Author: elarrickbrand

Can a one-hour virtual focus group transform your trial preparation? In this episode of Trial Lawyer Prep, we uncover the groundbreaking benefits of incorporating virtual focus groups into your litigation strategy. By pinpointing what juries truly want to know from the outset, you can streamline your discovery and deposition processes, ultimately saving time and resources. Whether you’re navigating personal injury, employment law, or criminal defense, learn how this innovative approach to case preparation can align your strategy with jury expectations, enhancing your courtroom success.

Join us as we break down the strategic advantages for different types of cases, from car crashes to medical malpractice. We also dive into the intricacies of using virtual focus groups to identify key testimony areas, sift through complex violations, and prioritize the most impactful issues. Plus, learn follow-up instructions to ensure you maximize the effectiveness of these sessions and be ready to revolutionize your litigation practice. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• The benefits of using virtual focus groups to refine case strategies
• Understanding key issues in car crash, trucking, and medical malpractice cases
• Efficient case preparation through third-party opinions

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Supporting Resources:

Want to learn more inside tips and tricks for jury research and focus groups?

Sign up for Elizabeth’s monthly email list by visiting: www.larricklawfirm.com/connect 

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 I sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome to the podcast trial lawyer prep. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and I’m excited that you’re here with me.

This is a podcast dedicated to lawyers working through their litigation cases. Whether you may be personal injury, employment law, we [00:01:00] do a lot of plaintiff’s talk, and this also could be applicable to criminal defense lawyers as well. Busy in business litigation. We have a couple of examples as well, but this.

is dedicated to folks who are building their litigation cases. up to trial. So we talk a lot about trial preparation, but we also really focus on for me case preparation because when I worked as a lawyer and had my own law firm, we spend so much more time in case prep than we do in trial prep. So what we have been doing lately is talking about using virtual focus groups as case preparation.

And I’ve had some folks come on and talk about using virtual focus groups. I’ve talked about them here and today that is what we’re going to do as well. So we are going to talk about virtual focus groups from a standpoint of saving you time, right? Maybe this is a time management tool, possibly. Okay.

There are lots of great time management tools out [00:02:00] there. We are all have the same amount of time. It’s really how we use it. And so what I want to talk about is using a one hour virtual focus group to help you manage the time. You’re spending on a case because we all have a large caseload. Okay. There are maybe some folks listening in who have five or six, and that’s awesome.

I totally applaud you, but I think most folks listening probably have more like 20, 30, 40, and help you if you’ve got 60 to 70. So. But really, there’s always a baseline of time that we’re spending on all litigation cases, right? There’s always going to be time on discovery. There’s always going to be time on depositions, and there’s always going to be mediation time, and it’s not just time that we spend In those things, but also in the time creating and preparing and then reviewing all the information we actually get from discovery.

So a lot of times we use time [00:03:00] hacks already, like forms and discovery templates. And trust me, I was one of those people, too. Who just, hey, who has one of these and can I send it now? Ultimately, I don’t know if it really saves you time because you have to spend more time on the back end, reviewing all of that information, reviewing all those discovery documents that come through.

And then, you know, you spend a lot of time pursuing, getting those actual answers that you may need. So what I want to think about Put in your mind is what if we had a way to shortcut, right? Spend less time in that discovery deposition to really focus on what the jury wants versus what we think they may want, or kind of just going through the motions.

Now we’re talking about one hour here. Okay. And so we’ll talk about how that really fits in as a time saving device, but also You know, saving time will also save you money. So if we don’t know [00:04:00] what the jury wants, we end up sending our templates. We end up just kind of guessing. We want to see everything possible.

We spend extra hours in our depositions on all kinds of questions, which, you know, In the end, we’ll then spend, have us spending more time doing those page and line designations, going back through all of that to figure out, okay, where do we have more berries in the bucket? And we may actually spend more time doing focus groups because once we have all of this information, then we have to basically maybe take all this and then edit it down for focus groups.

So what if we could just do a virtual focus group early in litigation to help us Fine tune where we’re going to spend our time and our energy pursuing things that really light up the jury versus kind of trying to get everything. The objection that I normally get about [00:05:00] this is, well, I won’t have enough time.

