07/16/04 Kaleida Foundation Elects Peter S.
Marlette New Chairman
Local Attorney and Community Leader Named For
2004-2005
Peter S. Marlette, Esq. a Senior Partner with Damon & Morey, was elected
Chair of the Kaleida Health Foundation. Mr. Marlette
originally joined the Millard Fillmore Foundation Board (which
eventually merged into the Kaleida Health Foundation) in 1991.
The Kaleida Health Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable
organization supporting the Buffalo General Hospital, DeGraff Memorial
Hospital, Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital, Millard Fillmore
Suburban Hospital, and the Visiting Nursing Association of WNY. The
Foundation Board is comprised of 16 community leaders whose mission is
to raise funds for new technology, continuing staff education, patient
education, patient programs, research and a variety of community health
care programs.
Mr. Marlette is a member of Litigation Department, where he devotes a
substantial portion of his practice to the defense of high exposure
personal injury, products liability, trucking, and toxic substance
litigation. He also represents corporations in large commercial
litigation and arbitrations both domestically and internationally.
A graduate of Dartmouth College and Georgetown University Law Center,
Mr. Marlette’s professional memberships include the Erie County Bar
Association, the New York State Bar Association, the American Bar
Association, and the Erie County Trial Lawyers Association. He is also a
member of the Insurance, Negligence and Compensation Committee and the
Trial Practice Committee of the New York State Bar Association and the
Attorney Access Board of Directors, a joint venture of the Erie County
Bar Association and Minority Bar Association.
Mr. Marlette is active in a number of charitable and civic
organizations. In addition to his responsibilities for the Foundation,
he is also a past Chairman and a member of the Board of Directors of the
Buffalo Renaissance Foundation, a member of the Project Oversight
Committee for the Center for Governmental Research’s study on local
government consolidation issues, and a frequent lecturer on products
liability and toxic substance litigation issues. In 1996, Mr. Marlette
was honored as one of Western New York’s “40 Under Forty” by Business
First of Buffalo.
07/15/04 Ellen Pierino becomes a member of
the Advisory Council to the UB Center for Arts
Community art enthusiast joins Advisory Council
Buffalo, New York - Ellen R. Pierino has joined the Advisory
Council to the UB Center for the Arts.
The Center For The Arts presents a wide range of high quality performing
arts and visual arts for the University, the State and the region, and
enhances and augments the academic activities of the fine and performing
arts departments at the University at Buffalo. The twenty-person council
is responsible for fundraising and promoting the Center.
Mrs. Pierino is currently the Director of Library Services for Damon &
Morey LLP. Her educational background includes a Master’s degree of
Library Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where
she also completed an undergraduate degree in History. Mrs. Pierino
earned her Master’s degree in Science of Education from Canisius College
and is certified by New York State in primary education.
Active in the community, Mrs. Pierino was appointed to the Erie County
Cultural Resources Advisory Board by the County Executive. She has been
a board member of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra Society and has
also served in various positions on the Orchestra’s Women’s Committee
including the position of President for two terms. Mrs. Pierino’s
memberships include the Association of Law Libraries of Upstate New
York, the American Association of Law Libraries, Friends of the Center
of the Arts, Canisius College Alumni Association, and the New York State
and National Association of Realtors.
Damon & Morey LLP is a full-service law firm calling on the knowledge
and experience of seventy-six attorneys. The firm’s major areas of
practice include Business and Corporate Law, Business Litigation,
General Litigation, Health Care Law, Labor & Employment, Probate, Trust,
& Estate, and Real Estate and Banking. Founded in 1917, the firm
currently maintains three offices - the firm’s headquarters in Buffalo,
a second office in Rochester, and a third office in Batavia.
07/30/04 Business First: Trying It First
By:
Annie Deck-Miller
A few weeks ago, V. Christopher Potenza tried his first case.
It was an exciting, nerve-wracking experience for the 27-year-old
lawyer, an associate at Hurwitz & Fine PC. And although he'd never
been in that position before, there was a part of it that felt at
least a little familiar.
"It's kind of like a first date," Potenza says. "You almost just want
to get it over with and not spill a drink on your lap,"
Baby steps
The issue at stake in Potenza's trial was establishing damages for a
motor vehicle accident. He was representing a driver insured by
Progressive Insurance Co. in a matter heard July 6 in state Supreme
Court in Niagara County.
"The trial occurred on the Tuesday after the Fourth of July weekend,"
says Potenza, a 2002 graduate of the University at Buffalo Law School
who joined the firm's roster last fall. "So that weekend became less
relaxing and more anxious, but I was able to kind of use my family
members and friends as kind of mock jurors, run ideas off of them."
Potenza believes that his opponent was also a rookie litigator. The
case was, he says, a low-risk file of the sort that firms typically
assign to inexperienced litigators: Both parties had agreed to a cap
on damages, so there was not a lot at stake in case things did not go
his way.
The trial unfolded in the course of a day, from jury selection in the
morning until the jury returned its verdict at about half-past five.
Even so, those few hours were filled with anxiousness and nerves.
Potenza says he wasn't concerned about the substance of the case, but
rather about making a good impression in front of the judge and jury.
