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Leaders at one of the largest national insurance defense firms believe they have identified the causes of nuclear verdicts—and developed a comprehensive litigation strategy that negates them. A new book about that strategy and the data behind it will be released this year.

Named “Apex,” the strategy pulls from firsthand courtroom experience and information from more than 100 nuclear verdicts to combat what leaders at Tyson & Mendes describe as the rise of outsized and unjust nuclear verdicts.

The law firm has used parts of the Apex method for 30 years, but the methodology’s structure has crystallized in the past decade. Robert Tyson and Cayce Lynch, partners at the firm, co-authored “Nuclear Verdicts: The Apex – Break the Pattern.”

The book comes out

“The Apex reflects everything we’ve learned in defending against nuclear verdicts for over 20 years,” Tyson said in a press release. “We know what jurors respond to. We’ve tested it. We’ve won with it. And we’ve analyzed it. Now we’ve built a strategy that layers every piece together to defuse juror anger. That’s how we win. And that’s how we change the game.”

In an interview, Tyson told ¾ÅÉ« the strategy is centered on four core conditions that must be met in every jury trial to ensure a nuclear verdict is not reached. Those conditions are:

• The defense must accept responsibility.
• The defense must give a jury award number.
• The defense must personalize the defendant.
• The defense must argue non-economic damages (pain and suffering).

Tyson said data shows some defense lawyers are implementing one or two of these elements, but his team has yet to find a nuclear verdict where defense counsel has utilized all four.

“It’s a comprehensive, singular method made up of numerous components,” Lynch said of Apex in the pair’s interview with IJ. “It’s not a pick and choose. We believe that the whole of Apex applies to every single case and that defense counsel should engage with every element of it in every single case.”

Tyson & Mendes analyzed more than 100 nuclear verdict trial transcripts from across the country to write the book. Two lawyers worked “almost full time” for a year on the analysis, Tyson said, as they detected and tracked nuclear verdict patterns.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) defines nuclear verdicts as jury verdicts worth $10 million or more. Looking at verdicts from 2013 to 2022, ILR said the median nuclear verdict was $21 million. The average nuclear verdict during this time was $89 million, according to , a report published in May 2024.

In May 2025, research firm Marathon Strategies published a report that found nuclear verdicts against corporate defendants reached a record high in 2024, led by cases involving products liability and intellectual property. MS reported that the number of nuclear verdicts rose to 135 in 2024, a 52% increase over 2023. The total sum of these verdicts was $31.3 billion, a 116% jump over the prior year.

Numbers Behind the Apex

Regarding the first core element of Apex, defense counsel has accepted responsibility in just 15% of all nuclear verdicts his team has researched, Tyson said. In news interviews following nuclear verdicts, plaintiff counsel often expresses gratitude for holding organizations accountable. Accepting responsibility for something takes away one of the plaintiff attorneys’ biggest arguments, Tyson said.

“It’s their No. 1 theme,” he said. “And if you can take that theme from them and accept responsibility for something you’ve done wrong, if you have, or accept responsibility for your product, [or for] something you’ve done right. Or for your actions, or for the termination of an employee because it was proper.”

For the second core point, Tyson said it’s “almost unheard of” for a jury to return a large verdict without plaintiff’s counsel having asked for a large award from the jury. His firm’s research found that while plaintiff’s counsel gave a number in 87% of cases, the defense gave their number in just 46% of cases.

Meanwhile, in nuclear verdicts, plaintiffs’ lawyers personalized their clients almost 90% of the time, and the defense personalized their clients only 22% of the time, Tyson said.

“Almost 90% of the time, they’re sharing all this personal information about the plaintiff because they want to form a connection with the jury,” he said. “People are persuaded and vote for people they like. It’s so basic, and yet, we have to create the Apex method.”

Finally, Tyson & Mendes found that defense counsel failed to address non-economic damages in 64% of nuclear verdict cases the firm studied. Non-economic damages—commonly called pain and suffering—represent the largest component of most nuclear verdicts.

One other notable finding in their research: Nuclear verdicts aren’t happening to new insurance defense lawyers.

“Insurance companies are hiring the same defense lawyers that they’ve been using for 10, 20, 30 years,” Tyson said. “They’ve been getting great results for them. And now, these same defense lawyers are getting killed. Just getting killed. And we’re trying to deal with that.”

With more than 250 attorneys across 22 states, Tyson & Mendes is one of the biggest insurance defense-focused firms in the country. Tyson told IJ the practice has made a name for itself by handling large jury trials and stopping nuclear verdicts. In 2020, Tyson published “Nuclear Verdicts: Defending Justice For All.”

The description of that 222-page book bills it as the first ever written for the defense on how to avoid runaway jury verdicts. Tyson wrote it as a “defense playbook for justice” from firsthand experience, aiming to teach trial techniques “to even the playing field for defendants seeking a fair trial.”