We wrapped up the trial in a tragic automobile accident there that killed a woman and left her husband, once a chemist, with permanent mental and physical injuries.

Our staff of highly experienced attorneys in the field of personal injury liability have handled complex litigation—from aviation disasters to product liability actions, from construction accidents to medical malpractice suits.

The Sioux Falls family hired a local lawyer, but he felt the case deserved the expertise as well as the investment of time, attention and money that he and his modest firm simply couldn’t afford. He was right.

We conducted focus groups and mock trials in Sioux Falls and learned, within a reasonable range of certainty, what the case was worth. When defense counsel balked, we took the case to trial and received a record $7.5 million, the largest personal injury award in the state of South Dakota.

In this day and age of specialization in nearly every professional field—from health care to electronics—it’s not surprising that the legal field also requires a high level of sophistication. Case law, litigation strategy, even the ability to prepare a witness and pick a particular juror requires unique skills endemic to the case.

I find this particularly true in aviation cases. These highly complex matters often require a multi-dimensional approach involving a number of different, often antagonistic defendants. Theories of liability against each party differ as well. Engineers and safety experts from around the world must be identified and secured. It’s nearly an impossible task for an attorney to accomplish without the proper experience and resources.

I was selected as the lead plaintiffs counsel for the families of passengers for Flight 4184 that crashed in Roselawn, Indiana, Halloween night, 1994. Many of us can recall the horrific news reports of the smoking wreckage in a soybean field, a tragedy that was later compounded by the airlines secretly burying the remains of 21 bodies without even informing family members.

We were set to go to trial in federal district court in Chicago.

Instead, the case was settled in the eleventh hour for a record $110 million for a group of families that had gathered from around the country to witness this tragic chapter finally close in a Chicago courtroom with unprecedented apologies we extracted from the defense counsel.

These attorneys, some of the nation’s toughest, saw what they were up against. Not only had my firm done its homework through extensive depositions, expert preparation and discovery, but we were able to use computerized techniques and the very latest in sophisticated state of the art demonstrative evidence that would have recalled deposition testimony for impeachment purposes at the touch of a button. We were dealing with thousands of documents, hundreds of witnesses, tens of families. We were faced with telling 12 jurors as expeditiously and clearly as possible exactly what happened. It could be done no other way.

Familiarity with settlement strategies in a particular field of law also can be invaluable when deciding whether further expertise and help is needed in a complex case. That issue brings to mind the recent case my firm settled in Texas where a man suffered severe burns from being electrocuted by a live wire while conducting an inspection on a roof. Again, Clifford Law Offices was called in by local counsel who said he just wasn’t comfortable with his level of expertise and the time required in handling a complex personal injury case that called for experts—both technical and medical—as well as litigation strategies in going up against one of the most formidable defense firms in the state of Texas. The case was settled for $15 million.

When faced with a case that appears to be out of one’s specialty, it’s best not to attempt to try to handle it and merely hope for a reasonable result. Instead, the wiser route, particularly given the savvy awareness of today’s clients regarding malpractice, is to seek the best and the brightest for those cases that require such treatment.

As a referring attorney, one could and should maintain contact with the case and, most certainly, with the client. But if one hesitates even for a moment wondering if he or she is capable of handling a particular specialized matter, it means it’s time to look into hiring additional counsel who can likely do a better job than you. That search should not end at one’s back door.

Rather, if the case warrants, the selection of attorneys should be viewed on a national scope with the experienced "road warrior" translating those well honed skills to your turf.

Robert A. Clifford is principal partner of Clifford Law Offices, a nationally recognized firm based in Chicago concentrating in personal injury, wrongful death, aviation, transportation, medical negligence and product liability litigation. Mr. Clifford has been named to the International Academy of Trial Lawyers, the American College of Trial Lawyers as well as to the National Judicial College. He has served as President of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and the Chicago Inn of Court. He will accede has been nominated as to the Chair-Elect of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation to which he could accede as Chair in 2001.