Win High-Stakes Cases Through Smart Strategy with Donald McGarrah

Winning high-stakes cases is not luck. It is strategy, preparation, and smart risk decisions.

In this episode, Donald McGarrah,a nationally recognized trial lawyer and partner at McNabola Law Group, shares how he evaluates complex cases before investing time and money. You learn how to assess liability, confirm causation, and ensure there is a path to financial recovery.  

You’ll also learn how to prepare for trial from day one. A strong strategy starts the moment a case comes in. You define your themes early, build clear arguments, and repeat key messages so they stick.  

If you care about profitability, risk management, and long-term growth, this episode gives you a practical framework. 

Start making smarter decisions before the stakes get higher. Tune in to Win High-Stakes Cases Through Smart Strategy with Donald McGarrah.

Donald McGarrah is a partner at McNabola Law Group and a nationally experienced trial lawyer specializing in catastrophic personal injury, commercial litigation, and property subrogation. He has served as lead trial counsel in multi-million dollar cases across 38 states and is recognized for excellence in trial practice..

Connect with Donald McGarrah:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donald-mcgarrah-6009466a/  

Judicial Dollars and Cents is a podcast hosted by Anders Partner and Virtual CFO advisor John Scott, focused on helping law firms win high-stakes cases with smarter financial strategy. The show breaks down the key metrics, financial frameworks, and decision-making systems that drive stronger case outcomes and firm performance.

Website: https://anderscpa.com/learn/podcasts/judicial-dollars-and-cents/ 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jdc.vcfo 

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John C. Scott, CPA, AEP, is a Partner in Tax and a leader in legal industry financial strategy by Anders. He helps law firms win high-stakes cases with smart strategy by delivering clear financial insights, identifying key performance indicators, and strengthening decision-making at every level. With deep expertise in estate planning and financial analysis, John works closely with attorneys and firm leaders to align financial goals with long-term business success and case readiness. His approach brings scalability, flexibility, and data-driven clarity to complex legal environments, helping firms stay focused, prepared, and competitive.

Connect with John C. Scott:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Judicial Dollars and Stuff, brought to you by Anders virtual CFO services team from all across the United States. I'm John Scott, and in each episode, we'll shine a light on the financial side of the legal world, turning law firm numbers into impact-driven stories. From taxes and profitability to practice growth and leadership, we sit down with law firm innovators who are shaping the future of the profession. Let's dive in right here on Judicial Dollars and Cents.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hey, welcome back to Judicial Dollars and Cents. This is the podcast where we dive into the business side of running a law firm. I'm John Scott with Anders Virtual CFO Services for Law Firms, and each week we talk to industry experts who help law firm leaders think differently about growth, profitability, and performance so they can build practices that last. Today we have Don McGarrh. Don is a nationally recognized trial attorney specializing in catastrophic personal injury, complex commercial litigation, and property subrogation. He has extensive experience in serving as lead trial counsel in 38 states, and he has successfully litigated and resolved numerous multi-million dollar cases, earning industry recognition for excellence in trial advocacy and courtroom strategy. He is currently a partner at McGready, Garcia and Leet in the Chicagoland area, although it's an Illinois firm with multiple offices. And he plays a critical role in preparing and trying high-stake matters on local, regional, and national scale. Beyond litigation, we're going to find out about his illustrious rugby career, but he also advises manufacturers on risk mitigation and risk management. Don, welcome to the show. Thank you, Scott, John. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming on. Hey, I love to hear people's origin stories, and I'd like you to tell us yours.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

All right. So I never thought I'd be in the law, although my father, uh, who was a career navy officer, always wanted to be a lawyer. Um, I wanted to go into the entertainment business. So I majored in communications in college, and uh, but I studied a little bit about entry-level things and saw that it might provide a lot more leverage if I came in with a law degree or an MBA or combination of all the above. Took the LSAT, I scored very high. I went to law school in uh St. Louis, but I started working for a trial firm while I was there, and so that led to a job in St. Louis, which led to an interview up here with uh Phil Corboy, who's uh uh regarded as one of the top trial lawyers in the United States. And I got a job offer and came up here, and everything else is is history. I mean, I started uh someone had advised me if you're gonna try trial work, you need to do that early on because you're never gonna go you know from the corporate arena back into trial work. And uh so that's my story, and then I I was fortunate enough to grow up uh with my both my parents are gone, but uh my dad uh was a naval officer. We moved every two to three years, so I've lived all over the United States. I never thought I'd live in the Midwest because I grew up in Southern California, Monterey, where else? Uh Mississippi on the Gulf Coast, the Norfolk, Virginia area. We lived there uh and then Washington, D.C. I'm sure I'm here. Um I had a great experience.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