I won’t have enough information to do a focus group yet. I want to get more information. And that may be true. I’m gonna put a maybe there, but. Remember, we’re just talking about one hour. So if we really look at how much information do we need for a one hour virtual focus group, we’re really just talking about needing 15 to max 20 minutes of information because we want to spend more time talking to them about just the facts.

Now even at this point in time, you would have filed or be ready to file. So you would know what possible positions that. is going to be taken in litigation. So you already know, Hey, this is the story that this person’s going to tell. And this is what this person’s going to say. So you can already kind of put some of those facts in there, but what it can do is just test those facts, right?

And. If we [00:06:00] wait, so let’s just think, okay, let’s just wait. Then we have, again, this huge job of editing down all this information and choosing what we’re going to take to the focus group. But no matter what, we still have to test those facts. They’re still going to gravitate towards those facts, but we’re going to have waited.

into the weeds, right? So it’s like, okay, so, you know, we can walk into the swimming pool and, and, you know, just wade in or people can just jump off the deep end. And what happens if we jump off the deep end and we give them too many facts, it’s too confusing way too quickly. And we never really get any good feedback on just the facts.

And those are super important because that’s where they’ll go, right? They can’t figure out where people are. There’s too much. It’s super confusing. We’re trying to lead them to this conclusion. And they’re just like, no, this fact over here. So we really want to make sure we know what our facts are. And that’s how that one hour virtual focus group can work because that will give you what the blink reaction people are having to the facts.[00:07:00] 

They will tell you what their immediate assumptions are. What are the inflammatory facts? What are issues that intrigue them? And what are ones to them that are already closed down? Closed and shut, like not even a discussion point. You want to know that. You want to know what expectations that they’re having immediately of the people involved.

Right. Think about a car crash like they have a lot of expectations about drivers and driving because they do it every day, right? So there’s a whole big, you know, pile of expectations that people are having when it comes to car wrecks. And trust me, you may think this is super clear. Elizabeth, we have a video.

We have a, we have a video perfectly of the crash and. It’s just never as clear as you think. Like they’re always going to find some kind of factor, some other things. So you, especially in a car crash case. Okay. Cause again, they do it all the time. So they have a lot of expectations around it. Other cases are different.

We’ll talk about those [00:08:00] examples, like trucking cases or bad mal or other things that they’re business litigation cases as well. So, but on this particular point, And we want to be doing these early in litigation so we can learn all these things. And then that will give us the direction that we need to go, right?

Where are good facts and how can we go in that direction? Where are the ones that are bad? And how do we, maybe we need to go into that direction, but in a different way than we thought, right? So a lot of times what’ll happen is. From this very basic one hour virtual focus group, we will really kind of figure out where are people lacking knowledge and is it something that can be educated through people we already have, right?

Like maybe it’s an education point that can be easily done through defense witnesses, right? Maybe it’s something that, no, we need to get an expert on this particular thing. One of the examples that I have for this is In a daycare case, done a couple of focus groups recently for a daycare case and what we kind of found after doing, [00:09:00] you know, two of these kind of shorter one hour was like, there’s this gap of information for how a daycare is supposed to be run.

There are some assumptions, but there are just, they’re pretty far off base. And then. You know, to the point where it’s like, okay, the defense is not going to talk about these facts or these regulations or, you know, whatever this particular piece of education is. So, okay, great. This is where we need this expert.

Okay. So that gives a lot of direction for what kind of expert that you may need to go find. And really, Also the personality of the expert. I mean, experts run the gamut. I’m sure we all know there are some that are just fantastic teachers and there are some that are really bad teachers, but they’re just, they’re very good at doing like this thing we need them to do, but the teaching part, maybe not so much.

Again, we want to get this direction before we jump in and go down our usual path. It also will help, you know, Hey, maybe I don’t need to ask all those questions of discovery. Maybe I can shortcut this piece of the [00:10:00] deposition, you know, my depth template that I always do, but also maybe I’ll build more over here where there were these inflammatory facts.

