Coverage
Dram Shop Expert Witness Coverage, Jurisdiction by Jurisdiction
Where Preston Rideout is retained as a Dram Shop and alcohol-service expert, jurisdiction by jurisdiction: the 112 seller-server and responsible-vendor programs he has personally completed, and what holding a state’s own course lets him testify to there.
Last reviewed September 2026
Preston Rideout has personally completed 112 seller-server and responsible-vendor programs across 48 states and the District of Columbia. Where a state administers its own course, he sat that course; where his line for a state is a national curriculum, the page for that state says so. Each page below is written against that jurisdiction’s own operating conditions and its own evidence, and every statement about what a state asks of a seller or licensee is sourced to that state’s agency, statute or regulations.
Seven of the 49 carry a program the jurisdiction administers or brands itself: Florida, Illinois, Missouri, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah. Preston accepts engagements in all fifty states, including the two where he holds no certificate, and counsel can reach him on (662) 466-6045 about a matter in any of them.
The companion set: Dram Shop law by state
Everything above is about the work and the credential behind it. The governing law is set out separately: for 41 jurisdictions, the statute or controlling decision, the liability standard, social-host and minor provisions, safe-harbor treatment, and the operational evidence each standard turns on, every statutory sentence quoted from the state’s own code. Certification and operating analysis here, statute there.
Questions counsel ask
What does a certification in a state add to an expert’s opinion?
It fixes the yardstick. Having completed the course a state’s own sellers complete, Preston can state what that curriculum asks of the person pouring, rather than describing responsible service in general terms and inviting an argument about whose standard applies.
Which of these are state-administered programs rather than national ones?
Seven: the Texas, Illinois, New York, Oklahoma, Missouri, Utah and Florida lines. The remainder are national curricula — principally Techniques of Alcohol Management — and are identified as such, since they are not state credentials.
Are there states where Preston holds no certification?
Two. Hawaii and Washington state are not in the file, and there is no page for either. Counsel with a matter in one of them can still call: the operating analysis does not depend on a certificate, and he will say so plainly rather than imply coverage he does not have.
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