Author: elarrickbrand

In this episode, I’m going to play a recorded live video of my recent presentation on how to create a focus group presentation, and the best presentation possible to gather more engagement from our participants as well as more feedback.

There are some things that always go into planning our presentations such as what evidence, objective documents, and videos you have to use. You want to look into your goals and what you’re looking to get feedback on, whether it’s pertaining to the whole case or you simply want to understand blind spots that could be missing.

You may also be looking at witness credibility and understand more about the credibility of the person in their testimony. There are lots of different ways to use focus groups. And I’m going to walk you through a few simple presentations that I have previously used when gathering information. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• The goal and timeline of the presentation
• Balancing information with questions
• The power of using visual aids (ex. PowerPoint, images, diagram)
• Focusing on the facts of the events
• Some dos and don’ts when using visual aids
• The simplicity of information
• Using chat to get them engaged

If you’d like to watch the live session to see the PowerPoint Presentation, you can go here.

Episode Transcript

Hi and welcome. It’s Elizabeth Larrick. Glad to have you here with Trial Lawyer Prep.

For this podcast episode, we are going to change course and I’m going to play a recorded live video which was broadcast a few weeks back on social media about how to [00:01:00] create a focus group presentation. If you are curious about the PowerPoint that I use in this live episode. Please check the show notes as I have uploaded it as a PDF so you can see an example of how simple it is to create a good visual for a focus group.

All right, listen in. Hello and welcome. We’re live again this afternoon. I’m to talk about focus group presentations and how to create the best presentation possible to give their more engagement with our participants and also gather more feedback that you want if you are joining us live, just put a little note in the chat so we can say hello.

If you’re watching this on the replay, I still love for you to say hi so I know that you watched it. You also can post any questions that you may have about the materials that we have that we’re talking about today. What we have talked about in the past is really what are the benefits of doing virtual focus groups, how to [00:02:00] plan, meaning our thought process for planning our focus groups, and a few other things logistically.

But today I really want to focus on planning the presentation and a couple of things always go into planning our presentations. Obviously we want to think about what evidence, what objective Documents, photographs, videos, do we have to use, but also what is our goal? Like, what are we looking to get feedback on?

Maybe we’re looking at the whole case and we want to just understand, hey, where are the blind spots that I may be missing and then also get other ideas from them about information that they may want to see or hear. We may be looking at witness. Credibility, right? Throwing either our witnesses up or maybe their expert witnesses, really just to understand more about the credibility of the person in their testimony.

Lots of different ways to use focus groups. And we’re going to walk through a few simple presentations that I have used in the past to help gather [00:03:00] information. One of the main things that I always look at when creating a presentation is one, what are my goals and how much time do I have? A longer time period if we’re looking at Creating a three hour focus group, it’s just going to have much more in depth information.

And if we have a one hour focus group, we really want to look at how do I balance that out? I really want to have a good discussion with them and have great questions, but you have to give them enough information to go on. And that’s sometimes our problem is we think that, well, we’ll just give them a little bit information and then we will just ask a bunch of questions.

I got to temper that. Balance of information with questions. And also what I like to think about, too, is what do we want to take off the table when it comes to the focus group participants and where their minds may go? And a good example of this is anytime we talk about a car wreck and we’re either. It doesn’t really matter what kind [00:04:00] of focus group we’re running.

But if the subject matter is a car wreck, someone is always going to ask, was there drug or alcohol involved? Was anyone intoxicated? Whether there’s any indication or not. So I always work with my facts. My cases work with other lawyers just to know, hey, That is going to be a question that is on the table.

If it is not a part of your case, please tell them there were no drugs now involved. Okay. So also got to think about a few other questions that people always will generally have about cases and you can get all that information into your presentation. So there that, that box is checked for them and they can think about the real issue.

Let me give you another example. Car wrecks are also a really good one. We all generally have a car wreck in our, our file cabinets. And so one of the things people always want to know, you know, was it raining? What was the weather like? Was it daytime or nighttime? Some of these are just, you feel like, wow, that’s really simple.

Like, who called 911? When did 911 get there? But these are all really objective [00:05:00] facts that are going to come in at trial, and they’re part of how some of the Right. Folks are just processing the information, things that they just want to know. So you can get those things off the table and answer those questions.

And so we’ll kind of dig into that. But one of the things I find sometimes in our presentations is that we want to put too much information and overwhelm them. Right. And then there’s a lot of confusion or too little. So there’s always kind of a balance. I always like to think if you’ve got an hour and you’re just trying to get some basic feedback on something, really you should think about having at least 15 to 20 minutes of solid information.

And again, Sometimes we’re always paring back and sometimes we’re adding things. I always, everything I do has some kind of visual aid. And so I use PowerPoint. I think it’s just easy. And some of these PowerPoints I’m going to walk you through, you’re going to see are really, really basic, but it really helps them get a good idea in their minds about what’s going on.

So what I want to do [00:06:00] is kind of walk you through two different presentations. One of them is a premises liability case that we really didn’t have. We had one picture. That was it. And so we did what we could. And another one is we had a huge dispute about a car wreck. So I kind of want to walk both those with you.

So give me just two moments. I’m going to grab my presentation here to share with you. So you should be seeing a green screen. I always start with just a plain color. You know, I always want folks to be able to see what I’m looking at. And so if I start with a white background, a first slide is a white background, then people are going to be like, well, I see it’s white.

Okay. So always make it really plain color. One other thing that I always do with my focus groups is we really focus on the facts and the event, the names. get lost on people. The date really doesn’t because people always say, well, was this after the pandemic, before the pandemic? So anyhow, but this one is, this was a fact pattern [00:07:00] that came, we did a real short one hour focus group.

And the purpose and the goal of the focus group was really to understand, is this a case? Who is the jury going to find responsible? And like I talked A little bit about this is the one where we really just had one picture. We had description of the facts. So we really had to dig down to get some facts, but this was an injury that happened in a, kind of like a, an oil change location and they were building it and it’s one of the people who was working in the, Building like create like literally building it fell into the pit, and I’ll show you a picture of it and, you know, tragic quadriplegic injuries, you know, but really would need to understand, like, who all could be on the hook here.

And so, in looking at our PowerPoint here, so I’m just gonna advance the slide. So this was the actual building, right? This is what actually ended up. Being built at the location. Most of the focus group, people have never heard of this place. It [00:08:00] wasn’t like an O’Reilly. So it really wasn’t a big deal not to disclose the name on there, but we had to make sure that people understood what we meant when we said what a pit was.

So I just went and scoured the internet and found a picture that actually showed like, you know, their perspective, right. As a. As a driver, you know, taking your car and what was their perspective? Well, it’s, it’s being, Hey, pull in here right over the top of this giant hole and don’t drive your car in there.

Right? Everyone’s fear is always, they’re going to drive the car in there. But I just really want to make sure they understood, Hey, this is what we’re talking about. And that only because we assume most people have experiences that we’re going to talk about cases. Sometimes they don’t. So we really have to start at a bigger place and then narrow in.

So again, this was a picture I went and grabbed off the Internet. The picture you saw before, let me just toggle back. This was also just from the Internet. I went and grabbed it and picked it, put it in here. This was one that we did. And then I went back to a green screen and actually toggled [00:09:00] back to the participants and turned my share screen off.

And I just want to make sure, are we all in the same room? place here? Do we all understand what the premises were talking about? And then I gave them some more facts. And then when I was ready to come back to the power point, right, toggling back, then I was able to show them the actual picture of the location where this injury actually happened.

And this is the only picture we had. Right. So on top of that, we had to describe what I would consider a kind of a difficult, like, how did this thing happen? She fell backwards into this pit, right? But this is what it looked like, I think, almost like the night before that she got injured. So then I had to describe things.

So what I always like to do is, when in doubt, let’s add some Let’s add some arrows, right? Some directional arrows. So they understand. And so what they had to understand is she was working back and forth in this kind of motion, right? And then ultimately she was, Walking [00:10:00] backwards, see my blue arrow, and then, right, her foot fell in there, and she fell down there.

Right, so directional arrows that are just helping us, and this is just all super simple. There’s nothing fancy going on here. It’s just inserting an arrow from PowerPoint. And I think that that really helped them versus me just verbally trying to explain it because that was one of the things I had troubles with when the lawyer was explaining it to me.

So I had to create something so that my mind could visualize what had happened. So anyhow, it’s a really, really simple way to kind of help them understand pairing the visual with the description. And again, sometimes when we have We just walked through it more than one time as well to make sure everybody’s on the same point.

And then what do we do? Now that everybody’s seen the visual, they understand what happened, then we go to talking and we take the PowerPoint back off, right? We toggle back to have all our full screens to see all of their shiny faces on a virtual screen. focus group. Obviously, if we were in [00:11:00] person, this is almost exactly how I would do it, but I would probably take it another step forward and use, I have a rolling whiteboard and to show them and draw it for them to make sure that they understood.

And you could even basically, you know, show them she was turning around and walking backwards and do that in front of them as well. But this is really for to help with a virtual focus group. But again, this is an easy way to do a PowerPoint presentation, even for in person as well. One of the things I want you to take a note of is how large this picture is.

One of the big no no’s is if you are going to show someone a picture, whether it be in person or whether it be virtual, make that picture take up the entire slide, the entire thing. Don’t keep a small picture. I mean, it’s just, just don’t do it. If you, if you don’t want to sacrifice the slide that the picture may not be as important.

So, all right. Awesome. Any awesome. Fantastic. Okay, let’s just keep going then. So we see, let me walk through our next presentation that we have here. And [00:12:00] that one is again, every time I finish going through the presentation, I always put a color slide. And that’s just an indication for me. Hey, Elizabeth, you’re done with this toggle back to talk to them.

And then I always start again on this same slide as I’m not revealing anything, but I’m making sure everyone can see that we’re on the same page with the share screen. So this next one was a highly disputed car wreck. And for any car wreck, I always, especially depending on, you know, kind of where we’re at, we talk about an Austin 1 or Dallas.

Obviously, you can see this is if you don’t know, this is kind of like North Dallas area. A lot of people. made me don’t know where that is. So I always want to orientate them with the Google map. So this is what we did. I’ve got my date and again, dates are not as huge, but you want to make sure you notify them.

Hey, this is when a date was. That’s before the pandemic. Okay, because you’re gonna have pictures of people not masks. So Easy thing to do. Grab the Google map, right? So we’ve got a big [00:13:00] picture of Google map. And then again, anytime I can, I’m just going to add some kind of motion to tell them, Hey, this is where we’re going.

We’re going to talk about Farmersville. We’ve got the police report and I’ve basically kind of cut the police report up, meaning I’m only showing them pieces of it. The date, the time, you know, where’s the highway, the speed limit is on here. And again, I’m walking them through this. What you will discover is that most.

focus group people are not going to read the screen. So anytime you have writing on the screen, you need to read it out loud. People may not see it. Maybe they don’t have their glasses. I had, this was a big boo boo for me doing focus groups in person as well as virtual, but I had somebody who basically became very upset because they couldn’t read the screen.

And so I don’t ever want to exclude anyone and that person felt excluded. So just know if you put words on there, you gotta read it out loud for everybody. And again, this [00:14:00] answers a lot of real basic questions that people always ask about CarX. Well, what was the speed on the highway and what time was it at?

And you know, what kind of cars were they driving? And so we went ahead and just pulled this out for the, you know, we’ve got a white truck and we’ve got a gray truck. This also really helps because a Most police reports are have unit one unit two that can get kind of confusing. So you’re going to see what I did Which is basically point out.

These are our two vehicles that are involved. You notice I don’t have people’s names on here Okay, so these are just our unit names And then basically what I did was I jumped back to my map to show them exactly where we were again We’re just using Google Maps. It’s You know, nothing fancy here, and a circle that I put up through PowerPoint.

And then I’m going to walk them through the property damage, right? Because again, they’re going to want to see pictures of both vehicles, happens every time. This is the gray vehicle, correct? And then here’s the narrative, right? So [00:15:00] then I would have read this, but again, just to make sure everybody’s clear on where we are, if you see up in my little corner here, I’ve got, you know, the unit one is the plumbing truck.

Remember they just saw a picture of it. We’re just reinforcing that. And then unit two is the gray truck. Okay. So now we’re kind of on now when I read it, I’m going to pair that together. Unit one plumbing truck and unit two gray truck were traveling North on state highway 78. And I would have read the whole thing to them.

It’s a lot of reading. People may get lost, but this was a huge disputed rec, so it was important for me to make sure and read it to them. And then what we had next was we had, again, this was the field diagram, and then we had actual testimony, right? So we’re not really going to listen to this today, but you would get like, okay, so this was my fanciness.

I put, you know, what the gray truck driver said. And then we went to the next person, right? Which would be the [00:16:00] plumbing truck, right? Okay. So now we’re, and then we had one other person, which was a witness. And then we go through that, so then they get to hear everybody. And then I came back again to this visual aid and a few other pictures that we had.

And again, I’m just like, we’re just going to keep repeating some of this information with them just to make sure they understand a hundred percent. And this is before we have a big discussion with them, right? We want to make sure they have as much information as possible about what happened and what the area looks like in doing this.

The presentation. So those are two really one of them is a really short presentation. And one of them was a long presentation, but what we did was just made sure, especially for when it was disputed. Right? So we wanted to make sure we had a bunch of information. We really wanted to get everything to them before we had a discussion, [00:17:00] because what can happen again?

And this was a wreck that it didn’t involve any drug or alcohol. Did we know that they were going to ask that? Absolutely. Did we make sure that we covered that? Absolutely. Because I don’t want that hanging in their minds. And then that would prevent some additional feedback that we need on the dispute.

And, you know, as far as kind of the questions and things, we will definitely cover that in another live session. But for this session, I just want to make sure that we are looking at one, the simplicity of the information and the simplicity of that PowerPoint. You know, we’re trying to get them to hone in on, um, What we want them to so to do that we need to answer some real basic fact information for them If we need to use the internet to find pictures Let’s do that right so that they can be on the same page with us we always want to use a visual aid at all times right because They’re going to be Um, I’m not going to be bored listening to you or I just drone on about some facts.

They’re going to get me [00:18:00] confused really easily. So even like we had with the first presentation, I showed you that just had really three slides, right? I showed them the completed building. I showed them an example of a pit again with again, almost the action, right? Of showing them, Hey, let’s maybe you’ve had this experience.

You would have driven over this pit and then the one picture that we had and then just, you know, Again, showing some motion arrows to give them an idea about how this whole thing happened. That is still going to keep them engaged, right? One of the things as well that you’ll notice is that I toggle back and forth, right?

I mean, I want to make sure that I see their faces and that they’re paying attention. And that’s one of the tricks about presenting is that you If you have long pieces of information, like a long video, you want to make sure you’re going to break that up. But maybe the longest video you’ve got is 10 minutes.

You’ve still got to figure out a way to like, once you finish with that video, can’t jump into the next one. Like stop, ask a question or have them write something in the [00:19:00] chats when I normally do, or, you know, that way we’re keeping them engaged because that’s what we got to do is just make sure one, we’re, You know, keeping it simple, we’re keeping it visual, and we’re keeping them engaged by asking them to do something, either, you know, it could be as simple as putting it in the chat, that way we’re not kind of breaking our concentration to have a discussion, and then also just making sure that we try to think about answering questions that they may have that aren’t central to the case, right?

So, if somebody asks questions. Again, my example is a car wreck case. Somebody says, well, I want to know about the driving history. We know as lawyers, like that’s something that needs to be evidenced. Like, okay, thank you so much. But digging into that, well, what, you know, like, tell me more about that. Well, that is good.

But at the same time, like, You’re in a focus group. You’re the moderator. You have got questions that you need to get answered, and you don’t want to be rude to this person because they don’t understand the rules of evidence, but you’ve got to boogie on [00:20:00] like, thank you so much and turn and pivot and ask another question or a different question to a different person.

And we’ll talk about moderating and how to do that in the best way possible again, without turning other people off and keeping things focused on what your goals are. But the presentation can really help people hone in on what you want them to do and answer questions so that they can get those things out of their minds.

And we’ll talk about how, like, okay, how do we moderate that and learn what we need to learn, right? We’ll talk about that as well. So, but what I want to just again, remind everybody is the presentations don’t have to be complicated and they should generally give enough information so you can have a good discussion on your points.

Be visual, use a PowerPoint, even if it’s something simple that you grab off the internet. I mean, there have been times where we talk about big box stores. I just go grab a picture of a big box store, you know, and then talk to them about that. Just something to keep them engaged, using the chat, asking them questions to put it [00:21:00] in the chat, you know, before you jump into another informational spot.

This also helps too when you’re thinking about taking breaks. You know, we try to take a Finish a whole presentation, including discussion before we have a break. If we have to have a break in the middle of a presentation, we try to get through at least one particular point and don’t have a discussion and come back.

And then, and again, we’re talking about virtual here in person. You do want to do have the same kind of scope, meaning when will the break be? And like, are they going to talk to each other? And how do we not lose this momentum that we have? What’s the juiciest part of the presentation? All those things you just want to be kind of thinking about and laying it out.

One of the best things that I think helps me in planning my presentation is how long I think things are going to take. And normally, if we have a lot of information we’ve got to give, I need to pare it down, right? Making sure if I only have an hour, I really need to make sure I’m only giving, you know, working through 15 or 20 minutes of [00:22:00] actual information or the presentation and then getting into questions because you want to make sure to tap everybody and give everybody a fair chance and go through all the questions that you may have and at times you may have to run back through your presentation.

Always keep that in mind too. If you’ve got a video, you may have to play it again. If you’ve got pictures, you’re going to probably show those again. So keep that in mind when you’re trying to scope out the time that you’ve got and whether you can or not. And we’ll get, we’ll talk about that when we do some live clip on how to moderate best.

So thanks again for watching. That’s pretty much what we’ve got here for focus group presentations. If you have any questions, please put them in the chat. I’ll make sure to answer them and thanks for joining us.

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.

There is no doubt how important focus groups are in helping trial lawyers present to a live group of people. Not only does running practice groups hone your presenting skills, but it also helps you with your materials and it helps you get valuable feedback from those who are completely uninvolved with your case.

However, a lot of trial lawyers are still hesitant about doing it or they just don’t see the value in it mainly because they have certain assumptions and beliefs that aren’t necessarily true. 

In this episode, I’m sharing three main myths about focus groups that are circulating around which need to be debunked and clarified. And if you can just get through some of these, it will help you correct those misconceptions as a trial lawyer, and hopefully, you can start running focus groups and get the benefits out of them.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Myth #1: Focus groups = mock jury
• Myth #2: Relying on focus groups to determine the monetary value of your case
• Myth #3: It has to be done in person.

