Author: elarrickbrand

As lawyers, we can sometimes get sucked into our cases. Once we bring a case in the door, we start doing research, investigating, and bringing in all the facts and details. We bury ourselves with all of this information that we can get a little lost at times. 

As you’re preparing cases, remember, a focus group is a great system you can set up to prepare for any kind of claim, whether it’s a medical malpractice case, a premises case, or a car wreck case. Once you’ve learned the nuances of setting up focus groups, it will give you the clarity, certainty, and confidence you need. 

Now, there has been this big missing block of information about what a focus group is and how it works. Most of the time, what trial lawyers automatically think about when talking about focus groups are the adversarial mock trial groups. Those are great focus groups but it takes a lot of time and energy to put those together. Well, I prefer to do the smaller ones because they’re easier to manage and it’s also a great way to gather information before having to do one of the larger adversarial mock focus groups. 

In this episode, I’m going to discuss the basics of focus groups as well as what you should be expecting from future episodes as we get down to the nitty-gritty of how to set up focus groups. The goal is to provide you with a how-to guide so you can start running your own focus groups, or improve your focus group skills, if you’re doing them already. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• What is a focus group?
• What a virtual focus group looks like
• Confidentiality forms for everyone’s protection
• What you get from focus groups: clarity, certainty, and confidence
• Running multiple focus groups
• Different styles of presenting information
• The importance of planting good questions
• More details about focus groups that you can expect from future episodes

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Episode Transcript:

Now here’s Elizabeth. Hello and welcome. This is Elizabeth Larrick and you’re listening to an episode of Trial Lawyer [00:01:00] Prep. This podcast is designed and created for trial lawyers working with difficult clients. problematic cases and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial. The goal of this podcast is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom.

In this episode, we’re going to be talking about Focus groups and getting a little bit in depth with focus groups, but also kind of laying out what you can expect in this podcast about episodes that will go into detail about specifics on focus groups. We will talk a lot about focus groups. And so my goal is to always provide you a how to, how can you take this back and start running your own focus groups or improve your focus group skills.

So, without any further ado, let’s talk a little bit about what is a focus group. Many times we hear presentations, CLE [00:02:00] webinars about really large cases or even decent sized cases and trials where they talk about, Oh, well, we learned about this in a focus group or focus groups told us that we shouldn’t use this word.

And that’s really helpful to know that’s where they got the information, but there’s generally big missing block of information about what it is, what is it, what is a focus group and how are you doing it and all these kinds of questions that always pop up in my mind. And I started out focus groups learning from Mr.

Keenan and my year that I spent with his law firm and doing different trials of different types of cases. And What we found, or rather, I should say my drawback, my conclusion from that was, wow, this is a really great system that can go with any kind of claim. So we had a medical malpractice case, a premises case, and then a car wreck case.

All of which had different facets and different [00:03:00] facts and those kinds of things, but using focus groups to really continue to prepare the case. So that’s kind of my background on focus groups and just kind of jumping in at the ground level and then after that time really building on that information.

I taught focus groups in the Kenan Trial Institute for a little while and then of course been running them myself in my law firm. Let’s just talk from a very basic level. What is a focus group? Well, focus group is where you’re going to get. eight, 10, sometimes 12 people together in a room, you’re going to show them a presentation and then you’re going to ask questions.

The variety of ways to run a focus group. There’s just tons of ways to do it, but from a most basic level, you’re getting a span of people together. And you’re just putting something in front of them and asking them really basic questions and just getting their opinions, their feedback, what is it that they see, you know, what questions pop up in their mind, [00:04:00] where’s their confusion.

And most of the time, you know, these folks are just going to give you what they see and what they hear. They’re going to give you some really great feedback on maybe things that you’re not seeing. Maybe they’re going to confirm things that you believe. But they’re mainly going to give it back to you with the way that they see it, their point of view.

Which is super helpful when we’re preparing cases. We don’t really want to get lost. We want to make sure we’re always keeping that front and center when we’re preparing a case. And focus groups do a great job of bringing you back and using those along the way. We also with focus groups can run them in person where we had the pandemic, all of my focus groups were in person once the pandemic hits transitioning for me and my business in the way that I do focus groups, moving them to virtual, which was a mental challenge on one hand, but also a learning curve, just having to learn that.

way of doing it, that style, the different trade offs that [00:05:00] come when you’re virtual versus in person. I still love the virtual format and right now, hopefully we’ll get back to doing some in person focus groups in the few months to come. But of course, always putting health and safety first. Virtual, using the zoom to get people together in person, using, you know, a large conference room to get people together.

But she always wanted making sure you’re recording everything and that way you can go back and watch it again. You know, you want to preserve the things that they’re saying and feedback they’re having. As we always happen sometimes with cases, we get started, we maybe run a folks group, a couple months go by, and you get back into the case and you forgot what they said.

So always recording things to help remember and go back and refresh your memory. And just really simple things, confidentiality forms, making sure we’re. Staying, confidentiality forms to keep everybody protected. These are real cases and live people. And you just want to make sure that folks are aware that [00:06:00] if they do get called for jury service and they do hear the case, that they could go ahead and raise their hand and stand up and have a conference with the judge and let them know.

And of course, for your purposes of being a lawyer and running these things, it’s pretty important for your client as well to have that confidentiality protection. So you run the focus group, meaning you present your presentation, you ask the questions, you record everything, and then what do you get? This is probably one of the biggest questions that I get about focus groups.

What do you get? What can you get? We talked about clarity, certainty, and confidence. So let’s talk a little bit about those really quickly. And more importantly, why, what brings you to doing a focus group? For me personally, it’s just, I can get stumped. Maybe there’s an unusual set of facts or maybe there’s an unusual claim.

That I’m just not really certain of or really what people may think about a particular piece of the [00:07:00] case or I’m running up against the case and I’m getting a lot of pushback from the other side And I’m just wondering am I missing something? What is it that I I’m not saying focus groups will help you with that, right?

