BLUEPRINT TRIAL CONSULTING - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of Graphics
- Director of Graphics & Trial Presentation Consulting
Abraham Lopez Ortega is a Director of Graphics and Trial Presentation Consulting at Blueprint Trial Consulting. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in visual communication from the University of Texas at Arlington and studied at Texas State University.
Abe has contributed to several notable cases in United States that have gone to trial and positively influenced jury verdicts. Professional experience working alongside attorneys, experts, and witnesses for several weeks at a time in the war room and courtroom. Easily shifts from assisting attorneys with witness preparation in the war room to supporting trial attorneys with trial presentation in state and federal courts across the country. He continues to recommend and create strategic courtroom demonstratives for use as evidence. He performs in-depth analysis to visually communicate and interpret data for court presentations.
When he isn't creating solutions for a case, he spends his time creating new memories with family and volunteers at the Gallery at UTA.
Experience
US District Court for the
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Graphics Consultant
Barbara Boylan is a Graphics Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in Painting/Drawing from the prestigious Corcoran School of the Arts & Design at The George Washington University, where she also minored in Classical Studies.
Prior to joining Blueprint, Barbara worked for The Art League Gallery, a non-profit organization, assisting in installation and curation of work by emerging artists at the Torpedo Arts Center in Alexandria, VA.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner
- Managing Partner and Senior Graphics Consultant
Chad Graf is a Managing Partner and Senior Graphics Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting.
Chad's consulting practice focuses on the development of strategic graphic communication concepts and the production of demonstrative evidence for legal proceedings. He has worked with plaintiff and defense counsel in high-stakes cases throughout the United States. His experience covers a wide range of litigation matters including intellectual property, contract, insurance coverage, product liability, securities fraud, white-collar crime and others.
Chad has over 15 years of design experience and over 10 years focused specifically on serving legal clients. He has extensive experience working in both the production of graphics as well as providing art direction, management and oversight to a team of designers working on complex multifaceted design projects. Chad is experienced in all phases of case life cycle, trial preparation, execution, and war room support and has appeared as a guest speaker at both conferences and CLEs regarding the effective use of demonstratives at trial. Chad earned his B.S. degree from the University of Baltimore, and his M.A. degree in Strategic Communications from Seton Hall University.
Experience
District of Delaware
David Sokol is a Research Assistant at Blueprint Trial Consulting. David graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Forensic Psychology and a Minor in Law from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.
David is continuing his graduate studies at John Jay College working towards a Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology and completing a Master's Thesis on the potential use of mindfulness meditation to enhance jurors' source memory for pretrial publicity. He also volunteers as a paper and poster submission reviewer for the annual American Psychology-Law Society conference of which he is also a member.
David has experience in experimental research methodology and juror memory and decision-making. As a member of the Blueprint Trial Consulting team, he uses his education and experience to support clients and the Blueprint team.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Partner and Senior Litigation Consultant
Dr. Edward P. Schwartz is a Partner and Senior Litigation Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting.
Dr. Schwartz is noted for his ability to blend the strategic focus of game theory and decision theory with the real-world insights of social psychology to gain a complete picture of how people process, analyze, and retain information to evaluate and decide important cases. In his role, Dr. Schwartz conducts quantitative and qualitative analyses of pretrial jury behavior to provide clients with actionable feedback on case themes, strategies, evidence, witnesses, and presentation style. Further, he consults on case evaluation, provides advice on trial strategies, and assists with jury selection. Dr. Schwartz has consulted on hundreds of cases, spanning more than 25 states, including several high-profile criminal trials.
Dr. Schwartz is regularly asked to provide insight on jury trials in the news, having been interviewed by CNN, the Associated Press, the New York Times and many regional media outlets. Dr. Schwartz has published numerous articles about the American jury system in law reviews and peer-reviewed journals and has taught about juries and jury trials to undergraduates and law students at Harvard, Yale and Boston Universities. Dr. Schwartz has a Ph.D. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School.
Experience
Antitrust Cases
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner
- Managing Partner and Senior Litigation Consultant
Dr. Eric Rudich is a Managing Partner and Senior Litigation Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting.
As a social psychologist, he evaluates how individuals' emotions, perceptions, and attitudes influence their decision-making in civil and criminal litigation. Dr. Rudich regularly leverages technology to help his clients gain insight into how individuals analyze and ultimately decide his clients' cases. Based on this information, he works closely with counsel to develop themes and specific language at trial, advise on visual strategies, create jury profiles and prepare witnesses. He has been conducting jury research and consulted on matters for almost 20 years and has worked on over 500 cases in venues throughout the United States. Dr. Rudich has worked on litigation involving intellectual property, insurance defense, product liability, securities, contract, anti-trust, white-collar crime, and environmental issues.
Dr. Rudich has appeared as an invited guest on CourtTV and MSNBC, conducted CLEs, spoken at conferences and published several articles in leading legal journals. Dr. Rudich has a doctorate degree in social psychology from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has studied jury behavior at Duke Law School.
Experience
Antitrust Cases
Conducted multiple jury research exercises in cases involving allegations of price fixing, attempted monopolization, price discrimination, and improper dealer terminations.