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:

To learn more about different styles of focus groups, check out this quick blog. 

If you are starting your own Virtual Focus Groups, download this quick checklist to help you get started: https://bit.ly/30uLFVH 

Have a question or a comment? Drop me an email: Elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.

Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome. I am your host, Elizabeth Larrick, for this episode of Trial Lawyer Prep, a podcast designed to prepare trial lawyers to connect with jurors in the courtroom.

One of the methods that I talk about often on this podcast [00:01:00] and have spent actually several episodes recently is focus groups and how important they are with the ability to get up and present to a live group of folks from the community. Not only does this help you practice, It’s your presenting skills, but also helps you with your materials and getting valuable feedback from those folks who are completely uninvolved with your case.

In episodes 19 and 20, we talked about a DIY, do it yourself, building your own system to run focus groups out of your office. If you want to catch those episodes, please do so. They help with. Setting up logistics of it, but then also like how to plan and think about and craft your presentation and your questions.

One of the things that came to me though was talking about a few of the myths that I hear often about focus groups. And I probably should have talked about those in those [00:02:00] episodes. But I felt like it was important enough, so we’ll set it aside for its own episode here today. And that is we’ve got three kind of main myths that I hear often about focus groups that I just want to tackle and bust them today because I feel like if we can get through some of these, these three very important myths about them, it will really help you as a trial lawyer.

So let’s get started. be able to wrap your arms around starting to do focus groups and also kind of correct some of the misconceptions that we have that are out there. One of the biggest myths that I hear is that focus groups automatically equal mock juries and that’s what a focus group is. It is a mock jury and that is a total myth.

There are 50 or more different styles of legal focus groups that you can run. Mock juries are one really great way to run a focus group. That’s a wonderful style to use if you are on the doorstep of trial [00:03:00] and you need to just run the whole gamut through the focus group. That’s a great way to do it.

However, that’s not the only way and it’s also not really very cost effective if you are a solo or a small firm because that’s a lot of organization. Generally you’re going to have to have a pretty significant space to do that kind of set up. Plus you’re going to need to rely on some close friends to come serve as other parties or other people in that mock jury.

And ultimately it just can be a very long endeavor as far as planning goes. literally that day, mock jury, and then being able to analyze everything. So it’s kind of a large step into it. That would be really intimidating if that was the only way to get feedback on your cases, but it’s not. Um, there are tons of different styles.

There are other episodes that I run where I talk about, you know, five really simple focus groups that you can do right now that are really easy and they’re short. They’re [00:04:00] easy to do. They’re easy to set up and they’re easy to get feedback that you can use. You know, to remove yourself from getting some of that bias feedback that we have.

So that’s one of my biggest questions that I always get and a lot of folks who are looking at trying to start doing focus groups or hearing about focus groups. We have heard for so long, it’s just about mock trial, just about mock juries. It’s not, there’s other ones out there. Let’s just move forward. So another really big myth that I hear about is that focus groups will give me.

The value of my case, you know, the settlement value or the number that I should ask for at my trial. And that is a big myth. It’s really not safe to rely on focus groups to give you the numbers, the value of your case. They can assist, they can give you some bumpers, they can give you some thoughts and feedback on it.

But one of the big things that I [00:05:00] learned very early on about focus groups is that it’s like monopoly money. It’s not real to them. You can struggle and you can try very hard to make a very realistic approach and a very realistic style of focus group presentation to make them feel much more involved.

But still at the end of the day, it’s monopoly money. They’re just. Throwing things out there. It has no real impact to them. There are ways to learn more about what comes behind the numbers. That’s always a good question to ask them, but I always caution people, Hey, that’s, that’s a really, I mean, you as a trial lawyer have a lot of experience.

You have a lot of other tools in your toolbox to figure out the value of your case. This is a big hesitation area when people come to me and say, Hey, I want you to find out the value of my case. I say, Oh man, that’s, that’s danger territory. You really do not want to rely on that because it’s [00:06:00] just monopoly money.

And I really caution people doing that and other other ways, like I said, to find information Other ways to get really good feedback about what gives your case value. Meaning what are important pieces of cases or what are more pieces of information that you would want to present that have value to folks in the community.

Those are a little different than the monetary value. Uh, so let me be very clear. We’re talking about the monetary value of your case. And you can run lots of focus groups. I mean, there are tons of quantitative focus groups where you can get thousands of people to run through, you know, the scenario and give you numbers.

But even then, it’s just still really, I caution folks to put too much credibility on. that monetary value you’re getting from, from jurors. Now I can give you your guidelines, your bumpers if you want on either side, but at the end of the day I think that finding that number is really [00:07:00] something that you are best suited to do knowing what you know about the case.

And that brings me to myth number three, which I’m hearing more of lately, which is that focus groups must be done in person. You’re not going to get the same results. You’re not going to get the same value or feedback online. I totally disagree with this. Although let me just say I was in the same boat when the pandemic hit, you know, I canceled everything that I had focus groups.

Client preparation and just sat and hoped. Through April that things would change, but they just did not and doing a lot of figuring out why am I so resistant to moving to virtual? Can you get all the same information? And ultimately just went for it. Right. And of course it was rocky at first. I mean, I got to learn the technology, you got to figure out the system [00:08:00] and it was rocky, but I stuck with it.

I mean, focus grouping is the same. And just like any other skill that we need as a trial lawyer, it’s something that you got to learn and you got to practice and that’s how you improve. And it’s just like your first opening statement. It’s probably going to think, but you’re going to keep going at it because It’s important, it’s vital, and it’s just what we do as trial lawyers.

And that’s what I did. And at this point, you know, through 2020, 2021, and now in 2022 have run hundreds of virtual focus groups. Now some things aren’t as well suited for virtual. We definitely tried to do an adversarial focus group and. Ran into some troubles there as far as Zoom fatigue and other presentation styles that just work better in person, but overall have gotten great results, great feedback that have significantly helped people through the pandemic and [00:09:00] going into trials.

And we talk about that in episode 18, kind of some really simple, you know, what’s so great about virtual focus groups, convenience. Factor for everybody involved, the cost factor so much better. And, you know, like I always talk about, if you’re just now starting out, that is a great place to start. I mean, where we were when we started the pandemic to where we are now, technology has come leaps and bounds and making it so much easier for us.

Plus I am sure you have endured many, many zoom depositions. So you also have learned what to do and what not to do when it comes to handling some of that technology. But those are three of the main myths that I hear often, and I always try to say, hey, you know, that’s just not necessarily the way that it is.

We can be open to other stuff and find ways to work around some of the things like finding the monetary value of your case, or learning about your case without having to do a mock jury, or [00:10:00] let’s just do a virtual. You know, let’s just do a virtual, we’ll, we’ll work around all the things that you may think need to be done in person.

And if we got to do it in person one, then hey, we can do that down the road, but let’s, let’s move fast. And that’s the nice thing also about virtual focus groups. All right, well, I hope that this episode was helpful. If you have questions about some of the things we talked about, monk juries, finding the monetary value of your case, or learning more about virtual focus groups, please reach out.

My email is always in the show notes of the episode. If you’re thinking about virtual focus groups, I’ve got a free download that basically gives you kind of a checklist. And also some of the forms that I use for confidentiality and forms for finding participants. So happy to share that. I also put that in the show notes, but if you enjoyed this episode, please, I would ask that you leave a review on your favorite podcast app.

This way it will help others find this podcast and maybe help them prepare [00:11:00] better for their next trial. All right. Thanks again. Have a good one.

Jury trials can be really messy. Changes happen often and frequently every day and it can be different things, whether it be the judge, the jury, or the opposing counsel. Preparation is long. It takes many hours working on witnesses, experts, order of proof, not to mention openings, closings, and jury selection. And that doesn’t even go to tackling the paperwork that you have to do as well – the motions, the jury instructions, the witness lists, the exhibit lists. 

All these things are a huge part of preparing for jury trial. And when we do all this, at times, we forget about this one really big piece of trial – an overall game plan for the day-to-day logistics. Talk about parking, lunch, meeting room, printer, even down to getting a bottle of water. This is an important piece because, without these really small things, a huge amount of stress can happen. 

In today’s episode, let’s take a look at some trial preparation from a logistics perspective and things you can do to avoid stress. Although this doesn’t take a lot of thought, coming up with a game plan to cover the basics is always helpful.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Things to expect before trial
• The importance of logistics
• Things to think about from a logistics perspective
• Preparing for different scenarios
• Where to take lunch, checking the courtroom, construction, security, etc. 

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

Larrick Law Firm

Have a question or a comment? Drop me an email: Elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants? Ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively. Then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success. Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world, understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process.

Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. Her goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. Now, here’s Elizabeth.

Hello, this is your host, Elizabeth Larrick, with Trial Lawyer Prep, a podcast designed for how to prepare cases and clients in a way to connect with jurors in the courtroom.

Today’s topic, we are going to look at some trial preparation. Trial [00:01:00] can be really messy. Changes happen often, frequently, quickly, every day, different things, whether it be the judge, the jury, the opposing counsel. Preparation can be long. Many, many hours working on witnesses, experts, order of proof, not to mention openings, closings, jury selection, and that doesn’t even go to tackling the paperwork that you have to do as well.

The motions, the jury instructions, a witness list, exhibit list. All these things are a huge part of preparing for trial. And when we do all this at times, we forget about one really big piece of trial. And that’s not forming a overall game plan for the day to day logistics, like parking and lunch and a meeting room, or even I’m going to the point of like, do we have a printer?

Can we print this motion out? Can we get it filed? Even down to bottled water. And I [00:02:00] feel like this is a pretty important piece because without these really small things, huge amount of stress can happen. If you can’t find a parking spot and you’re late, you are stressed. If you need a bottle of water and they don’t have anything in the courtroom, you are stressed.

you got a problem. So these are really small things, but they play such a big role in having a solid trial and having these things taken care of in the preparation to form a game plan is really low. It doesn’t take a lot of thought, but it can take some planning. But once it’s done, you can design a system for Anywhere you’re going to have a trial and that’s what I encourage you to do.

And that’s what we’re going to talk about today with this episode. And this really comes from a place of recently I was assisting two different lawyers, two different trials, getting ready. And one of the things I always, uh, Talk about with clients or with [00:03:00] witnesses is what I call logistics. Where are you going to park?

Can you walk that far? Do you have the cash to pay for that parking? Do you know what you’re going to do for lunch? And we even go over very basic, like the trial starts at 9 a. m. That means you need to be in the courtroom by at a minimum of 8 45. You are going to meet with this staff, you guys are going to exchange cell phone numbers.

You know, you’re going to be here on this day or you’re not coming until Thursday. And we really walk through some very basic information that does not change about trial. We always talk about the first day because that is really set. We generally know what you’re going to do. After that, it’s a free for all.

So one of the things I really. I encourage lawyers to do and one of the things I always do with my clients and getting them ready for trial is walk through this basic information because after they gain this information, then we have to prepare them [00:04:00] for the mental part of constant change and the inability to always stop.

And be able to ask questions because trial happens really quickly. And as lawyers, we’re ready for that. We understand that we’ve gone through that before. If you haven’t gone through a trial before, that’s what you can expect is there may be a motion that gets filed and you have to argue it in the next morning, there may be a new exhibit.

You have to review that 600 pages that you weren’t ready for. There may be a different witness that has to go out of order. I mean, Um, things are constantly changing and preparing as best as you can for that is what we really try to do. You can’t always prepare for everything, but we can always be ready for change.

And that’s why I emphasize the importance of the logistics as a small piece that we can do to really reduce some stress. Let’s just avoid this stress that may happen in, of course, it happens naturally with clients and it happens [00:05:00] with us, whether we like to admit it or not. And so back to my talking about.

Um, helping out with these two different trials, I kind of start asking those questions with the lawyers. Hey, what do you guys do for lunch every day? Do you have a meeting room where you meet up? Does the courtroom have a room that you guys can take over and lock? Are you going to take bottled water with you?

Are you going to have pen and paper? Do you have a printer there? You know, where do you expect the clients to park? And it was a lot of really big question marks. And we had one trial that was basically going to be out of town for this set of lawyers. And so. Okay, well, let’s work on that, you know, maybe I’ll get a contact and we’ll find you a place that’s really close to the courthouse so you can walk over there, meet the clients, have lunch there, you know, leave your stuff there, walk back to the courthouse.

The other trial that I was helping with was in the same hometown, so the lawyer was 100 percent used to, oh yeah, park here. Oh yeah, I just bring my lunch because you can’t go in the courthouse cafeteria. Like, Oh, these are all really important things to help the client with too. So [00:06:00] what’s the game plan then for them?

Because there’s going to be three of them or four of them, or there’s just one of them. And do you have any staff that’s going to be helping and, Okay. If you don’t have staff, like we really need to let everyone else know what they can expect, that they can’t reach and talk to you during the trial. So these two experiences made me think, okay, let me just throw this out on the podcast because It’s just another thing to think about, but it’s also really, really simple.

And where this comes from for me was I had done several trials and we just winged it, you know, like, Oh, we’re just going to show up and maybe it’s in our hometown and we park, we always park, or maybe it’s out of town and we’re just going to figure it out when we get there. And that’s generally what we did.

But once I did my time with the Keaton law firm and we had three separate trials, In three very different places, you know, Kentucky, Seattle, Vegas. Those are all [00:07:00] very different places with all very different rules. But that was one of the things we always tackled first was logistics. Okay, scope it out.

Where are we going to park? What are we going to do for lunch every day? Where are we going to meet with the clients? Who’s assigned to meet with the clients? And That way we always knew where to go. We didn’t have to worry about where am I going to be able to go print this? We always had a printer with us.

Who is going to tackle these things? Okay, well, we’re going to assign these tasks to this person, or this is, you know, this issue goes with that person. And if it comes up at trial, you got to tackle it. It’s going to be your issue. But it was always really helpful because we did that first. And then we got to preparing everything else, order of proof, talking to witnesses, practicing opening.

And once we started on the day one of trial, we knew all the daily stuff was easy for us, right? That was not a barrier. [00:08:00] There was no stress there. And so coming up with a game plan to kind of cover the basics is always a super helpful task. Like I said before, it doesn’t take very long, but it’s really thoughtful in thinking of, okay, where are we going to meet?

Some people call it a war room. It’s just a meeting room where basically you can leave your stuff there. If you need to, you can meet with clients there. Witnesses can be there. Experts can meet there. That’s where you’re going to bring your extra printer to print things. If you need to for motions or exhibits, you got your bottle of water there ready for you.

Take it with you to the courtroom. extra paper, pens, pencils, binders, all your kind of supplies of extra things that you may need because you can’t go back to the office in the middle of trial. And it also helps at times if you’ve got a team assembled, somebody can work in that room while the trial is going on, meeting with a witness, getting them ready, or meeting that expert and taking them over to [00:09:00] the courthouse.

But it really It gives a neutral place where you can meet, have open conversations, because sometimes it’s in the courthouse, sometimes it’s not. I recently listened to a podcast for a verdict that came out of Midland, Texas, with John Bailey, and they had a pretty rural courthouse situation, so they just pulled a travel trailer over there.

And that was their place where they were able to meet, they had everything they needed there, and that’s such a great idea. Not necessarily something we could do here in Austin, or other courthouses, but it’s just being resourceful and they really took the time to make sure that they thought that through and took care of that very basic need for everybody.

And then nobody had to worry about where to go. The other thing that you can put in your game plan is parking. This is always, I feel like, an issue for most courthouses and how much is it going to cost and where is it going to be and what is the time to walk over the courthouse. Can somebody drop you off?

All these things. I know parking seems [00:10:00] like such a Really small thing. Elizabeth really, we’re spending time talking about parking for trial prep. Yes, because I have been that person that has not thought about it and just winged it. And then, oh my gosh, I had to walk 10 blocks with all of my stuff. Not a good appearance as you walk in, like super out of breath or completely flustered and everyone else straight to go.

And that really small mental thing can just. really ravage your day because it’s hard to get back from that. It’s hard to come back down from that because then you’re always behind the ball. We don’t want to start that way. So that’s why I emphasize this game plan. Another part of the game plan is where are you guys going to have lunch every day?

I know some lawyers don’t eat during trial. I don’t necessarily think that’s a good idea. Maybe at least eat something. But you want to make sure at least you know where you’re going to have lunch for the clients. Are you going to have it brought in? Is it going to be at the meeting room or the war room?

I always try my best to avoid having [00:11:00] anybody eating down at the courthouse cafeteria because you just don’t want to run into jurors or even create that possibility. So you’d have it brought in or bring your lunch every day or, you know, have a stash of protein bars or peanut butter crackers or fruit, whatever it is that would help you have some energy and kind of keep that energy up.

So food and water are always super important. Another part of the game plan is the courtroom, right? Where is the closest restroom? Is there an elevator that we’re going to have to take up six floors? Are we going to have to wait for everybody else? That’s Going to court that day, and is that going to take time if you’ve got a cart or a dolly that you need to take into the courtroom?

How easy is it to get there? Can you not get it up there? Is it all stairs? All these really simple questions that you would want to know. Before, and I know a lot of people wait until the week before trial, uh, uh, don’t do that, especially on the technology part. I mean, it’s very easy to set up a time to go in to an empty [00:12:00] courtroom and sit in there, check out all the technology, what kind of cords, what things are needed.

Do they have easels? Do they have flip charts? Should we bring our own? But also just getting that visual down because once you have the visual down, you can then use it in all of your preparation as far as thinking about standing there giving that opening or questioning that witness or asking the jury questions.

That visual is very, very helpful in just getting your mind ready for preparation. Is there an extra room? Sometimes courthouses have rooms for the lawyers to use, and they lock it for you every night. Sometimes they don’t. Some courthouses don’t even lock their courtroom, so you want to make sure you take everything out.

But these are really, really small questions that can create a lot of stress. Carrying your stuff in and out every day can be a problem, and especially if you’re by yourself, right? Taking those exhibits back and forth every day, very small things that make a huge impact to you. Other things that I always like to consider for my [00:13:00] game plan is, is there construction in the area?

What is the traffic like? Are there going to be other trials or motions that go on in the courthouse that may impede traffic for you as far as going through security every day? And these are all items, this game plan can be tackled by staff. It doesn’t have to be you. It can be you. If you are solo like me, it would be you, but it just helps you avoid the stress.

It really creates an assurance that you have the things that you need and you’re really giving peace of mind to people. client, to your staff, to your witnesses, that, hey, we, we’ve got these real basic covered. We, you know, exactly where to go. Your basic needs are met. After that, it’s kind of a free for all.