So clarity with focus groups, we can sometimes as lawyers get sucked in to our case, bring a case in the door and start doing research and start investigating and looking at background stuff and bringing in all these details and these facts and just bury ourselves with all of this information. We can kind of get a little lost at times and that’s where focus groups will help with the clarity and.

Simplicity. And they’ll just give it to you simply. You give them a whole heap of facts and they’ll just give it back to you what they think is the most simple explanation or the simple way to describe things. That’s so helpful. I think as far as when we think about trial presentation or even mediation presentation or even motion practice, if you can [00:08:00] really.

clarity and be able to simply state what your case is about in two sentences. It’s really helpful for the judge and the opposing counsel and anybody else who’s coming in to the case as either a player or as somebody who’s going to be coming in either as a mediator as well. The other thing that focus groups can really help you with is certainty.

A lot of times we come across new sets of facts or things that people We haven’t encountered before, or for me, a different set of facts that I haven’t encountered before, and it’s causing me a little bit of uncertainty. And doubt is really where the opposing side always loves to wiggle in there and just create more and more doubt for you about what your case is, and how much it’s worth, and what your client is going to be like in front of the jury, and Running focus groups will give you that certainty and I say focus groups because it takes more than one.

A lot of times people say, well, I’ll just run one and I’ll be done and sometimes that works. I mean, [00:09:00] rarely that works because you see they’ll give something back to you. It will give you a piece of feedback and then you’re like, wow, well, if they make this change, is that what they need? Is that what they want?

Is that going to. Really make things better for me. And most of the time you want to run one more focus group just to, again, give that certainty, make sure that what you’re thinking is lining up with their point of view. And so more than one is always very helpful. Two, three, four. Wonderful. When you get up, we’re running multiple focus groups.

You really have to take a pretty structured approach about what you’re doing, watching the research that you’re getting, recording the data to make sure that you’re moving the needle. Wonderful. And you’re either giving yourself some certainty, getting clarity on presentation, other parts of the cases, because at times you can just keep running them to run them.

And sometimes that is what happened to me. Focus groups are a little bit second nature to me and I have a case in house that it’s stumping [00:10:00] me or I just can’t quite. Seem to get the confidence that I need. And so I’ve run four or five or six focus groups on the case when in reality, that’s probably a little cost prohibitive given the case, but it’s giving me the ability now looking back the learning focus groups more, but also having that moment now.

Wait a minute. I really need to, if I’m going to run multiple focus groups, let’s have a good plan here. Let’s measure what we’re doing and making sure that we’re being cost effective, we’re learning from these focus groups, and we’re moving the case forward and preparing it correctly. All that to be said, once you run focus groups, you’re really going to gain a lot more confidence in your case because you’re going to learn more about it.

We learn a lot as far as lawyers taking depositions and learning more facts and gathering more information and focus groups, they’re taking all that information and then they process it and give it back to you. That’s a new point of view that you’re getting. And so that to me always helps me give [00:11:00] me some confidence.

I’m on the right track. I’m not on the right track. It also gives me a lot of confidence in my presentation skills. in speaking to people and talking to complete strangers. One of the nice things about focus groups is you really learn to listen. You really learn how to ask questions well, and those skills really help.

When it comes to depositions, when it comes to picking a jury, when it comes to talking to clients, so helpful. And those are skills that really need to be done kind of in a trial and error, live situation. And that’s really what focus groups are. And so you get a lot of confidence in your case, but you also get a lot of confidence in the skills that you’re building along the way.

And you see how that transforms as you continue to focus groups. and how you’re able to speak to people, listen, and ask questions, and then be able to pinpoint things as well. Once you [00:12:00] get clarity and certainty and confidence, what does that mean for the actual case? Well, like we talked about, or like I talked about a little bit ago, sometimes you learn about the way that you’re putting the case together is confusing, or you’re including all these extra facts that you don’t really need.

Or maybe you’re missing facts that you really need. For example, having run several, several, several, several focus groups on car wrecks. Number one questions we always get if we don’t include in the presentation was the person wearing their seatbelt. Were there any drug or alcohol involved with any driver?

What was the weather like? Very important factors for people. And we’re getting things worked up and we may just look over those really simple facts, but Those are really big pieces of information that they want to know. If you don’t answer those questions, they may answer them for themselves, or they’re just going to be a hole that they’re going to wonder about, and generally when they wonder, they make the assumption against you.

[00:13:00] So, those are kind of some of those things that you start to learn and see presentation wise, and how to fill those gaps in your case. And then you can always go back. For example, sometimes we have a presentation where it’s an opening statement, and we run the opening statement more than once or twice, three times.

And again, they’re going to give feedback on what they understand, what they don’t understand, questions that they need to have answered in the opening statement. And those are great ones that are short, quick, and easy to keep doing, tweaking things to make sure you’re hitting the ball just like they want it.

Sometimes that’s what we have to do. Also, we talk about focus groups and. How do you get this information? I learned a lot about focus groups before I started. I went to seminars, books, and I really had this huge hesitation of just jumping in and that’s where I worked in an office where I was able to watch and observe and then when I worked with the Keenan Law Firm, you just basically, you know, Thrown in.

Like, we’re doing [00:14:00] this. You’re doing this. So, that’s sometimes what’s a little bit like, we’re kind of, as trial lawyers, can be a little bit risk averse because we’re worried about, well, how do we do it? And in my mind, when I think about focus groups, I get really excited because you get to be so creative.

There’s no perfect set way or style to do one. Most of the time when trial lawyers think about focus groups, we automatically think about the adversarial mock. focus group, the mock trial, where you’re putting it all out there and you have witnesses and you got a judge in there sometimes. And those are great focus groups and they take a lot of time and energy to put together.

I prefer to do some of the smaller ones because I think it’s a little bit easier to manage as a solo to be able to do some of the smaller ones. But I also think you can set them up style wise and get really good information before you have to do kind of one little larger adversarial mock focus groups ones.

