Managing Trial Attorney
Ghidotti | Berger LLP, is a certified WBENC organization specializing in representing secured creditors, banks, lenders, investors, and foreclosure trustees in transactional, litigation, and bankruptcy matters. Our team of experienced attorneys practices in federal and state courts across Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Utah and Illinois! With expertise in commercial litigation, real estate, and default services, we are committed to providing exceptional legal solutions to a diverse client base. Join an organization recognized for its dedication to excellence and its diverse and inclusive workplace culture.
About the Role
We are seeking a Remote Trial Managing Attorney owns the firm's Florida trial docket and leads the attorneys who try its cases, carrying a personal caseload of Florida trial-set matters alongside management of the trial function. Managing the trial function means assigning and supervising the trial team, monitoring and escalating case risk, keeping leadership and clients current on every trial-set matter, and training the next generation of trial attorneys. Trial capacity is a firm asset this role is accountable for building. This is a working manager role: the attorney tries cases and supervises the people who try them.
Responsibilities
- Carry a designated caseload of litigated matters set for trial in Florida state and federal courts.
- Review each matter at assignment—pleadings, discovery, motion practice, testimony, evidence, rulings, controlling law, and strategy to date—working with the file attorney to understand the facts, procedural history, theories, and positions already on record.
- Determine what further discovery, evidence, witnesses, research, or motion practice is needed, and prepare the case for trial: witness preparation, exhibit development, trial outlines, motions in limine, proposed jury instructions or findings, and evidentiary briefing.
- Appear at pre-trial conferences, hearings, mediations, depositions, and trial as required, traveling within Florida as settings require.
- Identify each file's weaknesses before opposing counsel does—evidentiary gaps, chain-of-assignment issues, business records foundation problems, admissibility limits, discovery deficiencies, and procedural defects—and grade them by likely effect on outcome, ruling risk, and client or fee exposure.
- Build and execute a case-specific trial strategy toward the best available outcome, adjusting it as the record changes, and provide candid written assessments of strengths, weaknesses, and probable outcomes, including recommending resolution over trial where warranted.
- Supervise the Florida trial attorney team, including assignments, coverage, and workload balance, and maintain a current view of every trial-set matter’s date, readiness status, and open items.
- Set and enforce trial readiness standards, run readiness reviews on the firm's cadence, and document results in the case management system.
- Build bench depth so no trial setting depends on a single attorney, manage continuances and coverage decisions, and escalate promptly when a setting cannot be covered.
- Participate in hiring, onboarding, performance review, and development planning for the trial team.
- Monitor case risk under firm procedure, including high-risk flagging and quality control requirements, and present risk file reviews to firm leadership with the issue, exposure, plan, and closing date.
- Escalate legal, financial, and reputational exposure to firm leadership and, where required, to clients, as issues are identified, and track sanctions exposure, fee exposure, and recurring defect patterns to correct upstream causes.
- Support client audit, reporting, and scorecard requirements that apply to trial matters.
- Train and mentor the trial team on trial practice—examination, foundation, exhibits, objections, and courtroom presence—second chair less experienced attorneys, and run post-trial debriefs that feed lessons into training.
- Maintain written trial standards, checklists, and templates, and build development paths for attorneys ready for greater responsibility.
- Report trial docket status and risk exposure to firm leadership on the established cadence, communicate with clients per firm protocol, and keep the file attorney and team informed throughout trial preparation.
- Maintain current knowledge of Florida and federal procedural rules, evidentiary requirements, and substantive law relevant to assigned matters.