John Griffith and his 5 Post Pandemic Jury Trials

elarrickbrand on May 24, 2022

In this episode, John Griffith who has a personal injury practice joins us from Tennessee. John talks to us about the five trials he has had since the pandemic started. Find out why he thinks trial lawyers have now become better than they were pre-pandemic and some of the notable differences he had seen in trials. 

John specifically touches on some of the work he did during the shutdown in March of 2020, and how he used his time to improve not only his practice but also the other lawyers who were practicing with him as well. Not to mention, he was juggling being president of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association from 2020 to 2021. 

In this episode, you will hear:

  • Procedural changes being judge-preference driven
  • How the safety protocols look like post-pandemic
  • The power of visuals in your trials
  • The 13 books John requires his lawyers to read
  • The challenge to keep the jury engaged
  • The impact of focus groups on John’s practice
  • How COVID has redirected people’s focus on the value of relationships

Here is the list of 13 books John mentioned in the episode:

  1. 30 B 6 – Mark Kosieradski
  2. Voir Dire and Opening – by Nicholas Rowley
  3. Damages – David Ball
  4. Reptile  – Keenan/Ball
  5. Rules of the Road – Rick Friedman
  6. Polarizing the Case – Rick Friedman
  7. The Fearless Cross Examiner – Patrick Malone
  8. Don’t Eat The Bruises – Keith Mitnik
  9. Premises Liability – Michael Neff
  10. Moe Levine on Advocacy 
  11. Luvera on Advocacy
  12. The Domino Theory – Ed Capozzi
  13. The Way of the Trial Lawyer – Rick Friedman

Episode Transcript

In this episode, we have a special guest, John Griffith, who is joining us from Tennessee.

John has a personal injury practice, and he is going to talk to us about several trials he has had since the pandemic started, actually five [00:01:00] trials, and some of the differences in things that he has seen. He’s also going to touch on some of the Some of the work that he did during the shutdown in March of 2020, and how he used his time to improve not only his practice, but the other lawyers practicing with him.

Not to mention he was juggling being president of the Tennessee Trial Lawyer Association from 2020 into 2021. This interview is a treat and so I’m excited to have John join the podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of Trial Lawyer Prep. With your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and today we are gonna connect in with a trial lawyer, John Griffith, who is from Tennessee, and I’m excited to have him join us because he has had several trials since the pandemic started.

I will say Tennessee has really gotten themselves back on track. Much faster than many other states. So I’m excited to have [00:02:00] him here today to talk about what it has been like, what are those trials have been like, and so we’re going to delve into that. So John, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much.

I’m honored that you would ask little old me from Tennessee to be on your podcast. Come on now, you’ve got fantastic trial experience. John has an amazing way of working with clients and connecting with them. So I was super excited to have you come share your experience with us. So tell us how many trials have you had since March of 2020?

I’ve had five jury trials since March. I had four last summer. I had one last week and they’ve been, everyone’s been a little bit different the way they’ve, as far as procedurally, how they’ve gone. And I, I have no idea what Texas is like right now, but I can tell you, Tennessee, there doesn’t seem to be a streamlined individual [00:03:00] process.

For the most part it is, but it’s very judge driven. Judge preference driven is what we’ve had. Yeah. And I think that’s definitely what we have here. And that’s, I feel like is pretty well across the U S it’s very much up to each judge. So have you generally had the same judge or a different judge? Tell us a little bit about some of those procedural changes.

Nashville is in Davidson County and most of the Davidson County judges. Last week, for example, I had a trial before Judge Brothers last year. I had a trial set before him and just to let you know how much he’s changed. He would not allow jurors last year into his courtroom who had not been vaccinated.

Wow. And he made a statement. He said, well, just let you know, I’m not, this was last August. He said, I’m not going to allow jurors in here that have not been vaccinated. And I was [00:04:00] thinking very quickly, I’m like, this was at the pretrial conference the week before trial. I’m thinking that’s a problem. That’s a big problem.

