective or preventive procedures, wheelchairs, and prosthetics.

These plans should be prepared by an expert life-care planner, usually a certified rehabilitation specialist or a certified nurse life-care planner. He or she should personally interview the plaintiff at home to accurately assess his or her needs. The planner should be an expert in determining the costs of each item included in the plan and must be able to demonstrate that he or she used a reliable methodology to calculate those costs.

Ideally, the planner will also be an expert on government benefits--including Medicare, Social Security, and state-sponsored benefits. Because defense attorneys often argue that availability of such benefits should reduce a damages award, the planner should be able to testify on the inadequacy and uncertainty of government benefits and answer questions about them in cross-examination.

The life-care planner serves as the plan's architect, but because these plans are often complex, additional experts should be engaged to validate the plan. Many detailed plans will require more than one physician or other expert to cover specialized items. For example, if a life-care plan states that a client will require bilateral hip surgery, an orthopedic expert should be on hand to testify that such a procedure is likely for patients with limited mobility.

The plan should extend over the reasonable life expectancy of the injured person. For example, if the plaintiff is a child with a full life expectancy, one expert should be a physician who treats senior citizens. This permits the jury to see the injured plaintiff not only as a child, but also as an elderly person whose entire life has been affected by the injury.

It is best to work with a life-care planner who helps institute his or her plans after an award is obtained. This gives the planner credibility and ensures that he or she will not be seen by the jury as a mere "Witness for hire."

You must also establish the credibility of the plan. If jurors believe that a life-care plan will improve the quality and length of the plaintiff's life, they are more likely to award the amount necessary to implement it. The planner and other experts should testify that the plan will improve the life.

Of course, the plan should be presented so that jurors can understand it. One approach is to use visual exhibits. For example, you might make a series of slides showing each item listed in the plan, such as medical equipment or housing modifications. If a plan calls for your client to reside in a group home, show a video about the home and have an expert from the facility testify that it is appropriate to place the plaintiff there. If a plan calls for occupational or physical therapy, show a video of the plaintiff receiving the therapy. Visual aids explain items in the life-care plan and may remind the jury of the plaintiffs suffering.

Establish life expectancy. The rationale behind a life-care plan is that it will improve the person's quality and length of life. Early in case preparation, aim to establish evidence of the plaintiff's reasonable life expectancy and seek expert testimony to support the figures.

Life expectancy opinions are merely estimates calculated on statistics. Of course, no expert knows to the day, or even to the year, when the plaintiff will die. The defense attorney will exploit this uncertainty and attempt to reduce the defendant's liability by attacking the expert's estimate, often citing studies involving people who have suffered injuries similar to the plaintiff's.

You can discredit these studies by emphasizing differences between the plaintiff and the subjects of the research. For example, in a case involving a brain-damaged child who has no seizures, distinguish your client from study participants who had the same injury but also had seizures. If a study included institutionalized children and your client lives at home with loving parents, point it out. Always remind jurors that the study does not involve children who have the benefit of a life-care plan like the one proposed for your client, and stress that such a plan is likely to increase an injured person's life expectancy. In addition, you can discredit a study that is more than a few years old with evidence of recent advancements in medication, diagnostic studies, and therapy.

You can also challenge the defense expert's opinions on life expectancy by presenting living examples--people who suffered injuries similar to the plaintiff's and have outlived the expert's estimate.

When the defense provides a doctor's opinion on a limited life expectancy, cross-examine the doctor about what he or she expects will cause the plaintiff's death. Defense experts may speculate to the point of absurdity in an effort to reduce life expectancy and thus the amount of damages. For example, if a doctor testifies that the plaintiff will probably die from intractable seizures, but your client does not suffer from seizures or is medicated to control them, the expert's opinion is less credible.

Finally, consider challenging the defense expert's quality-assurance measures. For example, ask whether the expert has contacted the families of plaintiffs against whom he or she testified in the past to determine whether those plaintiffs outlived the expert's opinion. This line of questioning can establish that the expert is unaware of the accuracy of his or her opinions in prior cases.

Use an expert economist. After you have demonstrated the life-care plan's credibility and the plaintiff's reasonable life expectancy, an expert economist should establish the dollar amount required to implement the plan. An economist's testimony avoids the misperception among jurors that you are requesting an arbitrary amount of damages.

Because some items in the life-care plan may come to appear unnecessary and the life expectancy figure may change during trial, the economist should testify last. If changes are made to the life-care plan, the economist can adjust the figures to be consistent with the proof. In some states and in federal court, an expert economist must testify consistently with his or her expert report. In such jurisdictions, the economist should prepare an alternative plan as part of the expert report.

The defense will also present expert economic testimony. One way to discredit it is to look for bias in the expert's method of computing damages. For instance: An economist may estimate that an injured female baby will suffer less future wage loss than a comparably injured male will--based on historical wage data compiled by the government.

Cross-examination can establish that these data are based on gender bias that existed in the past and that the economist's methodology asks the jury to discriminate against women. You can make the argument that a higher award for wage loss is appropriate because society will treat women more equally by the time the plaintiff reaches age 18.

Close with care. To show jurors why the amount of damages your client seeks is appropriate, you must provide them with a complete understanding of every aspect of the injury and its implications for the plaintiff's expected lifetime. However, avoid asking for damages for "pain," "suffering," and "mental anguish," because those terms are often misinterpreted as connoting "lawyer greed." Instead, your closing argument should focus on the value of what the plaintiff has lost. The following closing argument was made in a case involving a permanently immobile plaintiff injured by a doctor's negligence:

   Sometimes bad people break the law. Sometimes, not always, we catch them,
   and then we convict them. They are put in jail, and you know the rest: They
   get to stay in a cell of a constitutionally guaranteed size. They are given
   literature to read and access to the library. They get time in the yard and
   in the gym. More often than not, after a few years, they are released and
   paroled.

      The plaintiff, Ellen Jones, is a prisoner of her injuries. They will
   hold her hostage for the rest of her life. She is unable to walk to the
   yard or the library. No early release or parole is possible. What she has
   lost is what we all cherish the most--her essential freedom.

Jurors might think that a monetary award cannot help, such as in a case involving the death of a child. All the money in the world, they conclude, will not be able to bring the child back. In such cases, instead of telling them what good the money will do, consider reversing the core question to, "What harm will an inadequate verdict do to the plaintiff or the plaintiffs family?" A low verdict will tell a plaintiff that his or her life or the child's has no value to society. A small amount will also tell the defendant that it need not pay for its negligent or willful conduct. Remind the jury that one form of greed is a person's refusal to pay what is justly owed.

In every case involving a claim for damages, jurors must know the answer to the question, "What good will money do?" You must answer this question for yourself and communicate your answer to the jury. If you can show jurors that your client will benefit from just compensation, they are more likely to award it.

Richard D. Lawrence practices with The Lawrence Firm in Cincinnati.