I'm sure your dad was very pleased that you found a profession and not that entertainment stuff that he was worried about.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

That's probably true. He was an engineer, but uh, you know, he always wanted to be a lawyer. So I'm honoring his legacy, let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

And you're so right about uh being in trial and being it's almost like being on stage. You either get it or you don't. Right. And if you get that experience early, you can develop it. Uh, I have a daughter who is an attorney and she is in trial quite a bit. And she has a similar background in that she never thought about going to law school. She wanted to work for a nonprofit. And I had a lawyer client who came up to her and said, uh, Katie, you can either work in the nonprofit or you can go to law school and run the nonprofit. And I thought, boy, you are you're barking up the wrong tree here. There's no way she's going to law school. Well, she did. And now she works for a nonprofit law firm that helps people with tenants' rights. And so she has this same kind of backdoor into the legal profession as you did as well. Great. Hey, when you um litigate these big cases, I assume that when a case comes in, you can evaluate it and determine its merit, right? For the most part, yeah. Can you talk about that process, how you evaluate it, assign a value to it?

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Yeah, the the uh well, first of all, commercial cases you have to be very sensitive about because a lot of times there's no insurance coverage involved, and you've got to make sure that the defendants or the potential defendants have assets. In other words, you're you're gonna be able to recover something. But in terms of I'll just illustrate uh for you in terms of like a catastrophic med mal case, those are cases that uh you know one of the most expensive cases to prepare and try would be one uh they're they're referred to as birth injury cases where a child suffered uh hypoxic uh ischemic encephalopathy from lack of oxygen during labor and delivery. You can have up to six or seven different types of experts. By the time you get to trial, you can have two to three hundred grand into the case, and that's over a two to three year period of time. So you have to be very, very careful, particularly from a plaintiff's standpoint, that you're gonna be able to make a recovery. There's no guarantee, but you have to do your homework. So we get all of the imaging studies, all of the records. Um, I do an initial assessment because there's a lot of these things where I've been doing this for so many years, and I've done it for both plaintiffs and defendants, but uh there's certain cases uh that we will automatically not take as a plaintiff uh for a variety of reasons. Uh, but if it passes that test, then I'll typically send it out to one of our OB nurse consultants to confirm my inclination that you know there's something there. And if I get a thumbs up there, then we send it to a board-certified OB or maternal fetal medicine specialist. And uh once it passes all of these uh milestones, not only the standpoint, you know, from the standpoint of liability, but on causation, which is extremely important, then we then we get at it because that is uh a very expensive proposition, both in terms of time and money. The upside is you know, if you recover for someone under the circumstances, it's usually a very significant recovery, but you've got to be very aware of all the issues. Uh the defense is a lot, it's easier to get very good experts on behalf of a defendant than a plaintiff because a lot of the doctors get don't want to testify against colleagues number one and number two. They actually some get direct and indirect pressure not to do that uh in a variety of ways. But that's an example of where you have to be very careful.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Uh the reason the reason I ask, and somebody with your experience is going to be very selective and know how to make good risk decisions, right? But when we come into a PI firm, we want to be able to forecast revenue. And what we do is we look at the inventory of cases they have, ask them about the expected values, and then the different milestones within the cases. Now, your cases have a much longer defined period. It's not like a motor vehicle accident where I send out a demand letter and we can resolve this in six to nine months. Right. That's why I kind of wanted to know the process of that you go through in designing that. So let's switch gears a little bit and let's talk about. You've got that litigation experience for so many years and you got it early on, but how do you prepare mentally and strategically to go into litigation and prevail?