And so we talk about styles, we’re really talking about ways of [00:15:00] presenting information. And we kind of already talked about doing opening statements. That’s a style. Just put your opening statement out there and ask questions. Or maybe just got a case that came in the door and you’re just going to give really quick snapshot of the facts and ask them what they think.

That’s the nice thing about focus groups when you’re doing it kind of in a free form style of, Hey, What is it that we want to learn? What’s the goal of the focus group? That’s where I always start when I’m planning. What’s my goal? What is it that I need to learn? What is it that I need to know? And what am I getting ready for?

Am I preparing for a deposition? Am I preparing for mediation? Am I preparing to file the case? My preparing for discovery. Okay. So all those things go into the planning of it and then creating that presentation style. Then of course creating the questions. Sometimes those questions are even more important than the presentation because you really want to make sure you’re planting good questions.

You’re asking good questions. Sometimes [00:16:00] just getting out of the way as well, depending on how. Talkative your group may be. There’s a lot of freedom. There’s a lot of movement and being able to set up focus groups and create different presentation styles. And that also gives you the ability to do shorter focus groups, meaning if you have one or two issues to do, maybe all you need is 30, 45 minutes.

Maybe you just need an hour. Maybe you’ve got kind of a little more complicated of an issue and you need to give more facts. The presentation needs to be longer. So maybe it needs to be an hour, two hours. And that’s also kind of the flexibility of Being able to, if you’ve got a smaller end case, then try to figure out how to do one in 30 minutes.

And that way, when you set up a focus group, you’re really looking at doing 4, 5, 6 cases. Hey, that’s really cost efficient to get all that stuff done in just 3 hours or 4 hours. One of the things that we’ll talk a lot about in future episodes is looking at the nitty gritty of how to set up focus groups.

And we’ll talk about the Zoom, doing virtual [00:17:00] focus groups, doing in person focus groups. What goes into the logistics of gathering people. Setting up how to keep a database of people, checking to make sure these are the people that say they are. And then also talking about how to create presentations and how to ask questions and what questions to ask.

And sometimes we’re probably going to take a good episode and talk about the things that can sabotage a focus group. And when I say sabotage, it could be secretly done. So we’ll definitely want to make sure that we help you with the how to, but also to avoid some of the easy mistakes to slip into because we’re advocates by nature.

That’s why we got into this. We want to help people, we want to be advocates and zealously represent people. And we kind of take that hat off for focus groups. So we will spend some time talking about that. We’ll also look at types of focus groups and how to fit those into different types of cases. So you, maybe you could take one [00:18:00] style and modify it for all the different types of cases that you have in your caseload.

We’ll also look at maybe specific types of questions that go with the Specific types of issues. And then naturally, I always love to interview other lawyers who have used focus groups in cases and we’ll talk to them about how they’re using focus groups. What was the problem that they had? How many did they run?

Was something that stuck out to them? And maybe either, you know, a helpful tip about gathering people or tracking people or how to organize all the data that you get after you do a focus group. And of course, we’ll always talk about maybe how to use the information that you get to Afterwards and program that plug that into the case and then how to plan for the next focus group after you run one if you’re going to do a series of focus groups.

So we’ve got a lot of really fun information and dialogue about focus groups coming up in this podcast. I hope that in this [00:19:00] episode, we’re able to kind of lay some real basic foundation about what is a focus group? Why are we running these things? Getting out of our old point of view and into a new point of view.

Learning about how to present to your jurors, but also what are you getting out of these focus groups from a high level, clarity, confidence, and certainty, how to run these things. I mean, what is the style of these presentations, which in my mind can feel endless and exciting, but I also know that can be a fearful for folks who haven’t started.

So like I said, I always want to have in my mind, this podcast is really a how to. Take things that you learn and go plug them in and set it up and try one of these things out. So, as we get ready for future episodes, we’ll definitely keep things in mind about how to’s for setting up, how to for presenting, how to for questions, benefits of virtual focus groups, benefits of in person focus groups, [00:20:00] and upcoming interviews with lawyers who have used focus groups in cases and getting a little how to from their perspective.

Well, thanks so much for joining and I hope that you tune in for future episodes about focus groups. As you know, this podcast is new and shiny and all support is greatly appreciated. If you haven’t done so, please subscribe on the Apple podcast app, Google podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen, write a five star rating and review.

And if you could share this with other trial lawyers, you think would benefit. Thanks again.

Every case has a client and cases roll into litigation. This means there’s going to be a client deposition. This is a resource we have in every case. In this episode, we dive deeper into preparing your client for deposition, why this is important, and some of the things you can do to help your clients prepare better. 

Specifically, we’re breaking down deposition preparation into three large groups. We want to do the heavy lifting outside the conference room where the deposition will happen by spending enough time with our clients and having tough conversations about the case. 

Now, there’s a lot of different truth out there and people can paint their own truth (even if it’s not factually backed up). That’s why clients have to feel comfortable and understand what we mean when we say we want the truth and the truth will set you free. We want to focus on helping our clients tell the truth. 

That’s what deposition prep is all about. We want to make sure our clients are walking in with the right mindset and that they understand the right set of rules, what’s going to happen and why, and what everybody’s role is. We want to use the right tools and techniques to help them gain clarity of thought, thereby improving the trajectory of the case.

In this episode, you will hear:

• How I got into helping people with their deposition
• The benefits of spending time with your client in preparation for deposition 
• What happens when we prepare clients for deposition
• The mindset we want for our clients in regards to understanding the rules
• Tools and techniques you can use to refresh your client’s memory
• The power of roleplaying

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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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

Episode Transcript

Hello, Elizabeth Larrick here, and welcome everyone to this episode of Trial Lawyer Prep. This is a podcast for [00:01:00] trial lawyers with a focus on difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial.

This episode, we’re going to drive a little deeper into preparing your client for deposition and how important that is and some of the things that we can do to prepare better in order to help our clients. This is an area that I absolutely have a true passion for and it really developed early on in my career, probably a little bit out of necessity.

