- 1983 – 1984 – Conducts jury selection in Agent Orange litigation, Brooklyn, NY (largest settlement in history at the time); begins career with Dalkon Shields IUD litigation, asbestos and welding fume litigation.
- 1985 – “Diaper War” patent litigation: Procter & Gamble v Kimberly Clark (5 cases).
- 1987 – 1991 – Introduces Ford Case Assessment Program (FCAP) and works on over 70 cases for the automotive manufacturer, reducing its litigation costs by 30%.
- 1991 – 1992 – Newman et al. v Stringfellow et al. Superfund Mass Toxic Tort: Working for defendants, damages for thirteen test plaintiffs total approximately $100,000.
- 1994 – Exxon Valdez litigation. Mock trial research predicts $5.2 billion award, actual award $5.0 billion.
- 1996 – Originates term “Stealth Juror” in National Law Journal article of the same name. The term “Stealth Juror” eventually becomes an entry on Wikipedia.
- 1996 – 2008 – Dr. Speckart works for the largest heavy equipment manufacturer in the world over a 13-year period, during which the highest damage award by a jury against the company is only $4.5 million. After corporate cost-cutting in 2009 and subsequent discontinuation of the research support, within two months a San Antonio jury awards $56 million.
- 1999 – In Lloyd’s v Bristol-Myers Squibb, a $300 million insurance coverage case, Dr. Speckart insists on the inclusion of a juror (against strenuous objections by the entire defense trial team) who later single-handedly converts the entire panel to a defense verdict for the client
- 2003 – In Griggs v Caterpillar, damages in mock trial again predict actual trial outcomes exactly (predicted: $58 million; actual $58 million; client settled out and remaining defendants went to trial).
- 2004 – CNA Insurance Company, after implementing Dr. Speckart’s research methodology in estimating exposure in its cases for an entire year, comes in $83 million under budget in its loss reserves.
- 2006 – Defense verdict obtained for client (Dell) in Lucent v Microsoft et al., San Diego
- 2007 – 2008 – In the notoriously difficult East Texas patent litigation venue, research leads to a defense verdict for client in Forgent v Echostar (see Law.com “Taming Texas” March 2008, which mentions Dr. Speckart by name). As a result, Dr. Speckart is asked to speak at two consecutive annual meetings of the Advanced Patent Law Institute under University of Texas’ CLE program.
- 2009 – AMTI v Akin Gump – Working for plaintiff, mock trial predicts damages of $82 million; relying on this research, client rejects settlement offer of $20 million from defendant while jury deliberates and subsequently obtains $73 million verdict.
- 2010 – In house counsel of major automotive manufacturer writes to Dr. Speckart indicating a savings of $1.5 million in settling a case based on research findings from one project.
- 2011 – The major automotive manufacturer hires Dr. Speckart to re-do mock trials previously conducted by a competitor in order to achieve increased accuracy. The first project was designed to prepare for a re-trial in which the actual jury had originally awarded $6.5 million in compensatory damages and $12.5 million in punitive damages. The competitor’s mock trial had previously shown three mock juries providing defense verdicts. The subsequent mock trial conducted by Dr. Speckart provided damages essentially identical to the actual jury in the first trial: $7.1 million in compensatory and $12.6 million in punitive damages.
- 2011 – In Cheetah v Verizon, mock jury research predicts a $5.3 million award and the actual jury awarded $5.4 million. In Convolve v Dell, mock jury research predicts minimal damages (under $1 million), and following the actual trial, in-house counsel writes, “We’re putting this in the ‘win’ column because the damages are extremely low” (actual damages $1.5 million).
- 2012 – 2013 – Additional defense verdicts obtained in East Texas patent litigation: Eolas v Amazon et al.; CEATS v Ticketmaster et al.; and Hitachi v Vizio et al.
- 2013 – Defense verdict obtained for client in TVI v Sony in San Francisco.
- 2014 – Sixth and seventh defense verdicts in East Texas: Wi-LAN v HTC and Stragent v Intel.
- 2015 – Eighth defense verdict in East Texas: Promethean v Reflectix.
- 2016 – 2022 – Dr. Speckart continues his work in East Texas patent litigation, resulting in average damages of $1.4 million over thirteen cases.
- 2018-2019 – Dr. Speckart conducts Mock Bench Trials for an international truck manufacturer in Barcelona and Berlin.
- 2022 – Present – Dr. Speckart develops proprietary witness training procedure based on communication research on nonverbal behavior and jury research results.
- 2024 – Dr. Speckart obtains defense verdicts in Salinas v Nissan in downtown Los Angeles and Sable v Cloudflare in Waco, Texas.