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Well, I you know, I first of all, I've had very, very good uh training from some very, very good people. Uh but one of the things that I talk to young lawyers about is you need to start figuring out what you're gonna say about your case the day that it walks in the door. There is certain, you know, it's not a situation where I'm gonna get, I'm just gonna get evidence and react to it and manage it. It's gonna be a situation where um I'm gonna look for the evidence, and as I as I prepare the case, I'm gonna understand the evidence so that by the time we get to trial, I will have already gotten uh I've already mapped out all the key issues. I've mapped out all of the if I'm representing the plaintiff, which is what I do now, uh, I know pretty much the what I call the anchor points in the case and the theme. And um I want to talk about you know primacy and recency in terms of the theme and anchor points. And uh because when you make an opening statement, you want to tell the jury what you're about to say, you give them the body of your remarks, and you tell them what you just did say, um, and that goes back to that communication algorithm. But um, and I also do whatever I can to anticipate every single defense. So that, and I'm uh the assumption I make uh in our team here makes is when we're going into trial, we want to assume that we're going up against the best trial lawyer or lawyers that you can face under these circumstances. You plan accordingly, uh, so that if you run into you know anticipated issues and someone on the other side starting to score points, you're not gonna be surprised. You're gonna be ready for it. That doesn't mean you can overcome everything, but at least you're prepared. Uh, and this is a tough business. You know, I've seen a lot of very good lawyers, particularly very busy lawyers at a senior level. Um, you know, they if they don't have a good team around them, sometimes uh they're not prepared for every eventual eventuality. I'll pronounce that word improperly, but uh, they're they're they're prepared for every uh circumstance that can arise. Um and not because they're not smart, not because they're not experienced, they just don't have the time. So that's why it's absolutely essential to have a good team, and all of those things go into this, and at the very highest level, um we use uh mock trials as well from time to time, and you bring in people from the same community, and a lot of times in those cases, uh, I'll bring in one of my partners to be, and uh a lot of times in those cases, I'll play the part of the defense player, and I will test out defenses that I think will be effective, and I'll attack things that uh I think uh our team has a lot to talk about just to see how people react to it. So it's a combination of all of those things. The more money and the more complex you get, uh you know, you've just got to keep it moving in the right direction. Uh as we prepare cases here, our team, we have what I call a trial preparation memorandum. And you start off with the basic facts, but as the case gets prepared, we add witnesses, the source of the witnesses, the key aspect of their testimony, we add exhibits. So by the time we get to trial, we've got a document and it's got everything there. That doesn't mean that that we don't we take that document and then we put together, like I said, themes, anchor points, and I want to be able to articulate a proposition that's direct, clear, and easy to understand. And then with anchor points and themes, you do those over and over and over again. So uh if it's a breach of contract case, it's not a breach of contract case, it's a it's a broken promise. By the time that case is done, let's say it's a two-week trial, the jury will have heard that's a broken promise, probably a hundred times. You know, that that's just part of the key theme.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

So because of this preparation process, you're you're never gonna have that deer in the headlights. Look, you may not be able to overcome the issue, but you you've expected it, anticipated it. And I want to focus on something you said early on. You do plaintiff work now. Sounds like you've done defense work in the past, and I think that's probably helpful in that you know how the other side works. And some of your best criminal defense attorneys have been prosecutors prior to being a defense attorney.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Absolutely. You don't have to go through that, but I I've lived it and I've lived at a very high-level, very complex cases on both sides of the street. And I tell you, for instance, here in Chicago, we've got an excellent defense bar. And so, whether or not you're talking about commercial litigation, product liability, or uh complex med mal cases, we've got some great uh trial lawyers here in the defense bar. So um it's a great place to practice because you're going up against some very, very good people and um you learn a lot and you prepare your cases accordingly. That's how you become a good lawyer.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So hey, so you advise manufacturers and companies on product liability issues. If we could apply that to business leaders and leaders in your own firm or leaders you've seen, what should leaders be thinking about to minimize risk and have a successful firm?

