Dennis Bailey Uses Experience to Mentor Younger Attorneys at Merlin Law Group

After finishing the Transpac race and coming ashore in Hawaii last night, I saw this article1 about Dennis Bailey, Merlin Law Group’s general counsel and head of our firm’s trial division:

Merlin GC uses experience, not magic, to mentor and manage attorneys

In his career, Dennis Bailey has served as a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, litigated civil cases for plaintiffs and defendants—with more than 200 cases tried by juries. He also spent six years as a circuit judge for Florida’s Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, located in Fort Lauderdale, and he and his brother, Tim Bailey, became the first brothers to serve simultaneously on that bench.

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As head of the firm’s trial division, he (and managing attorney Michael Duffy) continues to represent clients when cases reach courtrooms. Bailey also manages the firm’s legal affairs and provides advice and counsel to attorneys on everything from mediation strategies to presenting a case to a jury.

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Bailey says the increase in court-ordered mediation or arbitration to settle disputes is one of the biggest changes he has seen in his career. Though the services can reduce case logs and court expenses, he says attorneys who once tried 10 or 12 cases in court annually now can go years without approaching a jury. That’s a challenge to an attorney’s professional growth.

‘You can’t tell someone how to try a good case. They have to be on their feet in front of juries,’ Bailey says.

Creating strategies for mediation and arbitration as well as taking depositions from experts to build cases are crucial topics Bailey has brought to the fore in the monthly virtual seminars he organizes and leads for Merlin Law Group.