Earlier this year we named a Shook, Hardy & Bacon team led by partners Charlie Eblen and Eric Hobbs as runners-up for Litigator of the Week after they won a $189 million jury verdict for home security client CPI Security Systems in a federal court showdown in Charlotte, North Carolina with rival Vivint Smart Home. What was left unsaid in our breezy one-paragraph treatment of the whopping nine-digit win, was that associate Caroline Gieser sat third-chair at trial and played a critical role in making the case that Vivint should be held liable for deceptive trade practices. She took the lead on examining customers who testified that Vivint officials suggested to them that the company was somehow associated with CPI or that CPI had gone out of business before they signed new contracts with Vivint.

Yesterday, the Litigation Daily sat down with Eblen, Hobbs and Gieser to discuss their division of labor on the case and Shook’s overall approach to training up its next generation of trial lawyers.