Starting out as a puppy lawyer, pretty much that was the area that I was allowed to start off with, helping clients prepare for deposition but actually sitting with them as they go in to be deposed. I didn’t have a ton of guidance other than spend 30 minutes with them, go over documents in the case, and that’s pretty much what we do.

So I go in and I sit down with a client and we go through the experience and they come out mad and frustrated and I’m a little bit [00:02:00] bewildered because I’m thinking there’s got to be a better way to do this. I mean, think about it. Every case. So if there is a drain that is pooling and there are a few cases where their own unit has a client and cases are rolling into litigation and so that means there’s going to be a client deposition.

This is a resource we have in every case. So I’m bumming along. I feel like I’m striking out, not really helping these folks get ready for deposition, but these are not my issues. Total bombs. These are just inconveniences and things that aren’t really helping the case. So I find myself in a seminar and I’m there for depositions to polish up, learn the ways of how to take a deposition.

And during that time, I got pulled up on stage doing a role play. And this is when I met Mr. Don Keenan. He told me about this preparation template. And there were these DVDs you could buy and you could watch them. And I thought, great. So I immersed myself in these DVDs. There were nine hours of deposition prep.

Sometimes we have those DVDs [00:03:00] out there that give to a client, Hey, take this home, watch this. And it’s, this is a depo. And sometimes they show a few things, a lot of do’s and don’ts. This was actually nine hours of real preparation of different cases, different clients, super helpful. It’s more like. Watch this and gather what you can.

I did. And I really gathered up as much as I possibly could. And Mr. Keenan was super helpful in teaching me and continue to teach me in that. And that’s actually one of the things that I do with Keenan Trial Institute is teach witness preparation to other lawyers. But getting back to my story is that I take this back and I start using it with clients and I love it because they came out so much more confident, so much better.

They felt better about what happened. And I couldn’t quite see it at the time, but The things they were doing were helping the case. They really were. And so it was really helpful. And that’s just one of the things that I have [00:04:00] done is just keep doing this hours and hours and hours of sitting with people, learning new ways to talk to people.

And the skills that I learned from preparing people, the listening skills that I gathered, the ways to communicate with people, really went so far to help me with the rest of the areas of my practice as I got along in years and. saw things and again, I’ve always done plaintiff’s personal injury work. And so my eyes always are kind of fixed on what that model looks like.

Case comes in, sometimes it’s just happened, sometimes it hasn’t, but litigation and going through that process. But you know, most cases actually settle, they don’t make it into the courtroom. So a lot of the judgment of the case comes from deposition testimony. That’s why we as lawyers work really hard to take good depos, but we don’t always focus on preparing clients better for depos.

One of the things that opened my eyes was clients are really the [00:05:00] number one target. And a deposition is that place where it’s open season. They’re getting to talk directly to your client. There’s really not much you can do as far as helping guide the conversation. It sometimes can be difficult to sit through and there are a few things that So basically, there’s a bunch of different, you know, types of rules that are available as far as the rules, but what we really want to do is do that prevention work, do that preparation work.

And that’s what we do. And a lot of what we’ll talk about in this podcast is kind of take things apart as far as the differences and how we prepare them. What are the different facets of it? How does that translate into the case? How does that translate into the relationship that you have with your client?

But really what I want to look at today in this episode is breaking down a little bit of the preparation into three large groups. Also tag lining a few things along the way on our roadmap so that when we come back later on to really dive into client [00:06:00] testimony for deposition, we really can jump into those smaller areas of the roadmap.

Let’s talk a little bit about mindset for the client. They come in, they’re really not understanding 100 percent what happens. We live it, we breathe it every day. We know what’s going to happen next, what the questions are going to be like. And it’s really important for us as lawyers to understand What they think but how they think as well because that is really where there’s a big exploitation when it comes from defense council Asking questions and really being able to exploit false Assumptions that some clients have I would say probably one of the biggest false assumptions that I’ve heard clients can have is that we, as the lawyer representing them, can stop what’s going on, stop questions, or deflect questions away from them so they don’t have to answer things.

Because well, of [00:07:00] course, why not? That’s what they hired us for. That’s what they want is someone to be their advocate, to speak for them. This is the system that I work in as a lawyer every day, and not necessarily you, client. It’s sometimes really, really small things like that That can significantly help a client’s performance because once they grasp that, that’s not how it works.

It’s a question and answer. And my lawyer is just going to sit on the sidelines. And there are lots of different trains of thoughts about how some people prefer to be more aggressive, and some people prefer to talk along with the client. But my train of thought has always been Let’s do the heavy lifting outside the conference room where the deposition happens.

Let’s spend the time, spend the hours really diving into and making sure we’re having these tough conversations about the case, but also just these false assumption conversations to make sure we’re really walking in with the right set of rules [00:08:00] and the right set of expectations about what’s going to happen and what’s the purpose and what everybody’s role is.

Thanks. So we spend a lot of time talking to the client. I spend a lot of time talking to them about what they think and what they expect. And a lot of times what I hear is, well, I don’t know what to expect because I don’t know what I don’t know. But they do gather so much of our experience. If you think, Oh, well, my life experience is really limited only to what I have physically experienced.

That’s so not true. We gather experience from watching movies and reading magazines and the things that we’re exposed to that goes into our experience bank. So when clients tell me, well, I don’t know what I don’t know, but you do because you’ve been exposed to TV or movies or somewhere in there, some kind of impression, even just about lawyers that I want to know about.

Cause what if it’s negative or what if it’s totally a myth? Let’s get everybody on the right foot before we move forward, because that will [00:09:00] really get us in a good place to jump off from, because you don’t want to be coming in from behind trying to correct things along the way, because that causes more confusion.

So it’s kind of like playing a game. You know, if you’re going to play a game, you want to know what all the rules are and where everybody goes and what the whole target is. So setting the rules of the game correctly and making sure they understand just the roles people play, the rules. But sometimes also, what is it we’re really doing here?