He said, unless one of you objects, he said, then you can just have another judge and he’s a more conservative judge and I was getting ready to object and the defense lawyer thankfully did it for me and we got transferred to a very more plaintiff neutral judge or plaintiff friendly judge, I should say.

I don’t want to show favoritism. No names are, no names are necessary here. No, no names. So tell me what was that thought that was in your brain that was like, uh, oh, this is a problem. Well, you know, Tennessee and Texas are kind of sister states. We’re kind of very conservative branded states. And the initial thought was, I know, you know, the mask to me [00:05:00] is the liberals MAGA hat.

You know, , A lot of people I’ve heard that said, and I don’t know that to be true, and I’m not trying to make a political statement here, but unfortunately it’s become political. That’s just a reality that we face. And in Tennessee it’s very strong here, very conservative, and so. I was thinking that if those jurors are excluded, the ones who are wearing masks, I just thought it would change the jury pools.

So and anyway, I didn’t know how that would play out. But anyway, we went to a different courtroom. That was not an issue. And at that time last year, procedurally, there was plexiglass between the jurors. We all had to wear masks. I detest wearing a mask when I’m talking to the jury. I cannot stand it.

Witnesses had to wear masks and, you know, he had trouble speaking, hearing them, understanding them speak [00:06:00] up. And finally, midway through the trial, the judge got so flustered. He said, you know, witnesses, you can take off your mask this year. The same judge last year would only allow jurors to be jurors if they had been vaccinated and boosted this year.

Just last week, it was as if covid has never been here. There was no mask requirements at all. It wasn’t really even discussed and the jurors sat right beside each other. And no one judge told the jurors and jury selection said, I want you to remove your mask during jury selection. If you’re selected as jury, you can put it back on.

So I’m like, ooh, somebody’s not gonna like that. These people are not. So anyway, I feel like I’m going around the circle, but it’s everybody’s been different. And it’s relaxed greatly over the last year, with the exception of a couple of judges in Davison County, it’s as if there is no, the covid is [00:07:00] not, doesn’t exist.

Yeah. Yeah. And so the, as far as the plexiglass and that all that, has that come down or is that still up? In some courtrooms it has, and others it remains. There is no general standard. It’s got spirits, but it’s more so now away from the place to get glass. It’s taken down. There’s less mask wearing. I don’t see hardly anyone wearing masks in the courtroom other than the jurors.

And there’s a couple of judges, older judges who have some probable valid health concerns still are. But for the most part, it’s, it’s gotten back slowly, but now pretty much business as usual from my standpoint. Gotcha. Okay. So in thinking of the earlier trials that you had last year, did you prepare any differently knowing these would be jurors that had gone through a pandemic?

Well, one thing I did differently is I got in touch with the most amazing witness coach that I’ve ever had in my life, Danny Ellis [00:08:00] pandering will get you everywhere. Okay. Danny Ellis introduced me and said, you need to call as the play. I called her and the Brandy Miller trial or first trial that I had post pandemic.

And I was nervous. I can understand why some of your listeners would be nervous. I was rusty. I mean, it had been a year and a half since I’d tried a case and Man, I was a little bit more inward focused to be honest with you. I’m like, gosh, John, are you gonna remember, do you remember how to do this thing?

And not to pander, but you really took a load off of me and you did a great job with Brandy and her significant other. I probably shouldn’t name names, but we had a good result in that trial and everybody was really Happy and I was ecstatic with you and you were fantastic, and I’ve, I need to get you back on some more.

I’ve emulated some of the stuff. I, I, I would sit there like a sponge and watch you what you did with her, and I’m like, ah, okay. I, I’m gonna have to [00:09:00] do this on some of my. Not so large cases, but it was, it was worth every bit and I was thankful for that. Well, I appreciate that. And it was great working with you.

And, and I remember talking to you because you know, anytime I go into to talk with people or helping with trial, it’s like, okay, well, what’s the order of witnesses and what’s, you know, what’s going on. And then also we had to have a conversation about like, Is there plexiglass? Like, how are we going to help your client manage this whole big giving testimony, but also this like, Oh, by the way, you may not be able to see anyone because of all the glare on a plexiglass.