No, no, no. Just kidding. It’s not really a free for all, but sometimes it feels like that. Now you may be saying to yourself, okay, my trials are in the same courthouse every year. I always go. I know what to expect. None of that’s going to [00:14:00] change. Well, it’s post pandemic. A lot of things have changed in courtrooms and courthouses.

Some of them haven’t. But, at a bare minimum, I know security changes often and frequently at most courthouses, construction around courthouses changes often and frequently, all these really small things that could put a cog in your flow, and that’s what we want to avoid, right? So this is a really, really simple concept.

But I think that’s why it gets overlooked, because it’s just so simple. It’s simple to do, simple not to do, but doing it will create a really helpful plan for everybody to be on the same page, create some really basic expectations, and take care of some simple Simple needs that you will have during trial, everyone will have during trial and we’ll just check things off that list so then you can move to the heavier mental things that go along with trial.[00:15:00]

I hope that you found this episode helpful. If you have questions about sketching out a game plan, please ship me an email. If you found this podcast episode helpful, please rate and review it. That is a good way to lead other people to the podcast. Of course, I’d love for you to share it as well. Thanks again, and we’ll catch you next time.

Today is the other half of our two-part series on virtual focus groups, where we specifically tackle the logistics or the backend of virtual focus groups.

First off, there’s a lot of different software and technology that goes into doing virtual focus groups. Although there are ways to use these resources for free, the cost of buying them is relatively low compared to hiring a professional videographer or buying your own video camera and audio system.

Then we break down the setup for a virtual focus group into four buckets: recruiting, communication, the focus group itself, and the wrap-up. We also discuss four parts of the system that you need to nail down to make sure you’re getting the most out of your virtual focus groups.

In this episode, you will hear:

Ways to recruit people who will join your focus group Setting up Google Forms to make it easier for people to respond Why you need to get a confidentiality agreement signed and how to do it Choosing the right platform for running the focus group  Ways to pay people online and make sure you don’t  Four parts of your system to get all of them in place How to make sure those confidentiality emails are sent How to use Zoom settings that work best for you Why it’s best to have a second person who will help you run the focus group 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.

If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at https://www.larricklawfirm.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

If you have any questions about virtual focus groups, don’t hesitate to email me: elizabeth@larricklafirm.com.

Ready to get started on doing your own virtual focus groups? Here is a free download that can help you, which includes several resources like a questionnaire and confidentiality agreement.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants, ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively, then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success? Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world, understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process.

Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. Her goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. Now, here’s Elizabeth.

Welcome to another episode of trial lawyer prep. I am your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and we are going to talk about DIY virtual focus groups.

Why? Because that’s what this podcast is designed to do. I want to give you a tip. [00:01:00] Um, literally how to do focus groups, witness prep, trial prep, to prepare your cases better to sleep better at night. And today is our second part of our two part series of virtual focus groups. If you’d like to pause and go listen to part one about what on earth are virtual focus groups and why would I want to do that?

And how would I even do one of those? Go ahead and jump back. To episode number 19, or if you feel really confident in that, or just want to listen to what I have to say today about putting together virtual focus groups and stick around because we are tackling logistics, what I like to call logistics, at least the backend of virtual focus groups.

And there is going to be a checklist for virtual focus groups that I use. Also, I think there’s some forms and the confidentiality that I use all that is going to be in the show notes. [00:02:00] There’s been a download for that. So just to kind of help synthesize a lot of this information and just kind of give you a simple checklist.

So that will definitely be in the show notes. And what I kind of want to do is give an overview. You know, there’s lots of different Software and technology that goes into doing virtual focus groups, but it’s a little bit easier to think about, okay, let’s take it step by step and then talk about the software and the technology kind of all at one piece as well.

I mean, most of this technology is free. Uh, there are ways to do it free and some of it. The thing that you do have to pay for is still really low cost compared to hiring a professional videographer or going out and buying your own video camera audio system. And I’m talking about Zoom, you know, the online video software that basically hosts and video records, audio records.

The whole virtual focus group. So let’s take it one step at a time. And [00:03:00] kind of how I think about the setup for a virtual focus group is one recruiting, we’ve got to advertise, we’ve got to recruit these people. Then I always think about communication. Meaning this kind of that lead up time before the focus group, then the focus group, and then a little bit about after.

So that’s kind of four different parts to setting up a virtual focus group. So let’s talk a little bit about recruiting. This is one of the most frequent questions that I get, which is where do you get these people? Where do you find all these people? So I’ve been using Craigslist for very, very long time to find in person.

And still use it to do virtual. So that is a good resource, depending on where you’re looking. You know, most of the Craigslist have a list for areas and, you know, easy to figure out. One of the things that has happened since probably the start of pandemic, but maybe before that, I just didn’t know, cause I wasn’t doing virtual focus groups, is that there are groups that will connect [00:04:00] your.

Craigslist posts to other websites and Facebook groups. So at times you may get bombarded your Austin, Texas. Craigslist posts may get bombarded with a bunch of people from California or New York or lots of other places. So. Just keep that in mind that you may have one ad in your location that will get several people from outside your region that are applying and that’s kind of why that happens.

They’ll pull those ads and put them into groups and put them in different posts or different websites so that other people can apply for them. Facebook is another place that you can totally advertise. You can create a free Facebook business page for your focus groups if you want to. Or I know there are a lot of firms where basically you, or if you have staff, they will join different groups that are on Facebook for jobs and basically kind of post a little something in there.

Hey, we’re doing these virtual focus groups. We just need folks to come in for three hours. Here’s the pay. You know, if you’re interested, [00:05:00] email this email. That’s another really great way to gain. people and it’s a free resource. It does take a little time to kind of build because you got to have several groups to make that kind of fruitful.

I’ve also used next door to advertise. I’ve paid for advertising on Facebook. I’ve also done online newspaper ads. I mean, there’s all kinds of ways to advertise. It just really kind of depends on if you’re looking for a group that is maybe outside of your city, if you’re trying to get people in Houston or maybe Seattle, like you may just want to research what’s in that area.

As far as job boards, some are free, some are not, and just kind of posting your ad up there and seeing what you get. Low bar, try Craigslist. It’s very easy. You write it in there. Sometimes they’re 20. Sometimes they’re 35. Sometimes they’re 45. Just depends on the city. Anyhow, that’s a great way. And inside your ad, Craigslist does not really want you to put an email address inside the ad.

So what I normally do when I am [00:06:00] recruiting is I use Google Forms to create a form that people just click a link and go and they fill out a form and then the results are saved in Google Drive. And, One of those forms is actually in the download that is going to be the show notes. So if you’re curious about that, setting up forms in Google drive is fairly easy.

It’s fairly intuitive. There are a couple snafus that can happen and frustrate people. That’s happened to me. And it’s just a couple of clicks. And Google makes it really easy to watch videos. If you want to do that, I’m happy to jump on a call to I’m going to do a zoom call and show you basically how ours are set up, but that’s kind of the part about recruiting is how are they going to contact you?

Do you want them to send an email somewhere? So got to have that email set up, right? Gmail has free accounts. So you can pay for an account. I wouldn’t suggest using a law firm email unless it doesn’t make a big difference. Or if you want to use a Google form, or if you maybe have a website [00:07:00] that has a form on it, either way, just try to think about how people are going to respond.

Okay. People are not likely to call, they’re really likely to send an email or fill out a form. Think like the most passive way, like, Oh man, click on this and fill out a form. Great. This is easy. Now I’ve applied and I can move on with life. So that’s kind of generally thinking about recruiting. Where are you going to recruit?

How are you going to advertise? How much do you want to spend? How are they going to sign up and what information do you want from them in order to kind of have them sign up? Name, email address. I don’t ask for people’s physical address. IS for email address. Sorry about that. That kind of information.

There’s all kinds of stuff you can use. Yvette, just again, think about if you give somebody 50 questions, they’re probably not gonna answer 50 questions. They’re probably gonna , just walk away. That’s too much information, too much trouble. They’re not gonna do it. And once you have them, right. So recruiting, that’s kind of part one.

Part two then is communicating with them. Again, thinking about having this extra email address, you can set one up for [00:08:00] free on Gmail, or you can pay 6 and set your own email address on there. That’s what I do. We’ll talk about kind of a little bit what I do after we finish our four steps. Cause you want to be able to communicate with these folks.

So they fill out the form, then you want to be able to communicate with them. Hey, you’re invited. Hey, here’s when it is. Hey, I need this like email is a really easy way. Do you ask people’s phone number? Of course you can call them. You can text them as well. All those ways are easy ways to communicate with people and highly suggested.

I love using Gmail because then you have the calendar. You can send a calendar invite for people that goes on their calendar. You know, they accept it or not. You can send reminders that you can even set up templates to make it really easy to just go in there and send reminders for everything. Okay. And on that step, getting a confidentiality agreement signed is another big part of communicating with them and having them sign it before they get the zoom link.

I do not like to give out a zoom link [00:09:00] until it’s the day of just, I don’t want to be zoom bombed. I don’t want it to leak out anywhere. So I don’t give the zoom link out until the day of, which gets cut a little short, but most people, if you’ve gone through the process of being recruited, like you’ve.

Gotten it inundated by emails and calendar invites and reminders because I just think that maybe that’s, you know, over communicating when they’re supposed to be there is more helpful than under communicating and getting those questions. Well, I didn’t know when it was on your calendar. So confidentiality.

Got to have that as a signature. So there are lots of really great electronic signature programs that do not require people to download the software. They just get it in the email and they click through. Of course, most of us have encountered DocuSign. I think almost everybody, most law firms at this point have figured out a way to do DocuSign for contracts.

So same thing. You just plug in that confidentiality form. Pick where you want them to sign and email it to them. I use Adobe because I already pay for the Adobe higher inversion so that I can do redactions and [00:10:00] things like that for the law firm. And then I found out like, Oh, they have their own electronic signature format.

So I already pay for it. So that’s the one that I use. It’s fairly simple, straightforward. And again, nobody has to download any kind of program for that. There’s hello sign. There’s many, many others. So think about that as far as confidentiality and getting electronic signature. Which then leads us to, so we’ve got recruit, communicate, and now we’re doing our focus group, right?

Our virtual focus group, and picking that platform. So there’s Zoom, there’s Google Meet, there’s Teams. I’m sure there are other platforms available out there that I don’t even know about. But you just want to pick a platform that you are very familiar with, and that has the capability of video recording, audio recording, and that people do not have to download.

So that’s one of the nice things about zoom and several other things. They don’t have to download it. Just send them a link. They click it and they join. I prefer zoom. It’s just basically kind of what I started with. And now we’re [00:11:00] down the road. And this is kind of what I use. I think it’s very easy.

There’s lots of great options. There are lots of settings to kind of get used to. Most of them are very straightforward. You know, you can record to a cloud, record to your laptop. There’s chatting. There’s polls. If you want to do polls, there’s lots of great ways to use zoom. So I enjoy zoom. That’s when I recommend, but that, you know, you want to make sure you set up, check all the settings.

Get a good to go, feel really comfortable with it because you’re going to have people that have done a zoom, but sometimes there are people who a weird problem happens and they don’t know how to change a setting. And I can try and troubleshoot, but most of them have to reschedule those people because.

We’re basically starting the zoom. I have people come in early so we can check all their technology. And then we start at a real specific, you know, 1230. So I open it up at 12 so people can start joining and check technology, check ID if you want to do that. And then we start right on time. But. [00:12:00] That’s the thing.

Like we end right on time as well. So if anything’s starting to kind of get in the way, Oh, there’s so much technology or, Oh, I can’t hear you. It’s like, Hey, I’m really sorry. We’re gonna have to reschedule. Cause we’ve got to go, we’ve got to get started at 1230. So either way, and you can always kick people out of zoom too.

So all that to be said, like you want to make sure that when you are. In your focus group, you are in it. You’re using it. You’re using all their time. You’re making sure they’re focused. You’re not losing people. The technology works. You know how to help people through that technology, freezing all that stuff.

So, and have all your share screen, all those little things. So anyhow, that’s like literally the virtual focus group. And then kind of last part, which would be the wrap up, which would be paying people. There’s all kinds of ways to pay people online, Zelle, PayPal, Venmo, cash app. I just pick one and go with it.

I only do one payment. I just do PayPal. I don’t do any other, there are no other options because it just, you can just spend off spending so much time on [00:13:00] that. And if you don’t have the app and it’s not linked up, PayPal seems to be totally fine. It’s also. Venmo. It’s the same company, but some people don’t want to use PayPal and that’s okay.

We tell people very up on the front in our ads on Craigslist and Facebook, Hey, we only use PayPal. That’s it. We don’t use any other way to get payment. So don’t ask. It ain’t available. And that helps again, cut, streamline things down for us. Cause we pay people in the last 15 minutes of the focus group so that when they’re leaving, I confirm with them on video, Hey, did you get your PayPal?

Then it’s recorded. Hey, I got my PayPal. Great. I haven’t had too many problems with PayPal or with people. Hey, I didn’t get my PayPal, you know, that kind of stuff. So it seems to have worked out really well as far as using that. Also you can do follow up. Of course, emails with people once they are done with the focus group.

Hey, do you have a good time? Hey, if you wanna recruit people, that’s a great way to do it. Send an email saying, Hey, if you had a good time, send somebody over. Have a referral [00:14:00] program. We have a referral program. If people send over a first name and an email and I can email that person and they actually show up and the referral gets a $10 electronic gift card.

Just little things like that to help. Kind of recruit other people is great. It’s a good way to find people. Not necessarily super cost effective, but one of the challenges about virtual is so easy not to show up is so easy for people just to say, ah, you know what? I just don’t want to do this today. So, uh, so you gotta have to think about over confirming like, Hey, you want to have eight people in here.

Yeah, you might need to think about having like 10 to 12 people confirmed just to make sure you have that eight people to show up. So that’s kind of the one of the drawbacks of virtual is some people don’t show up, which also means picking the day you have your virtual focus group on can have a heavy impact.

I don’t ever do them on Mondays just in case people had hard weekends. Doing them around holidays is also kind of a challenge. All [00:15:00] right. So let’s kind of go back through in our four parts and talk about thinking about this system, these four parts of your system and getting those in place and thinking through what is it, the technology that I need to do this, how much is it going to cost me and how much, of course, you’re going to pay people.

We talked about PayPal, how much you’re going to pay them. And playing with that, is it 20 an hour? Is it 25? Is it 30 an hour? Obviously, the more you pay, the more likely you’re going to get more people responding, which means you have to vet people more, you know, look through all those people. And then the other part of kind of this back end, this fourth step, is also just keeping a list of all these people.

So that you don’t have repeats or if you have bad participants, like letting know, like, Oh, this is a no, no, we have a no list around here. Maybe that person goes on the no list. You’re not going to do another one. And then also we kind of have a rolling, Hey, if it’s been six months or eight months, you can come back and participate again.

So that’s also helpful for you to track that. If you had some people that, you know, we’re good participants, they showed up on time. They stayed the whole time. They gave feedback. You want to keep [00:16:00] track of that. So thinking back through our system of recruiting, communication. Zoom, I mean, literally the focus group and then the aftermath, right?

Paying people and keeping track of people. Almost all these things are really inexpensive. Like I said, I would suggest using a free email address separate apart from your law firm. You can use a free one. You can pay 6 to get one from Google or from Gmail as well. If you want to set your own email address.

And then that’s going to help you, of course, communicate with them, do calendar invites, do reminders. You need to have some kind of technology to do electronic signatures for confidentiality. And then of course, some kind of platform for the actual virtual focus group that will do audio and video recording.

I use SuggestZoom and then of course, paying people, PayPal, Zelle, Cash App, whatever you choose, just go with it. It’s really nice because obviously you have a receipt for all that. All right. So of course, there’s like little fine tuning things that I would suggest, which is [00:17:00] Get this system in place and then do a test run.

So first couple of my focus groups, we had maybe three people, maybe three or four people, because we knew that we can have some glitches or some other stuff. So we had easy presentations. Cause again, we weren’t really sure how it was all going to work. So do a test runner too, and just get a few people in there.

If you want to use your office, you can do that, but that will help you get used How long does it take to do things? Meaning how long does it really take for people to return a confidentiality longer than you think? Also, those confidentiality emails can get stuck in spam or junk, which is another kind of thing.

So maybe send the confidentiality out the day before, you know, how are you going to vet people? How long is it going to take for you to pick people when they respond to a Craigslist ad or to a Facebook ad? And then zoom settings. I mean, there’s so many different ways to use zoom. There’s so many different settings, what works best, what doesn’t work best, how to save the chat, who needs to host, who doesn’t need to host.

[00:18:00] There’s lots of little kind of technical things that can happen if I’m not the host of a zoom, but I’m moderating and I tell everyone to chat all the answers to me privately when we close it out. Those may not save at all because it wasn’t to the host. So you want to make sure like, okay, who’s going to be the host, who’s going to be the moderator, save that chat, have that ability to save that chat.

So there’s lots of little settings on zoom, like I said. And then I always have someone else to help in my focus groups, whether it be either the other lawyer who’s doing it with me, or maybe a staff member that always helps to have a second set of eyes because. Maybe something happens. Oh gosh. Like, and somebody else has to jump off to go do the PayPal’s not working or, or something else.

So it’s always nice to have a second person. You don’t have to, I’ve definitely done them solo. And as long as most people are very patient, most of our participants are very patient. They get it. They’re not in a hurry. They’re getting paid fairly well to hang out with you. And they know that you’re going to end on time at three 30.

So it’s not like you’re going to be there all day with them. So. [00:19:00] Let me talk a little bit about how I run mine, how I do my backend. So to give you an idea, a little bit more about how my setup is. So I have a separate website altogether. I have a whole separate company. It’s called Advantage Focus Groups, and it has a website.

We have a Google email, you know, info at Advantage Focus Groups. The PayPal is all through Advantage Focus Groups. The Adobe is through Advantage Focus Group. There’s nothing law firm at all. Now, the confidentiality does mention a few things. We try not to say, Hey, you’re coming into a mock trial, unless we really are doing a mock trial, which again, most of the time you’re, I don’t use the virtual focus groups for that, but we do a Craigslist ad and we set up a Google form.

So people fill out a form. It collects name, email, telephone, marital status, kids, education, political affiliation, job. That’s really kind of about it. You may have like another one, like, [00:20:00] Hey, are you, we always ask people to, Hey, do you know that this focus groups in central time zone? Cause got people from coming all over.

You want to make sure they understand central time zone. And Hey, do you have a laptop, an internet connection and a tablet you can join like no cell phones. We kind of put that also in our, so just to double check, Hey, listen, we really don’t want you to join with a cell phone. It makes it really difficult for people to see the presentation on a cell phone.

