Impactful Focus Groups to use NOW
Do you feel stuck in a case? Would you like a quick way to get moving? In this episode, I’m giving you two quick, efficient focus groups setups that will get you moving on your case today.
One of the biggest questions that I get when talking to other lawyers about focus groups is what focus groups they should do right now. Now, there are lots of different ways to answer that question.
But first, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve right now? And if it feels like you’ve got too many problems you’re trying to solve, that’s okay. Today, let’s jump into two great focus groups setups that you can use right now that can have a major impact on your case.
These are focus groups that are going to give you new ideas and a new perspective. You’re probably going to get some answers that you like and that you don’t like. But all in all, it’s going to give you some feedback.
Then you can move the case forward, whether that’s in the form of getting some ideas and new avenues for discovery or some ideas for deposition questions, or maybe there’s a mediation coming up.
Overall, these things are going to help you sleep better at night because you’re working on it and you’re preparing this case. You’re going to get many pieces of information that are really going to impact what you’re doing right now with the case.
In this episode, you will hear:
- What is a snapshot focus group setup
- How to put together a snapshot presentation and the best time to do it
- What is an opening statement focus group setup
- Gathering information from an opening statement setup
- The benefits of these two setup groups
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Episode Transcript:
Do you ever feel stuck in a case? Would you like a quick way to get moving? Well, great to hear because this is an episode to give you two quick, efficient focus group setups that will get you moving on your case today. So let’s get started. Hello and welcome. This is Elizabeth Larrick and you’re listening to an episode of Trial Lawyer Prep.
This podcast is designed and created for trial lawyers working with difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases seriously. to trial. The goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom.
Today’s episode, we’re going to move straight into two impactful focus groups you can use right now.
Now, as one of the biggest [00:01:00] questions that I get when talking to other lawyers about focus groups, it is what focus group should I do right now? And there’s lots of different ways to answer that question, but I like to look at, you know, one by one, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve right now?
And if it feels like you’ve got too many problems to try to solve, that’s okay. Um, And instead of trying to maybe prioritize it, I always like to jump into two great focus group setups that you can use right now that you will get major impact from. What do I mean by major impact? Well, I mean, these are focus groups that are going to give you new ideas.
It’s going to give you a new perspective. You’re probably going to get some answers that you’ll like. They’re going to get some answers that you don’t like, but all in all, it’s going to give you some feedback so you can move the case forward. Either, maybe you’re going to get [00:02:00] some ideas for new avenues for discovery, or some ideas for questions for a deposition you have coming up, maybe there’s a mediation coming up.
All in all, these are things that are going to help you sleep better at night. Because you’re working on it, you’re preparing it, meaning you’re preparing this case, but you’re going to get some good piece of information, many pieces of information that are really going to impact what you’re doing right now with the case.
So, let’s jump in and talk about these two impactful focus groups to do now. The first one is one I like to call a snapshot, which is really a very, very simple setup. And when I say snapshot, I just mean like a snapshot glimpse of the facts of the case because you know, as lawyers, we can get super wrapped up in all the details.
You know, we, we get a case in the door and we’ve got. Two [00:03:00] sentences, maybe. There’s a rear end collision and it happened, you know, November 6th. And, you know, somebody ran a red light. Okay. There we go from there. So then we investigate, we find all these extra details, we get what all the witnesses say, we talk to the police officer, we get, you know, maybe we have cameras, we can get pictures, and there’s so much detail that we get, which is so important, but in all of that, we can get kind of lost, and so Snapshot is really designed at just looking at Just the facts.
And really kind of even paring those facts down because you want to use your snapshot to find the holes. And, you know, maybe you know there are some glaring holes or some glaring problems in the case, and maybe there are some hidden ones that you haven’t seen. But this particular focus group setup will help you find those very quickly.