Dr. Silberkleit is a social-personality psychologist who specializes in legal decision making. His areas of expertise include persuasion, motivated reasoning, stereotyping, implicit versus explicit mental processes, jury dynamics, and how personality and attitudes predict legal decisions. Dr. Silberkleit is also an expert in social-scientific research methods and survey design, and he is trained in advanced statistics. He has conducted mock jury research exercises in over 30 U.S. states and territories and assisted attorneys on over 200 cases. Dr. Silberkleit applies insights from rigorous academic training, practical experience, and pretrial research projects to assist clients with developing persuasive themes and trial strategies, drafting opening statements and closing arguments, determining jury profiles, and evaluating case vulnerabilities and litigation risk.
Dr. Silberkleit frequently lectures on legal psychology, has published his research in scientific journals, and has co-authored several book chapters-including the Witness Preparation chapter for top litigation consulting handbook, Jurywork: Systematic Techniques. Dr. Silberkleit has a B.A. in psychology from University of California, Los Angeles and a M.A. and Ph.D in social-personality psychology from the University of California, Davis.
Job Titles:
- Director of Research and Senior Litigation Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting Los Angeles
Dr. Kelloir Smith is the Director of Research and Senior Litigation Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting Los Angeles office. Dr. Smith is an expert in juror decision making and persuasive communications and has extensive experience with a wide range of complex commercial litigation and white collar defense. She assists attorneys with traditional and online jury research, theme development, trial strategies, witness communication training, opening statement development, and jury selection. With nearly twenty years of jury research and consulting practice, she has worked on hundreds of focus groups, mock trials, online jury surveys, juror profiling studies, jury selections, post-trial juror interviews, and trials throughout the country. She collaborates with her clients to develop tailored research to address the unique issues involved in their cases and to optimize the effectiveness of the insights gleaned from the research. Through these engagements, she provides strategic recommendations and leverages empirical findings from both academic and case specific research. She utilizes her specialized training and experience in research methodology, data analysis and the study of juror psychology to provide insights to assist her trial team while successfully resolving their matters.
Job Titles:
- Director / Senior Litigation Consultant
Dr. Matthew Kops is a Director / Senior Litigation Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting. Matt focuses on identifying what drives juror decision-making. He listens for where jurors will react to there being holes in a case. Matt works with attorneys at all stages of the litigation process, providing strategic recommendations for developing the best-case story that will appeal to jurors. He also assists in building that case story into witness testimony and identifying worst case scenario jurors.
Previously, Matt worked at another litigation consulting firm for 10 years, where he was a Director. Since 2002 he has worked on more than 250 trials in state and federal venues throughout the United States. His experience includes litigation involving:
Job Titles:
- Litigation Consultant
- Socio - Legal
Dr. Vivian Rotenstein is a socio-legal psychologist whose research employs tenets of social psychology to inform processes and outcomes in the civil and criminal justice systems. Her research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses, and involves both experimental work and the analysis of secondary data sets. Within social psychology and law, she has conducted extensive research on implicit and explicit forgiveness attitudes towards formerly incarcerated individuals, biases (by race, gender, etc.) within individual juror attitudes and jury deliberations within the criminal and civil systems, and voir dire for capital punishment cases. Her experimental jury work is substantiated by work as a trial consultant researcher with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Scientific Resources for the Law, during which she assisted clients with jury selection during voir dire, and conducted post-trial interviews with shadow jurors.
She received her PhD in Psychology from Cornell University, with concentrations in Law, Psychology, and Human Development, and Social and Personality Psychology. Her dissertation examined gender biases in the prosecution of sexual misconduct cases and in civil juries' deliberation process. She received her Master's degree in Developmental Psychology from Cornell University, and her Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Southern California.
Job Titles:
- Director of Graphics
- Director of Graphics Consulting
Gavin Gregory is a Director of Graphics Consulting at Blueprint Trial Consulting.
Gavin is an accomplished graphics consultant and designer in all aspects of visual communications. As a Director of Graphics Consulting, Gavin works with design teams to create compelling and persuasive graphics from conceptualization to completion. Gavin has over 20 years of experience developing demonstratives with the goal of educating and persuading judges, juries, and arbitrators. He has been the lead graphics consultant on many landmark cases, with experience in the practice areas of intellectual property, ITC, product liability, contract law, corporate litigation, wrongful death, medical malpractice, toxic tort, mesothelioma, tobacco litigation, pharmaceuticals, and product liability matters. Gavin is a valued member of trial teams who frequently works onsite to assist with jury trials, bench trials, private arbitrations, mediations, and mock trials.
Additionally, Gavin has experience in UI/UX (User Interface/User Experience) Design that utilizes responsive coding and design technologies used for corporate training, military training, consumer product instructions, and for marketing consumer products and services. His experience includes being retained by U.S. Department of Defense contractors to design interactive training modules and various types of educational multimedia for all of the U.S. military branches and many internal DOD departments.