Once they fill that out, then we go through and we start vetting, like who fits, who doesn’t fit. And we actually will call people as well, just to double check to make sure we’re getting a real life person that’s in the United States. That actually takes a little bit of time. So we try to have a pretty good lead out on most of our virtual focus groups, just so we can vet people.

And then we just start communicating with them. We email them reminders. We email them calendar invitations. I do my confidentiality. I do my Zoom link on the day of, and it can make things a little bit [00:21:00] hairy as far as coming down the line and having people show up, but that’s kind of how I know people are going to show up because we generally over confirm by two, three, four seats to make sure we have enough people to show up.

And then we just use the zoom and then pay with PayPal and then follow up with people and keep a list on Excel. You can keep a list in Gmail or G drive. That wouldn’t be very hard either. So that’s kind of a really large overview of the backend logistics for DIY virtual focus groups. Again, I will put a checklist, I’ll put the Google form, the confidentiality, all those things are going to be in a download in the show notes.

If you are interested to just have a little more information or just kind of an overview as well to have it all in one place. So if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me. My email will be in the show notes, or if you have additional questions about virtual focus groups, please let me know.

And thank you so much for tuning in. I really appreciate it. I hope that this two part series was helpful [00:22:00] for you and maybe encouraging you to do virtual focus groups for your cases and starting out to do that in your office. It’s really cost effective way to get feedback, doing it on your own. You don’t need a place.

It’s all virtual. So thanks again. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate, review, subscribe, share with a friend. Thank you.

What is a do-it-yourself virtual jury research focus group? What does it look like and how do you make one? This is the first part of our DIY Virtual Focus Group two-part series, where we break down why we’re doing virtual focus groups, what virtual focus groups are, and how we do them.

Be sure to also tune into Part 2 of this series as we dive into how to set up virtual focus groups in terms of logistics or the back-end stuff. Think about setting up Zoom, Paypal, and confidentiality agreements. 

The goal at the end of this two-part series is to give you a complete picture of how to do your own virtual focus group so you can finally get started. They’re so easy to set up and the benefits are just as great so this is definitely something you need to try doing to better prepare for your cases.

In this episode, you will hear:

• What are virtual focus groups?
• Why now is the time to start running them and preparing your cases 
• The benefits of focus groups: clarity, certainty, and confidence
• Reasons for doing focus groups
• Some simple approaches for starting virtual focus groups
• Quick turnaround time
• Why do you need to run focus groups early on?

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If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at https://www.larricklawfirm.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Here’s a free download to help get your law firm started!

If you’d like to learn more about different styles of focus groups, check out this quick blog.

For any questions or comments, please email me: elizabeth@larricklafirm.com.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants, ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively, then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success? Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world, understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process.

Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas.

Hello and welcome to a new episode of Trial Lawyer Prep, the podcast designed to help trial lawyers prepare better cases so they can sleep better at night. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and I’m excited to talk about a two part series that This episode number [00:01:00] 19 and next episode, number 20, we are going to DIY virtual focus groups for you.

That’s right. Do it yourself, virtual focus groups. We want to break it down to make it super easy. This episode is going to be about why we’re doing virtual focus groups, what it is that focus groups are, virtual focus groups, how to do them, meaning presenting and, and that kind of stuff and questions. And then next episode, we will dive into the, how to set I’m on the website, logicianst Mcdonald’s, and you can find me on my blog at logicianst Good luck with your journey.

Good luck for you. Bye bye. I love using focus groups for my cases and naturally, all of that in person focus groups came to a halt pretty much [00:02:00] two years ago from the date of me recording this episode. Kind of weird. Didn’t know that was going to happen. And I just thought, well, we’ll be back. April will be back.

May will be back. And uh, We weren’t. So I ventured into doing virtual focus groups, never done it before, never even thought that that would even be possible or would work out or get the good feedback. And I just jumped in. I had a lot of help pushing me to do virtual. So big shout out to Lexley Overton for her help during that time to get me to jump in and it worked out.

I’ve done over. 200 or more virtual focus groups. I’ve done some in person focus groups recently and It’s great. They’re fantastic. They’re so easy to set up. The benefits are just as great. So that’s why I really want to pass on this information to my listeners to help them do their own. Because that’s really ultimately kind of how I got [00:03:00] started several years ago in person was just me and a group of other folks, a bunch of solos wanted to do some focus groups.

So we’ve collected all of our resources. Somebody brought a conference room, somebody else brought the video recorder and I just brought the, okay, I’m going to figure out how to do this and collected the participants and got them to show up. And it was great. And of course we fumbled around a little bit, but we still got feedback and we got better as we went along.

And so anyhow, that’s really what we want to focus on today is passing on an even easier way to do focus groups. And that would be virtual. So, let’s kind of talk a little bit about what do I mean when I say virtual focus groups. Traditionally, we think about mock trials, and what I’m more focusing on when we talk about virtual focus groups are smaller case preparation style legal focus groups, where we’re looking at either real specific issues.[00:04:00]

Real specific pieces, maybe it’s just mediation. And we’re trying to make the case better. Trying to get feedback, trying to make sure that things are looking the way that we think they should for a jury. And it’s much more bite sized. There’s a lot less pressure on you as a lawyer to prepare it, to get it ready, and also it’s done at a time where you can synthesize the information.

Apply it immediately. Maybe you go do some more depositions and come back and run a different focus group or inject that new information you have in that focus group. So they’re intended to be bite size. They’re intended to be used more than once. And most of the focus groups when we do them virtually are really down into bite size, either an hour, you can do two hours, three hours.

You can do them longer, but we’ll talk about what happens if you do it too long. Everybody just kind of zones out. So that’s what I mean by, like, the types of legal focus groups, which is something that’s easy, digestible, easy to prepare, that can be [00:05:00] done in an hour, can be done in two hours, or, you know, multiple cases in two hours.

So that’s really kind of what we’re talking about when we say legal focus groups or virtual focus groups. And I really think that now is the time. That all law firms have the ability to do this. No matter how big you are or how small you are, even if you’re a solo like me, you still can put these together in a way that is very cost effective.

It gets you the information that you need. And really you’re going to gain a lot of confidence in the case that you have, which is fantastic. So, Zoom is everywhere. All our kids are doing Zoom for class, even college is doing Zoom. We all see our doctors through Zoom or some other kind of platform like it, Google Meet, you name it.

There’s all kinds of online video technology out there, which means it’s everywhere. Everybody’s got it. I have not run into a single problem about people not having experience with Zoom or know how to [00:06:00] use it, which is great. I mean, that would probably have been my concern before if I was trying to do virtual, which is like, wow, nobody has the technology, but now it’s just easy.

Everybody’s got it. Everyone’s used it to try to talk to loved ones. When we were really during lockdown in 2020 and at times in 2021. So the technology is readily available. You don’t even have to worry about it. It’s free as well to anybody who’s joining in. It’s really cost effective for law firms and solos, you know, before.

You’d have to have a space, maybe you can have a space at your office, but basically you’re going to have to feed folks. You’re going to have to host folks. I mean, there’s a time and there’s an energy factor in that for you and your staff. Maybe you have to get in the car and go somewhere. If you have to do that, I mean, all those things are really going to cost you, but with virtual, just a click of a button.

So it really makes it very helpful convenience wise for you and everybody else. If you’re going to do a focus group with another lawyer. They could be anywhere. Be a lawyer up in [00:07:00] Nebraska, up in California, and all they have to do is just tune in with you. So it makes it really easy to collaborate with folks across the country if maybe you all need to get together to do a focus group.

You don’t have anybody locally that needs to do one. It’s easy to collect folks up to join in with you, cut those costs if you need to. Or split up the responsibilities, which is also a great way to make it cost effective. Virtual is also going to give you that same fantastic feedback that you need.

There’s always a worry about, well, we’re going to miss the body language or the group is not going to have the same interactions. There is a slight bit of that. I mean, naturally, because we’re virtual, but really I’ve not had a problem where people were very disconnected or did not voice their opinions.

And it actually is. It’s really helpful because you really are seeing their face and it’s all, their faces are recorded up close. I mean, that’s really difficult to do unless you hire a [00:08:00] videographer to basically zoom in on every person who’s speaking and even then that’s really difficult. So the recording is fantastic in that sense of gaining the feedback, but also being able to see that visual of their face reacting to other people, which sometimes gets missed when you’re in person.

You’re still going to get the same great feedback that you would need if you were in person. So again, super beneficial. Super cost effective and convenient as far as for you and staff. And I mean, you can put them together on a dime. That’s really, really easy. And a lot of folks, everybody out there is looking for extra work.

They’re looking for other stuff to supplement what’s going on or There’s still a lot of people that haven’t entered back into the workforce, or maybe they’re changing their job and doing something else and they have opportunity or time on their hands. I’ve run into lots of participants who are changing jobs right now, or they’re interviewing for another job.

So they have some time on their hands and you know, obviously [00:09:00] technology is easy. They’re going to click on and, you know, make a couple extra dollars. So there’s lots of people out there looking for this type of work right now. So we know we’re going to do them and we know that they’re helpful, but really why are we doing them?

I talked a little earlier about how virtual focus groups can really be bite size, meaning very easy, one hour shots at information or feedback that you need. And one of the things I always stress about focus groups and still the same way about virtual focus groups, which is finding some clarity in all focus groups, no matter what you walk in as a lawyer and you give your presentation, whatever it may be.

Let’s say you give an opening. Let’s say you give a timeline. Let’s say you just walk in and you just have a conversation with them. Just ask them some questions. What they give back to you is basically their understanding, which generally is always going to be a simplified version of what you gave them.

That alone. is so significant because we tend to [00:10:00] complicate things. I think that’s a result of being in law school and being told to look at every minute piece of everything and turn over every rock and look for everything and complicate things. And, No matter what happens, you’re going to gain simplification from focus groups.

They’re going to make things simpler back to you. And that alone is really, really helpful for any case, simplifying the presentation, simplify the issues. You’re always going to gain some level of clarity. on your case. So that’s always helpful no matter what you do with any focus group, virtual or in person, you’re going to gain that clarity, that simplification.

Another thing we use focus groups for, and I mean, definitely for me, I personally need to use focus groups to gain certainty, right? So I have my point of view on a case and I think, well, that’s going to be the jurors point of view, but there may be something that is causing some doubt. Right? [00:11:00] So, for example, you’ve got this point of view, you’ve been working up the case, you’re ready to go to mediation, you’ve taken depositions, and you walk into mediation and the defense comes in very strong, almost aggressive.

Causing you a little bit of doubt, like, wait a minute. Maybe this isn’t as strong as I thought. Maybe I have some doubt going on. I’ve been stuck in my own mind, my own point of view. Holy mackerel. What do I do? Well, let’s take to a focus group. Let’s just see what a focus group says. If there’s any credibility in that defense argument, they’re going to tell you about it.

And in that sense gaining some certainty about, is my point of view. The juror point of view, or is it just a little bit flawed? Am I just a little bit too sucked into things? Did I miss something? That level of certainty is so helpful. Especially if you’re investing time, you’re investing money. I mean, that means time and money, you’re not spending on other cases and [00:12:00] I mean, these are huge resources that we really need to make sure that we’re picking the right case to do that with.

Don’t get me wrong. I have been in that place where I have spent a lot of money and a lot of time on a case that I just got lost in that point of view. And guess what? It wasn’t the right point of view. So, you know, avoid the pain, get some feedback along the way. And that’s why I love virtual because it’s just.

It’s simple. You can do it one hour and you’re going to get so much back. That’s helpful to you. And then ultimately confidence, knowing that you’ve done the hard work, you’ve done the preparation and what you give the focus group comes right back to you. That is really going to give you a lot of confidence to turn down that low end offer to feel good about we’re going into trial and that confidence.

You’re going to be able to translate that also to your client, right? So knowing that you’ve kind of really prepared in every single facet. And take into account the jury along the way with you, which [00:13:00] I think sometimes is what we forget. It’s okay. It happens. I’m a sucker for it, too. It’s happened to me, too.

But, like I said, focus groups will help you with that. So let’s kind of turn and talk a little bit about how. How are we going to present? What are we going to present? In these virtual focus groups, I’ve got a couple of resources and I’m happy to post them in the show notes as far as a blog that goes into a little more detail about some of these styles of focus groups.

We’re going to talk about. So I’ll put that in the show notes, but I do want to think about let’s think about crafting this. So we’ve got a virtual focus group. Let’s just take it down and let’s just say you’re going to use two hours. And okay, so you’ve got these folks for two hours. Maybe you’ve got a burning case, like it’s about to go to trial, or maybe it’s going to go to mediation, or you’ve got a couple that are leading into mediation.

Those are great ones to pick. Something that’s on fire and you need to have something immediate. Sometimes it’s great if you’ve got a new case that just came in the door and you want to make sure and get some feedback [00:14:00] before you file that lawsuit. That’s another really good one. And here’s why. So the earlier in the case, sometimes it’s a little bit easier to craft a presentation.

So one of the easiest presentations you can do in a short amount of time, 30 40 minutes, is to basically just put together what I call a snapshot. Just a real brief set of facts. Neutral both sides, but mostly all facts, no opinions yet. And couple that with some pictures of things to give everybody kind of a visual of what’s going on.

And you just basically kind of read through those facts, show the pictures, and then just kind of ask some questions about what happened. And when I say ask some questions, I mean, ask open ended questions. What happened here? What else would you want to know? If you already know that you’ve got two sides of the story, you can tell people the two sides of the story.

The thing about the snapshot is to, you’re always going to give an even amount of information on both sides. So if you tell, well, the red car says that they had the green light. Well, you need to go ahead and tell me what the [00:15:00] black car says to you, right? To even that out. That’s why you’d want to have a picture of the red car and a picture of the black car, right?

Snapshots try to be very even handed in the information presenting kind of both sides in a very neutral way just to see, Hey, what do you get back? And the earlier in the case is a little bit better because then they’ll tell you, Hey, I’d want to know about this witness or is there a camera somewhere?

And. Sometimes there’s not. That’s okay. Just keep that in your mind because if you don’t have that information or it’s not available, that doesn’t mean the jurors aren’t still going to have that question in your mind. That’s still good information to write down and keep in there if you do have to go to trial to remember that.

If you want to even make it more simpler, just create a timeline of the case and put the timeline in front of them. Use PowerPoint or You don’t even have to get that fancy with PowerPoint, just put a Word document up there that basically lays out the timeline of the events of the case and just ask people what happened, right?

Very big open ended questions. Another great, small, simple virtual focus group is to do witness credibility. I recently did one of [00:16:00] these for some folks that were going to go to deposition. They had four separate clients, four very different clients. This was not a family situation. This was just a case that had four clients with four different claims.

It was an employment case. And all we did was we took five minute videos of the clients and then played that video. And they answered three simple questions. What’s your name? What’s your job? What’s this case about? What’s your claim? That’s it. Three very simple questions. They answered however they wanted.

And we put that in front of the focus group and we said, Hey, are they credible? Is what they’re saying makes sense? Is it clear? What else would you want to know? Those are four really simple questions. That’s all we did. And that was our time. And then we got some great feedback to help with these individuals with their deposition prep so that we knew, hey, there’s a tendency here maybe to go off story.

So we need to back on the facts. We got to make things really clear on the [00:17:00] front end when these folks are talking in their deposition. So that’s another great one. I’ve also used witness credibility where we kind of paired it up with a snapshot, meaning We had a very disputed car wreck case. Have you ever heard one of those?

And some guy was going straight and then ran off the road. And anyhow, at the scene, only one side of the story got told and the client was very adamant. That’s not how it happened. I have a Google map and the police really wouldn’t listen then, but they did listen later. So anyhow, we really did have two kind of separate stories about what happened.

So we told the story with the visuals, right? Meaning here’s the story, here’s the visuals, there’s all the pictures. And then we played some video clips from, here’s what driver in the white truck says, play. Here’s what the witness says, play. Here’s what the driver of the black truck says, play. And then we said, okay, what happened?

Who’s telling the truth? Who’s the most credible person? What’s going on? And so helpful, [00:18:00] right? Because That was basically going to be trial. So there’s ways to pair it up to make it easy for you to put together, right? Those were just putting together the facts, gathering up a couple of pictures, the testimony in that last one I just talked about was actual deposition testimony.

So all that just had to be clipped out, put together. I mean, you can share a screen so quickly with zoom, so you don’t have to put it in anything fancy. If you just, as long as you have the window open, zoom will open that window and you can play that video, make it super simple. And with the shorter ones, what I always tell people.

If it’s an hour, you really only need maybe 20 minutes of information because you really want to spend most of the time talking and with virtual, it’s really easy to make sure every person talks. And that’s generally what I say at the start of my virtual focus groups. Today is really about gathering every person’s feedback.

So I’m going to individually call on everybody to give their feedback. So now they’re ready. So when we go through, Hey, My first question, you know, what happened here? [00:19:00] Ross, will you start us off? All right. Thank you so much, Ross. Okay. Ryan. Okay. And if I want everyone just to jump in, then I’ll say, hey, free for all.

Here’s a question. Anybody wants to answer it, go. But that way everybody has a chance and they know that that’s what the moderator wants. So it’s really helpful to be able to call on people. You’ve got their names right in their square. You’re not going to forget someone’s name. Sometimes that happens in person, of course, you know, their name tags big enough, but with the shorter ones, just big, broad questions, you can write the questions out in front of you.

That’s the other really nice thing about virtual is you can have your webcam up looking at you and all your notes in front of you. And they don’t even know you’re looking at notes and they don’t even know you’re taking notes, right? And write notes along the whole way too. So that is also a really beneficial part about virtuals.

You’ve got a lot of stuff you can have in front of you to make sure you don’t miss anything. And the shorter they are, you know, easy, short questions, gathering everybody up. Even if you had a two hour one, you could do two different cases, maybe three cases, depending on the information. [00:20:00] Three would be kind of a squeeze for two hours because you got to kind of do a few other things in there housekeeping wise.

So that would be kind of a couple of different ones. We talked about doing a snapshot, which is a very neutral set of the facts. Just do a timeline. Talked about doing witness credibility or even combining, you know, witness credibility with a snapshot. Just to do a one hour or a two hour virtual focus group just to get some real quick feedback on one or two cases.

When to run virtual focus groups. So because they are so easy to set up and you can do it so quickly and get people very quickly, ready to go, you know, the turnaround time is really quick as far as being able to say, Hey, you know what, my mediation is on March 31st. Let’s do a virtual focus group next week.

Done. You’ll have it done. You’ll have time to process all the feedback, maybe make clips if you need it for the mediation, plenty of time to do all that. And again, because such a quick turnaround, it’s really easy. So, that’s nice, but really what I was explaining was [00:21:00] when you would do them, you can do them any time.

Right. Talked about how the earlier you do the virtual focus groups, you can do more of them again, because we’re talking about doing bite sized one, we’re not talking about doing six hours, you know, four hours. You can, if you have enough information, but sometimes the, we have cases that just come in, we just have really a brief set of facts.

Maybe there’s something glamorous about it. We want to test it out. Maybe it’s an unusual claim. We want to know more about what people think. think about the claim. That makes it really easy to jump in there and get something done 30, 40 minutes, an hour, but you can really conduct them anytime. And we talk about how if you want to do multiple ones and you’re gathering information along the way to kind of set up and make a blueprint, a plan that was another episode earlier on in this podcast about how do we make a blueprint

So if you think about it, if we’re going to do virtual, we’re going to do one hour for a case, yeah, it’s not unrealistic to think that you could do [00:22:00] five virtual focus groups for a case. Think about opening statement, doing a timeline, mediation presentation, witness credibility, and a snapshot. There’s five.

You know, boom. And all those can be done along the way as you get more information and building a better presentation to get better feedback. So there’s really no wrong time to do them. It is a little bit disappointing if you wait too long to do one, because then we talked a little bit earlier, been stuck in our point of view, if you get stuck in your point of view and you spend all this time, money and effort, and then you do a focus group to realize, uh, I was focusing on the wrong thing.

Okay. That’s a bummer. Let’s not do that. Let’s avoid that bummer moment that like, Oh man, I just missed the mark. I’ve been there, had that pain. So I really try to do focus groups early. And that way I can have that feedback in my mind as I’m getting ready for deposition. As I’m thinking about [00:23:00] mediation, I’ve got even just the smallest things or clarity in my mind about How to make the issue simple, how the jury talked about this set of facts, super, super helpful, even if it’s just an hour long.

So, okay, let me just do a little recap here for this episode. We kind of talked about what a virtual legal folks group would be. Why now is a fantastic time to start running these things to prepare your cases better. And we talked about why are we doing them? And then a little bit about like how to, how do we think about putting together this time and do we use it for, and what are some simple approaches for, if we’re just starting out with focus groups, we’re just starting out, like what’s the easiest thing to do?

Low impact on you so that you’ll do it. And then ultimately when, which is. Whenever you want, because they’re easy to put together, your staff will get it down and throw one together very quickly for you. And when we [00:24:00] start our next episode, we are going to dive deep into the back end setup, the logistics, literally how we are putting these things together on zoom so that you can feel confident in that setup.

And then you can boom, start doing them. Paired that with this episode, number 19. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I hope that it was helpful and gave you a little bit more information about DIY virtual focus groups and how they’re easy. You can do them. They’re great for your cases. They work wonders on your mental status.

So reduce some of that stress. So again, thank you so much for tuning in this episode. If you enjoyed it, please rate, review it, subscribe at that little plus button at the top corner. And also share it with other lawyers that, you know, always helpful to have other people join in the podcast. So thanks again and have a good [00:25:00] one.

In this episode, I’m sharing a very short and simple message that I delivered just a few weeks back on social media where I discussed the benefits of virtual focus groups. 

Especially in the face of this pandemic where our safety is compromised, we have the opportunity to run virtual focus groups, which are so easy to put together. But do they work? Absolutely! 

In this age of technology, there’s practically nothing we cannot do on the Internet. And being able to leverage that to run focus groups puts you at an advantage – logistically, safety-wise, and even time-wise. 

If you haven’t done it yet, consider running focus groups virtually so you can make better use of your time, energy, and money – while still getting all the information and feedback you need to prepare for your case. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Why use Zoom for virtual focus groups
• Logistics: No location is needed 
• Safety: It keeps us COVID-free since you’re just in your office
• An opportunity to put together a variety of focus groups
• The availability of time
• Other great features when using Zoom for focus groups

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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.

Episode Transcripts:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Sometimes the shorter and simpler the message, the more likely we are to receive it. And that’s what today’s episode is going to do when we talk about focus groups. Tune in. Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants, ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively, then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success.

Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world. Understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process. Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas.

For this episode of Trial Lawyer Prep, we’re going to be listening to a [00:01:00] very short and simple message that I delivered just a few weeks back on social media live, but I felt like it was important enough that we play it here to this audience just in case you missed it. Because Focus groups can give so many wonderful benefits, and sometimes we get lost, forced in the trees.

So let’s listen in for this short, sweet message about the benefits of focus groups. Hello and welcome coming to you live from our home. Hopefully you’re joining me either on Facebook or on LinkedIn. If you don’t catch it live, that’s okay. Check the replay. I just want to jump on today and talk really quickly about benefits of virtual focus groups and why do I want to talk about this?

Well, As you can tell, if you haven’t noticed, we’re still stuck in a pandemic of sorts and riding the surges and the dips and the waves of all the things that are going on with trying to have in person [00:02:00] meetings, events, you name it. And so let’s talk about it because I feel like virtual focus groups can offer you such great benefits right now for feedback on cases that you need.

Let’s talk just really briefly about how easy it is to put together a virtual focus group right now. Hopefully at this point, you’ve been on a zoom for either your kid’s school or for job or work or meeting up with friends or people across the U. S. or even across the world to get some connection with people because we haven’t been able to meet in person.

But also. I don’t know if it’s happened to you, but we’re meeting our doctors online through Zoom, even financial planners, a lot of the business people, our consultations are all via Zoom now too. So the technology is widespread and it’s really, really easy to use. So I use Zoom, highly suggest using it for virtual focus groups because it has super easy built in [00:03:00] technology.

For automatically recording and there’s lots of varieties for recording that they make it easy to record up into the cloud with them or it’ll just go straight and save to your computer or laptop that you’re using. They make it easy to chat with people to set up unique IDs and be able to screen people before they get in.

So the technology is super easy to use. Also, you know, as far as logistics for virtual focus groups, there’s no location. When I got this location here in Austin, I schemed out to have a big room for having focus groups and it’s kind of sitting empty now, but it’s so nice to be able to throw together a really big room.

Fast, quick focus group. You know, if you need to do one tomorrow or next week and you just get online, start recruiting, send emails, and then set up that quick zoom link, which means it saves time for travel for me, for any other people who are going to join in and watch it makes it super, super easy. So I love [00:04:00] it from a logistics standpoint of saving time and about getting placed together and getting food for people.

Virtual makes it so much easier. And From a huge standpoint of safety wise, you can sit in your office and tune in and all our participants can tune in from home as well. So it definitely keeps us coven virus free in our virtual environment. I think virtual focus groups also give a great variety of the ability to do a one hour focus group.

two hour, three hour, you know, four hour focus groups. Sometimes the longer ones can get a little bit harder to keep people to pay attention to, but it gives a variety versus it’s really hard to sometimes put together a one hour focus group for one hour. There’s a lot of effort that goes in to get the location ready to get people there.

This way people just click and join. So super easy to set up a variety of different. time availability, plus you can recruit people from all different time zones, different locations, and that [00:05:00] makes it obviously something we couldn’t do when we were in person. The other thing I love about the variety for virtual focus groups is using the chat.

People can put in their answers and it saves the chat for you. And so it makes it a lot easier versus like people taking notes and showing their note up to the screen. The chat is great for that. Also, you can take polls along the way. We’ve actually even created Google Forms so that if we need to take a very quick survey that’s a little bit longer, we just.

Put that link in the chat, they click on it, go fill it out, and then they never leave the Zoom screen. So it’s really great. Sharing screen is a super fantastic function, you know, create PowerPoints and visual aids to help conduct and present to the focus group. They can see everything and it makes interactive videos are easy to show.

Just share screen. So you don’t have to worry about like, okay, do I need to download it onto my laptop and put it on the USB and transport it to the place and make sure the laptop can show it correctly. It’s so easy. You know, do you [00:06:00] just share screen and get going? So a couple of other things really quickly, logistic wise, that make it easy as well.

Virtual, paying people virtually is easy using PayPal or Venmo. DocuSign makes it super easy to sign confidentiality. And so thanks for tuning in. Just want to give a few extra easy benefits of virtual focus groups. If you have any questions, put them in the chat and if you liked it, please share it with somebody you knew may need some help.

All right. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for listening in today of this episode of trial lawyer prep. I hope that you found it helpful if you would please rate, review, share this podcast with somebody else who you think could benefit and we’ll tune in next week. Thank [00:07:00] you.

Neil Anthony, a trial lawyer from Florida, joins us for an excellent interview on his recent verdict. He shares about how he built a meaningful connection with his client even through telephone and Zoom meetings and how he was able to connect with the jury using stories that resonated with them. Neil also shares his experience in terms of the changes in the trial due to the COVID situation. 

 

Neil practices personal injury law in Southeast Florida, mostly in Palm Beach County. Neil handles a ton of auto cases, premises cases, slip and fall cases, trip and fall cases, as well as a lot of sexual abuse cases, which he considers like a premises liability case. He has also done a few negligent security cases, dram shop verdicts, and a wide variety of personal injury cases.

Today, Neil walks us through the basic facts of his client’s case and how he prepared her for deposition and trial, including a small piece in the deposition that actually helped him win the case. 

 

As a trial lawyer, it’s 100% your job to teach the client the medical records because the defense lawyer is going to read those records in detail. They’re going to be ready to try to get and capitalize on a client forgetting something. Even if they know that the client simply forgot, they will still unfairly cast them as someone who doesn’t tell the truth. And you can’t do this work effectively without knowing and teaching the client prior medicals.

 

Get some powerful takeaways from this conversation including how to answer questions without holding back, crafting the right questions, and how to use stories that resonate with the jury.

In this episode, you will hear:

• The basic facts of Lisa’s case
• When Neil figured out it was a case that went to trial
• Neil’s approach to deposition prep
• The small piece in the deposition prep that helped him win the case
• How to answer questions without holding back
• Creating a meaningful connection with a client even through telephone or Zoom
• How he used stories that resonated with the jury
• How Neil did his voir dire during jury selection 
• Asking for an amount that’s credible
• Changes for this trial based on COVID
• How to craft the right questions
• The jury verdict of  Lisa’s case

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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.

If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

You can learn more about Neil Anthony here: https://www.injurylawyers.com/partner-neil-anthony/

If you have a question or comment, please let me know: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] I have a very special guest today on the podcast, Neil Anthony, trial lawyer from Florida, will be joining us for an excellent interview on his recent verdict and talk a little bit about connecting with the jury and also some of the COVID things that he had to go through. So tune in for this interview.

Welcome to trial lawyer prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants, ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively. Then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success. Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world, understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process.

Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. Her goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. Now, here’s [00:01:00] Elizabeth. Hello and welcome. I am so excited for today’s episode. We have Neil Anthony joining us for a wonderful recording today about his trial that he had back during our pandemic days.

We’re still there, but of course this was well before our Omitron, Delton, all of our versions. So I want to welcome Neil to the trial lawyer prep podcast. Hello, Neil. Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you. Thank you for having me on. This is a treat. I am super excited to have you on. Neil and I have been friends for many, many years.

We’ve actually gotten to work together on a case as well. So I got to see the inner workings of Neil’s brain when it comes to being a trial lawyer and his brilliance. He’s been hitting them out of the park for a really long time. And so I’m excited to have him come talk about this particular trial, because I know it has a place in his heart, like all of this trials do.

So Neil, you practice in Florida, if you don’t mind, just give us a little bit of snippet about, you know, what’s your specialty. [00:02:00] Well, I can’t let that go. Like, yes, all of my cases have a special place in my heart. Even cases that I tried more than 20 years ago. And I still remember so many of the moments of them blow by blow.

Um, And what was really so important emotionally and socially and for the client and something really deep within them so many times. That comes out in trial that’s so important Back from my days when I was a public defender I mean, there’s like some really special trials from back in the 90s that I still remember And so yeah, i’m thrilled to talk to you about this one, which was in april of 2021 And yeah, I do personal injury law In southeast Florida, mostly in Palm Beach County.

This case we’re going to talk about was over on the west coast in Punta Corda, which is known as a conservative venue where it’s hard to get verdicts. I don’t [00:03:00] really, maybe I don’t have so much experience at that, but I’ve had good verdicts in smaller venues. And I enjoy trying cases in smaller venues. I do tons of auto cases, premises cases, slip and fall cases, trip and fall cases.

I’ve done a lot of sexual abuse cases, which I kind of consider like a premises liability case. I’ve done a few negligent security cases, dram shop, pretty much a wide variety of. I would say that’s a pretty wide variety. I know a lot of people specialize, but I know a lot of your dram shop verdicts. I think there was a daycare for, uh, that’s how I first met you was through that verdict, uh, many, many years ago.

Awesome. Well, I’m excited to have you talk about this one only because, you know, we are really looking at trying to understand for the audience a little bit about what are the COVID differences that you had with this trial, knowing you’ve had many trials before, but also A lot of the [00:04:00] things that you did with your client and then translating that to the jury.

Let’s just back up and give everybody a good glimpse. Tell us a little bit about kind of the basic facts of the case. My client was coming from Buffalo, New York, to visit her friend in Punta Gorda. She had like a week off in February from her nursing job. And being a nurse meant everything in the world to her.

She was actually an oncology nurse. This was so important to her because decades before her older sister, who was her hero in life, died of ovarian cancer. And so back then, you know, Lisa was either a cashier or working as a security guard. Or she had a job like that and she had two kids at home and that’s what she could do to support her kids and her husband who was disabled and she was the [00:05:00] breadwinner.

Well, when the kids got a little bit older and didn’t need as much at home care, she was actually able to go back to school for nursing and like pursue this lifelong dream. And so she gets into the nursing profession and finds her way into an oncology practice. And so in talking to her so many times, getting to know her, and this was a client that I really liked, and I just enjoyed spending time with her.

So, um, I mean, I’d be on the phone with her for hours and my paralegals would be coming in, you know, you have this, that, or the other to do. And I’m like, no, that’s fine. You know, I’m enjoying myself today. I’m talking to this client. So I really got to know her and I really started to figure out she was.

Doing for her sister after her death what she couldn’t do for her sister while she was alive She was helping people with cancer Helping cure people [00:06:00] and then I talked to her manager and I found out that she was like a favorite nurse For the patients and they would ask for her and I talked to her husband who talked about how much she loved being a nurse and how when she would Come home after a day’s work.

She would light up talking about her day and I’m comparing them I know how hard a day is, you know in any job and even a nursing job and to Light up at the end of the day Like it was really telling me how much that meant to her and I talked to her daughter and her daughter was saying things like my mom’s my best friend.

I talked to her every day on the phone. I see her as much as I can. So I really got to know her. And so she’s down here in Florida. Not on my coast not on the east coast, but on the west coast of Florida and an elderly driver A snowbird who we I think everybody’s familiar with that term snowbird. Just tell us what it is All right.

Well, it’s like, you know in Florida the people that come down for the [00:07:00] winter who aren’t full time year long residents here who get out of the cold, you know, and come here for the winter. So an elderly snowbird who I had figured out through Lisa, because Lisa went and tried to tend to her after the crash, because she’s a nurse and helps people.

The elderly snowbird had lost her faculties. She was lost on the road. She didn’t know where she was. She told Lisa, my kids left me down here for the winter. I’m here all alone. And it was really, really sad. But this elderly confused driver made a improper turn in an intersection and hit the driver door of the SUV Lisa was in, and Lisa experienced it as a very violent, scary impact.

However, the dent to her door was quite minor, and she was able to drive the car from the scene. [00:08:00] And in fact, Was able to drive back to buffalo in that vehicle before it was fixed a week after the crash or the accident and then She got to her friend’s house in punta gorda and her friend opened the door and saw lisa crying and saw her husband lauren and they were both shook up and Her friend like made her go to the doctor three days later so the defense took all that and Spun it into well, it’s a minor impact You Wasn’t injured at the scene, didn’t call for an ambulance, got out of the car on her own power, went to her friend’s house, didn’t see a doctor for three days, had her entire vacation there in Punta Gorda.

And didn’t seek any care until a week after she got back home in Buffalo. And so they just saw it as this is a no injury case. And they believed very strongly that they were going to convince the jury [00:09:00] that she was asking for something from nothing, that she was making a mountain out of a molehill, that she is a woe is me type person.

Who just wanted to lay it all down and give up. Okay, and I say that because She had neck fusion after this crash. She was never recommended for a procedure like that before and she didn’t get a good result. She had resulting nerve pain down her left arm and she couldn’t do all the things that she needed to be able to do as a nurse, particularly as an oncology nurse.

So she lost that. She lost the ability to do that. And it was horrible and devastating for her to lose. It’s like a death. You know, it’s like a death of someone who’s extraordinarily close to you. And there was just an enormous loss for her and enormous grieving and pain and confusion. And then they called her in the trial, a woe is me type person who hangs it up.

And they started to try to embed [00:10:00] that. In their four dire nine. I’ve gotten a little bit farther. No, no, no. I think it’s helpful. Let me just go back and ask a couple of questions to kind of clarify. And that is, tell us when it actually happened. What year did the crash actually happen? I think it was 2016.

I think it was February, 2016. And we tried it in April of 2021. Okay. So several years gone by. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I mean, five years. Yeah. Right. And when did you learn or figured out this was a case that’s going to trial? It was not going to settle. I started to figure that out During Lisa’s deposition when my opposition counsel was asking her questions and Lisa was answering so earnestly and I thought like giving very impactful answers and I could just tell.

That the defense lawyer wasn’t accepting any of the answers she just like the very next question would [00:11:00] come out as if Lisa hadn’t said anything at all And just the tone and the way she was pitching the questions at her and pitching her voice I could tell she didn’t believe a single thing That lisa was saying i was like wow, this is two completely different worlds And it was then that I was starting to feel like the case would go to trial And then when we did a few expert depositions for trial Because the doctor her surgeon was in buffalo.

So I had to do that by video and I mean this surgeon testified fantastically And he loved Lisa. And I remember the last question I asked him was just summing up, doctor, what stands out most to you about Lisa, about your care of her, about her condition, just about her, everything you’ve seen, what stands out the most.

And he said something that really surprised me. And I thought it was so powerful. He said, I’m just really sorry. [00:12:00] I couldn’t fix her. You know, I was like, wow, this guy, this guy cares. He like loves her. Like he gets it. And he was conveying the severity of her injury all through. And he just landed on such a high note.

And still, you know, I tried to negotiate with opposition council and nothing, nothing landed. Yeah. And so I was like, they’re not accepting anything that I can so clearly see is true. I believe a jury is going to be moved and persuaded by. And yeah, I mean, it sounds to me like, you know, pretty early on, at least like your intuition was telling you in the, in the client deposition, like, okay, it seems like they’ve already got their mind made up.