And, Generally, you’re going to find some solutions on how to fix it. So let’s talk about the presentation, [00:04:00] what you’re going to present to this focus group. It’s going to be very, very fact based. These are kind of like you’re thinking about putting together like a paragraph about the facts. You’re thinking if you give one side, give the other side.
And you really kind of want to give enough facts to eliminate some very basic questions that somebody might have, they asked you about the case. And again, you want to pare this down. And so you don’t want to give them every single detail, right? Just kind of give very, very clear shot about what’s going on in the case.
A good example for us to talk about is using a car wreck case. So say you have a car wreck case, you’ve got a rear end collision. And how do you put together this presentation? Well, you want to be thinking about, you know, pictures of the car. You want to be able to think about giving a picture of the intersection, talking about the day it happened, the time, the weather.
Did [00:05:00] the police show up? What is each driver saying happened? Are there any witnesses? Did the witnesses give any statements? And you’re really kind of confining all the information that you have to that day, unless something Another major fact happens after the crash that you would want to look at. And again, this kind of snapshot and, you know, the facts that we’re talking about here at CARAC, we’re really kind of looking at responsibility.
When we’re thinking about finding holes and in the responsibility, the liability part of the case. And so once you do this kind of, you know, snapshot presentation, and we’re talking about maybe 15 minutes max. And because, again, you really want to keep them engaged by showing them pictures of the cars, pictures of the location, you know, what each person is saying.
And just to get them up to speed, you know, please, if there are any tickets, typically I leave out tickets when it comes to this particular setup. And really the questions that you’re asking in debrief are [00:06:00] super simple. It’s just, once you give them all the information, you know, you just ask them what happened.
Very broad, open ended question. What do you think’s going on? And just listen. You know, one of the things that we can do really quickly in focus groups is if we hear one problem, We really hone in on that one problem, and we, we stick with that one person, and we ask them, you know, a bunch of questions about that one problem, and then we forget to turn to the rest of the group and gather up any other problems that they may see.
So what I like to do is just kind of give that real broad open ended question, and then as a moderator, make sure I’m checking in with each person to gather up. All the things that they’re seeing and then coming back, right, to ask somebody to go deeper on, on what it is that they said. And that’s pretty much what you do.
You maybe you hear a question about, somebody is saying, well, you know, rear end automatically, somebody gets [00:07:00] rear-ended. Then it’s, you know, the other person’s fault. Let’s dig a little deeper into that and maybe somebody has a different perspective on it, right? So I wanna take those people one at a time.
After I gathered everybody’s general impression and follow back up and dig a little deeper on that. And then after you finish digging deep, you can come back again to the group and just ask, you know, what would you advise these two people? You know, look like we got a situation here, right? There’s some property damage going on.
What would you advise for them to do? And you’re going to get, you know, some solutions or, you know, the other great question is to what other information If any, what do you want to get? What else would you want to understand about this situation if you had to make a decision? And again, these are super simple setup, super simple questions.
And in, as long as you remember in this particular setup, we are truly just gathering. We are gathering, gathering, gathering. We’re not advocating one way or the [00:08:00] other, but just truly spending a lot of time gathering information about what they see, what else. They would need to know or want to know if they had to make a decision.
And sometimes that’s so important with our questions. And, you know, later on in this podcast, we’re definitely going to spend some episodes on moderating and crafting questions and making sure that we’re using the best question we can, because questions are so important to get good answers. And that’s, you know, one of the questions that we’ve been talking about here is what other information, if any.
Don’t make an assumption that they need more information, they may not, you know, so I always like to make sure that I’m giving that out, if any, that option if they don’t need any more information. So we’ve talked a little bit about, okay, use this snapshot, we’ve learned about some real basic problems, maybe that they’re seeing and some ideas on how to fix it or what other information they would want to get.
Again, that’s a huge impact for a case and you can use a snapshot [00:09:00] picture, I mean a snapshot, you know, kind of focus group set up. really any time in the case. I love for people to do it before they file a lawsuit. You know, I love when people put it together and do it after they finish discovery. Those are great times because no matter what happens, you always want to make sure you’re tracking about any issues that you’re not seeing, right?