So let’s talk about a couple examples. We talked a little bit about a car crash and I think for a car crash, a one hour virtual focus group is going to be great to give you those expectations, which are really going to help with nailing down your depositions for your at fault driver, but also really knowing.

where your client needs to talk about in their deposition. That’s going to help you with preparation and where to focus. And because a lot of times for, especially with car crash cases, because again, we have this, all this experience driving, like you’re, your client may not see that they need to be talking about how they.

where they were looking exactly and having that seatbelt on and a couple of just really small things that make a big difference to folks and making it abundantly clear. And I think that’s where a lot of car crash cases get a little caught up in [00:11:00] litigation going farther because there’s Deposition testimony is so unclear, right?

And so it’s like, well, yeah, we’re going to roll the dice because this is not clear, right? And if this person can’t testify clearly about it, like we’ll roll the dice because car crash could be anybody’s ballgame at jury trial. So let’s talk a little bit about maybe a trucking case, right? These, those trucking cases, you know, we have lots of discovery because we want to know, we want to see these documents.

We really don’t know how are they running their business, these applications, these files, driver files. We really want to find out how many violations can we find now, most folks who do trucking cases, when it comes in the door, you have this whole level of investigation that you do, right? You’re going to do all the open records, your question, you can find, you’re going to go safer website, you can grab all this stuff, then you’re going to get even more and discovery.

And sometimes it’s really figuring out. which violations have the most bang for the [00:12:00] buck because you could have a trucking case that has 20 or more violations, but not all violations are equal. Right? So the example that I have is there was a case that I helped work on a couple of years back and the lawyer became very fixated on the application being wrong.

It didn’t follow the rules. And they always use the application. They didn’t fix it. And this guy filled out the wrong application and the actual facts, the case we’re about making this turn a jug turn versus not doing that. Anyhow, we don’t have to get into that part of it, but he got so fixated. He ended up building a very large piece of the case around this bad application.

And it was like, where is this coming from? And he’s like, Oh, it’s just so egregious. And it was just really built up about it. But I was like, but what, but focus groups don’t even mention this. And so it’s like, Oh, so you got to drop that, right? So he ended up having to edit all that out before they went to trial because.

It wasn’t anything that was inflammatory at all, right? [00:13:00] And so again, having a little bit of direction when you have, again, you may have all these violations and a lot of them you may know about before you even file, right? Again, thinking about trucking case and what we can find out about trucking companies and all the information that is available for open records and having them to kind of wade through.

But having that initial blush with the facts. With walking people through some of these violations to figure out like, okay, what’s your expectation here? Like, is this an issue that intrigues you? Like, would this be something you’d want to know more about? Like how is this even remotely tied to what happened on the day of the crash?

Right. So asking some really just open questions to figure out what people really want to see, know, and understand versus guessing at it. But also I think in a trucking case, you could have this flat, really a large gamut. And needing to know which is inflammatory and which is not. Cause again, you could spend hours and hours in that position going after.

And again, we’re setting aside the fact that you may obviously have [00:14:00] some opposition that doesn’t provide all the things and you have to go out and do all those anyhow. We’re just talking about finding kind of that inflammatory information early. Then you really can start having a direction, pushing things in the, you know, into the area that you want versus kind of again, running the gamut and trying to chase after everything.

Another example is a MedMal case. Typically, again, MedMal, you’re going to have the records before you file a lot of places, including Texas, have a requirement for a report even before you’re allowed to file. So you’re going to look through all these records, right? You’re going to find probably all several violations, right?

Nursing violations, doctor violations, like policy violations, like all these violations. And really, You want to know just on the basic facts, right? Like what makes people mad? Like, what is their blink reaction to this? If it’s an emergency room, is this just how it always is? And we’re just stuck with it because it’s an emergency and the doctors are just doing their best.

You want to [00:15:00] know all that before you get in there, because you want to know where to spend your time and what to pursue. This came up recently for a series of focus groups that I have done. In a med mal case, and we always start at the basics. We start with a one hour because we want to know just at a base level, let’s look at these facts.

Let’s check out this timeline. What happened to this patient and what, what makes them mad? What doesn’t make them mad? What would we assume, you know, Ms. Upsetting, but maybe it’s not to them. Like, so, And then we did it again, because, and again, in Mad Mal, we’ve got lots of facts to test out before we get into a little bit deeper of the medicine and causation and those kind of things.