What is the purpose? And what happens with this depo itself? Those are really helpful things to also help the client understand. One of the things that always comes up as well when we sit down for deposition is I always get so many more questions about the case itself. It’s almost like sometimes they kind of store it all up.

We may call and check in and how’s everything going and you know, we’re gathering things up for the case and they don’t always express those questions in those moments and I think it’s a lot [00:10:00] to do with focus. The deposition now brings the case, the lawsuit, very into focus for them. It is in the forefront.

It is now something that they must look at and deal with. And so all these questions pop up and I prefer to get all those out of the way again, before we kind of get down to the nitty gritty about the deposition, I just don’t want anyone to have any loose thoughts out there about what’s going to happen.

If they are having doubts about their case or worries about different things inside the case. Let’s handle those two before we jump into the nitty gritty. You don’t want to have any worry or naggy things out there. So that’s another thing that I always end up taking care of loosens if you will. One of the things that I like to do as well with prep is once we get things rolling, we’ve answered a lot of questions.

We’ve got our good mindset. We know what our rules are. We talk about lots of different tools and tricks to use to refresh their memory. I practice here in Texas a lot, but I do help folks across the U. S. in different places. And what I have found is there’s [00:11:00] one really pretty universal thing, which is time.

It takes a long time that the date of their injury until they have a deposition, I mean, two years, three years, sometimes people even are waiting four years and that’s not necessarily because of the faults of the lawyer. Sometimes that’s just the court system that we work in. It just takes a little bit more time.

In that time, memory fades. It’s totally natural for that to happen. So I try to use some different tools, visualization techniques where we’re writing on these giant notepads or if we’re on zoom or use share screen to write down what they’ve got and visualize it. Sometimes people, they don’t do that.

This is not something that they sit down and think a lot about. It’s a massive event that happened to them. And even if we’re not talking about personal injury, let’s just talk about business or even family law. These are huge life events that have brought them here and they don’t really spend a ton of time organizing their thoughts or organizing their [00:12:00] memory when it comes to that.

So this again is a great place for us to do that. It’s a Perfect opportunity. This deposition is bringing everything into focus. So let’s do this work with them because refreshing that memory, going over these things, organizing them in a fashion that meets with what the questions will be will make it significantly easier inside the deposition, but clarity.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks sometimes for clients is clarity of thought. They get in the deposition and they’re trying to remember things. They really want to answer these questions correctly. They really want to try, but they haven’t thought about it. So they’re just scraping through to try and figure it out.

And then there’s a lot of energy that comes into that memory recall and. Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not. Let’s do all that before we get into the deposition. Part of that comes with reviewing documents, but a large part of depositions don’t have anything to do with documents. And even if I were taking a deposition as a lawyer, I would want to know what’s in their memory versus them [00:13:00] looking at documents to try and refresh your memory.

So lots of different ways we can help them organize their files. facts, right, by using some tools. And the third big part of helping a client prepare for deposition testimony would be role play. This is a great tool that tons of people are using. Totally encourage you to keep using it. There’s so many fantastic ways to use it.

One of the ways that I love to do it, and now that we have Zoom and so many people are like, Oh yeah, Zoom’s so easy. It’s super easy for me to jump in and help somebody do a role play. We do a short and sweet and 30 minutes and we just hit the hard stuff. And then I hand the client back over or hand the person back over to their lawyer.

But having that experience. Uh, and um, uh, indirect, indirect indirect, uh, direct largest, uh, um, uh, uh, small, Um, and uh, uh, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s easy. It’s very easy [00:14:00] to go to a legal aid company and say, here’s how I’m going to treat, here’s Testimony Then I’m going to go after that because role play really is to put the pressure on, give them a true look at what that deposition is going to be.

And if you do role play, that’s just the simple stuff that really creates false confidence because if things don’t match up, they get in a deposition and things are just not matching up. It’s so much harder. And all of a sudden it’s a surprise. We really, really don’t want surprises because then that’s when you start to really try to find answers.

And sometimes you may create answers and we never want anyone to create an answer anywhere. So role play can be super helpful in creating that. Very short, like I said, 30 minutes snapshot of really, really difficult questions about the case. And role play also [00:15:00] really gives you a good idea as the lawyer about how clients react under pressure.

How are they going to deal with this person who is asking a really hard personal question, But maybe their tone is just really flat. They just really don’t care. They’re just reading a question off a piece of paper. That’s hard. Emotionally, we want to have an exchange. It’s a conversation. And when there’s not emotional feedback, you have to really rely on yourself and feel really confident in yourself to keep going, keep answering that question.

That’s a good look when we’re doing role plays to practice that look of a lawyer asking questions, being very flat, very blank or questions where maybe there is a little bit of tone in there. That’s great. We want to practice all those different things. If we really want to gear up how we’re using role play, we’ll do research and we’ll go find depositions and actually pull questions and put it in front of the client so that we’re making sure that [00:16:00] they feel comfortable with those questions.

We always want the truth. That’s one thing I don’t ever want anyone to feel like we’re trying to pull you away from the truth or from the wonderful thing that the truth is. However, just arming your client with advice. Just tell the truth. In these days, Truth is kind of a little bit unethical because the way that we work now, there’s a lot of different truth out there and people can paint their own truth, even if it’s not perfect.

Factually backed up . That’s not how the legal system works. And we really wanna make sure that our clients are comfortable and they understand what we mean when we say we want the truth and what it means when the truth will set you free. And that’s great. We, that’s what we really wanna focus on, is helping them tell the truth, and that’s what deposition Prep is about, helping.

A lot. Like we talked about first, let’s get the rules out there. Let’s talk about the mindset. What do they understand and how do they understand it? Let’s [00:17:00] use some tools to refresh their memory and go through different pieces of stuff that it’s been a couple of years. Let’s refresh that stuff, get it back out there.