He was concerned about not looking like a rookie as he addressed the
judge, moved to have evidence admitted or reacted to objections.
"Those are things I had more anxiety over than presenting the case,"
Potenza says. "Because you can sit in your office and work on a file
and know it in and out, but it's little things, often, that a jury
will pick up on and judge you on. And often, you're judged more
harshly than the facts of your case are."
At the conclusion of the trial, Potenza felt confident that he'd done
his best, but had no idea as to what the jury would decide.
The damages figure that the jury awarded the plaintiff was quite low -
a clear victory for rookie litigator Potenza and his client.
"It was just a big sigh of relief " to hear the jury's decision, he
says. "I turned around and looked at the insurance company reps, who
gave me a thumbs-up."
And how did he celebrate his win that evening? With a resounding loss
on the softball field.
"I went to a company softball game and got killed," says Potenza.
Second helpings Potenza knows he's fortunate to have been given the
opportunity to try a case at a relatively tender age and experience
level.
It's important that law firms send litigators to court early in their
careers, says Damon & Morey LLPs Sheri Mooney.
"Once you get that experience of trying your first case, you have a
clearer view of the entire discovery and litigation process, because
you start thinking more about the issues that are going to come out at
trial," she says, "That's why it's really invaluable to send people
out to get trial experience early"
Mooney's first trial was about six years ago, when she was an
associate at another area firm. She "secondchaired" the case, meaning
that she assisted another lawyer a senior partner in her firm - in
presenting the case. She wasn't in the driver's seat, so to speak, but
she did get valuable exposure to the nuts and bolts of a trial. She
participated in jury selection, helped prepare the witnesses and made
motions and objections during the weeklong trial.
The plaintiff was seeking more than a half-million dollars, so the
stakes were high. The outcome was a win for the defense.
Significantly, Mooney was present in court at the client's request -
and on the client's dollar. Her firm was defending a contractor in a
construction-site accident, and she'd impressed the client with her
attention to some inconsistencies in the plaintiff's argument
Particularly on cases that might be affected by recent statutory
changes, she says, there's always a chance that a green young
associate may have as much to add to the case as a senior partner.
"Everybody's opinion counts," says Mooney. "Sometimes, you can have a
seasoned trial attorney who's just running into an issue that's never
come up before."
Crash course in trial work
Anthony Latona, a litigation partner at Jaeckle Fleischmann & Muget
LLP, teaches a continuing education seminar for lawyers on the topic
"How to Litigate Your First Civil Trial in New York"
Latona, whos got more than three decades of legal experience, offers
tips like the following:
* Keep it fair; be prepared.
There's no better way to even the playing field, Latona says, than to
know your stuff inside and out.
Part of being prepared is to be organized so you're not fumbling
through papers when you're up at the podium. And it's crucial to think
very early on about which witnesses you'd like to call and what
documentation or items you want admitted into evidence.
If you don't plan ahead, Latona says, you may find that your key
witness has moved out of town or that the jury will never know about
your smoking gun because of some procedural glitch.
* Be judicious with facts and evidence.
There's a parallel evil to being underprepared: not knowing when
enough is enough.
"Sometimes your inexperience leads you to put on too many witnesses,
provide too much proof, because you always have that fear of, 'Well, I
won't be criticized if I use everything I've got,'" Latona says. If
you do so, you run the risk of boring and annoying the judge and jury
"A more experienced trial lawyer has more of a knife-cutting approach
to his presentation - more surgical, more direct," he says.
* Know your territory - literally.
Make sure that you and your clients know your way to the courtroom,
Latona advises.
"There's nothing more embarrassing than that first day, your clients
are lost or you're lost trying to find what part (i.e., which
courtroom) you're in."
* Deal try to be Agatha Christie.
"Trying a case," Latona says, "is a simple process of telling a story.
But it's not a mystery story. You're not trying to keep the jury in
suspense until the last day as to 'whodunit'
"Here, it's the exact opposite: You want the jury to understand right
off the bat what your case is, what your position is on something. And
the best way of doing that is with a good, concise opening statement
where you crystallize exactly what your presentation will be."
* Fear is nothing to fear.
"If you're not nervous, you really should be a trial lawyer in some
sense," Latona says. "It's the nervousness that drives you for the
competition, to thoroughness, making sure that the job is done."
He says inexperienced litigators can often capitalize on their
greenness in the courtroom.
"There is a natural tendency sometimes for jurors to pull for an
underdog and even for a judge to assist an underdog, and they, should
utilize that to their advantage."
* Be yourself.
If you try to change your personality, your voice or your mannerisms
in order to be a more effective litigator, you're likely to get caught
in the charade, Latona says, and you'll sacrifice the jury's trust.
Inexperienced lawyers, he says, "sometimes feel they need to be the
commanding, attack-dog type of mentality or person, and it's not their
personality. That's a mistake, There are some people who are good at
that, there are some people who are not.
"Your best method of trying a case is to be yourself, to utilize your
personality. It may not be the most gregarious, open type of
personality, but jurors don't want to hear things from people who are
fakes or acting artificially. They pickup on that right off the bat."
Used with the permission of American City Business Journals.
