New consulting firm offers training, expert consulting, and collaborative resources to help insurers and defense counsel reduce risk and stop Nuclear Verdicts®
San Diego, CA, Oct. 1, 2025 – National insurance defense firm Tyson & Mendes, LLP, announced today the launch of Apex Defense Consulting, a groundbreaking, new consulting firm developed in partnership with the law firm to address the insurance industry’s biggest concerns: Nuclear Verdicts® and social inflation. The announcement comes on the heels of the announcement of the new book, Nuclear Verdicts®: The Apex – Break the Pattern, authored by Founding Partner Robert F. Tyson, Jr., and National Managing Partner Cayce E. Lynch.
Apex Defense Consulting is a spinoff consulting firm and the first of its kind in insurance defense, offering a comprehensive suite of services designed to equip claims teams and defense counsel with the proven strategies and tools necessary to reduce risk and achieve better outcomes in even the most high-stakes litigation.
The launch comes at a critical time in the industry, as Nuclear Verdicts® (disproportionate awards often more than $10 million) reach unprecedented heights across the country and drive social inflation. Apex Defense Consulting provides three categories of services: education, consulting, and community. Leveraging on-demand education designed to provide needed training to claims teams on their schedules, Apex Defense Consulting also houses an ever-expanding library of resources and virtual community platform to encourage collaboration between members and experts. Apex Defense Consultants also provide pretrial, trial, and post-trial consultation services designed to deliver targeted expertise on high exposure matters to better support carriers and their counsel to defeat and defend against Nuclear Verdicts®.
At the helm are expert trial lawyers from Tyson & Mendes, the firm that trademarked the term, “Nuclear Verdicts®” and has now authored two books on the subject, as well as developed The Apex, a data-backed and trial-tested blueprint for the defense to employ at every stage of pre-litigation, litigation, and trial.
Founder Robert F. Tyson, Jr. stated, “We are thrilled to bring these unparalleled tools and expertise to the whole of the insurance industry through Apex Defense Consulting. We are proud to leverage our experience and analysis for our consulting firm clients and remain committed to improving the insurance defense industry.”
Ashley Paige Fetyko, another founder of the consulting firm added, “We believe in delivering justice – for all. Apex Defense Consulting will help the insurance defense industry do just that, while protecting everyday Americans from paying the price for outsized and unjust awards.”
Coauthor of the new book and fellow founder Cayce Lynch agreed, “For too long, the plaintiffs’ bar has collaborated to deploy psychological tactics in jury trial, and the defense has stayed stagnant. This move annunciates a new era for the defense, and for American businesses.”
The consulting firm will immediately begin servicing new insurance and defense counsel clients in addition to those clients who have already signed on for their educational, community, and consulting services. For more information, visit www.apexdefenseconsulting.com.
About Tyson & Mendes LLP
Tyson & Mendes LLP is a nationwide, AV-rated litigation and trial firm specializing in insurance defense and protecting its clients from Nuclear Verdicts®. Founded in 2002 by Robert Tyson and Patrick Mendes, the firm has experienced tremendous growth, with offices across the United States. Tyson & Mendes is known for its expertise in defending corporations, insurance companies, and their clients against Nuclear Verdicts®.
Serving 21 states nationwide, Tyson & Mendes is one of the fastest-growing civil defense firms in the U.S. and is proud to offer one of the fastest and clearest paths to partnership for its attorneys of any mid-sized law firm in the U.S. The firm is honored to be recognized as a 2024 Best Law Firm by Best Lawyers, named a 2024 Best Company to Work For: Law Firms edition by U.S. News & World Report, awarded the 2023 Liberty Mutual Insurance External Law Firm Partner of the Year Award, awarded the No. 1 “Ceiling Smasher” in Law360’s 2022 Glass Ceiling Report for female equity partnership, and shortlisted for Financial Times’ 2022 Innovative Lawyers North America Award.
For more information, visit www.tysonmendes.com
About Apex Defense Consulting
Apex Defense Consulting is a specialized insurance defense consulting firm, offering educational, community, and consulting services via a slate of experienced trial lawyers and Nuclear Verdict® experts. Founded in 2025, Apex Defense Consulting is the first of its kind within the insurance defense industry and is poised to revolutionize the industry with The Apex, the first and only data-backed and trial-tested blueprint for the defense to stop outsized and unjust Nuclear Verdicts®.
For more information, visit www.apexdefenseconsulting.com.