And then also let’s use role play as a fantastic tool to give them an idea about what it’s going to be like when it is game time. These are really broad overviews of a way to prepare somebody, but what do we gain if we spend this time, right? One of the things I always like to do is have my preparation time with my clients over at least two different days because what I have found Um, and so what we’ve found is once we start to rummage back through that memory and pull things back out, so much more starts to unpack and so much more starts to unfold.

And it’s such a great process. And you lose that if you just do everything in one day, because having that reflection time really helps the client be able to pull things out, analyze it. Like we talked about, visualize it with some lists or even just putting it up so they can see, you [00:18:00] know, really what it is.

That happened during that time frame and how it really impacted them. So we take this time, we spend the hours, maybe it’s two separate days, maybe ends up having to be three days, just depending on scheduling. And what is the benefit? Clients are in every case, deposition of our client happens in pretty much every case.

What do we get when we spend this amount of time with our clients? Well, one is they’re going to have clarity of purpose, clarity of thought. They’re going to have testimony that’s not confusing, that’s clear. And they’re not going to remember everything, but they’re going to have so much more at their front of their minds to be able to access to answer questions.

You’re going to find that another benefit is they really step into the shoes of telling what’s happened and feeling empowered to speak up for themselves. That is such a valuable benefit because [00:19:00] most lawyers are not expecting clients to come in there and knock it out of the park. They’re expecting people to do the usual, I don’t know, I don’t remember, this is what I know.

Your person’s at fault, or I didn’t do this, or whatever the question may be. They’re not expecting people to come in and explain and have stories and examples of what happened or have details about different things because they refresh, they sat back down and they went back through that step by step.

What happened? That means when it’s in black and white, it goes into that memo, into that report and over to that decision maker, whoever that may be in the case. Maybe it’s insurance carrier. Maybe it’s somebody else in the firm, but it’s there and it can’t be ignored. And that’s a huge benefit to the case because you always want to have a client who is a strong advocate for themselves.

I hear some cautioning voices out there like not too strong. You know, we want people to be steady as she goes. And of course, that’s one of the things, too, we really talk about is how to [00:20:00] manage our emotions when we’re in a deposition because a lot of people really worry about their emotions getting the best of them, whether it be anger or whether it be sadness and tears.

That’s another one of those things that could be a surprise if people don’t talk about it and get it out. Have it in the prep room, you know, have that safe space there versus in that deposition and somebody’s caught off guard. So these benefits of talking with your client, spending this amount of time, one of the things that I have seen is the relationship you have with your client has just gone to a whole new level.

And the amount of trust and bonding that happens is so significant that months may go by and you guys have to make a difficult decision in the case. Maybe it’s settlement. Maybe it’s trial. Maybe it’s making decisions about who will testify and who won’t and that trust. That bond comes back and they get it.

They understand and they trust you as a lawyer to make that decision because they know that you have their best interest at [00:21:00] heart. You spent so much time to know their heart that they totally trust you to make the decision that’s best for the case and for them and most of the time their family. We have this amazing opportunity in every case to spend time on a deeper level, getting ready for deposition.

I really encourage everybody to take a deeper stab at it. Some of the things that, some of the skills that have really come from my preparation work is listening. I’m a way better listener. Taking a pause before I interject my thought. Digging deeper on a thought. Asking someone to tell me a little more, how do you re say that, has really, leaps and bounds, helped me in every other facet of what I do, especially.

And trial work, talking to a jury, or even talking to somebody on the stand, talking to defendants, taking other depositions, has significantly helped me, and at the same time, I get the experience of all those wonderful people that I’ve helped and [00:22:00] prepared, and their lives, and the things that they’ve gone through have definitely become a repertoire of experience that I have as well, so that’s definitely helped me as far as, talking to other people, talking to strangers, talking in focus groups to people I have no idea who they are, what their background is.

It makes you so much more curious and that’s one of the things you’ll probably hear me talk a lot about is let’s be curious first. Let’s not jump to a conclusion. Let’s not jump to assumptions about people. Let’s just be curious and let’s ask questions and try to understand a little bit better before we maybe jump to an assumption about, Oh, they have this belief or, Oh, they’re not telling the truth about this particular thing.

Let’s just get to the bottom of it and understand a little bit more before we come to a conclusion or, or make a judgment about something. So we’ve talked a lot about deposition preparation. We talked about mindset, but And talked about having some tools to help organize and to refresh memory plus role play.

And we’ll take each of those topics separately in [00:23:00] different episodes, but I just want to give a larger overview about client deposition. Now, if there’s something that you have a particular question about, or maybe you’re struggling with a particular client, like please, uh, shoot us a note, shoot me an email and we’ll make sure that we cover it in episode.

But for now, thank you so much for tuning in. I will catch you on the flip side, as you know, this is a brand new podcast and I would love if you could follow me on your favorite app, whether it be Apple or Google or wherever you listen to podcasts, write a review or leave a five star rating. Also, if you could share this with your lawyer friends, that would be great.

Awesome. Thank you.

In this episode, we are going to dive a little deeper into what this podcast is about and how it will serve you. 

As a solo practitioner, it can be difficult to actively talk to your audience while getting legal work done. Part of a lawyer’s work is to write extensively (think emails, letters, motions, briefs, etc). By the time you’re writing a marketing piece such as a blog for your website or a marketing email, you’re pretty well spent. Plus, the tone is a little different. 

I tried to hire folks to do copywriting but it never really sounded authentic to me or to the voice that I wanted. I started blogging which was great but, again, I was struggling with consistency. This went on until my friend, Ernie, suggested I start a podcast. 

Being someone who loves listening to podcasts, I thought podcasting would be a great platform to deliver short, digestible information and practical ethical tips to help you with case preparation. At the end of the day, my goal is to help you get connected with your client and jury by polishing up your skills for the courtroom. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Podcasting vs. blogging
• What to expect from this podcast
• The kinds of topics we will cover
• Types of interviews and guests that will be in our future episodes

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

Law Firm Autopilot with Ernie

Episode Transcript:

Hello, Elizabeth Larrick here, and welcome everyone to this episode of Trial Lawyer Prep.