So it was definitely a new place. But then I think, and you remind me if I’m correct, like there were still a lot of stuff. You guys just didn’t even know how the judge was going to handle because it was so new. Yeah. So we had to do jury selection in the jury assembly room. And it’s about a 2, 500 square foot room is a huge room.

And they had everybody spaced out six feet apart and they had these [00:10:00] huge columns, support columns in the bottom. It was in the basement of the courthouse and you couldn’t see some jurors. They were depending where you stood, you couldn’t see behind these huge square column. It was just so frustrating.

You had to scream. We had a microphone, you had to wait and everybody had to get a microphone to answer the questions. It was extremely clunky and it was frustrating and it wasn’t the normal room where you had a desk. You had to stand up in the middle, which is I’m great with that. I love that. But it was just uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.

And since, since Brandy’s trial, you said everything is kind of like slowly gone back to jury selection in the courtroom. Obviously people sitting right next to each other. Yes. And I haven’t sensed a great deal of discomfort with that. Most people that show up in Tennessee currently, 95 percent [00:11:00] are without masks.

Probably 5 percent are. I’ve tried five cases, but I selected a jury for a friend of mine in a medical negligence case a month ago, and that was in Murfreesboro. Well, 30 miles east of Nashville and there was out of a panel of 65, there was one person wearing a mask. Just one. So I don’t know. You know, we’re not very covid fearful around.

I’ll just tell you, I haven’t been for a long time. Well, and I think it’s everybody. It’s kind of one of those things that when we normally talk about, well, Do we need to really get geographically specific about some of our questions and those kinds of things? And most of the time it’s like, well, no, everybody drives a car and there’s rules of the road everywhere.

But how do you feel like this whole issue post pandemic? Do you feel like this is a much more geographic specific issue? Many people in Houston, Texas, or versus, you know, [00:12:00] Nashville, Tennessee are going to view it differently. I was always struck by Don Keenan when he would write about his. focus groups.

And he said to generalize that the focus groups were not different from city to city, coast to coast. I would be willing to bet my feeling, my gut feeling is that’s not true with COVID. I think there’s some vast geopolitical differences from area to area. Like if you were in, I don’t know, San Francisco versus Nashville, I think there’s going to be a huge difference.

So, Because of that, and we’ve talked about that in our EDGE meetings and other trial lawyer group meetings and CLEs, you know, how do you, do you broach the subject in jury selection? And if so, how do you do it? My feeling is that it’s, I mean, just if you [00:13:00] look at Facebook and other social media, it’s a hot button issue for people, whether you like that or not.

I think it’s just a fact that it is. So I chose to, I don’t say ignore it, but I haven’t, I’m afraid. I’m maybe I’m not skilled enough to ask it in a non divisive way or, or was it that important to me? Was it an overriding concern? The general feeling from a lot of trial lawyers is cove. It has been a good time for plaintiff lawyers because of the safety issues and the safety systemic failures that can lead to harm.

And I kind of believe that. I mean, I think the verdicts. I don’t have any data to confirm this, but I think the verdicts are getting better and better. Yeah. And that was actually one of my questions was there’s a lot of talk in many, many circles. Do you ask about the mask [00:14:00] or do you not? And so you told me you did not ask about wearing the mask or vaccines or anything like that.

I just haven’t been convinced that I could make it relevant in a non offensive way to the jurors. And I’m always One of the things that I’ve changed Post Covid is, well, I’m a, I’m a big Mark Lanier fan. Uh, you’ll see me in Houston every year. I, I love that man. . I admire him greatly. And, you know, I try to learn a new skill every year, and I was, I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know PowerPoint two years ago.

And I wasn’t as visual. I was visual, but not as visual as I am now. And I think that’s made a huge difference in, in our trials. You’re hitting on all my questions. Which one of the things, one of the things that you’ve changed, you know, since coming back from Covid and was it Covid related or was it, like you [00:15:00] said, you just realized like, Hey, as a trial lawyer, I need to be more visual and, and help the jury along with some visuals.