Then you really start moving towards trial preparation and then it just gets solidified more and more as you keep working up for trial. Yeah. A hundred percent. I want to go back to the deposition preparation. So when you’re preparing her for her deposition, I always get this question about, do you hold [00:13:00] back or do you not hold back?

Meaning with the stories and the examples and things, what is your general approach? And then did you take a different approach for this case? Okay, can I tell you something before I answer the question directly because I definitely have an answer to it But there’s something that was so huge in the depo prep that the whole case hinged on You know because when you’re doing the lower impact cases and the client walks away from the scene And then there’s the argument.

Is it a disc? bulge or a disc herniation. And they did, they need surgery or not. It’s not like a shattered arm or something. It’s not an injury that everyone agrees is indisputable. So the client’s credibility is so critical, right? So I had all of her medical records. And when I was talking to her about, you know, have you ever had neck pain before?

She said, no, I’ve never had any pain in my neck before. My neck has always been good. Well, I found [00:14:00] in a record where she had slipped and fallen on ice like three years earlier and she was diagnosed with a shoulder injury, but all in the records, it was talking about neck pain, radiating to her trapezius, radiating to her shoulder.

It was there. And so if I hadn’t really gotten all of her records for the deposition and pulled it up on the screen and showed her in a zoom depo prep, no, look, here’s the record. You’re a nurse, you know, what cervicalgia is. This is what they were saying. He says, she’s like, Neil, I don’t remember having neck pain.

I’m like, well, you, you must address this in the deposition. And even if you want to tell them, I don’t remember having neck pain, but I know that I was diagnosed with cervicalgia when I hurt my shoulder. It was a shoulder injury. To me, the doctor said it was cervicalgia. So she was able to come out and say that because of the depo prep.

If she had said, no, I never had a problem with my neck before in [00:15:00] my life. They would have cross examined her effectively and made her look like she was a person who didn’t tell the truth So I don’t think I would have been able to win the case if I didn’t have that small piece of deposition preparation No, that’s a huge piece because I think a lot of people like kind of skip over that whole credibility piece because We don’t necessarily do the back work get all those extra records or we just rely on you know, our client’s memory which You It’s not that they’re lying to us.

It’s just that we all have memories of goldfish. Now, like we are bombarded by things like we have to make space when things happen, you know, other things just come out of our brain. It’s not that it’s an intentional life. They really just don’t remember, but in these soft tissue cases in these, you know, low impact, and it could be a car wreck could be slip and fall.

Like credibility is just so important. I really appreciate you like keying in on that and sharing that. [00:16:00] And I can also say, I mean, I believe it’s 100 percent my job to teach the client, the medical records a hundred percent, because the defense lawyer is going to read those records in detail. And they’re going to be ready to try to get and capitalize on a client for getting something, knowing that the client simply forgot and then casting them as someone who tells the truth.

unfairly. So I think it’s my job to do it. And I can’t imagine any of us doing this work effectively without knowing and teaching the client the prior medicals. Absolutely. Absolutely. Super important part, but let me, can we make you answer my question, the stories and the, you know, the, the impact. stories and the, and the damages.

Do you, you know, some people are in the camp of thinking like, okay, maybe one or two, but I want to save a lot of this powerful stuff for trial. Other people just, Hey, put it out there. We’re not worried about it. Just give it all over to them. Which way do you lean? [00:17:00] Well, I see. Yeah, that’s a great question.

I don’t have plaintiffs hold back from their damages. from how they’ve been harmed physically, emotionally, vocationally, functionally, there’s just like, I don’t have them hold back at all on anything. And so even when I prepare them, they always come in with that. Okay, just keep your answer short, right neil, right?

Mr. Anthony. Just keep my answer short Only answer what’s being asked. I was like, well, right, you know If it calls for a short answer give a short answer if it’s a blue sky, what color was the sky? It was blue, you know, you don’t need to elaborate much more, but if it is How has this affected your ability to do your job?

Well, you can take a question like that, and you might be able to speak for five minutes without stopping on a question like that. How has this affected your relationship with your spouse? You might be [00:18:00] able to really talk in paragraphs and pages. And I let them know, you know, don’t hold back on things like that.

That’s my preference and choice. And I’m in that same camp. I wasn’t trying to set you up to be in opposition of me or with me, but yeah, I know I’m, I’m definitely at the camp that do we hold back for trial? And I always say, no, don’t hold back, you know, let they need to know this is You know, one, this is their life.

This is their story. This is their truth. Let’s get it out in the deposition trial or not, but also there’s going to be more. I mean, just like you demonstrated with your case, it took five years to get to trial. I mean, we, a lot of people are facing that same issue where it’s just going to take time because the pandemic or because criminal trials take precedence and there’s going to be more.

And I always say, time is on our side. As plaintiffs, because it is like it’s time will tell, you know, in so many ways. So no, I appreciate you answering that question about hold back or not. So you mentioned [00:19:00] early on really spending a lot of time with Lisa on the phone. Is that you said you spent a lot of time with her, a lot of phone calls with her.

Is that accurate? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And what I love about this is obviously she’s in Buffalo, you’re in Florida. So do you feel like you could make that connection with her effectively using telephone conversations? I really did. Yeah. I know I made a connection with her. I mean, she’s my friend now, you know, I mean, we, we text every once in a while.

I’m getting Christmas cards for life from her. I mean, I know we communicated. And got to know each other and connected. I mean, I could tell when I met her face to face in Punta Gorda, Florida for the trial, we already had a bond and her husband too. So, yeah, we were able to connect by zoom and we were able to connect on the phone.

In a meaningful way that wasn’t kind of [00:20:00] diminished because we weren’t physically in the same room with each other Yeah, and I just point that out because I know a lot of times we can’t all be together because of covet so we use zoom and We can still make those really powerful connections and a lot of times You know, there’s a mantra, you need to go to their house, you need to go spend time with them physically.

And sometimes that’s just not really possible. Maybe you live in different places or maybe there’s an illness or, you know, something else that may prevent that from happening. But I mean, you’re proving us the point that you’ve spent. a lot of time with her. And I think the word you used meaningful time.

All right. So you learned so much about her. You’re gearing up for trial. How did you know which stories, you know, that Lisa had would resonate with the jury or maybe fit in with your, with your case theme? Well, it’s just what resonates with me. Well, Neil, you’re not the jury. Come on now, this is a jury and not a [00:21:00] lawyer’s.

I always say thank goodness to my focus groups that lawyers don’t decide things. No offense to us, but no. So tell me, you know, what was resonating with you and then you knowing in your experience that a jury would, would resonate with. I mean, figuring out that Lisa was giving back after her sister’s death in a way that she couldn’t give to her sister in life, like feeling that and putting it in those terms, hearing the story about how she worked very low paying jobs so that she could support her husband and two small children before she could get the opportunity to get educated as a nurse.

and pursue her dream and having that taken from her. I can’t imagine how themes that universal and powerful and aspirational and then how the loss of those things is so traumatic. I [00:22:00] can’t really imagine that that’s not a universal The people wouldn’t universally understand that. So I didn’t really feel the need to focus group or test those on people.

I did not do any focus groups for this trial. It was probably one of the first trials where I didn’t do focus groups in a long, long time. Well, those things were obvious to me, I guess. Sure. And I think that the gift that you were, a couple of gifts that you were given from the defense were basically their hard nosed line that like, this was, Soft tissue that there’s no injury here and she’s just a woe is me person, right?

That’s right. That’s right You mentioned earlier. They started to weave that into Deposition questions and ultimately jury selection. Tell us a little bit about some of the examples from that jury selection. Well One of the things that I haven’t said I learned from lisa it bothered her so much That they were [00:23:00] calling her a liar You In other words, they didn’t say ma’am, you’re a liar But in their tone when they deposed her when they deposed her family members and friends and just like she knew That they were in so many words calling her a liar and it was terribly hurtful to her It was painful and she shared that with me And so that along with the love of her nursing profession and then the loss of it and how painful that was for her when I knew that they were going after this, she’s making it up and she’s a woe is me type person and she’s just hanging it up.

So she can collect a paycheck or collect a disability check instead of going to work. I started weaving into my vordire things like who here has ever been in a situation where their Spoken word their truthful spoken word that was important to them was minimized or disbelieved [00:24:00] or rejected By other people, you know, and it was like people wanted to talk about it And then I did the flip of that You And I said, and who, who here has ever disbelieved or rejected somebody and then realized they were wrong.

You know because I felt like it was important to Not cast the defendant as taking a position that no one would ever take because we all do that at some times But we do everyone has a responsibility to figure it out When it becomes very clear that they’re wrong and that’s what I knew the defendant was not doing it had become very clear that they were wrong and they were Sticking to that position.

There’s a word for that But I was setting up that part of it intransigence, you know, is the word, you know, and so I was setting that up in Fort Dyer because I knew that that’s what they were doing to her. So that started there. [00:25:00] And then I set up the passions and who, who of you all have passions for giving back in life, you know, when you finally get that opportunity and the jurors were really talking about that.

And then Talking about who have you have been fortunate enough that you’ve been able to pursue your life’s purpose and got them talking about that. Cause those are all things that Lisa was doing and that were taken from her. And so then by the time that he got up and did his, so everybody, everybody ever think that, you know, uh, somebody gets hurt in a crash, they might say things that, uh, you know, make a little bit more out of it than it really is.

Y’all seen that kind of thing happen. And then he didn’t really even like wait, like they just all kind of raised their hand and he’d move on and I could see he wasn’t connecting, but then he called her a woe is me person that hung it up in so many words, like, are you a woe is me person that just hangs it up when something happens?

Or do you [00:26:00] just get up, dust yourself off and get back on the horse? You know, he was like saying that you really use those words. Woe is me. Yeah, he did. And I wrote it down. I was like, he’s going to pay for that. Like I’m going to make him pay for that. Like, no, because mad. Well, right. Because I think, you know, I mean, I’ll admit to having a bit of not physical violence, but the feeling of violence when my client is.

Being betrayed like that and wronged like that. I take that very personally What I really want to know now is how did you make them pay with the woe is me? How many times did you use that? Oh in closing, you know, just again and again and again and again And that’s what they tried to sell you and did that ever turn true?

Did she ever do one thing in her life? That was a woe is me type person Look at the way lisa has lived her life from the very beginning all the way up through today What single example have they shown you in the evidence? They want to cast [00:27:00] aspersions like that in a public forum in a court of law with no evidence to back it up What do you do with evidence like that?

You know, so I didn’t say it exactly like that because in florida if you demonize or even criticize the way That the defendants have wrongly maligned your client, you’ll get a mistrial. So you have to be careful. But I said that in so many words. Gotcha. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about direct really fast.

How did you kind of craft your direct knowing again, that he basically put the target on her back. What was me, you know, painted the words on her back. How did you, had you already crafted direct before? Did you change any opening? Tell us a little bit about that? Not really. I mean, I had all the building blocks to build the wall of the excellence of this woman, you know, I didn’t need to use those words in my examination of [00:28:00] her.

Sometimes I have to be careful of being overly defensive. So I didn’t bring that up with her in her direct examination that he had called her that, and what’s her response to that. And have you ever been that kind of, I just showed who she was, you know, that’s a pretty big, it’s a pretty big decision.

Tell us about the time when your kids were small and Lauren was disabled. And what were the things you did to hold the family together? What were the challenges? What were the ups and downs in all of that? You know, and I had her talking about that for a while and then as they got a little older, did you make a decision to go to nursing school?

What went into that decision? Did you talk with your husband about it? Were you scared? Were you excited? What feelings were around that? Did you do it? Yeah. Tell us about that. I had her tell me about nursing school and then she graduated with honors. Wow. What an honor. You know, [00:29:00] what was it like to come home with that diploma that said you graduated with honors?

How did you feel? Were you proud? And then you found your way into an oncology nursing position. How long did you dream for that? Was that a dream come true? You know, and tell us about your work as an oncology nurse. And like it all came out and she started talking. Like she still was an oncology nurse.

Like everything was present tense. Well, first I have to mix the medicine and there’s these sleeves I have to put my hand into because the medicine is toxic and you can’t work with it directly. So you always have to be behind a screen. So I put my hands in these, you know, and then I see the patient and, you know, she’s talking and you can see the passion all over her and how sad it is that she’s talking about it in the present tense.

As if she hasn’t really [00:30:00] accepted that she’s lost the ability to do the work. So yes, it might have been a hard decision or a big decision, but it was one of those decisions that’s just very clear and like no other way about it for me, you know, not entering that defense is calling you names thing with her.

My feeling is she’s above that. I’m above that. We are here for her dignity and we’re not going to let the defense like rub any more of their dirt or smear into it. We’re not going to do that. If they want to get up and do that, they can get up and do that. I’m not going to do it right now. And you know, their cross examination of her was no more than 10 minutes long.

And I, I didn’t even do a rebuttal and I can’t like, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t do a redirect level plaintiff. I didn’t do a redirect because I felt like the cross was just, they never hit, they [00:31:00] never hit anything. So, yeah, I think that’s a really strong point to emphasize is, you know, how you make that decision.

If you hear something in opening or you hear something in jury selection and do you make that decision to call attention to it? But like you said, we didn’t want to call attention that if that’s what they want to do, let them do it or call attention to it, depending on, you know, what it is. But no, I appreciate you walking us through that because I think a lot of people would be drawn to do that because it does fit into the case scene that you have.

It does fit into, you know, the facts and, and how they’ve behaved for sure. Well, and I also wanted to say, because of the way I did my Vore dire, and I did having a life that’s Purpose driven and passion driven and then having your truthful word rejected, disbelieved, minimized, or forgotten. I had already laid the foundation of my case when he came in with the [00:32:00] woe is me stuff and picking yourself up and dusting yourself off and getting back on the horse with all that.

I think that that his voir dire would have really hurt Lisa. It would have our case because he was good at it. And It would have really struck. It would have been good for him and bad for Lisa if I hadn’t disarmed all that in my four tire. Did you know that was coming or did you just you made your plan for what year for what iron?

I didn’t know it was coming. Okay. I never tried a case against that guy before. I didn’t know anybody who had and I had no idea what was coming. I didn’t even know what he looked like. He didn’t show up until the trial. His partner of his did all of the discovery. He was like the big gun brought in to win the trial.

Gotcha. Well, keep it all the way coming through. Let’s go to closing now. And what stories or what themes did you repeat in closing that, that [00:33:00] Lisa had testified about, or maybe other people testified about to really tell the damages in the case? It’s hard to remember. You know, it really is. There’s one thing that stood out to me like in the whole trial more than anything else.

Um, her husband, just such a down to earth man, testified. I think the question was something like, what was it like for Lisa to come home from the surgery? still have the radicular symptoms and realized she couldn’t go back to work. He like, he’s just like this big guy with these big thick forearms. It’s just like, almost like his, like a Fred Flintstone, you know?

And he goes, his voice just cracked and he looked down and he goes, she was broken. And his voice broke and his voice cracked when he said it, you know, and I just sat there and it was like the, I just [00:34:00] lit up like my body lit up like I knew it was like, Oh my God, that’s just like, there’s a truth to that, you know, so, you know, you can be sure that those are the kinds of moments.

I was looking forward to talk about. In the closing argument, you know, because it’s like I just have, I could just redo my opening almost because the opening is such an argument the way I write it, you know, without being pitched as an argument, I could just redo the opening. But, you know, I’m doing those same themes again, and I’m looking for the points in the testimony that really lit me up emotionally in the trial, and I’m re showing like the pictures that meant the most.

And. I’m showing how insidious the defense theme is, and so it was a stipulated liability case. And so in Florida, when the defense stipulates the liability, you can’t say, well, they [00:35:00] only stipulated the morning of trial and they fought us for five years and now they’re only stipulating so that they can pretend like they acted nicely in front of you.

The appellate courts don’t let us do that. They’ll reverse it. You know, so the way I pitched it or said it was. Here is all this evidence of what happened to this woman and here’s all this evidence of the truthfulness Of her case and her dignity and her family’s dignity and all that she suffered and gone through All she wanted to do at the scene of this incident was help this confused elderly woman who she has nothing but compassion for But now these lawyers for the estate, they come in and they say, you know, they call her a liar in so many words, they criticize her character.

They tell you she shouldn’t be believed. And for what and on what evidence did they do that? And so when you have a case that’s so clear What do you do with evidence like that? Which is [00:36:00] something I heard like 20 years ago that like bob montgomery used to say that was like a refrain From like one of the biggest lawyers ever in florida bob montgomery.

He used to ask that question and i’ve never used that before But for some reason, it just felt right to me because it I wanted to criticize what they were doing. I wanted to show the jury like these people need to be punished for conducting themselves this way. But that’s a clear mistrial. So instead, I just said, here’s everything that happened.

And what do you do with evidence like that? You know, it’s stipulated liability. We know That Mrs. Anderson made a mistake and caused these damages. And this is how it’s been, you know, this is the trial that we’ve had over it. What do you do with evidence like that? So it just became like a, like a question or refrain.

And I did ask for money. I did ask for exactly the number that they gave us. And I put my medical bills in [00:37:00] I put my future medical bills in I put my lost wages in I put my future lost wages in and I asked for a number for Uh, you know pain and suffering and they gave us exactly The number that I asked for and I think I did a want ad argument, you know And I like want ad arguments for the intangibles for the pain and suffering because it lets me say what happened to her in a way that’s very direct and to the point and I say Something like and I’d have it written up because I write everything I say it would look something on the paper like You know, imagine that you’re in one of the old printed black and white newspapers, and if any of you remember those want ads, it would say wanted.

In this case, it would say wanted, must be in a vehicle and struck from the side, be injured, have a neck [00:38:00] injury, the neck pain will shoot down the arm into the hand. It will be progressive. It will worsen. You will have no idea when it will ever end. Surgical innovation becomes necessary. Bones must be fused with metal and screws.

The range of motion in the neck will be forever lost. The job, the career that was the most important thing will be lost. The relationship with the spouse will be altered. With the children will be altered. How much? Would it take to pay for that job and you can imagine that you can imagine how much it would take to pay for that job and something like that, you know, and so I think I said something like 350 000 in the past and 350 000 in the future.

So like 700 000 And that’s exactly what they [00:39:00] put in their verdict, you know, and then a lot of people will say oh well You know, then you ask for too little You know, uh, because if they only gave you what you asked for Like you could have asked for maybe twice as much but I don’t get too concerned with that because I feel like I have to be credible credibility’s more important than anything else in the world to me in trial And I have to pick a number that I feel like is credible and that’s what I felt like was credible So I i’m not going to second guess that But people did say that to me after, well, you know, isn’t that clear evidence you didn’t ask for enough?

I don’t know. You make up your mind. I’ve made up mine. I’m okay with it. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s also like clear evidence that they totally a hundred percent trusted you and took your word for it, you know, like. Which is really what you all you can ask a group of strangers to do when you’re making them sit in a courtroom for three or four days against their will.[00:40:00]

Right. I want to also point out something you just mentioned kind of on the fly there, which is this defendant had passed away. You went to trial in a pandemic. With an empty trial. Was there any worry about having to explain that or, you know, did the judge take care of that, that whole like suing the estate thing?

Yeah, the judge did take care of it. The judge just said, Mrs. Anderson passed away after this crash for causes completely unrelated to this crash. The law required that to maintain the claim. The plaintiff had to substitute her estate for her in the lawsuits, and I might have done a Vordire question on that.

I saw that Vordire unleashed in a trial maybe six years ago where I was second chair to the lawyer that had the case, and it felt like the jurors hated it. You know, no, I would never, no, I’d never sue somebody’s estate. [00:41:00] I don’t like it. It bothers me. But that just didn’t happen here for some reason, and I think In for dire so many times when we ask that question who here has feelings against And then fill in the blank pain and suffering large verdicts You know I’m starting to really believe that there are people that raise their hand and say I do Just because of the way that we ask the question and not because they really sit at home and like sit there smarting over these things like they’re really upset about them, you know, so I think that that’s what happened in that trial like six years ago.

I think the way the lawyer put the question and it was like, Oh God, yeah, that sounds really bad. Yep. I got a problem with it. Let me raise my hand. Yeah. I don’t think that anybody really had. just like a deeply held conviction against it. And so I think it was really important to me in the trial to [00:42:00] show how concerned Lisa was about her at the scene and to show how much Lisa was a caretaker for her at the scene and to show how much they talked and shared stories.

at the scene to show that Lisa was compassionate toward the elderly driver who died. So this wasn’t like an animosity thing. I felt like that was really important and part of why was because of the concern that you just raised. You know, suing someone’s estate after they’ve passed after they’re gone.

Yeah, I think a lot of, I mean, a lot of people have, you know, concerns about the chair and especially if they passed away. And, you know, I think one of the things you point out really clearly was how we ask questions, is huge, right? How we ask that question and jury selection will get a raised hand no matter what, you know, and the same thing happens when we ask our clients questions on direct, like how you word it, how the jury receives it.

Like it makes such a huge [00:43:00] difference. And I always try to encourage people when they’re looking at, you know, crafting direct questions is like, Rita’s just say that out loud. Like, okay, you wrote it out, but just say it out loud to somebody and get their reaction to you just saying out loud, because it might sound icky.

And when I say it icky, it means like, Oh, like lawyering. And like, like you’re just setting them up for sad story or sympathy. You know, we really want them to get sympathy out of the box. So you’ve led us all here. We’ve got like a drum roll. We know they gave you exactly what you asked for. So what was, what was the jury verdict?

It was a million four. It was a million four. And, um, how did it all break down? I mean, if you want to give us that you can, but we know they gave you exactly what you asked for, which is pretty awesome. Yeah, it was. So it was 75, 000 for medicals in the past, 47, 000 for medicals in the future, 700, 000 for [00:44:00] pain and suffering, and 204, 000 for wages.

So that’s pretty amazing. First of all, that like your pain and suffering number way exceeding your, your, your medicals. I mean, I think a lot of people would be really worried about your medicals being, you know, lowering the verdict, anchoring the verdicts is sometimes what people say, but that’s, that’s pretty amazing.

Yeah, you know, I think so many of us are taught that the past medicals if they’re small like that to leave them out Because they’re like you just said an anchor on the non economic damages. I just haven’t done it yet you know Here I am like 25 years into practice 20 years into doing civil trial law and I still haven’t tried it.

I still haven’t tried it I don’t know. I’m doing okay. No criticism here. No criticism here. We’re here. We’re here. I know, you know this, you know, our, our, this podcast is really trying [00:45:00] more to gear towards like being in tune with the jury and being able to give them the things that they need to do their job.

And, and, and. them listening to you. And I think that your verdict and the way that you built this case and took it to trial is a true testament that you listened, that you resonated with them and that they truly believed your client and what had happened to her. And that’s amazing. I mean, that’s all you can ask, right?

Thanks, Elizabeth. Yeah, that’s awesome. I think it’s important like for me to express though, and the reason I said what I said about the past medicals is I’m a lawyer who doesn’t think that there’s one way to do it or think that, oh, because I did it this way and got a good result. It was the best way.

You know, I’m always, always thinking it through again. I’m always making the decision over again. It’s never just like, hey, like, I know the best way and this is the best way and this is how it’s going to be for me always and this is the [00:46:00] rule. Yeah, I mean, I break a lot of rules that I know in these trials.

That’s one rule that’s broken. You know, another rule that I broke was never pick a juror that’s more injured than your own. I broke that rule. There was a couple of rules I broke. I think it’s more important to make the decision in the moment based on You use that rule as maybe a guide, maybe some information, but at the same time figure it out in real time and look at all of the other circumstances surrounding it.

I know that’s kind of like a very technical thing to say, but I guess I think that that’s super helpful to people because we have so many in a good way of putting it is there’s different sets of rules and how you should do things and how do we try cases now and things can get so confusing that sometimes we forget like you need to have those things in your mind but you really need to be in tune with and being present in that moment trusting your gut [00:47:00] like really listening to what they’re saying and you’re gonna get cues back from them if you’re being in tune and being present.

Yeah. And Neil has definitely taught me that being present and really listening and being in tune. I mean, this verdict is a good example, but I know you have many, many others, especially the case that we worked on together, where it’s, you are so immersed in not just like the details, but with your client and you know, your case backward and forward.

And I think it just really, really helps you when you’re sitting down to write things out or getting prepared. So one last question, pardon me, I should have probably started with this whole thing, which was, did you make any changes for this trial based on COVID or, you know, those kinds of concerns? I mean, everyone in the courtroom, including the judge and all of the courtroom personnel were wearing masks and all of the jurors were wearing masks.

I had obviously never tried a case where you couldn’t really see only, [00:48:00] you know, but only half of somebody’s face, you know, from the bridge of their nose up. So what I did is I kind of just decided I’m just going to go with it. We’re all the defense is in the same position. We’re all in the same position.

We all have the same handicap here. I’m just going to go with it and feel it through it and check it out and do my best with it. And you know what? I’m going to figure it out as I go. So I kind of had to tell myself that I had to like give myself a pep talk And say that to myself because otherwise I would have been mired down in that.

Well You know What am I supposed to do with them wearing masks? How much of the body language can you see when you can’t see the face? And like trying to figure all of the technical details of it out. I didn’t have time. I don’t have the knowledge, but I can do it. You know, I can do it without all of that kind of knowing.

I can do it intuitively. And I made a decision that I would trust myself to do it [00:49:00] intuitively. And, you know, I feel like I really knew those jurors through their masks. I feel like I all over them, their body language with those masks on and bore dire, and then at the end of the trial, like when I saw them outside, they waited for us to like, congratulate us and high five us.

And they were really happy for Lisa. We all had our masks off and their faces looked completely different than what I would have imagined them. So I had a whole. imagination of what they looked like. It was totally different than what they really looked like. So I would think that that, I would say that that would be the biggest thing was just trusting myself to be able to do it, to get through it and to understand people, even wearing a mask and making the decision to trust myself to be able to do it.

And that’s what I did. Did you practice at all, just like wearing a mask and having a talk in it and like that kind of stuff? No, because I hate wearing masks and I didn’t want to have one on any more than I had to. Okay. I just said to myself, you know what? [00:50:00] I’m going to just do it. One thing I did not do is I did not wear my glasses because the mask fogs them up and I can read without them.

I just read more easily with them. So I just didn’t wear glasses the whole trial. That makes sense. Yeah. Fogging up would be. Yeah. Be a, be a problem. So, well, thank you so much, Neil. This was so helpful walking us through this trial and just letting us dig through your brain about trying this case. And I think it’s a lot of good things here that we talked about.

So I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us on the podcast. I appreciate this too. Thank you so much. It was fun. Thanks, Elizabeth. Thank you for joining us for this episode. Special episode with Neil Anthony, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with somebody who you feel like would benefit also.

I would love and be so grateful if you would rate and review our podcast or this podcast on your favorite [00:51:00] listening app. And as always, please tune in next week for some new content on how you can connect with your client and the jury. Thank you.

This is the final part of our three-part series on client testimony preparation where we discuss Phase 3 of the client testimony preparation: role play. Just a quick recap, Phase 1 is getting into the right mindset and expectations. Phase 2 is the organizing phase where you help clients organize their truth, not mold them or change anything.

Phase 3 role play or the testing phase will give clients a good glimpse at what it’s going to be like inside the deposition or trial. It’s not just testing the client, but also your ability to prep them.

Now, it’s important that you follow these phases in order, and not just start your client testimony preparation immediately with Phase 3. Sure you could do that, but that’s not really going to help you understand much if you haven’t already done some work in the first two phases. Not to mention, the damage this might cause because you’re only setting them up to fail – and they would see that.

Therefore, even though it sounds like testing is all the phase you need to do, you’re going to be doing your clients a disservice if you miss the first two phases since it can create problems of trust in the future – and by building trust, you’re able to take away their fears.

In this episode, you will hear:

• The importance of Phase 3
• Why not start immediately with Phase 3
• The two parts of roleplay
• How to craft questions for better results
• How to do the hard roleplay in segments
• The nuts and bolts you need to talk about after phase 3

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Larrick Law Firm

Episode 014: Phase 1 of Client Testimony Preparation 

Episode 015: Phase 2 of Client Testimony Preparation 

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Hey, hey, we’re completing our three part series on client testimony preparation and getting to what I consider one of the Best phases. No, I’m just kidding. I don’t have a favorite. I think they’re all equally wonderful, uh, but this one is definitely fun. So stick around to figure out how you can best help your client.

Welcome to trial lawyer prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants, ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively, then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success. Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world.

Understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process. Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. Her goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom.

Now, here’s Elizabeth. [00:01:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of Trial Lawyer Prep with me, Elizabeth Larrick. This is a podcast dedicated to trial lawyers working through some difficult cases to’s To hopefully get some resolution with those clients and improve our outcomes and sleep better at night. So thanks for joining us today.

We are going to finish up our three part series. If you’re just now joining us today, you can pause and go back and listen to episode 14. which is going to cover phase one and episode 15, which is going to cover episode two. Those are going to be really helpful building blocks to understand what we’re going to be talking about today in phase three, or if you want to just stick around and see what I have to say, that’s great too and catch those two episodes at a different time.

But just so you do know this client testimony preparation [00:02:00] does follow the Pretty strictly on the phases, so we really want to make sure we’re doing this in order and not out of order, and I’ll talk about that today. Why that is so essential. Why can’t we just start with phase three? Sometimes that’s what we want to do.

All right, so let’s jump in there. So we’ve talked about just to kind of recap really quickly. Phase one is mindset. We got to get the client’s mindset straight. We got to get expectations under control. We got to really give them a very good framework for understanding what is going to happen. If we don’t do that, There is a huge amount of fear that the clients will have going into the deposition and Generally that fear will basically shut them down or cause a bunch of other problems that you just don’t want So phase one is really about getting that good mindset that framework set up so that then you can move into [00:03:00] phase two Which I call Organizing.

We’re really working with our meat and taters, our questions and our answers, and looking at, okay, what are the targets and what are the facts we got, right? And organizing, not just about targets, but also we’re going to work on organizing damages. We’re going to look at doing some nuts and bolts of medical timeline, if that’s part of the case, of course, or job history timeline, if that’s part of the case, of course.

Again, organizing is super, super important. But now we’re into phase three, which I call our testing phase. And this is where we’re really going to give them a very good glimpse at what it’s really going to be like inside the deposition. And this phase, super important, not just for the client, but really for you.

And it’s testing not just the client, but really your ability to prep them because it’s. it’s all going to come out whether they’re actually listening or whether they’re ignoring [00:04:00] you or they’re just going to do whatever they want in the deposition which we all have had a client like that where it seemed like they were following and listening and paying attention and doing the hard work of organizing and then they get the deposition and it’s like we never met that nothing stuck they’re doing their own thing or just being Completely new stuff comes out at the deposition, that’s kind of where phase three is really geared for is to really give a true experience of that pressure of a real deposition.

So I like to break my phase three kind of into two parts and really, it’s called phase three testing, but this is really about roleplay. And so I break my roleplay into two separate parts. Part one would be kind of the hard role play where we’re really aiming at some really hard cross examination style questions and different styles that they may see in a deposition and really going hard at it to make sure they get a really good [00:05:00] experience of that pressure and those questions.

And then part two, which would be kind of the easy easy role play, right? We’re coming in with kind of some softball questions, not that they wouldn’t happen, but you know, just a little bit easier questions just to make sure they’re navigating it and we’re building some confidence there. And so let’s talk a little bit about part one, which would be our hard role play.

A lot of times people ask me like, how do you do this? And so I want to take it first with how are we crafting these questions? Because the more effort you put into those questions, the better the results. So again, I’m going to go back to our, our lawyer prep memo, which I feel is like really, really important, which is a memo that you’re going to do and sit down and go through the file before you sit down with that client to prepare them and write a bunch of information out.

So And this is a place where I love to write my hard cross exam questions for them. And try to make them really difficult because I do know a lot of information. I can craft those questions [00:06:00] really well in that moment versus me trying to do it on the fly in a hard cross exam situation. So, crafting the questions.

Do it ahead of time. If you need to pull questions from old depositions that you have. Or questions that you know are stompers, put those all in there. And once you have kind of a good bank, then you can just kind of take them as you go. It’s not as difficult if you’re as than if you’re doing this for the first time.

Really good important part of the hard cross, the hard role play is having really good quality questions and crafting those ahead of time. Another essential part of the hard role play is having someone else do it. You cannot do it. You’ve just worked. 30 minutes. And you’ve built up some amazing trust.

You’ve done some really hard work with them organizing. Right? You’re on their side. You can’t all of a sudden flip the script and be the complete [00:07:00] opposite. It’s a total mind trick. Just don’t do it. The other part of this is, it’s so easy now with Zoom to have somebody else join you on Zoom for 30 minutes.

And just do a hard role play, hard cross exam role play. If you have done the work and got all the questions ready, it’s really easy to hand that off to somebody else and they just put their personality on it and ask the questions. So Zoom makes this really easy to find somebody else. To do the hard role play.

And like for me, for example, there’s another lawyer here in Austin and we trade back and forth all the time, and she knows, and I know because we respect each other’s time. If I ask her to do this, I’m gonna give her a little bit of facts. I’m gonna give her maybe some key photographs if it’s necessary, and I’m gonna give her the questions and I’m gonna give her the targets and I’m gonna say, Hey, these are some of the weaknesses, like go get ’em.

Or if we know we have a particular style of. Opposing counsel. I [00:08:00] always put that in there as well so that she’s basically all she has to do is jump on the zoom and we’re there for 30 minutes and then she’s off and she gets to do something else. And same way for me, right? Just jump on, jump off. And if you make it really easy like that, it’s really hard to turn somebody else.

Oh, I just don’t have time. It’s 30 minutes. Right. And you can do a lot of damage in 30 minutes, so don’t hesitate to use that 30 minute block. Plus it allows you, we’ll see, to have time then to go back through. So hard role play, craft really hard questions. You do all that work before you even get there, right?

Write them all out to get somebody else. You can’t do it. If somebody else in your firm, if you’ve got a great paralegal that can come in, you can Or I think I’m a part of at least three or four or five listservs where I could put a message on and say, Hey, can somebody help me for 30 minutes here? I’m going to have everything ready for you.

You can jump on the Zoom for 30 minutes, just do your thing and then you get to go. Hard to say no to that because again, you’re going to [00:09:00] reciprocate. I’ll do it for you. All right. So let’s talk about literally how we’re going to do this. I prefer to do the hard role play in segments. What I mean by that is I take my phone and we basically set it for eight to ten minutes.

And, you know, I tell the client, Hey, this is how we’re going to role play. I got my friend Debra. She’s going to come in. She’s going to play the defense lawyer. You’re going to play yourself. I’m going to play court reporter, timekeeper and myself, and we will go and tell the timer goes off. So don’t try to break character.

Don’t say, wait a minute. I need to ask a question. No, just in it to win it until the timer goes off. That makes a really digestible amount of time because you want to be taking notes. Okay. You want to be making notes of difficult questions or places where they could have done better or maybe they didn’t, they completely skipped, you know, all the organizing that you did and you just want to be able to make notes along the way.

You [00:10:00] also want to make it to where they don’t feel like it’s never going to end because you want them to give their best effort. So this 10 minutes, the eight to 10 minute mark is really great. Once the timer goes off, come back, check in. How’s it going? And I’m talking to the client, like, how’s it going?

How are you feeling? Were there any questions that you didn’t like when the questions that were tricky? Right. And again, we are taking notes. Okay. Okay. Okay. We’re making notes along the way again, because we’re going to go right back at it because again, I got this lawyer. I’m going to respect their time, what they’re doing, and then we’re going to go again.

And it’s a different set of questions, right? So then we go again, it’s 10 minutes. Okay. Great. Here we go. Okay. And we do it again. Right? So generally we’re looking at three timed sessions of hard role play with breaks in between, so we can take a break, regroup, go again, [00:11:00] different sets of questions every time.

And once we finish all three sessions. Then the person who’s helping me gets to leave. Bye. Thank you. They leave the zoom and then we go back through and say, okay, let’s look at these questions. Right. And we, then we go back through one at a time, nice and slowly and talk through it. What felt like it stumped you?

And then we get to really digest the question, really digest what they were feeling. If you’re able. Make body language notes. Hey, this is what your eyes were doing. This is where you were fidgeting. You look down, you know, this look like question that really, really stumps you. And here’s why. And you get to just to really slowly go through all those questions and take time and help them, you know, really understand the question and what is the fact that they have to answer that question or, or what is it that they already have to answer that question?

What was the resistance to actually giving the information? And that’s why I would say the 30 [00:12:00] minutes is great because it’s really an amount of time that is helpful for the other person coming in for cross, but also for the client, but also for you. Okay. Because you have to be able to take notes along the way and then basically go back through that and that’s going to take probably another 30 40 minutes after that, right?

This testing, hard role play, really will tell you, lawyer, in your lawyer brain, did this person really adhere to any of the, organizing that we did any of the mindset that we worked on or did the fear come right back? Do we need to go back? Right. Or maybe they just had a little bit of stomach block and they just need to remember, just go back through our organizing, go back through what was our track, our facts, our truth.