This is a podcast for trial lawyers with a focus on difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial. This episode, we are going to dive a little deeper into what this [00:01:00] podcast is about and how it will serve you. I wanted to start a podcast for a few years, but I never seemed to get the idea very clear about what I wanted to talk about or really what I wanted to do.

And things came into a little bit clearer picture for me when I talked with another attorney, Ernie, the attorney who runs law firm autopilot podcast. Ernie and I had a great discussion about the difficulty as a solo practitioner to actively talk to our audience, but also get legal work done. As lawyers, we write extensively in our work.

Think emails, letters, motions, briefs. By the time it comes down to writing a marketing piece or a blog for your website or marketing email, you’re pretty well spent. Plus the tone and the audience is a little different. And again, as a solo, I tried to hire folks to do copywriting, but it never really sounded authentic to me or to the voice that [00:02:00] I wanted.

So I started blogging, which was great, but again, I was having a difficult time being consistent. Then here comes Ernie. Why not do a podcast? Aha. Yes. Thank you, Ernie. For me, learning is second nature. If I’m not learning something, I feel like I’m behind and I personally love the podcast format for me. As far as listening, I really enjoy reading and attending webinars and seminars, but time wise I can find it hard to squeeze all those in.

So I gravitated towards podcasts when I drive for my daily commute, short, digestible, just enough information to be dangerous, but unlike a blog, I never was a blog reader. I never really. Got into that, mostly books is what I read. So podcasting seemed like a really natural fit for me. So I want to say a big thank you to Ernie for this great idea.

So I got my idea, but really wanted to understand why, why start this [00:03:00] podcast? This idea of. Spreading really applicable how to ideas to other lawyers who are struggling with difficult cases. And it just came back to me as a solo, what do I do to find out information? How do I solve a problem in a case that, you know, at the time we kind of get sucked into this like.

It’s psychosis of thinking we’re the only ones with this super unique problem. But generally somebody out there probably had this problem before, but how do we find that answer? And most of the time seminars are great, but they focus on kind of bigger projects or bigger ideas. Sometimes they only focus on the law, not really application.

So here is this podcast to help with applicable. Practice tips for cases, there are tools that I use, most of these tools are because I had to figure out a way to do them myself so that I could save money and couldn’t necessarily hire somebody, but it was also working up difficult cases, cases that other folks necessarily didn’t [00:04:00] take.

But I took. And so I really want to have applicable, hands on, how to conversations with other trial lawyers. And so that’s what we’re going to try and do in this podcast. Specifically, we’re going to be looking at tools for testimony, case strategy, focus groups, analyzing jurors, trial tactics. But I always want to mix in conversations with other trial lawyers who’ve actually used these methods in cases and saw success.

We always want to keep our goal in mind to be connected with your client and connected with the jury, but polishing up our skills for the courtroom. So what can you expect? In this podcast, we’ll be doing some episodes on individual tools to improve case preparation, thinking about how to use focus groups, different focus groups, styles, when to run focus groups, looking at our client.

How can we help them prepare better? How can we get them ready for mediation for trial? [00:05:00] Also just. The long term when it comes to dealing with clients in cases that generally stretch longer than we ever anticipate, especially now in our post COVID era, things are very delayed. Also how to on case strategy, developing a plan early.

How to implement that plan along the way. We’ll also have episodes with interviews from trial lawyers who prepared tough cases and had tough trials and how they’re using things and what worked for them, what didn’t work for them. The focus is always going to be to be behind the scenes, to see the way the sausage is made.

And also of course, being open to any questions and topics that You, the listener want to hear. We’ll also have episodes containing interviews with professionals that assist trial lawyers. And there’s a lot of professionals out there that really help trial lawyers in a variety of ways. And we’re not really talking about expert witnesses.

We’re really going to be talking about folks who have developed businesses to help [00:06:00] trial lawyers perform their best in the courtroom. These could be professionals who specialize in visuals. To visually communicate to the jury or the judge, or sometimes even that insurance adjuster. Professionals who specialize in speech and voice.

Again, to hone those communication skills for any kind of case event you may have. Not just trial, but mediation, even vital motions, or hearings are super important with how we communicate. But again, all the goal of our episodes to provide practical, applicable tips for case preparation. At this point, a rising tide lifts all boats.

We’re in this to get better. A part of what I do on a daily basis is serve my legal community, either through volunteering with trial or association or a teaching with Kennan Trial Institute, and that’s just what we want to do with this podcast is pass these things along to you and also bring any episodes to you that you want to hear from.

I appreciate you listening. Thanks again. As always, this is a bright and shiny new [00:07:00] show. So if you could subscribe on your favorite podcast app, Apple, Google, Spotify, or wherever you listen, write a five star rating, maybe review, leave me a question, or as always, share it with your lawyer friends who you know, who may be struggling with something specific or with better ways to prepare.

Thanks again.

What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants, ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively, and then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success? 

That’s what we do here each week on Trial Lawyer Prep. This is a podcast for trial lawyers with a focus on difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial. Every episode is 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. 

Our goal is to help you connect with juries and clients so you can improve your abilities in the courtroom. This podcast is going to be about preparing cases step-by-step while always keeping an eye on the jury trial. 

We will be giving you the tools, strategies, tips, and techniques in preparing cases to help you get in the trenches while also bringing the fun back to the practice of law and, more importantly, to help you sleep better at night. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• About the podcast
• About the podcast host – my journey through the practice of law

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

Episode Transcript:

Hello, and welcome everyone to the first episode of Trial Lawyer Prep.

This is a podcast for trial lawyers with a focus on difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial. I am Elizabeth Larrick. I run a law firm practice in a legal consulting business in [00:01:00] Austin, Texas. As we begin this podcast journey together, I wanted to do introduction of how I got here to this present point of podcasting about being a trial lawyer.