Yes, that that is incredible, went out and bought me an how to use that. I’ve try mediums and trials, stole from mark. Another, you got all these trial law university and all these free CLEs that were awesome and watching Brian Panish in his negative cross exam. I mean, I, I’ve stolen that stuff and gotten immediate results with that.

I love that. Another big change that I sense. And again, this is just a gut feeling and somebody could prove me wrong easily, but I think jurors are a little bit less patient perhaps. Okay. Tell us about that. Well, I mean, I, I steal everything I do from you. Other great [00:16:00] lawyers, Rachel Montez. I love, I love Texas lady lawyers.

Y’all rock. And I, I, I admire y’all greatly. And one local guy in Atlanta, Joe Freed, I really like him a lot too. And I’ve seen his ceiling on his podcast and things on the speed trial and man trying to three week long trucking case in three days. I just think that’s amazing. So maybe it’s because of that, that I’m just paranoid that I can’t, I’m trying to get my cases, you know, shorter.

And I mean, this last trial I had, I just felt like the jury was, the defense was In my opinion, very repetitive. Although it didn’t hurt ’em that much. and I, I could just see a lot of rolling of the eyes and, you know, a lot of scoffs and just let’s get on with it. And, you know, they’re not idiots. They get it, they get it the first time [00:17:00] usually.

And I think we, I always try to give ’em proper due credit that they’re due. So I am. very focused on kind of drilling down into the essence of the argument as we all try to do. And we should be anyway. One of the things about power point is I think it helps you do that. It helps you drill down to the essence.

You you want to get down to the most important elements of the case and show them in a chronological and easy to digest way. And that’s what I love about power pointed. It forces me to do that. It forces me to lay out the trial like I think it should go. And then you test it in focus groups and you rearrange it and you just repeat the process.

So, this is, I don’t know, this is because of COVID, but I just think, you know, for me as a trial lawyer growing, I’ve become extremely visual now. I mean, we work on our process. You’re talking about process. I mean, every medical deposition must have at least [00:18:00] three graphics or video or something, you know, it’s just a requirement for all my lawyers.

You must have this. You can have five or six, but you’ve got to have at least three. And before depositions, I’ll just quiz them. I’m like, what’s, what’s your plan? What, what do you got? You know, we’re use MetaVisual, some other companies out there and sometimes have the doctor just draw it or, you know, edit YouTube videos to less than two and a half minutes.

It makes a difference. We’re even doing PowerPoints on all of our motions. And my lawyers will swear to you and I will, that it turns the judges in a lot of cases. I had an example last week where judge already made a decision before the plaintiff before we had a chance to argue after we saw the power point turning gave us what we needed.

So It sounds to me like obviously, I mean, well, it sounds like you use the time really wisely that we had where we were just sitting, you know, like you said, [00:19:00] a lot of ceilings were coming in a lot of really quality information and you took that time to. Fresh up, right? Get better, learn new things. And then you had the opportunity to almost immediately start applying it with four trials back to back last summer.

We were very fortunate in Covid because we had some cases settle for what we thought were top dollar during Covid time, and I was. shocked that the insurance companies wanted to settle because if I were them, if knowing them like we all know, insurance companies motivated by one thing and that’s greed is, you know, there’s no hammer, what are we going to do?

We have no threat anymore. The seventh amendment is temporarily dead right now and we have no means of enforcing this. So one of the things we did is, you know, we, we, I told my office like get everything ready for trial, everything. Okay. And so that’s why we were able to try more [00:20:00] cases than anybody in Tennessee, which is only four, you know, it’s not a lot, but you know, it’s, it’s, it’s more than most, but we had probably 13 cases set for trial and, you know, some of them settle and we had fortunately had good success with the ones we tried and I’m just very thankful for that.

And we learned something every time. And so a matter of fact, in February we put on a C. L. E. With some other lawyers who tried some cases, nine trials in nine months. What we’ve learned through the covid era and in 2021. And the main thing was just general trial practice. How do we get better prepared for trial and how do we take medical, better medical proof?