But typically you always want to start out with a short one hour virtual focus group to figure out what do they think about the facts. What I’m encouraging you to do is do that early. Do that before you get dumped on with all these facts and all [00:16:00] these documents, right? Do that very early on. In the case, you can do it at filing, you can do it before filing, do it right after that first discovery, if that makes you feel more comfortable, and then just run it to see, again, what we’re looking for, expectations, immediate assumptions.

Issues that intrigue them, places they want to know more, inflammatory facts, and again, test your own assumptions, right? Please form it into a question that doesn’t reveal your bias. You know, ask those questions early on. Get that information early on to give yourself direction to know how do I spend my time.

Building up the theme, building up the story that the jury wants to hear. Not necessarily that I want to hear because if we don’t know, our lawyer brains will go after, all right. We want to know it all. That’s we, we do like that is we are very inquisitive. We’re taught to be that way. It could be this, it could be that.

Let’s go get all this information and that’s great. [00:17:00] Trust me, those are all good things. But if we had just a little bit of information, right, that will significantly give you more direction, which will then be able to save you time versus going after all of it. And of course we go, we should make a guess, right?

Based on Our past experience based on other people’s experience. We can make a guess about what the jury wants to know. But again, we’re just guessing and we don’t want to guess, right? Because we could go spend all this time pursuing this particular casing that we think is important and that doesn’t help because if they think it’s something else, right, you’re going to lose and you spend all this time and generally time equals money, right?

Experts, more depositions, longer depositions, extra questions, more discovery. Pursuing that discovery, you know, to get it if you need to have the other side, you know, it’s just a lot of time and energy and money that can go into that. Where if we had just a little bit of direction that will significantly help you.

And also it gives you a lot of confidence to know I’ve checked [00:18:00] in with non lawyers. And here’s where they are, and that’s great. And this is different than checking in with our family members, our church groups, our people that know us, right? We’re checking in with a group of non lawyer strangers. You’re just going to shoot to me straight because they’re here.

This is their whole purpose. They know they’re supposed to give me their opinion. That’s what we want to do. So, We want to save you time. We want to use these as an effective case preparation tool. Our one hour virtual focus groups. Okay, because we want, we don’t want you to send extra discovery. We don’t want you or your team to have to spend more time reviewing documents that don’t make any sense or that aren’t going to be used.

And we really want to, again, set you up for success when it comes down the road. If you do have to go to trial, you’ve got very easy depots to do page and line designations. Right. We might not have to have all those fights for completion to play all this boring stuff. It’s going to put everyone to sleep and they’re going to miss the good stuff.

Okay. So we want to [00:19:00] have a tool that is effective and efficient. It’s one hour here, a virtual focus group to help get you on the right path. And so that’s how it can save you time. We’re going to be better about sending discovery that’s pointed at what The jury wants better at asking questions that the jury wants to know.

And again, that’s just going to set you up for cleaner, smoother mediations. And again, easier transition into trial and more focus groups as well. So think about that saving you time when you’re going to do other focus groups, you’re going to kind of already know, okay, he will just set up the story the same way we did before.

We feel confident. We already know what people are going to say about that. We expect, we’re just going to hear that echo again, and we’re going to get deeper into the facts. deeper into deposition testimony than we could get if we had to wade back through those facts and then get into that deeper water with those documents and deposition clips.

Okay. I hope that this was helpful. If you have questions, please don’t ever hesitate to email me. My email will be in the show [00:20:00] notes. And if you are interested to learn more about, get deeper into the weeds here about virtual focus groups, please sign up for my monthly. Email list. The link will also be in the show notes.

And of course, if we’re not friends on LinkedIn, please follow me or connect with me. All right. Until next time, please rate review on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you.

Have you ever stepped into a focus group with the battle-ready mindset of a courtroom lawyer, only to realize it’s like bringing a sword to a tea party? Joins us to untangle the art of moderation, guiding attorneys through the key mindset shifts that can transform focus group feedback into pure gold for trial prep. 

Understand the nuanced dance between asking questions and listening intently – emphasizing the power of neutrality and curiosity to coax out the raw, genuine insights that are so crucial to understanding how a jury might think. From a checklist that strips away legal jargon and biases, to the delicate skill of presenting cases in everyday language, this episode is a masterclass in the subtleties of legal research. 

Whether you’re seasoned in the world of focus groups or stepping into this space for the first time, this conversation is a vital tool for any attorney looking to connect more deeply with clients and juries. Tune in and learn how to steer clear of confrontational instincts that can muddy the waters of valuable feedback, and how to lay the groundwork for focus groups that truly inform and enhance your trial strategies.

In this episode, you will hear:

• The need for lawyers to shift mindset to a neutral focus group moderator
• Techniques for bias-free legal focus group research
• Mock juries vs. focus groups in trial prep
• Using neutral language and open-ended questions for authentic feedback
• A detailed checklist for attorneys to organize and guide focus groups
• The value of focus groups in enhancing cases by understanding jury perspectives

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. 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:

Want to learn more inside tips and tricks for jury research and focus groups?

Sign up for Elizabeth’s monthly email list by visiting: www.larricklawfirm.com/connect

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 I sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello, and welcome to the podcast trial lawyer prep. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and I’m glad that you’re here.

This episode, we are going to be talking about the mind set shift that needs to happen for focus groups. And what I’m really talking about and who I’m really talking [00:01:00] to is people who are running focus groups, and that’s different than mock juries and people who are interested. Maybe you’re going to get started doing a focus group.

You’re interested in doing virtual. This episode is for you. And we’re been doing a lot of episodes lately on virtual focus groups. So if you’ve just now listening in welcome, welcome, but also there’ve been several episodes that I’ve been doing lately, just to kind of talk about virtual and even as simple as doing a one hour virtual focus group.

So those are here pretty recently, just dropped in, I believe in March for that one or one. And then also just talking about with other lawyers here recently about doing virtual focus groups. And I think our last one had virtual plus. In person. So this episode is great for you if you’re just getting started, or maybe this episode is for you if you’ve been doing them, but maybe you’re just not getting enough information.

And so I do a lot of focus groups. Been doing [00:02:00] them for over eight years. I’ve got over a thousand hours a thou more than a thousand hours of focus group time under my belt. And what I see time and time again are some snafus, some things that maybe are holding us back as lawyers to get as much as we need out of focus groups.

So I thought this would be a really good episode to share some thoughts on it, but also I’ve got a little checklist for you, and we’re going to throw that in the show notes as well. But really, why is this important? And that’s because how we approach our focus group with our mindset really impacts how we present, what we present, and really how we’re moderating, asking questions, trying to get that discussion going.

And I see these really small, subtle things that happen because I have focus groups that I lead. But then I also focus groups that I put together that other lawyers lead and I’m there just as backup. [00:03:00] And so these are, you know, things that obviously I’ve made these mistakes before, but, you know, have been able to watch and correct.

And then also have other folks that I help and kind of coach along the way to help them do better focus groups. And I just want to pause. right here to say, this is different than a mock jury. Okay. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, looking at some of the things on my, on my website, you would see like, my goal is focus groups.

Okay. Because that’s the way that I have been taught, but also what I’ve seen really work well is the smaller size focus groups to basically research versus doing At end all be all, all day, six hour, one side versus the other side openings, fake judge, the whole thing. That’s a mock jury. And if you want to know more about the differences, I put together an episode that’s episode one Oh one, but also there’s a blog on my website as well.

So what we’re really talking about today though, is that focus group, and this is virtual. Or this is in [00:04:00] person. So either way, this mindset that we need to kind of shift into as lawyers, right? Or staff. I just don’t want to also say that too, because a lot of lawyers that I work with have staff members that either set them up or they’re a part of watching or even presenting.

And people do that because they know sometimes they’re just too passionate. And so having staff help and present is always a great way to do it. You know, if we have great staff, they also get impassioned and emboldened. And so sometimes this can happen. For us as well, we have a little bit of a mind shift and that’s kind of where I want to spend time today talking about because the key element of a focus group is that, you know, we remain neutral, open, curious, right?

We want to know more and we really want to make sure that we’re not exposing our preference or our bias. Unless that is the style of the focus group. But even so, thinking about moderating, asking questions, right? This is a really, again, key element. We want to make sure that we are remaining neutral and open to [00:05:00] make sure we get everybody’s thoughts.