We all start somewhere and it’s the journey, not the destination that creates us into the person, the lawyer that we are. It’s great to read about a jury verdict, a fantastic result, but it’s the behind the scene facts and investigation and case building that I want to know about as a lawyer. And that’s really what this podcast is going to be about preparing cases, the step by step, but always keeping our eye on that final sprint of a case.

The jury trial. I went to law school with the goal of helping people navigate the legal system. Law school is mildly helpful at pointing in the direction of your career, but all in all, law school is. Mostly getting you to graduate, pass the bar, and then releasing you into the wild. Before law school, I knew I wanted to help.

I wanted to work with people and be in the courtroom. Law [00:02:00] school and internships guided me into three broad categories. Criminal law, civil, personal injury law, and civil family law. One of the most important parts was finding a job that would teach me to actually practice law. I graduated university at Oklahoma Law School and started the search.

I was very lucky to land my first job at a personal injury law firm representing only injured folks, plaintiffs. Within the year, I was able to help on a jury trial, and every year after, getting into the courtroom for one or two jury trials. I was learning a ton about the practice of law and the business side as well, thank you Mr.

McIntyre, but I felt a big tug in my heart to return to Texas, to get closer to family. So after three years, I packed up and headed to Austin, Texas. I landed in a small firm, but eventually again, felt that tug in my heart to go out on my own. Thus, Larrick Law Firm was born in 2015. Then shortly after [00:03:00] opening my own shop, I jumped into an amazing opportunity for hands on trial experience.

A fellowship opened up with Mr. Don Keenan and the Keenan Law Firm, where I could join in work up cases, and even join trials across the country. So for about a year, I juggled my law firm and also flying out every month to Florida or Georgia or whatever state we were going to be trying cases in to be a part of the Keenan Law Firm.

In my fellowship, I tried cases in Kentucky, Washington and Nevada, sometimes lasting even nearly three weeks long. Plus, during the trials, we would have case workshops where we work up cases, we would run focus groups, and all in all just build cases up to go to trial. This particular framework is what I took back to my law firm and I use today.

I finished my fellowship exhausted, but excited. I get back to Austin and I just start working at my cases and start [00:04:00] doing some focus groups with local lawyers here. As a solo keeping costs efficient was vital, but I really loved doing focus groups. And eventually that love showed through and other people started asking me to do their focus groups.

And so I really enjoyed doing that. Doing those and of course, still do those today. And we’ll talk a lot about that in the podcast and the jump for me to prepare clients for deposition or for trial. This was one of the biggest turning points for me in my work was finding a way to help clients prepare for deposition.

And I came upon a continuing legal education seminar for depositions. As a puppy lawyer, brand new lawyer, my role in the firm was to take clients to their deposition, make sure things went well. And they generally did, but I found a pretty big dissatisfaction in my clients after they finished. So back to the CLE seminar that I go in for depositions, because I want to learn to take depositions.

But along the [00:05:00] way, I was asked to come up on stage to role play. And I had to play a client instead of playing the lawyer. And it really opened my eyes to that feeling that they get to that panic, not knowing what to say, but yet all in all knowing that the person across the table is just basically trying to get you.

I walk away from the CLE seeing this huge problem, but also getting a template. I’m working the CLE particulars put in by Mr. Keenan. And I got to know Mr. Keenan, and he has a witness prep template that I use parts of, but also that I teach. He has a Keenan trial institute that I teach with every year, and actually am part of putting together the client prep for depositions.

So flashback to Puppy Lawyer, get this great template, start using it, and it’s a try try, try, try, and as I go along I’m seeing a little bit of success, but fell deeply in love with the process and saw how clients were [00:06:00] transformed into these really confident, authentic people that told their story and And left feeling good.

And that’s really what I wanted was to help people in this weird process of the civil legal system. That’s something I really gravitated towards and have fine tuned and fine tuned. And again, this is something that people have asked me to do for them because maybe it’s not something they really want to do.

Maybe something they don’t have time for, or maybe they have a particular problematic client. And that’s kind of where it just became a very natural fit for me, which then rolled into focus groups. Because I learned how to listen, I wanted this feedback, and to get out of the way, listen to what people are saying, and roll it into case preparation.

Long story short, a few years later, and here we are in this podcast, to talk about these tools, to talk about strategy and planning, lots of tips and techniques in preparing [00:07:00] cases that we want to help you with. So, I’ve spent my legal career as a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer. I love what I do. I love helping folks when they’re at their lowest.

I love being their voice, but wow, this field can wear you down. It can frustrate you and mostly just exhaust you. It’s a huge roller coaster, highs, super high and low, super low. And there became points where I just really struggled with keeping up the law firm and having a lot of motivation and that’s really where I found these focus groups and helping people with deposition really brought me back up right on that roller coaster ride.

So for me, I want always to learn more about how to do my job better. I’m always looking for reading a book or seeing a seminar and these are great, but occasionally I just really want how to solve this problem. Uh, and as trial lawyers, we really want to prepare from the start. [00:08:00] going into that courtroom.

And naturally, most of our CLEs and continuing education doesn’t really focus on the super hard cases. We see the best of the best. And so what I want to do with this podcast is really get in the trenches and really work on how to bring fun back to the practice of law and more importantly to help you sleep better at night.

So I’m excited to start this podcast and I appreciate you joining me. As you know, this show is brand shiny new. This is episode number one and any and all support is greatly appreciated. If you haven’t already done so subscribe on your favorite podcast app, maybe Apple, Google, Spotify, wherever you listen, write a five star review, and if you could just share it with other lawyer friends and folks that you know, that may be struggling with the case.

Thanks so [00:09:00] much.

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? That’s what we do each week on Trial Lawyer Prep. Hosted by Elizabeth Larrick – experienced trial lawyer, trial consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm PC in Austin, TX – every episode is 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. The goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom.