07/09/2026
A “severe” TBI that resolves in months. A “mild” TBI that ends a career.
If that sounds backwards, it’s because the labels were never measuring what most of us think they measure.
Mild. Moderate. Severe. Those words describe how the injury first presented: Glasgow Coma Scale, loss of consciousness, post-traumatic amnesia. Clinical triage. A snapshot from the first hours.
They do not describe how much harm was done to your client.
The defense knows this, and they use the label to pick the ground they fight on. Severe injury with clear imaging? They concede the injury exists and go to war over apportionment and value. Mild injury with normal scans? Now the war is over whether a brain injury exists at all.
Early in my career I took the word “mild” at face value and built a small case around a big injury. I was working hard on the wrong fight. Last year I reviewed more than 250 TBI cases for other firms, and that same misread is still the most common pattern I see. It isn’t weak facts. It’s the label deciding the strategy instead of the lawyer.
On Tuesday, July 14, I’m teaching a CLE webinar for the Consumer Attorneys of California on exactly this: Understanding the Degrees of TBI.
What you’ll take away:
1. What mild, moderate, and severe actually measure (triage, not harm)
2. Why a “mild” TBI can be catastrophic while a “severe” one resolves, and why damages track functional impairment and proof
3. How the defense’s line of attack shifts with the label, so you can recognize which fight you’re in
4 How to neutralize the “mild” label: recontextualize the records, reframe the terminology for the jury, and build the functional-loss narrative the label obscures
Everyone who attends receives my Traumatic Brain Injury | Severity Classification Guide.
Tuesday, July 14 from 12:00 to 1:15 PM PST. CLE hour plus live Q&A.
Registration link in my bio.
