Defending the Concussion and CTE Case: Attacking the Neuroscience

Dorothy Clay Sims, Esq., Founder | Law Offices of Dorothy Clay Sims, PA

Dorothy Clay Sims consults daily with attorneys throughout the United States on the cross-examination of defense medical experts, and she deposes those experts herself when an attorney requests it. Her work extends to cases involving brain damage, a subject on which she has spoken and published extensively. She sits on the board of the American Association for Justice Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group. Her practice is based in Ocala, Florida.

• Education & Credentials

Ms. Sims earned both her undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Florida and studied international law at Oxford University. She is licensed in the State of Florida and admitted to the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Middle Districts of Florida, and she has cross-examined experts in many states across the country.

• Recognition & Leadership

Ms. Sims was the first woman elected Chair of the Florida Bar Worker’s Compensation Section in its 22-year history, and she served as President of the Marion County Bar Association. She co-founded Florida Workers’ Advocates and later served as its president. She was invited to deliver the keynote for the Treasure Coast Justice Association in January 2026 and has served as keynote speaker at the Maryland Association for Justice Convention. Her work has been featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal and on national programs including On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.

• Professional Involvement

Ms. Sims has given more than 350 speeches on medical and legal issues in the United States and abroad, including Japan, India, Canada, Portugal, Spain, and France. At the June 7, 2024 Peopil seminar in Portugal, she taught how to prove a brain injury. In April 2026, she spoke to a members-only traumatic brain injury litigation group in Sonoma. She is the author of the bestselling book Exposing Deceptive Defense Doctors, has written book chapters with David Ball, Don Keenan, and Dr. Michael Freeman, and has published in Brain Injury Professional, Champion Magazine, and Trial Magazine, including a December 2015 cover article.

• Experience

Her approach to defense medical evidence grew out of a ten-year program of self-education. She underwent physical examinations with doctors who showed her how defense exams were being conducted improperly, and she took the psychological tests her clients had been given. She also met with test creators including Dr. James Butcher, co-creator of the MMPI-2, Dr. Ralph Reitan, co-creator of the Halstead Reitan battery, and Dr. Richard Frederick, creator of the Validity Indicator Profile. She has reviewed transcripts of defense examinations and worked through exam videos second by second with doctors to find where written reports depart from what occurred. She has assembled background material on more than 1,600 experts commonly retained by the defense. She began her career representing Kentucky coal miners denied black lung benefits and then workers who were injured and denied medical care. She also worked pro bono on the William Husel murder trial, which ended in not guilty verdicts on all counts.

Oregon K. Hunter Jr., MD, Physiatrist, Forensic & Legal Medicine | Law Offices of Dorothy Clay Sims, PA

Oregon K. Hunter Jr., MD, has treated traumatic brain, CRPS, and spinal injuries for more than 40 years and ran a brain injury program in Hawaii. As part of Dorothy Clay Sims’s team, he works with lawyers to determine whether a defense medical expert’s report misrepresents the science or the facts. His recent published research addresses the scientific limitations of common causation opinions in spinal and traumatic brain injury litigation.

• Education & Credentials

Dr. Hunter is board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation and is certified by the American Academy of Pain Management. He is a medical doctor licensed in California and previously practiced in Florida and Hawaii.

• Recognition & Leadership

Dr. Hunter served as president of the Florida Society of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Before his retirement, he was a fellow of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and a member of the National Board of Medical Examiners.

• Professional Involvement

Dr. Hunter co-authored, with O.B. Depaz, “Addressing scientific limitations of common causation opinions in spinal and traumatic brain injury litigation,” J Forensic Leg Med. 2026;123:103230. He also co-authored the Florida Impairment Guide, and some of his research has been published internationally. He has given hundreds of speeches in the United States and abroad on how defense experts conduct physical exams. He often examines audience members to demonstrate how the exam should be done. His audiences have included the American Association for Justice, the New Jersey Association for Justice, Florida Workers Advocates, and Neurorehabana in Havana, Cuba. At the June 2024 Peopil seminar in Portugal, he taught how to screen clients for a brain injury.

• Experience

Dr. Hunter’s case work tests defense examinations against the record. He has reviewed some 300 cases to determine whether the video of a defense exam supports the written report. In a follow-up review of 20 consecutive cases, he found that none supported the report’s conclusions. His 2026 article reports on a review of more than 800 defense-retained medical evaluations over three decades. For lawyers, he analyzes recordings of defense exams, redlines defense reports with supporting references, attends depositions as an announced non-testifying consultant, and research causation and damages questions. He served pro bono as the medical consultant in State vs. Dr. William Husel, in which the defense secured not guilty verdicts on 14 counts of murder.

SESSION 1 – Proving and prevailing in TBI | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

The ER CT is the wrong scan for mild TBI, and a radiologist who spends ten minutes on several thousand images can miss what an hour-long joint review finds. This session builds the case from the scan forward: choosing among MRI with DTI, Neuroquant, SWI, and GRE, PET, fMRI, and qEEG, and when sending the client to Europe saves money. It covers reviewing the images live with a neuroradiologist who documents every lesion by series and slice, then retaining a physiatrist for a full neurological exam and a compassionate therapist the jury will trust. Before depositions, it protects the case with social media and records audits, recording the defense exam and neuropsychological testing, and subpoenaing test manuals and raw data. It closes by dismantling the defense playbook: malingering tests that fail Daubert scrutiny, the claim that every mild TBI recovers, the missed ER diagnosis, and the “normal” MRI, including audit trails that show whether the expert ever opened the scan.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Five Defense TBI Myths and the Science That Refutes Them | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

Defense medical experts routinely present five opinions as settled science, yet a review of more than 800 defense-retained evaluations over three decades found no peer-reviewed support for them. This session takes each myth apart: no blow to the head, no loss of consciousness, a GCS of 15, no focal neurological findings, and no structural change on imaging. For each one, you get the science behind the rebuttal, from rotational forces that shear axons at the gray-white junction and injury that evolves over hours to days, to the limits of a triage scale, an abbreviated ER exam, and 1 mm MRI resolution against 0.1 micron axons. You also get the ACRM, CDC, and VA authorities to use as exhibits, plus the cross-examination questions and discovery that expose each opinion, including 911 calls, ER time stamps, and EMR audit trails. It closes with practice steps: building an organized evidence library, verifying every AI-generated citation, and challenging the expert’s foundation through prior reports and Daubert and Frye motions.