Practice Areas › Trial Practice

We are trial lawyers. We make a specialty of taking cases on the eve of trial and steering them toward success in their final and most critical hours. We can swiftly refine mountains of paper into a handful of trial exhibits; we can rapidly distill years of litigation into a winning story for our clients; and we can guide a jury through even the most vexing matters.

In one federal case, we were hired just four days before jury selection began. We represented one of two defendants. Our co-defendant was ultimately hit with a $1,000,000 verdict. But our client was found 100% free from liability.

In several other cases, we have been hired just weeks before trial, only to have the cases settle on very favorable terms shortly after opening statements were made. Because, while more than 98% of civil cases settle, the best settlements are achieved only by the best trial lawyers. Persuading the other side that a case is strong and has significant jury appeal is the key to getting favorable settlements.

Even our unhappy opponents acknowledge our persuasive powers. In one case, the jury returned a verdict for our client that was more than nine times higher than our opponents’ last and best settlement offer. Our opponents were so stunned that they made a motion for a new trial, claiming that our closing statement “had a subliminal, prejudicial effect on the jury.” The court denied their motion. What our opponents had witnessed wasn’t anything subliminal or prejudicial; they had merely witnessed good trial lawyers.

How Do We Do It?

Mandel Bhandari routinely goes against the world’s biggest law firms and wins. Since our founding in 2009, we have achieved very favorable results against ten of the AMLAW 100.

Three advantages let us out-compete traditional law firms:

• Scaling Up at Minimal Cost: Many clients think that big firms are the only option when a case involves millions of pages of documents. But these sorts of cases highlight one of our competitive advantages: our expertise in using legal process outsourcing (“LPO”). For example, in one case, we reviewed 200,000 documents in 15 days. Instead of paying an army of junior associates hundreds of thousands of dollars to distill the 200,000 documents down to 200, this review was conducted more effectively for a fraction of the price. All LPO expenditures are passed onto our clients at cost—we do not mark-up LPO costs (or any other costs for that matter) by so much as a penny.
  
• Experience: In addition to leading nearly a dozen trials and arbitrations in the past three years, we teach other lawyers how to do it right. Rishi Bhandari has been certified as Trial Advocacy Teacher by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (“NITA”) and has taught CLE courses on trial practices, effective mediation, taking and defending depositions, and jury selection. Our confidence in our trial experience makes us ready, willing, and able to get paid based on results, instead of getting paid by the hour like lawyers at big firms.
  
• Clear Thinking: Great trial lawyers think like the jury.  They know how to make complicated issues easy to understand for everyone, without talking down to anyone. At Mandel Bhandari, we can size up your case and provide you with a roadmap designed to maximize your chance of success at trial. The side that figures out what is important first tends to prevail in litigation. At Mandel Bhandari, we have sufficient experience with juries and judges to figure out what is important on day one.

Referring Attorneys

If you are an attorney on the eve of trial, we are ready to work with you. You have litigated long and hard to prepare your case for trial. We can help you with opening and closing statements, preparing witnesses, drafting cross-examinations, or conducting a mock trial focus group to identify the themes that will resonate with a jury. We will work with you to get the best possible outcome.