You know, I’ve got four associates and some of them are younger lawyers. And I found out when I’m getting ready for trial a month before trial, I’m just telling on myself here and exposing my transparency. But [00:21:00] there, there were some depositions. I’m like, this is crap. This is crap. I can’t believe that I haven’t trained my lawyers better than this.

And it caused a lot of consternation, a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of man, do we need to, uh, take a non suit on this case and just a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress. So one of the things I did immediately as I put together a learning power point from office like this is how we take excellent killer doctor depositions and I am a depositions and that’s just something that I’m it’s part of our, you know, in Tennessee, doctors are immune from subpoena to trial.

I don’t know how Texas is, but you don’t have doctors unless they’re a paid expert sitting there and outside the courtroom. And so we do it all by video, which is in kind of way is, is helpful because you’ve got that in the can when the [00:22:00] trial goes. And so you don’t have to, it’s part of trial. You don’t have to worry with as much cause you’ve already dealt with and worried about it.

Yeah. No scheduling concerns, but we. I think we came out of Covid being better, being much better than we were. And we did that in part from stealing from good lawyers like you and from Mark Lanier, and from Joe Free and, uh, you know, Nick Row and all, all those people. And Courtney Rally, you know, I’ve, gosh, I, I, I love.

learning. And uh, you know, my lawyers today are at such an advantage. They’ve got all the Rick Friedman books and the Don Kena books and all those. I’ve got a list of 13 books that I require my lawyers to read. Mark Kozlowski. I read 30 B six two years ago and I’m like, I suck as a lawyer. I have been committing malpractice on my [00:23:00] 30 B six depositions for years.

And uh, man, I’m, I’m motions to compel left a didn’t think I’d ever do altruistic lawyer. I’m g never found much for most an idiot. These guys are your clients over and you because of this. So now I sanctions against other l

Yeah. Yeah. Have you, I mean, in, in the trials that you face, did you guys have any of that kind of squirrely behavior where you haven’t, you know, take people or did you have any difficulties with opposing counsel during those, those trials? Yes, yes, not for the most part. We’ve got a pretty good collegial bar here, but there’s some in house lawyers that won’t be named that are very difficult, will not agree.

Not only do they not agree, that’s okay, but they will look for every [00:24:00] way to accuse you of cutting corners and being outright dishonest and we all react the same way to that. You know, you can tell me I’m a bad lawyer and I should have done something differently, but you assault the core value of my soul, my integrity.

Man, that’s, uh, you know, I think, um, as I’ve gotten older, I’m better in control of my emotions because I’m very competitive. I get very frustrated when somebody is trying to thwart justice. You know, the whole reason I went to law school is because I was a claims adjuster and I screwed people for a living and thought I was going to hell for that.

And now I get to take revenge, you know, one claim at a time. But I just I’m so fortunate to do this job to help people and I just, I love my job. I love the people I work with. I love my clients. You know, what other profession, how [00:25:00] many do you have where at the end of the day you’re making a change in their lives and they look upon you like, I guess like they would look upon a doctor sometimes like, Oh man, you did such.

an event to help change my life and I’m so grateful. And by the way, can I send you business? Can I send you other people to come that you can have? Like, sure, that would be great. Right, right. Yeah. But I mean, it’s true. It’s a, you know, the system that we work in is one that it’s foreign. I mean, the civil justice system, the criminal justice system, you have to have a guide, you know, and that’s what lawyers do.

So it’s an honor and privilege to represent people in some of the toughest times of their lives. And help them navigate this system. And because again, you know, we’re, we’re kind of the underdogs, right? We don’t have unlimited resources. We don’t have unlimited time and, and staff. And that sometimes that’s what we face on the other side.

So you’ve given some great, I, you know, as far as visuals, I [00:26:00] think in a timeline is so important and critical for trial. And even like you said, just organization for deposition to make sure that you’re, things that a jury want t engaging with the visual. an organization. Oh my go I’m undiagnosed A. D. D. I have people around me i me out.