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Well, I mean, uh the devil's in the details is what I say. Uh, in the product liability arena, one of the themes that we developed, and again, when I say we, I'm talking about our team, not here, but at the Wildman firm where I did a lot of this, uh, was to become thoroughly familiar with every aspect, operational aspect of that product from A to Z. And so from the standpoint of risk, uh, and and since we were doing that on a national basis, most of these companies had uh their insurance program set up so that they had a large SIR, which is a self-insured retention, that gave them control over the litigation. So we were dealing directly with the C-suite executives and the board. And so we applied the same methodology. You know, we went in with a team, we developed, we uh retained great experts, we had great uh investigative resources, we had retired FBI agents that we use as investigators, so that when one of these cases was filed, we had someone and we were we heard about it, or we were uh served with a complaint. We had a uh one of our investigative people down there within a matter of a day or two, and we pretty much knew in uh short order what happened and why. And that, and I'm not talking about doing anything inappropriate. These guys were were very, very good in terms of their investigative techniques. Uh, they would go in and establish rapport with the local uh police chief or you know, whoever investigated the the accident, they knew the investigated uh investigative algorithm, and then they knew everything there was to know about the product. So, what I would say to the business leaders, you need to be absolutely familiar, uh thoroughly uh understand every aspect of your operational construct in your company. If you can do that, then you can identify areas of potential risk, and then you you engage in what uh is referred to as risk prevention. And certainly when risk arises, you want to mitigate it and manage it, but if at all possible, you want to prevent it. So um, and you know, just as an example, one one of the areas of risk that any company has to be cognizant of is let's say you have a board of directors meeting and uh someone prepares a uh something some addition to the minutes, it's kind of tongue-in-cheek or comedic, but it is not shouldn't be in there for litigation purposes. You know, people laugh about that, but I I I have seen and then had to be asked to manage issues and in you know, minutes for the board of directors meetings uh that could turn into multi-million dollar losses. And that's not because these are smart people, they're just not focused on that.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

But we have so many ways to communicate internally, all that's discoverable, whether it's email, Slack, signal, text messages, and and people, you know, they might say things that they think will never be seen again, but they are discoverable. Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

I agree 100%. And that's the other thing is when we cancel counsel people ahead of that, you know, I I tell people you have to assume that your communications at some point are going to be reviewed, uh, you know, in a litigation or claims, or also in a uh governmental, you know, investigation or administrative uh aspect. And that's something that as a business leader I want to be uh very familiar with. You know, I I I don't want a governmental agency coming in here and and finding something that may have been you know off the cuff or tongue-in-cheek, and then they decide to to uh fine my company a couple of million bucks. You know, I just those are classic situations that can be avoided.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

So you have a lot of non-attorneys on staff, nurses, people help you evaluate evidence and depositions. Do you see any use for AI not to replace what those people are doing, but to make them more efficient so they can focus on the real meat of the issue rather than the busy work?

