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MHSNJ Zoom Program—Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 7 pm ET
Speaker: John Zen Jackson, JD
Topic: “From Metaphor to Models and Beyond: A Rough Guide to the History
of Demonstrative Evidence in the Litigation of Medical Issues”
Summary
Medical issues are frequently intertwined with legal issues, whether related
to accidents, work-related injuries, medical negligence, or some other issue of
public health and safety. Lawyers continually seek more effective ways of
presenting their cases.
The concept of demonstrative evidence evolved as a major tool in this
regard. Using some form of technology for the presentation of demonstrative
evidence in the courtroom is not new, but the practice has grown over the past two centuries. Within a year of Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery in 1895, x-rays were being used in court proceedings. Throughout the Nineteenth Century, the use and forms of demonstrative evidence continued to grow and then accelerated in the 1940s, continuing to the present day.
This presentation will provide a review and highlights of the evolution of
demonstrative evidence and the legal principles underlying its use in court.
About the speaker
John Zen Jackson is the current Vice President of the Medical History
Society of New Jersey. He is an attorney at law, certified by the Supreme Court of
New Jersey as a civil trial attorney. A Fellow of the American College of Trial
Lawyers, he is Of Counsel to the Healthcare Department at the firm of Greenbaum, Rowe, Smith & Davis, LLP.
Jackson did his undergraduate studies at Tufts University and then received
his Juris Doctor degree from Seton Hall University School of Law. Before
entering private practice, he served for one year as a law clerk to Chief Justice
Richard J. Hughes of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
He has published more than 80 articles in medical and legal publications on
a broad range of healthcare, tort liability, and trial technique issues, including
medical history and biomedical ethics topics. He was a member of the Editorial
Board of MDAdvisor, a peer-reviewed journal for the New Jersey medical
community, from its inception in 2007 to the discontinuation of publication in
2023.
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