Maybe just need some more reassurance there, but either way, like it’s really in your mind, a place to see like, okay, well, how’s our work been? Has it, is it [00:13:00] working or is it not? Do we need to go back? Did we do something that just didn’t fit? And you now have the proof to have that conversation with them.

Hey, client, we, we worked really hard in organizing, you know, your facts for this particular target, but you never talked about them. You actually said this instead. Let’s talk about that. Right? So now you have ammunition instead of saying, Hey, if you go in there, And you give a hypothetical, right? It’s not going to really stick as much as, Hey, we just had this experience and this other lawyer who came in just scored all the points that we were trying to like not allow them to do.

So it really helps give you a backdrop, right? To actually say like, Hey, we need to go back. Things aren’t sticking. And maybe it’s just, maybe it’s not going to be as bad as you think, but either way, like, that’s why we call it a testing phase. The second part of roleplay, which I’d call easy, is what you can do.

So depending on how long it takes to go [00:14:00] back through all those hard cross questions, like going back through and regrouping, or maybe you have to go visit, re back and visit organizing, then you’re just going to want to do some really easy roleplay, which is basically a lot of easier questions. And that’s just going to be to basically go back through those questions, build some confidence.

And again, just give them as many looks as possible at different kinds of questions, right? Because that’s really going to help them when they get in there. They’ve heard something somewhat familiar. All right, so we have covered the hard role play, the soft or the easy role play as part of phase three testing.

And this is really going to help, you know, did all your work, did it stick? Did it not? Do you got to go back? Or do you have a better idea? Bigger issue going on like a client who’s just going to ignore you either way. This is what we’re going to find out in phase three testing. [00:15:00] Once you have finished all three phases and we’ve, you know, we’ve built confidence or whatever, there may be some extra nuts and bolts of things that you need to talk about.

For example, discovery responses. Maybe there’s some Facebook pages or some Facebook posts. Maybe there’s some other kind of paperwork that you need to go through with them that they’re going to be asked questions about. Now is that time to do that because once they finish all three phases, they really have a good idea what’s going to happen.

They feel like they’ve organized their answers and they’ve passed the test, right? They’ve gone through the battle. They have a really good idea about what’s going to happen. Oh, Hey. Yeah. That discovery response. Okay. So that whole thing, all right, like it’s going to roll off their back. It’s going to be super easy and digestible.

Versus if you try to start with that without any framework of how that is going to come up, why that’s going to come up, and instead of having a lot of confusion, there’s going to [00:16:00] be a lot more like, Oh, I got this. That’s easy. Like, it’s, discovery responses are easy compared to the target that I got on my back about this wreck is my fault, or I picked the wrong doctor, or I didn’t do my job taking care of myself.

This is easy, right? And that’s really what you want them to do. And that’s why sometimes I save some more nuts and bolts stuff until after we finish phase three. Okay. So let’s, uh, recap all three phases. We’ve got phase one, mindset, expectations, phase two, organizing, phase three, testing, and then our nuts and bolts.

If you have anything else that needs to be covered after you finish everything with all three phases. All right, awesome. Well, I hope that this was helpful in helping you kind of craft a better client testimony preparation. Maybe this is a good framework for you to start off with. Maybe you [00:17:00] haven’t been using one.

Please try it out. See if it works. Let me know if you have any questions. But before we go really quickly, I want to talk about why we wouldn’t just start immediately with phase three, right? Phase three. Does wonders for us. It really tells us a lot about how people are going to react in the pressure situation and how they’re going to answer questions and if they’re going to follow your advice because there’s no framework, right?

So it’s just like, sure, you could sit them down and they’re just going to answer a bunch of questions, but that’s not really going to help you understand very much if you haven’t already done some work in phase one and phase two. Also, you could do a lot of real big damage because basically you’re setting them up to fail and they’re going to know that and you do not want to damage that relationship by starting off on the wrong foot and setting them up to fail and then feeling that humiliation or that shame or that embarrassment.

Like we don’t need to do that to people. So. Even though it sounds like [00:18:00] this is all the phase we need to do is just phase three of just doing testing and role playing with somebody, I think that you’re going to be doing them a disservice. And also I think that you could probably create some real bad problems of trust if like this is how you’re going to prepare somebody to basically throw them into the war zone, hope for the best and then tell them, Hey man, you did terrible.

Like, well, yeah, of course I did. I didn’t have any framework and have any organization, right? You’re, I’m supposed to depend on you to help me. And you’re basically It’s sending me out there blindly and then get tore apart. So this is why phase one, phase two, phase three, we’re building trust, taking away that fear.

It’s going to do wonders for the relationship. Try it out. Let me know. Email me if you have any questions or concerns. My email will be in the show notes and thank you again for listening. If you could follow, rate, share, review, On your favorite podcast app and catch us next time. Thank [00:19:00] you.

During the second phase of client testimony preparation, sometimes there’s a big miscommunication between the clients and the lawyers. Lawyers ask differently in deposition than they would in any other kind of conversation. Therefore, it warrants some education so clients can go through it smoothly. 

In Phase 1, we talked about getting into the right mindset, which applies to clients and trial lawyers. Today, we look into Phase 2, which also refers to the organizing phase. This phase does not mean crafting, shaping, molding, or woodshedding any testimony. Resist the urge to craft and change your client’s words to make them sound better or to make their answer the question more clearly. Instead, make sure you organize what the client already has in their brain and what they already know so clients can see the bigger picture concerning the questions they get. 

There is power in the truth, and it is all you are doing in this phase – to help clients see that and organize it for them. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Challenges trial lawyers have in this phase
• The 3 main purposes of a deposition
• The power of telling stories
• Why you shouldn’t be changing the client’s words

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Larrick Law Firm

If you have a question or comment, please let me know: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

Episode 014: Phase 1 of Client Testimony Preparation 

Episode 011: Focus Groups: What Do You Get?

Episode Credits:

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Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Welcome back. We are in a three part series going through client testimony preparation, specifically looking at depositions, and we are going to look into the phase two, meat and potatoes, the part where we really get in and start looking at questions and looking at answers and really helping our clients with testimony.

We’ve got some fun things to talk about. So stick around. Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants, ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively, then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success? Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world, understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process.

Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. Her goal is to help you connect with juries [00:01:00] and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. Now, here’s Elizabeth. Hello and welcome. This is Elizabeth Larrick, and you’re listening to an episode of Trial Lawyer Prep.

This is a podcast designed and created for trial lawyers working with difficult cases, problematic clients, and providing some how to. to fight through some of those problems and come out the other side feeling better and having better cases and better outcomes. Today’s episode is going to focus on our second part of our three part series in client testimony preparation with an emphasis of looking at depositions in We’ll do a trial testimony preparation series a little bit later in this podcast, but today I want to continue our journey with client testimony and look at phase two, what I like to call organizing.

We’ve talked about in phase one, getting our mindset straight, [00:02:00] meaning not just the client’s mindset, but our mindset too, right? So there’s a big old fear monster running around that really can control our brains and can really cause some problems in deposition. So if you want to listen to that full episode, check out episode 14.

But today we are going to march forward with looking at organizing and let me make an emphasis on that because we are not going to be crafting, shaping, molding, or wood shedding any testimony here. Okay. What we’re really looking at is making sure we’re organizing what the client has already in their brain, right?

What do they already know? And this is really facing that issue of, lawyer questions versus client answers. And sometimes there’s just a big miscommunication here. A lot of times what I like to explain to clients is this is kind of the part where we just translate because lawyers talk in a different way.

We ask questions differently in a [00:03:00] deposition than we would in any other kind of conversation. So there’s a little bit of teaching that goes along to have the client see a book. bigger picture when it comes to some of these questions that they get, but also translating the lawyer asks this, but this is what they’re really looking for.

And a lot of people can have that communication breakdown and we want to make sure that it’s really smooth for clients when they get into the deposition. Now, one of the toughest parts of this phase is at times you’re going to have to accept Um, and it’s going to be hard not to want to craft what they’re saying or change a word here and there to make things sound better or, you know, to speak more clearly to liability or damages.

Because at the end of the day, the jury can spot a phony. We know lawyers are taking depositions, they’re asking questions, but ultimately they’re going to be judged by a jury. So we want to make sure that we keep it at that level. There’s no reason [00:04:00] to. Okay. And so this all trikes us back to kind of ultimately the purpose of a deposition and always explain this to clients in our first phase when we’re talking about mindset and expectations is there are three main purposes of a deposition and the first one is to gather information.

You know, it’s not all going to be cross exam and style, but a lot of times they just need information. So it’s not all going to be about doom and gloom. Okay. They want to learn what you’re going to say. They want to know what your story is and ultimately they’re going to want to score points for their case.

So that’s where we use our organizing phase to look at first and foremost, scoring points for their case. And this really kind of goes into that teaching moment where how are they doing that and what questions are they using to do that? And a lot of times I feel like, clients get lost in seeing ultimately what is the target of a question, [00:05:00] meaning like, what are they insinuating?

Sometimes if you’re in the battle, they can’t see what’s being insinuated and that’s the evil part of it. You don’t know. So it’s really backing up a lot of these questions and showing the big picture because clients expect to be asked the same question or try to get the same information, um, 20 different ways they expect that tricky kind of question, but they don’t really know how to handle it, right?

So this is really where we’re looking at. Okay, so we’ve got most time there’s several targets, right? There’s gonna be maybe some targets on liability. Maybe there’s gonna be some targets on damages and we’re gonna go through each of those individually and what we really want to do is Put that target up there, right?

Make it big picture. So let’s just take a car wreck example because sometimes that’s the easiest. It’s a car wreck. They’re gonna try and blame you for something, even if it’s just a regular rear end collision, right? You stopped too soon. You didn’t have your brake lights on. [00:06:00] You know, witness says this. So Even though it may seem so abundantly clear, your client’s not at fault, they may think it’s abundantly clear.

It doesn’t mean that it’s still not going to be a target for the opposing counsel to ask several questions on. And I always like to walk through that first target, somewhat of an easier target for them, because then they understand what we’re doing. So we’re going to teach them, Hey, okay, here’s this target.

Opposing counsel is going to try and say that you are Even just a little bit responsible for this rack and how are they going to do that? And so then I just list out all the questions how they’re gonna do that And then once I do my job of showing them how that question is gonna be asked what that question is going to be Then I hand it over to them and we just go through what are the facts that you have Right.

And let’s just write out the facts. And in this phase, we’re really making sure that we’re organizing truth and facts, avoiding [00:07:00] feelings, because at times people get wrapped up in stuff and emotionally it’s tough and you want to have answers and sometimes you just create answers in your mind. Let me give you an example that happens often or frequently.

The other person was speeding. I know it. How do you know? I just know they were speeding. Okay. The other person was on their phone. Okay. Did you see it? No, I didn’t see it. Did they tell you that? No, they didn’t tell me that. So wait, how do you know? I just know they were distracted. Okay. And that’s really important because if we let them go into the deposition with that response.

Okay. I know they were speeding, even though there’s really no way for anybody driving on the road to, you know, you’ll just see that if it comes from behind them, it opens them up for a litany of extra questions and it’s just a position that they can’t support. They don’t have the facts to support it, even though that’s the way they feel, that’s not really a fact.

And so we really want to be able to [00:08:00] organize it in that way so that when they get in there, they can see, wow, I have, Let’s say they have just four facts, but they’re four really strong facts. Those four strong facts can beat back one target, even if it comes at them 20 different ways. Truth doesn’t change.

And that’s what we really want to organize from and show them, Hey, how strong is this fact? Do I need this other feeling of, I feel like they were speeding. I feel like they were on their phone. I don’t. I got this other strong stuff. It’s way stronger. Great. And you keep doing that organization with them through the different targets.

I always go through liability. I go through damages. Even if I am preparing a client in a wrongful death case. There’s still going to be targets there because ultimately they want to minimize everything, right? Let’s minimize everything. Let’s make everything look small, insignificant. That is still going to be a target [00:09:00] because opposing counts will be doing their job if they didn’t try to score points in deposition.

That’s what we do. That’s what they’re going to do. So let’s prepare them for that. and organize their truth around those targets. When they see it, boom, it’s already organized in their mind and they know exactly where to go. A very key point here, if I haven’t already said it, make this a visual aid, make some lists, right?

Put this stuff up on a board. Let’s get a good visual on it to see all the facts and all the targets so they can see it and know, right? Make sure they memorize it with that visual aid. Another key place for organizing is that other purpose of a deposition, learning your client’s story, right? What are they going to say happened in this wreck?

What are they going to say happened when they went to the doctor? And it’s just, again, organizing their truth and their story when it comes to damages and liability. But we’re really looking at helping them be able to organize and express the [00:10:00] physical and emotional damages they have experienced. For Many a times people come to a deposition, it has been a year, maybe it’s been two years, sometimes unfortunately longer than that.

So you really have to spend some time walking through all that time to make sure you kind of gather up all the things that happened physically and mentally, emotionally during that timeframe to them, whether they’re recovering or they’re having more surgeries, whatever that may be, but also gathering in all the places where there could be a story.

for the jury to learn. So when we walk through this with the clients, I always look at, Hey, again, I’m big on visual aid. So most of the time I’ve heard something, you know, some ideas and that really kind of helps to start the conversation. But again, we have to remember the jury is the one who’s listening.

So let’s get some stories to help them understand and let’s look at work and go through that whole time period. Let’s look at your family. Let’s look at relationships. Is there any stress? Did things [00:11:00] have to change in the household? What about holidays, vacations, kind of that goes in our family block, and then also, you know, social life, outside of work, outside of family, things change, like what did you do before?

What is it after, right? So just kind of walking through to jog their memory through all those things and be able to, again, write out some stories and have some things ready for them when they get those questions, right? How has this affected you? From the top of your head to the bottom of your toe. What hurts?

What permanently can you not do? All these questions that can be a little bit stumping because again, they don’t talk about this way in normal conversation. People don’t ask a question like that. So it’s, can be a little bit jarring, but also in helping them organize their truth, you avoid kind of this large looming answer that most people want to give, which is Everything has changed, and that may be true, but it’s hard to understand from an [00:12:00] outside perspective.

It’s hard for a jury to understand everything, like everything. So very good to have stories to back up that big, broad statement. And what I normally find is once we go through this and we have this visual aid with All these different stories from different times, different pieces of their life. Then generally they can really say, wow, everything really has changed.

And wow, I have all this information, all this stuff that came from me to back it up. Right? And again, it’s just, there’s there’s. Power in the truth, and that’s all you’re doing. It’s just helping them see that and organize it for them. Also in this bucket of phase two organizing, we do some what I call nuts and bolts, which is we’ve got at some point look at just basically a medical timeline.

And I consider it a rough timeline because we’re just going through what they can remember, what they know, you know, ER, ambulance, primary care, orthopedic, surgery. It’s not super important for me [00:13:00] that they remember necessarily dates, but there may be key dates that they do remember, like their surgery, but I always find it’s really helpful for them to kind of refresh their memories again, because there’s going to have been a gap in time since they finished treatment and this deposition.

So we always just kind of like to refresh their memory, go through that. We know that’s going to be something that defense or the opposing counsel will always ask them about. And then other things that they may need help organizing would be if there’s any prior medical history. That’s going to be part of the deposition.

If there’s any large job or lost wage claims, or this is an employment case, like we know job history is going to be very important. So that is key to organize like any job history, maybe make a job timeline just to help. Again, we’re just trying to go through. Known places that they’re gonna get questions, that we just wanna help them refresh their memory, organize, and then hit any other areas that may just be helpful for them to refresh.

And again, we’re going back to that purpose of the deposition of gathering information. Wanna make sure that we refresh [00:14:00] all memory when that question comes. They may not remember, or they may, because again, we’ve worked really hard to refresh memory and and organize responses for questions. A lot of this organizing and making sure you can see what the targets are, looking at what are their damages is part of the lawyer preparation, right?

So we talk about that in episode 11, doing a memo for you to get ready. So you can see these targets, you can start kind of scoping things out, maybe making lists of questions. Also looking at stories just to be able to prompt them when you start to go through that. Damages section of organization and both of these places, right?

So looking at the targets, looking at the damages and kind of the nuts and bolts, the other things they need to know about medically, you got to remember it’s so key. One of the most important places, important things. You’ve got to use the client’s words. [00:15:00] Do not change it, like resist trying to say like, well, this is going to sound just a little bit better.

Like, let me just, let me just like, we need to just move things around or maybe just say it this way. You may need to help them simplify it. Most of the time people want to give like a two sentence long answer when one would be. Just as good, just as powerful. But a lot of times what I hear, a lot of feedback that I get, and even in my own doing the testimony prep, you’ve got to resist the urge to craft it, right?

To change it, to make it sound better, to make it answer the question more clearly. And this goes back to that, Hey, this is that tough point. We’re going to have to accept people as they are because again, it’s the juries, the backstop here, right? Not you. Not the other lawyer. Thank goodness, right? Not lawyers don’t decide.

That’s what I always say. And there’s two main reasons why. One is they’re not gonna remember it. You’re changing what’s already in their mind. They’re not gonna remember [00:16:00] your words, right? If they do remember their words, it’s gonna sound really scripted and that’s not what you want either because an authentic witness is a powerful witness.

And that is what’s going to be more important to sending a message to the people who are making the decisions. Whether it be the decision makers, the defense counsel, the insurance company, or ultimately the jury, right? Because they’re going to be able to smell a rat just like the rest of us can. And that’s not what we want, right?

This is the client’s case. You know, our job is again, organized. That’s why the title of phase two is organizing, right? That’s what we want to do. And as long as you resist the urge to write your own words or put it in your own spin on it, things will go much smoother in the deposition because you aren’t going to be frustrated when they’re not using your words.

You’re not going to be upset with them for not remembering that. It was never in their minds that way to begin with. And you may have a lot of people that come to you and say, Tell me what [00:17:00] to say. Well, a lot of times you just tell me what to say. It’s like, well, yeah, it doesn’t really work that way. And thank goodness , because we all seen those depositions, right?

Where it’s like, oh, they just, you totally told ’em what to say the whole time. And you can tell, it doesn’t take a mastermind to figure it out. So keep that in mind as you’re organizing and walking through this step that you wanna use. The client’s words, write down exactly what they say. Don’t try to shape it.

All right. Awesome. So I appreciate your tuning in today to episode 15. And if you’ll catch me next episode in 16, we will close out this series with phase three testing. All right. Thank you so much for joining me today for this episode. If you enjoyed it, please follow us on your favorite podcast app, rate, review us, and share us with somebody who thinks they need to hear this episode.

Thank you so [00:18:00] much.