Experience
Northern District of New York
Job Titles:
- Senior Graphics Consultant
Kim has nearly two decades of professional creative experience as a visual communications director and consultant. She began her career at TrialGraphix and has continued to build on that foundation serving a number of corporations and individuals including Alcatel-Lucent, AVAYA, Omnicom, Apple, Pfizer, Microsoft, Novartis, among others. Ms. Graf has significant experience leading graphics teams and producing on target, memorable presentations for many high-profile matters. She was a merit scholarship recipient and earned her BFA degree with a visual communications focus from Pratt Institute.
Kristen Akin is a Research Analyst at Blueprint Trial Consulting. Kristen graduated as an Undergraduate Research Scholar and Teaching Scholar from Texas A&M University where she majored in Psychology and minored in Chemistry.
Kristen graduated with a Master of Arts in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice where she completed a Master's Thesis on the trial penalty that can accompany plea bargains and its coercive and unfair nature under the supervision of Dr. Steven Penrod. Kristen also has worked closely with the Scientific Resources for the Law Group, based out of the University of Nebraska, where she performed and compiled social media searches on multiple jury panels.
Kristen has extensive training in quantitative and qualitative research and jury psychology. As a member of the Blueprint Trial Consulting team, she leverages her training and experience to assist clients with their important matters.
Job Titles:
- Senior Graphics Consultant
Luis received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with focus on Computer Graphics with Honors from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn New York and he is fluent in English and Spanish. He is an accomplished creative professional with a proven track record of creating litigation graphics ranging from concept through execution. Luis provides clients with clear and compelling graphics for clients to educate and persuade jurors, judges and arbitrators.
Luis has over 12 years of experience working in various creative fields as a 3D animator, motion graphic artist, designer and illustrator combined with 6 years working as a Litigation Graphics Consultant. He has applied his design expertise to litigation graphics and visual communication, with a focus on presentation design, developing demonstratives, and creating technical tutorials. Luis has worked on a wide variety of cases, including intellectual property, product liability, toxic tort, employment discrimination, insurance coverage, personal injury matters from the initial conceptualization of graphics needs through trial.
Luis provides on-site production support for jury research exercises, trials, arbitration as well as mediations. He has expertise in effective visual communication, data visualization, and infographics. He develops creative demonstratives for all types of cases, and assists clients in strategic solutions and provides graphic recommendations to create persuasive presentations.
Max Webb has more than twenty years of experience working with trial teams across the country to design and create persuasive strategic visual solutions for jury and bench trials, mediations, and arbitrations. Throughout his career Max has worked at several national litigation consulting firms and has extensive experience supporting clients representing Fortune 500 companies in all phases of high-stakes litigation.
Max works with trial teams to identify communication challenges and create compelling visual presentations that convey key messages while complementing the team's presentational style. His work is guided by simple and elegant design principles to translate complex information and intricate processes into presentations that educate and persuade jurors.
Max has experience working with trial teams and their clients, experts, and witnesses on-site in war rooms and in the courtroom. His experience covers a wide range of litigation matters including intellectual property, contract, insurance coverage, product liability. His portfolio samples work including corporate identity and branding, information graphics, print publications, and photography.
Job Titles:
- Senior Graphics Consultant
Nick is a Senior Graphics Consultant with Blueprint Trial Consulting. Nick specializes in the development and execution of the visual strategies and solutions that effectively engage educate and persuade juries, judges, arbitrators, and mediators.
Nick began his career in 2002 as a technical 3D animator, a skillset he still uses today to provide clients with this expertise. Over the years he has created a variety of technical animations and visualizations related to complex IP matters, medical procedures and methodologies, architecture and construction, technology, and accident reconstruction. By creating detailed, field-specific animations and presentations, Nick helps leading litigation firms visualize complex technology and scenarios that would otherwise be more difficult and less persuasive to present to a judge or jury. Nick has consulted on a wide range of cases, including intellectual property, financial, product liability and construction. With over fifteen years of industry experience, he has assisted legal teams in every capacity, including Markman hearings, mock jury exercises, presentations for opening statements and closing arguments, demonstratives for key witnesses, and patent and technology tutorials. Nick provides onsite graphics support for trial teams involved in large complex matters. During his career, Nick has frequently worked with many Fortune 500 companies and AMLaw 100 firms to develop and implement visual strategies for hearings, trials, and mediations.
Nick received his BFA in computer graphics and intermedia from Arizona State University. Prior to joining Blueprint, Nick worked for Casesight Inc. and FTI Consulting.
Remi Bohbot is a Research Associate at Blueprint Trial Consulting. Remi graduated Magna Cum Laude from Wake Forest University where she majored in both Political Science and Sociology with a concentration in Crime and Criminal Justice.
Job Titles:
- Senior Trial Presentation Consultant
Steve Jackson is a Senior Trial Presentation Consultant at Blueprint Trial Consulting. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Steve has extensive experience providing litigation support nationwide, in all areas from legal videography to in-trial "hot seat" duties. He has assisted many firms and attorneys with their legal support needs, resulting in continuous positive outcomes and repeat business. From complex courtroom tech setups to strategic trial presentations, Steve has provided his clients with the highest caliber of support.
When he isn't working on a complex case, Steve spends his free time with family and friends, and taking his husky "Kenai" on hikes and other adventures.