But that’s one of better trial lawyer seminar in February was the organization process we go through and the preparation for that. All the checklist titles, the pre trial checklist that we have and that has changed dramatically for us and for the better and made it supposedly less stressful. All this less last trial.

I was very stressed for different reasons, but I’m trying to do a better job of taking care of myself pre trial and and during trial, but [00:27:00] I’m still failing at that and I want to do a better job. Uh, my family suffers what I suffer, you know, and I, I hope to goodness, my, my clients don’t suffer. That’s the first and foremost concern, but you know, I can’t keep staying up till two o’clock and getting up at five o’clock.

Yeah, no, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s so we, you know, we talk about like trial and getting ready. We really want to prepare as much as we can, but I think sometimes we forget, like, we have to at some point, like stop the scurrying and the, and the prep, just to know that like, you know, one, you’ve done everything you can, but also there’s so much energy that we expound and you got to recharge your battery.

You know, even if it’s just having a good night’s rest or getting a workout in during trial. I mean, it really, It’s, it’s hard to convince trial lawyers of that, but it does such wonders for you when you be able to walk in that courtroom and feel even just a little bit refreshed and recharged. [00:28:00] And it’s tough because in this last trial I had, we had a pretrial conference just on the Wednesday before the Monday trial.

And there were some unresolved issues and I learned Friday night that 80 percent of my closing, my PowerPoint was gone. Just just been removed because well, the defense didn’t agree to it. And that was the standard defense got agreed to everything. I’ve never had this before. And and anyway, it was very frustrating.

But then that kind of got me a little bit off my balance a little bit. And I had to recover from that. And it’s difficult when you’re used to giving very visual openings to go to non visual again. Yeah. And so I just shortened it up and did what I could, did the best I could with that. It’s like a log roll.

It just changes. [00:29:00] Yeah. Yeah. And that’s kind of one of the things that is so unusual about our profession is that you can prepare, prepare, prepare. But it’s not just you, there’s a whole other pieces to the puzzle that can change the game very quickly. And you know, how, how do you turn on a dime? You know, how do you be like, okay, well, here’s plan B and here’s plan C and you know, that kind of stuff.

So it’s definitely a challenge and you know, my hat is off to you to take that challenge during COVID for sure. And, and do five trials. I mean, I still consider that right now, you know, we’re still, you know, in the throes of COVID because there’s a new surge coming and there’s a, you know, got to get your fourth booster or whatever it may be.

And I think that how each judge is handling it, you know, makes it makes a difference. I appreciate you sharing all these extra ideas and things, but I love that you have used your time during COVID to basically, um, [00:30:00] Learn how to make yourself better, you know, instead of like, Hey, how do we, you know, focus in?

And also, I think one of the most important things is how is what I’m asking the jury, what I’m showing the jury relevant to them, like keeping it always about how do we keep them engaged? How do we make things shorter? You know, how do we take a good doctor’s deposition on the front end? So that I know a trial.

I’m not worried. Like you said, picking up that transcript and being like, Oh my gosh, how are we going to keep the jury engaged? Like we don’t have what we need here. The testimony is just not there. So have you guys, I know you before the pandemic, y’all were using focus groups. Did you guys keep using those during the pandemic?

Tell me a little bit about your focus groups for getting ready for trial. Yes, I am a huge believer of focus groups for many reasons. So before the pandemic, we were doing in person focus groups. We would meet off site at a neutral place. We would provide lunch. It would be an all day event. Half my office would be out, you know, supporting the [00:31:00] group.

But couldn’t do that COVID. So we were forced to do zoom and I wasn’t excited about that at first, but now I love it. For so many reasons. Number one, it’s much easier to do. We do two a month. We do it every two weeks regardless. It’s on, it’s every Wednesday at 9:00 AM we do one. You can see everybody’s reactions in their face and, and you can record it.

Of course, you can show your client, you can record it before, but really the way we were spread out, you have to have a wide angle lens. So that was. Just not as convenient and we get to practice our jury selection more and all the opening statement, the different methods of focus grouping that we do. My younger lawyers are running these focus groups by themselves.