So issue spotting. So let’s talk about the second impactful focus group that you can do now. And that would be an opening statement. And you may be thinking, Elizabeth, whoa, whoa, like I’m not going to trial for another two years or another year, six months, and even then it’s going to be reset. Totally hear ya, but check it out.
If you sit down and write the opening statement, you are doing so much preparation work and kind of big picture work on your case, and it really is going to help you know, one, where are you at in this case? [00:10:00] What are you missing? If you’re going to put together the case in such a way, do you have all the evidence that you need?
And how does it need to come together? In order for you to get the verdict. So I love opening statement because it really forces you as a lawyer to pony up, spend some time, put it all together. And that’s fantastic. That’s really going to get you down the road. That’s a huge impact there. But once you give it to the focus group, that particular setup, super easy again, you’re just going to give the opening statement and again, ask a really broad question, you know, What’s going on here?
What’s happening? You know, you can ask them to do a vote if you want, who’s responsible. And typically opening statements at this particular time, meaning if you’re just putting it together before you have a trial setting near, is you could always just focus the opening on just the liability portion or put both liability and damages in there too.
You know, [00:11:00] I encourage you to do both because again, you want to get the most impact, then do the best preparation that you can. So put those opening statements together on both sides. But really you’re going to be Testing your theory. And again, these big, broad questions are going to give you great feedback.
You’re going to be able to ask, what was confusing? Is there a better way to say this? Is there a visual aid that would help? What is the one thing you remember from this entire opening statement? Like, that’s a huge question, you know, because that’s really going to What is it that you said that really made them listen?
That’s really what you want to know. And then of course you can ask questions about, Hey, is it believable? Is it, do you have everything that you would need to make a decision? And again, these are just kind of big, broad questions and you’re going to kind of do the same kind of moderation here, which is just scooping up all this information, just scoop it up.
Just because again, they’re just hearing one [00:12:00] side of it. So you really want to know what is the. The initial impact that they see. So you’re scooping all that stuff up. You don’t need to ask necessarily questions about the other side. Although I would encourage you, it would be great to ask them a question.
It’s like, what do you think the other side is going to get up and say, that’s a good way to get their perspective on the opposite side of the case, uh, and really test what their theory is. But either way, you know, you are going to get some great feedback on opening statement setups. And the really fantastic thing about both of these focus groups is they can be done in an hour.
That is super efficient. We’re talking about setting up a three hour or a four hour focus group and you can do a lot of heavy lifting in one hour. That’s fantastic. That’s super efficient. And both of these are going to give you information maybe you didn’t [00:13:00] know, hidden problems you didn’t see. Always you’re going to get a new perspective, which is what you want when you’re talking to folks in the community, getting a new perspective.
And then also some ideas on how to fix it, meaning what other information would help them. Make a better decision. Maybe it’s questions you need to be go finding answers to in discovery. Maybe it’s questions that you need to be asking about in depositions. And maybe it’s just information that’s out there.
You just need to go gather it that you can get on your own. And this would be two fantastic things you could do right now in your case. So we’re talking about really time efficient focus groups. You can do these virtually. You can do them in person. Super simple setup. with the information that you have right now.
You don’t necessarily need more information. You can do both of these right now and be able to move that case forward. So I hope that, uh, you found this podcast episode helpful. And if you try it out, please let me know. I’d love to get some feedback. If you have [00:14:00] any questions, also let me know. Again, thanks so much for listening here today.
As you know, we’ve got a bright new shiny podcast. So if you could subscribe to this podcast on your favorite app, whether it be Apple, Google, Stitcher, whichever you prefer, if you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five star rating or leave us a great review. And of course, share this episode with somebody, you know, that could use this help for focus groups to use today.
Thanks again.