From Taproom to Testimony: My Path Into Expert Witness Work

Planting a Flag: Why I’m Entering the Expert Witness Arena

A few months ago, Saralyn wrote about how her expert witness practice found her before she fully recognized herself as a candidate for it. A trusted colleague saw something in her background that she hadn’t yet named for herself and the rest developed from there. I recently recognized something similar in my own situation, with one meaningful difference: I’m not waiting for the referral. I’m planting the flag now.

Verdant Synergies is expanding its expert witness services to include my practical experience in dram shop liability (which applies anywhere alcohol is served), negligent alcohol service and both hospitality and production industry standards. This post is about why that makes sense, what the experience base actually is and how I’m thinking about building this practice alongside the consulting work we’re already doing.

What GrassLands Built That I Didn’t Fully Recognize

When Saralyn and I built GrassLands Brewing Company in Tallahassee (from concept in 2010 to launch in 2014), we were focused on building a business. We weren’t thinking about what that experience might be worth to a legal team one day. What I’ve come to understand, particularly after watching Saralyn’s expert witness approach develop and after completing numerous SEAK expert witness trainings myself, is that the operational experience GrassLands generated is genuinely substantive in a legal context.

Running a craft brewery and taproom from launch through an established brand meant developing and executing standard operating procedures across production, front-of-house service and distribution. It meant building and managing a team across service and production functions. It meant training staff on responsible alcohol service, intoxication recognition and age verification compliance not just as a regulatory obligation but as a genuine operational commitment. It also meant understanding, from direct daily experience, what responsible service looks like in practice and what constitutes a meaningful departure from the standards the industry requires.

One initiative in particular reflects how seriously we took that commitment. Every year as brewery owners, Saralyn and I organized and hosted an ID verification training seminar, open not just to our own staff but to anyone in the Tallahassee hospitality market, conducted under the oversight of Florida Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). That was a strategic choice and it reflected a belief that training culture either takes root across an operation or it doesn’t. We felt that the consequences of it not taking root could extend well beyond any single venue.

The Credentials Formalizing the Experience

Beyond the operational background, I hold active certifications in TIPS, (Training for Intervention ProcedureS) and ServSafe, both recognized industry standards for responsible alcohol service and intoxication intervention training. I’m also a Certified Beer Judge through the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), which reflects a technical grounding in production standards, quality evaluation and craft beverage industry norms that goes well beyond general familiarity with the industry.

These credentials, combined with direct operational experience across every dimension of running a compliant and accountable bar and brewery operation, have positioned me to assess staff training adequacy, service policy compliance and deviations from industry standards with a level of specificity that comes from having built and managed these systems rather than having studied them from a distance.

I also expect to earn my doctorate in Higher Education Leadership at UNF next spring. That academic foundation, combined with the Ed.S. in Education Policy and Program Evaluation I hold from Florida State and graduate and undergraduate work at Virginia Tech and UNF, rounds out a credential profile that supports both the analytical rigor the expert witness work requires and the broader advisory work upon which Verdant Synergies is built.

What Cases I’m Positioned to Support

My expert witness practice covers the arc of the alcohol service and production environment. That includes dram shop liability, negligent alcohol service and overservice incidents, inadequate staff training and supervision, age verification failures and refusal-of-service implementation, production facility safety and operations and the operational and management conditions that create the environment for liability in the first place.

In reviewing cases I’ll be examining staff conduct, service policies, training documentation, management oversight and the operational environment at the time of an incident against the applicable industry standards and best practices. I’m available to work both plaintiff and defense matters and to provide written case analysis, expert reports and courtroom testimony.

Why Now and Why This

Watching Saralyn build her expert witness practice has clarified something for me about the value of recognizing where your direct experience aligns with a genuine professional need. The attorneys who work dram shop, alcohol service and production facility cases need experts who understand not just the regulatory framework but the operational reality of running an establishment or a production operation. They need someone who has written the training programs, managed the staff, made the decisions in real time and understands from direct experience where the gaps between policy and practice tend to emerge.

That’s the experience I have. Getting the credentials to formalize it and the training to deploy it effectively in a legal context expands what Verdant Synergies is able to offer in a way that’s genuinely grounded rather than opportunistic.

If you’re an attorney working dram shop, alcohol service or hospitality/production facility safety and operations cases, or know someone who is, I’d welcome the conversation.

In I jump!

Gabe Grass is CEO and Co-Founder of Verdant Synergies Consulting, a Jacksonville-based strategic consulting firm. He brings more than 20 years of experience in business development, nonprofit advisory work and organizational leadership to his consulting practice, alongside direct operational experience founding and running a regional craft brewery. Learn more at verdantsynergies.com.