Bonding v. Preparing a Client for Deposition
Bonding versus preparing a client for deposition are two things that we are told we need to do as trial lawyers to set ourselves up for success. Indeed, both are vital and important parts of client interaction, but where do we draw the line between the two?
Sometimes, when you’ve already built a solid relationship with a client, this can be difficult to separate. But bonding and preparing a client for deposition are two different things. They serve different purposes. Bonding is taking a separate interest in our clients, outside of the legal matter. It’s as simple as asking clients about their families or sharing a common interest. You could also be sharing with this person about yourself or other family details. It’s an important part of any relationship because it helps establish rapport with people. Conversely, preparing a client for deposition is a highly focused training and coaching task that involves things like teaching the client what to expect.
In this episode, we’re going to talk more about how they’re different and what you can do to resist the urge to bond with a client so you can bring it all back to the main task of preparing them for deposition.
In this episode, you will hear:
- How small talk sets you up for success
- Your specific tasks as you’re preparing your client for deposition
- Things you have to do during preparation, which you never do when bonding
- Resisting the urge to move into the relationship-building mode
Subscribe and Review
Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet.
We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.
Supporting Resources:
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Email me: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com
Episode Credits:
If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.
He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their businesses and impact the world.
Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com
Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome to a new episode of trial lawyer prep with me, your host, Elizabeth Larrick.
Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend. I hope this will be hitting you after Thanksgiving or whenever you choose to tune in. But this is a podcast dedicated [00:01:00] to trial lawyers getting ready for trial, getting ready for depositions, but basically preparing their cases for success through thoughtful preparation.
And today we are going to talk about bonding versus preparing a client for deposition. And these are two things that we are told we need to do, and we being trial lawyers, we need to do to have success. They’re both vital. They’re important parts of client interaction. And I see this happen many, many times when I sit down to prepare clients.
And so I thought this is probably something other people can get trapped up on. So I want to talk about what are these two tasks, right? Like how they’re different. How bonding and preparing client for deposition are different and they serve different purposes and how we can get this urge to do this bonding with the client during deposition prep.
That’s real and how we can avoid doing that [00:02:00] and keeping these jobs very separate because brain science tells us we can only do a one thing at a time and we don’t want to bond. bond with our client at DepoPrep. Right. We don’t want to move into that and we don’t want to endanger our preparation time and risk the client’s deposition.
And so let’s talk a little bit about bonding because it does happen that we bond with our clients. It’s something that we need to do, but really it’s taking it at face value, what is bonding? Well, it’s taking a separate interest in our clients outside of the legal matter. And it’s as simple as asking folks about their family and when you see them every time, sharing a common interest, sharing with this person about yourself or other family details.
And it’s really, it’s an important part of the relationship for any relationship. It’s very important. And it really does help establish rapport. with people and tells us that small talk really does help people succeed, especially [00:03:00] they’ve studied this basically in adversarial negotiations that even just a little bit of small talk beforehand can help negotiations succeed, getting people to feel comfortable, feel at ease.
And so it’s something that you must do. That’s something that’s talked about in the book influenced by Robert Cialdini. Something that we really need to be doing. And again, I know that we’re not negotiating with our clients. We’re just trying to basically bond with them. Most of the time our clients spend a large period of time, longer than sometimes they want, a year, two years, four years, five years with us trying to handle a problem.
And so really the purpose of bonding is about relationship building. And when we hear about this is when lawyers urging other people to go share a meal with the client, go to their home and have a visit, keep up with client’s birthdays, anniversaries, their kid birthdays, pets, sports, hobbies, but it’s something again, it’s outside the legal matter.
So really relationship building, when we talk about this, if it’s something that. Maybe you struggle with, or you have questions [00:04:00] about how to do this in a good way, I really would suggest reading Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Total classic. If you haven’t read it in a while, like, put it on your list to do because it’s, I find it to be a super helpful refresher when it comes to really simple things that we can do that people light up with.
One of the simple things he suggests is using people’s first name and remembering. It really does help. Okay, so here’s this task of bonding, but let me switch and really talk about preparing for deposition because that task is really a high focused training and coaching task, right? I mean, when I think about preparing for deposition, we really are trying to accomplish three really big tasks.
And the first one being teaching the client what to expect, but we have to do that teaching in a format That makes sense and with language that they understand. And so many times I hear lawyers [00:05:00] explaining depositions and using words, objection, elating questions, testimony, rules of evidence, discovery, all these words that total legal jargon, not anything that clients use regularly.
And when we do that, like, they’re not retaining it because it’s like, let me give you an example. When we go to talk to an expert, let’s just happen that this expert’s a rocket scientist, right? That rocket scientist is going to probably use terms and phrases that are 100 percent foreign and that can’t be understood in context clues.
So you’re having to like, whoa, whoa, I got to step back here. You’re using all these words that, Like, I don’t understand. Now, lawyers will do that, right? Lawyers, hey, you need to under, help me understand what that word is. Clients won’t do that, right? They won’t ask that question out of embarrassment, like, wait a minute, like, what is a leading question?
What do you mean, what’s the word objection? So we really have to stop and teach them in a format with language that they understand, because that’s hurdle number one, right? Getting them to [00:06:00] understand and what they can expect. The next hurdle would be organizing all that information that they have to share.
Because they have a lot, and a lot of it could be past, it could be stuff that’s involved with the lawsuit. Thinking about injury cases, we’ve got to organize all the information about injuries, medical treatment, future medical needs, limitations, the pain, impact to family and self. That’s a lot of stuff to organize.
We’ve got if you’ve got an employment case, right? We’ve got job events, job history, probably lots of documents to organize. And in this phase, we’re really helping refresh them on it. But also we need to help them organize it around. The areas that they’re going to get hit on, but also just with questions are going to be asked.