SPEAKER_02 18:40

Uh we've been using AI every day since it came out. This firm is extremely um involved, I should say. I was gonna use the word aggressive, but I don't know if aggressive applies. We use AI in a lot of circumstances. There's firms out there right now that specialize in AI. Uh, you can use an AI algorithm to take, let's say, the last three or four closing arguments that I've made. You plug all that stuff in, then you plug in the facts, and then all of a sudden, boom, they start coming out with some key phrases. Now, I'm too much of a I come from a family of engineers and type AAA, so I'm too much of a control freak to rely on that, but I use it as a tool. And then uh it we use it as tools in terms of identifying key information and depositions, and then um a lot of these meetings where I'd be sitting here, you know, on a computer while I'm talking to someone taking notes. I'm not doing that anymore. AI is is recording that and they spit out a summary to me. So we're looking at every aspect of how we can augment what we do here, not replace it, but it makes things more efficient. And as you know, the business that you're in, the more efficiency, the more efficient we can be, the more money we can put on our bottom line. And if and if we're inefficient, we may have a hard time staying in business. And and uh I've seen actually some very good firms, smaller firms go out of business because they undertake a couple of large cases and they don't have enough revenue-producing sources, and then all of a sudden you get underwater, then boom, you're done.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Right. You can't you can't wait for the payday because you've got to pay your bills along the way. Absolutely. I love your approach to AI and your firm's approach because it can create those efficiencies in the routine task, but then it needs that human oversight and element to evaluate its output. You can't just rely on it 100%. But I do think we're on the next wave of a revolution. In the accounting world, we used to do everything by hand, whether it was an amortization schedule or a depreciation schedule. And then we got, you know, BusyCalc and Lotus 123, and now we have Google and Power BI. This is just that next wave that's going to help create some level of efficiency. And I think it's important not only that we ethically use it and have the human oversight, but that we don't look at the capacity it creates and say to our folks, oh, well, we can do more. What we need to do is say, take that extra time and do higher-level things, and then also go spend time with your family, go enjoy your life so you can have that work-life balance. AI should help us and not hurt us. And I think there's two camps in the attorney world and in other professions. The camp that says, oh my gosh, it's the death knell of the profession. It's going to be the ruination of us. Or there's the camp that embraces it. And some of those smaller and mid sized firms can compete with much larger organizations because of their use of AI.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Yeah, it is um it is a tool, the way we're looking at it. It is a tool so um i i i think that if you use that in that fashion then um it can uh help every aspect of your business number one and your bottom line and i agree with you 100 in terms of reducing uh or helping work life balance because these are we can we're both in a very difficult profession if we allow it to take over our lives so so i think i mentioned maybe before the call that i have four children they're all completely different but two of them uh their frontal lobe didn't quite develop quick enough and they they played rugby in high school and one of them played in college i understand that you played rugby could you tell us about that a little bit yeah i started to play rugby uh as a freshman in college i didn't even know what it was and i went to a small Jesuit school down south I went out I saw the game I played football you know for eight years before that in terms of elementary school middle school and high school and so one of my friends was playing and I started playing so I played for 12 years I've got an artificial hip I had a two-level deception fusion I played in for two teams in St. Louis I played for one team up here was a very very good team Chicago Lions I played in the uh Norfolk area for I played with the SEALs Navy SEALs because I lived on a Navy base my father was stationed there and then uh I played for a local team there as well called the Norfolk Rugby Club which was a great club and then I played in the summers you know for other teams and we played in D uh one summer up in DC I just went out and joined up with one firm. So it's it's a uh it's a fun sport. It's a if you play it at a high level you've got to be very fit and um uh so it it it's and the fun thing is at the end of the game most of the time they have a party so the people you've been knocking heads with you go in and have a few drinks afterwards and sing sing songs in the old days I don't know if they do that anymore. Oh they do and yeah okay but I mean that that's that and and and if you play it the way uh some of the people play it in New Zealand and in South Africa and in Europe, you know, the uh where you tackle without trying to tackle like the old American like you had a helmet on you can uh reduce the risk of injury but you don't eliminate it you know and uh uh we had a guy in college he's and he's and I just saw him uh I hadn't seen him in in years I saw him a couple of months ago his nickname was tiny he would invariably try to tackle with his forehead and he'd split his head every year so he ended up with uh stitches but I've had some very good experiences and and uh including the best conditioned athletes I ever played with were the uh SEAL. Oh yeah those people would get up in the morning their day started at five in the morning they would get up and work out for two or three hours they would do a simulated exercise or they would be training for a real exercise somewhere in the world and their days were done at two so but they had to be on standby 24-7. When something happened they put them on an airplane they sent them off and and they uh pursued their mission.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah the rugby community has a great camaraderie and you're right after the game the two teams get together they do still sing songs and and one other thing I want to agree with you I think a lot of football players should play rugby because it does teach you to tackle with your head to the side no helmet. Some people wear little pads but uh on their head but if you tackle properly there would be less head injuries and concussions in football. Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Yeah yeah we had uh when I when I started playing in college we had a gentleman who uh was from Wales and he was teaching people how to wrap your your uh your body around someone's lower body as opposed to trying to hit them you know like American football and there's hitting but I mean it's not you don't have the same protection so you have to be very very careful.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

So hey Don this has been great before we wrap up if folks want to get a hold of you how can they get in touch with you or your firm? Well I mean uh we've got a uh a website uh all you have to do is Google McCready Law um my uh email is very very easy donald at McCready Law.com and uh I always give people my cell phone which is uh 630-8171503 630-8171503 and they can text or call me anytime thank you so much and thank you all for tuning in to Judicial Dollars and Cents if you enjoyed today's episode be sure to like follow and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts it helps us grow and ensures you never miss an episode. We'll see you next time on Judicial Dollars and Cents.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Thanks for joining us on Judicial Dollars and Cents presented by Anders Virtual CFO Services if you found value in today's conversation be sure to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. To learn more about how Anders helps law firms strengthen their financial foundations and drive growth visit AndersTPA.com. Until next time, keep making smart decisions that make perfect sense