Because we don’t want to immediately influence our group. When we do, right, we’re already queuing things one way or the other, and we really don’t want to try and influence folks that way if we’re trying to remain open and neutral and get more action. And that is a lot of what I use focus groups for, right?

We’re talking about doing just a neutral set of facts. What do you think? Maybe it’s just a concept, right? Stroke. What does that mean to you? Or maybe we’re talking about what, what kind of rules apply in a daycare? Right. Who goes to a daycare? Right. What age kids? And just to kind of get information and sometimes people like to practice.

What do you write? And other times we’re doing focus groups where we maybe we do have a slanted presentation. However, our moderation, right? Our questioning should be very neutral, right? So, yeah. There’s still going to be a mindset shift in here, okay? Because our goal is always to find and create the best case for the [00:06:00] jury, the folks that make the decision.

We can keep in our mindset the whole way, build the case up, thinking about what we think is safe. true, what we think will win. And it could be the complete opposite to the jury members. And then we just miss it. We don’t really understand it. And then we lose. And then they tell us in the hallway afterward.

So we want to avoid that. And that’s kind of why I’ve always used, when I read my own practice, I use focus groups for this exact thing. If I saw something that looked like red flag, right, then I’m like, okay, let me go take it to the folks group to see, is it a really a red flag? Do I need to work more on this?

Or is it not as bad? Right? Maybe there’s some facts in there that alleviate it. But either way, those focus groups were always a huge guideline for me for putting cases together. So let’s talk about our lawyer mindset, right? So when we talk about shifting our mindset, I’m talking about our lawyer mindset to a focus group research mindset.

So thinking about our lawyer minds and where they’re all created, right? Law school. [00:07:00] And that really has, makes a huge influence on our brains, including the language that we use, how we talk about things, and then we move into practice and everyone around us, right? Other lawyers, judges, the court, we’re all using the same kind of legalese.

talking about things that way. And then we kind of get also in another mindset of thinking about it very differently than regular people, but also thinking about like myself. And of course, other people who like personal injury work, plaintiff’s personal injury work, employment work, criminal law defense, right?

Your job is really to win and you’ve got a client who depends on you, but also you’re running a practice that needs to make me. And there’s always a little bit of, of risk. Right. Because we are on a contingency fee. So there is a lot of pressure going on to win to put together, you know, make the most money, you know, make the client happy.

And there’s also a lot of confrontation that goes in really at any level, right? [00:08:00] Lawyering confrontation comes in and kind of cross exam style. And that’s pretty normal to us, right? I mean, people are gonna, you get into the courtroom and guess what? You’ve got to stand up and state your side, right? Who you are, what are the claims, what are your, you know, so it’s always kind of this confrontational setup when you’re walking in to a presentation like that, either emotion or mediation or, you know, Even getting on the phone with opposing counsel, you’re constantly confronting somebody who’s is on the opposite side, or you’re having to basically pick your side out there.

When we talk about a focus group or research mindset, we’re really turning that to an non confrontational, neutral learning, right? Whereas the lawyer mindset is to win, right? Our research, our focus group mindset is just to learn, right? So we’re most researchers, if you go and Google focus group, right, there’s tons of stuff out there about setting up focus groups.

And they’re talking about the research style, right? [00:09:00] Marketing style. So You’re going to get a lot of information on that. Most of the time, though, it’s all the same. Use plain language, uh, be neutral, use open ended questions, right? And that’s because the whole purpose is to learn, learn everything there is to learn, right?

And then get behind that, figure out what’s backing up all those things. So two very different mindsets. And what happens is sometimes if we go into a focus group, And we don’t really even realize we’ve got this lawyer mindset going, right? We’re going to try and win, even though we know, oh, I can’t reveal my bias.

We do really very subtle things. And it could be just be things like saying my clients or my case, or a lot of times what I see is people will get. They’ll get argumentative, right? If you have a participant who has an opposite point of view to what you want to win the case, there can get a little, little argumentative, also kind of confrontational.