Most of the time. I’m not even involved unless I wanna be, and it has been such. and an incredible factor for us. It is increased. The value of our cases [00:32:00] is given us confidence going into cases. It had an impact on our trials that we had last summer. Huge impact. So, man, I cannot give enough blessing to if you’re not doing Zoom focus groups now you are missing out.

And we can do three focus groups for about $1,400 less than that. And so we’ll do focus groups for other people. It’s a good way to market to other people, Hey, you got this case, I’ll focus group it for you for free. You know, and they love it. And I’ve gotten business out of it too. So yeah. Anything else you wanna know about that?

I’m, I’m not the master on it, but I’m, I’m knocking at its door. I’m trying to be, we love it. No, that’s super helpful. It’s I talk about virtual being a huge blessing to people for especially solo to small firms. If you’re just starting out like it is a great way to start learning to focus group and low cost.

Convenience is amazing. You just click and [00:33:00] go, you know, and people, people love it. I mean, everybody knows how to do it now. Like, because their kids had to zoom on school. You had to see your doctor on zoom, your financial advisor. You know, we all did zoom and had to learn it or that’s how we got in touch with our family.

So. The learning curve, the technology was taking care of for us. And we think as lawyers, we know so much and the more focus groups I do, like, we just don’t have a clue. The things in the trial you helped me with, I learned some extremely valuable information through the focus groups that, that to me, Turn the tide in that case.

So, yeah, I, I would feel naked and afraid if I went into, uh, a trial without focus group. Again, , I’m gonna use that naked and afraid. All right, . So I got one last question and it’s about your closing argument. Did you use anything in your closing arguments that had to deal with the experience that we all have had going through the pandemic?

I did not. I did not. I’d [00:34:00] love to sit here and tell you I’ve had some great tidbit of that. I’ve heard some suggestions on that and I just, I’m not adverse to them at all. I just haven’t, I haven’t used any of that. So. That’s okay. No, I’m just, I’m curious. I think it’s like you said. There’s a lot of conversation in our circles of, Hey, what are you trying?

And what are you doing? What are you talking about? And you have to use what is comfortable to you. Well, I will tell you that I’ve used, I’ve broached that subject in focus groups and I ask them, what is the one thing you’ve learned about yourself during the pandemic? And. It varies widely, but a lot of people, an overarching theme was relationships.

I missed the relationships with people. I missed the interaction. I missed the humanity of, of interacting with people. One person said, I miss just opening doors for [00:35:00] people, you know, and just being nice because when you give away a gift of love or grace, you know, you get something in return. And I think a lot of people have just missed out on that.

I mean, I’m really not doing anything differently, but I always focus on the relationships. You know, some of the hardest trials I’ve had to show harms are the ones I remember I had a trial about three years ago, this lady, she worked at a Home Depot. She was 68 years old or thereabouts, and she had no relationships with anybody.

She didn’t have a husband. She had no children. She was an introvert. She just st

but I had no before and after witnesses. The only one that I could bring was a coworker. And she said, uh, yeah, she’s kind of a grumpy old soul. And, uh, and, but, and I would have brought her for that. Just say, Hey, that’s, you know, this is who she [00:36:00] is. And she still has value or tried to find a way to make that palatable.

But she said, uh, yeah, she’s. Fall. There were some other issues, some prior injury issues. I’m like, oh, she’s gonna hurt us, not help us. You know, she’s fallen down many times at work, . So, so, but it was just hard because there was no relationship with anyone. There was no, no community. There was no, she, I don’t wanna say didn’t contribute.

That’s harsh, but it was just hard to show that. So. Point is, we always focus on the value relationships, but I think what COVID has done, I think there’s opportunities to really inject those with a lot of passion now, because I think it means more to people. Absolutely. Yeah, that was, that’s a, that’s a great question to ask people in focus groups just to learn.

In general, what people are saying, and then like you said, give it back to them. You don’t have to even ask them in jury selection, just talking about it. People are going to know that [00:37:00] experience of like not being able to connect with somebody. And some people learn that they don’t necessarily need it as much, right.

