For Trial Lawyers Handling Traumatic Brain Injury Cases
Think Beyond the Crash. Think TBI.
Not every brain injury is obvious. In trucking litigation, recognizing a potential TBI and connecting it to the crash can change how you investigate and prove your case. Get insights from attorneys who know what it takes.
The Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group at the American Association for Justice® (AAJ) is a national community of plaintiff lawyers who try brain injury cases, working together to prove causation, establish damages, and hold negligent parties accountable. Members share a list server, medical and expert resources, a document library, and case strategy built across the country.
Join AAJDues are based on your bar date.
No single lawyer carries all of this. The group does.
Depending on the case, you can be up against any of these, and none of them is meant to be faced alone:
An injury that doesn't show on the scan
A brain injury can be real and disabling and still leave a clean CT or MRI. Proving it happened, and that the crash or the fall caused it, is the heart of the case. It takes the right imaging, the right records, and knowing what the absence of a finding does and doesn't mean.
Causation the defense will fight hard
Pre-existing conditions, alternative explanations, symptom-attribution battles. The defense has a playbook for making a brain injury look like something else. Meeting it means knowing the medicine and the literature better than they do.
Experts you're meeting for the first time
The same defense neurologists, neuropsychologists, and biomechanics experts turn up case after case. Somewhere in the group, a plaintiff lawyer has already deposed the one you're about to face, and shared how it went.
No one lawyer has every resource, every answer, or every connection needed to handle these cases. That's what a national community of brain injury lawyers is for.
Membership is the door. The litigation groups are what's behind it.
Joining AAJ gets you everything in the membership below. The litigation groups are the specialist layer for lawyers who take on these cases. Most members join the group that matches their practice. Here's the membership and both groups, so you know exactly what you're getting.
“If you handle trucking cases, you need to understand traumatic brain injury. AAJ’s TBI Litigation Group connects you with the knowledge, resources, and experienced trial lawyers you need to better serve your clients.”
Primary Path
AAJ Membership
- One free practice-area Section in your first year. The Motor Vehicle Section is the natural home for truck work.
- Over 70 hours of complimentary on-demand CLE, including trucking and traumatic brain injury programming.
- Access to member-exclusive litigation packets, available to purchase, including Interstate Trucking (Regulations, Discovery, and Damages); Traumatic Brain Injury; Interstate Trucking (Opening Statements and Closing Arguments); Crash Reconstruction Experts; Human Factors Experts; Interstate Trucking (Using 30(b)(6) and Other Deposition Strategies); and Road Rage: Taking on the Aggressive Commercial Driver.
- TRIAL® magazine, the national member directory, and a federal advocacy operation tracking the legislation aimed at your cases.
Specialist Layer
Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group
A member add-on. $200/year, once you've joined.
- A list server for members trying brain injury cases, plus medical expert information, medical literature, and expert damages resources.
- A shared document library.
- Meetings at AAJ's Annual Conventions and others as scheduled.
Open to AAJ Regular, Sustaining, Life, and President's Club members; an affidavit is required to join. Dues are $200/year, of which $50 is a voluntary contribution to the Brain Injury Association of America (opt-out available during join).
Also Available
Trucking Litigation Group
Also handle truck crashes? Many brain injury cases start as one. There's a group for that too.
A member add-on. $200/year, once you've joined.
- A plaintiff-only list server and a shared library of 600+ documents, plus help identifying the right experts.
- Meetings at AAJ's Annual and Winter Conventions.
Open to AAJ Regular, Sustaining, Life, and President's Club members. The Trucking Litigation Group list server is plaintiff-only, and all applicants are verified before being approved.
What this costs, plainly.
AAJ dues are based on your bar date and range from $52 to $750 a year. Each litigation group you join (TBI, Trucking, or both) is an additional $200 a year, on top of your AAJ dues.
For most lawyers in their first fifteen years of practice, the full package costs less than a single afternoon of an expert's time. One transcript you didn't have to take, one expert you didn't have to find cold, and it's paid for itself.
| Category | Annual Dues |
|---|---|
| Less than 1 year | $52 |
| 1–5 years | $130 |
| 6–10 years | $235 |
| 11–15 years | $400 |
| 16–20 years | $580 |
| 21–25 years | $660 |
| 25+ years | $750 |
| Each litigation group (TBI or Trucking) — member add-on | $200 / year |
Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group Leadership.
- Chair: Scott Blair, Brain Injury Law of Seattle, Edmonds, WA
- Chair-Elect: Dorothy Sims, Law Office of Dorothy Clay Sims, Ocala, FL
- Vice-Chair: Florence Murray, Murray & Murray Co., LPA, Sandusky, OH
- Secretary: Allan Siegel, Chaikin Sherman Cammarata & Siegel, Washington, DC
- Treasurer: Maxey Scherr, Scherr Law Firm, El Paso, TX
- Parliamentarian: Jon Karon, Karon Law, Brookline, MA
- Brain Injury Association of America Liaison: Danny Ellis, Truck Wreck Justice, Chattanooga, TN