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For press inquiries, contact:
Debbie Caldwell
Plat4orm PR debbie@plat4form.com
Since the publication of Bob Tyson’s first book, Nuclear Verdicts: Defending Justice for All, we have traveled across the country delivering training for the whole of the insurance industry on the strategies we know work to counteract even the most powerful plaintiff tactics designed to generate anger and drive unjust and disproportionate awards. Over the five years since the first book’s publication, we have also spoken to thousands of professionals within our industry, over dinner or drinks or coffee, or in the quick breaks between sessions at conferences, about their biggest pain points and worries.
We have asked industry experts and novices, people from the C-suite all the way to brand new claims adjusters, “What keeps you up at night?” The recurring, resounding answer is either, “Social inflation,” or “Nuclear Verdicts®.” We have also asked, “What would help you sleep better?”
And, the answers we received all return to three common threads:
Education. Collaboration. Support.
And those threads were repeated in our analysis of 100 real Nuclear Verdicts® from across the country as we authored to sequel to book one, Nuclear Verdicts®: The Apex – Break the Pattern. We saw time and time again that the defense is being outmaneuvered. While the plaintiffs’ bar operates from a clear, repeatable, winning playbook, the defense is scattered, reactive, and outdated. So, first, we created a blueprint for the defense: The Apex.
And, as the creators of The Apex, and the people who literally wrote the (two) book(s) on Nuclear Verdicts® (their causes, their patterns, and what works to stop them), we realized that we had the unique opportunity to actually address the industry’s biggest concerns and greatest needs.
Why not make our training and education more accessible for all in the insurance industry? We provide unparalleled education on stopping outsized awards already, but we realized we could provide ongoing, on-demand education in addition to our live trainings: training that is accessible and approachable, targeted and impactful. We saw and heard the tremendous need for greater community and collaboration within our industry, so we built a structure to house and encourage it. And, we decided to offer ourselves to the whole of the industry as sources of support and guidance, even on files that are not ours!
And so, Apex Defense Consulting was born.
Nuclear Verdicts® are not going anywhere unless we do something about them. The Apex Defense Community is doing something. We hope you will join us.
As Nuclear Verdicts® continue to increase in frequency and severity across the country (including in jurisdictions not traditionally viewed as plaintiff-friendly), the insurance defense industry is due for some introspection. Are we the problem? Are plaintiffs’ lawyers simply… better?
They are, on the whole, more creative (at least in trial). They are more collaborative, too. They act fearlessly and try cases with boldness. They engage with their clients and with jurors as real, layered, authentic humans do. They embrace emotion. They leverage their strengths and exploit our weaknesses. But, how did they get that way? Were they truly just born better?
Angela Duckworth, the MacArther “genius” grant winner, psychologist, research, and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance would likely shake her head to that question. She wrote in her book, “…most dazzling human achievements are, in fact, the aggregate of countless individual elements, each of which is, in a sense, ordinary.”[1] The best lawyers, athletes, musicians, leaders, artists, and people I have ever seen have one thing in common: grit.
They show up, day in and day out, doing the hard, ordinary work so that they can deliver on the dazzling.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers did not suddenly wake up one day and just start using the tactics at the heart of Reptile. No, the authors of the book that truly did enunciate a plaintiff’s revolution studied the psychology, tried things, failed, and tried again – for years. They did not (and do not) play small. They play big, and they workshop, and they keep working at it until they win. And then, they go back for more.
Are we doing the same thing on the defense side?
Or, are we doing the same old thing on the defense side? Are we trying cases the way we did twenty years ago? Are we fighting liability at all costs? Are we refusing to accept any responsibility? Are we letting plaintiffs’ lawyers own the narrative around money by stubbornly refusing to give a number? Are we hanging our hat on niche legal arguments and experts instead of showing up empathetically? Are we still failing to look an injured plaintiff in the eye and tell them we are sorry? Are we hoarding our learned experiences, letting ego dictate our next moves? Are we trying new things? Are we truly doing the hard, ordinary things? Or instead, are we playing it safe, playing small, and letting the plaintiffs’ bar run away with the game?
Plaintiffs’ lawyers were not born better; they worked hard to get better. And how lucky for their clients, to have advocates who show up big and bold and work hard at their craft! But, do our clients not deserve advocates who will tell their human story with empathy, too? Do they not deserve passion, and skill, and collaboration? Of course they do. American business owners deserve excellence. They deserve bold brilliance. They deserve grit.
The only question is: do we dare for greatness?
If so, let us do the work. And then, let us dazzle.
[1] ANGELA DUCKWORTH, GRIT: THE POWER OF PASSION AND PERSEVERANCE (2016).