Or they were, you know, doing too much and not recharging their own battery or taking care of themselves. And all those things still help, you know, but focus groups help us learn. what’s in their heads, like the conversation pieces without us having necessarily always have that conversation with them in jury selection.

Yeah. And I think a way that will help, I think a beneficiary of COVID too, and these relationship issues are your elderly clients. And cause I’ve got a trial coming up June 20th that has an elderly client and You know, I’m reminded of Keith Mitnick’s all time is not equal argument that, you know, sometimes they’re more precious when they’re fewer.

If you know someone’s on their deathbed and they don’t have that life expectancy, but their their time is more valuable. And that time a lot of people and and this came out in jury selection [00:38:00] and the medical negligence case, some parents had died. through covid and they wish that I had more time to go back and spend time with him or they wish they’d have known that was the last time they were going to see their parents like if I had known like what is that worth?

What would you pay for that? I just blogged on that. It’s like, you know, I didn’t know my dad was going to die January 19th of 2019. I mean, what would I pay for one more day with my father? you know, and it wasn’t COVID related, but I think, I think that’s the overriding thing. I think people are just re in tune with the power of relationships and hopefully that will stick with us for a while.

Hopefully this coming out of the covid era will not, it won’t be faint very quickly. Sure, sure, sure. And I think one of the things you pointed out as well in our conversation was time is so precious to them. They’re very impatient. They want you to get to the point to hurry up because their time means something more to [00:39:00] them because they lost it.

You know, we all lost sometimes a year for some people, you know? So I think that that’s also a really good conversation piece. So. Yeah. Well, as we wrap up, I want to ask you one final question, which is what advice would you have to lawyers who are finally returning back to the courthouse for their first trial post covid in 2022?

That is a tough question and I don’t know why it’s tough, but I will tell you that wrapping up these trials and going into my sixth one and about a month and a half, I finally feel like I’ve Kind of got the rust shaken off. I felt like that last summer, but, um, I would just focus on being extremely prepared, extremely organized.

I feel silly saying that because you would do that anyway. But I was nervous. I was nervous. And it’s a struggle for [00:40:00] lawyers to be at times when you’re nervous to be outwardly focused. And I would Just try to get rid of those butterflies and get rid of that voice inside your head. I mean, I don’t know who said it, but you can only listen to one voice inside your head at a time, and I deal with a lot of younger lawyers and I try to train them to quit worrying about what.

Your next question is focus outwardly continually and practice that I know you can get better with that over time and practicing. So we can’t control those issues. And as a lawyer, things change midstream and it’s like military. It’s like man down. What are your options? We don’t have time to cry and and and have a pity party session.

It’s like what? Who’s next? Next man up. We gotta go. And What are your options? So I would just say that I would [00:41:00] say be outwardly focused. Don’t listen to that voice of doubt inside your mind and be confident that, you know, you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be 100%. Sometimes. I mean, the jury always gives you a pass on that.

Just be organized and just have a plan. and everything will work out. And just remember you’re on the side of justice and you’re doing, I think we’re doing God’s work and I’m very proud to do this and do it with a passion and do it with humility and positivity. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I think that that is Helpful because, you know, if you haven’t been in the courtroom, you got a lot and you got a lot of voices, a lot of people talking to you up in here, uh, up in your brain.

So I think that that is so helpful. And you mentioned having an awareness, that being one of the most important things. You walk in a trial and, you know, focus groups really help you with that because they take away some of that unknown [00:42:00] because you practiced. You know what some people’s reactions are. So like you said, doesn’t have to be perfect, but you’ve practiced it and you can kind of calm down some of those voices and just make sure you’re being present and being aware and jury or not.

Everybody knows when you’re thinking about something else. Think about having a conversation with somebody and then all of a sudden you’re like, Oh my gosh, I got to go fold the clothes. Like they know that you have gone somewhere else. And so I think that that is great advice for people because we have a tendency to do that.

You know, we’re got to think of the next thing, the next thing. And I think that’s great advice. So thank you, John, so much for joining us on this episode.