It’s not a normal conversation in their minds, right? They’re thinking it’s going to be questions that don’t have unusual terms or are phrased in a way they’re going to understand. So that’s kind of where the organizing [00:07:00] helps. So once you do that, we taught them what to expect. Number two, we’re organizing the information that they’ve got in their brains.
And finally, number three is testing, right? Role playing with the client, giving them that experience, and really testing what you worked on. So the purpose of preparing for deposition is a hundred percent case related, right? It’s not relationship building like bonding. Now, it will benefit your relationship, but in that preparation, you’re going to have to cover uncomfortable issues or bad habits.
And you want to do that before the defense does, but that’s not something you would ever do in bonding. So two really separate tasks. And I definitely would encourage people to do the bonding early. Often, you could do bonding on breaks when people first come in with icebreakers, but once you turn the task to deposition prep, then we really need to be honed in and focused on [00:08:00] doing that task and not moving back and forth between bonding and preparing.
Because again, we can really only do one thing at a time. And this is so easy to occur because we’re sitting down, we’re talking about events, we’re talking about what’s happened since the original events from the lawsuit, what impacts, repercussions, and inevitably conversations turn to difficult things, life changing events, severe injuries, loss of a job, loss of a business.
These are personal things and When you hear them, you want to be empathetic. You want to be sympathetic. But this is where we can creep in back into that bonding and move away from pair pairing for deposition. So let me give you an example. Sitting down to prepare, a young man, he’s 22 years old. His father’s died in an explosion.
And Sitting in to prepare [00:09:00] him for his deposition and we’ve got a couple people in the room and basically having the client kind of walk through growing up. Things he liked to do, how was his dad involved, and the client conversation turns to growing up and he had a very serious passion for breakdancing and went to competitions, and the, an associate in the room pipes in.
Oh yeah, me too. Oh my gosh. Do you know this person? Oh, I used to dance at this studio. Oh yeah, did you do? And the conversation takes a 20 minute detour. Now again, there’s nothing wrong with the conversation. They’re talking about common interests, things that they have in common, but now we’re having a conversation where it’s, Relationship building, and we’ve moved away from our task of we need to learn more about him.
We need to get more information on the table about this. Get him to go to a deeper emotional level to tell us kind of how dad’s [00:10:00] involved or maybe dad wasn’t involved, right? I mean that could be a painful thing. So, it’s so easy to slip into that, right? That, oh, like, it’s a perfect opportunity to talk about things that we have in common.
So, what can you do? Because you may be thinking, well, geez, Elizabeth, I don’t want to be a jerk. I feel for this person. They hired me. I want to be their champion, and I can’t be this heartless person who just sits there while they’re dumping their hearts out. And I know that, totally understand that, and it’s natural.
We’re humans. There’s gonna be a pull towards and somebody’s having an emotional moment, right? You want to get them a tissue, you want to comfort them, but Here’s what I’m telling. You got to resist that urge to move into that relationship building mode and that can look like talking about yourself, talking about another client with the same problem, right?
Trying to comfort them, right? Or even trying to sometimes solve the problem or the issue. Hey, [00:11:00] here’s how we can fix that for you. Oh, here, let’s do this thing instead. It’s like, wait a second, wait, wait, wait, wait, we can’t move into that mode because we want to keep them where they are. But we want to learn more and fit it into where we’re going with our preparation.
So what can you do? We’ll always want to be listened attentively, which means eyes up. We’re not writing anything down. If you want to comfort, just nod your head along that they’re going to get that affirmative agreement from you by nodding and ask questions to show that you’re engaged. Tell me more about that.
What was that like? You want to avoid some of those clinical lawyer questions though. When did that start? Well, when did it end? Did you tell your doctor? Did you make notes? That’s our lawyer minds working, like how can I get this into evidence? Where’s the discovery parts of things? And you will be so glad because you’ll learn so much more, but also Again, you’re giving that person the importance they need in that moment, but you’re staying focused [00:12:00] on the task.
And so really, again, this is the hardest part is for us, right? Clients are there to do whatever we ask them to do, but this is where it’s like, hey, if you feel like you’re slipping into that place, just go back and check, like, okay. How do I get us back on task? And sometimes it happens, but remember, that’s your job as lawyers to get back on task.
Now, bonding, right, that’s something, again, you can do on lunch breaks, you can do on breaks in the hallway when they come in. But once you turn to that depo prep, that highly focused three parts that we’re working towards, you got to resist, right? That bonding urge, that relationship building kind of moments, right?
Where you’re sharing something of your, of yourself, right? Or you’re trying to comfort them. And that’s really where it comes from. And we really just kind of want to resist that. Um, and keep everything focused on the client to learn more, to be able to prepare them better. And along the way, you’ll be able to, once you get through whatever the emotional moment you’re having and learning more, it’s okay to [00:13:00] come back and ask those clinical questions that you’ve got.
But just know like there will be a time and a place to ask those questions, right? We’ve got the organizational part of things, right? We’ve got the role play part of things. There’s a couple of different phases there where you can work in some of those questions that you need to answer. So I hope that this.
episode was helpful, right? So you can kind of catch yourself if you end up falling into that trap sometimes, because once we get off into that relationship building task, sometimes it’s hard to get back. And sometimes we spend a lot of time in that area. And when we really need to be bringing it back to the main task of preparing for deposition.
If you did find it helpful, please rate and review on your favorite podcast platform. Share with somebody who may find it helpful. If you have questions or have a topic that you’d like to discuss on the podcast, or maybe you want to come on the podcast, just shoot me an email. My email will be in the show notes.
We’ll also put links in the show notes to the two books that we talked about, Influenced by Robert Cialdini and the Dale Carnegie [00:14:00] book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Alright, thanks so much.