And this kind of comes in where, [00:10:00] you know, in doing a deposition, one of the best questions you can ask defendant or the corporate rep or you guys, why, why, why, why best one word question, right? That is not great for focus groups. And you may be thinking, well, how come? Well, a lot of this has to do with thinking about our size of our groups here.

You may like them small. I know lawyers who like six people in there. Nothing wrong with that. I know people who want 14 people in there. Nothing wrong with that. However, you now have small group dynamics, even if you are on zoom, asking people why it is a confrontational question, right? It also asks people, our brains actually go to a different side, right?

Instead of sticking with our thought, we can go over to kind of getting into it. Whoa, okay, now I’ve got to actually analyze it and give a little different response. So we really want people to keep in that train of mind, and a lot of, a lot of people talk about this, this is not anything new, asking, well, tell me more about, instead [00:11:00] of asking why.

The other thing that I see sometimes is people. And again, we do it as lawyers, agree, disagree, right? And the way that it works out in this small group dynamics of a focus group, someone will give an opinion. Oh, the light was green. Or, oh, it’s the purple. And then the follow up is, who disagrees? Now you’re asking, you’re pitting them against each other.

In a small group, it’s very, very difficult. As strangers, it’s really hard to get people to do that. Now, we may do that in jury where we’ve got 40 people. Sometimes we even have to manage 60 people or more, right? That’s a good way to cull the whole audience, right? People like, you know, somebody in the front rows, you know, disagreeing with the person in the back row, they can’t even see each other, right?

It’s very much more anonymous versus here, it’s very different. Confrontation is very different and what ends up happening is when you kind of start to create this a little more confrontational moment. It’s very hard for people to feel like [00:12:00] they can actually give honest opinions. And a lot of times people will start to reduce their participation now.

This also lets other people who have a big personality to take over the group. Now at this point, now we’re not really getting all the information that we need from these folks. We’re kind of now stifling our group. We’re stifling to get that information. And here’s the thing. These are very subtle things that can happen, but basically it’s just a little bit of an unnerving thing in us.

It’s like, Oh, kind of our gut telling us like, Hmm, this doesn’t really feel safe to share anymore. Or If the person, the lawyer reveals their bias, even on accident, like it’s still going to end up coloring the group. Some people will want to support and, and go with you, whether they like you or not, they agree with the position or not just because you’re the one paying them.

So a lot of really kind of subtle things that can happen. We’re just walking in being our lawyer minds, right? That’s, [00:13:00] you know, what we’ve been trained to do for years. So But if we flip it around and we think about going into a focus group with our research mindset, our learning mindset, right? We’re going to work really hard to be neutral.

We’re going to set up open ended questions. We’re going to get questions that maybe scaling questions, right? And we’re going to set up that agree, disagree differently. Now, a lot of times people say, well, I like that question. Let me very subtle, but very different. It’s easy for the moderator say, who agrees with this statement or who disagrees with this statement?

Then I give a statement. Uber driver was distracted and therefore is responsible. Who agrees with that? Who disagrees with that? I’m the one who’s standing in the center asking questions, but I’m asking both sides. And I’m not trying to pit each other against one another. Maybe I’m pitting them against me, and that’s okay as a moderator.

But again, I’m keeping it neutral. Like, do you agree or disagree? Right? Versus saying, okay, Susie, [00:14:00] you said purple. You know, Johnny, you said brown. Who’s right? You know, okay, now we’re just kind of like who disagrees, who agrees, you’re rarely going to get a lot of participation out of those style of questions, which is another reason not to use them, use them.

But there’s other ways to ask questions again, to keep it open, keep it neutral, but still gauge people’s, Is it yes or no? That’s also thinking it’s always black and white, right? That’s why I love a scaling question to give people options and then be able to ask them about their scale. Going back to our research mindset here, where instead of asking why we’re going to say, tell me more.

And what you’re going to find is you’re going to have a much more open discussion. You’re going to hear people disagree with one another in a very polite way. But they’re going to do it right. Even though it’s a small group dynamic, but also what you’re really going to be able to get is people are going to feel safe giving you that deeper explanation, whatever they’re, maybe it’s an inner bias.

They’re going to [00:15:00] feel safe enough to give when you do that follow up to give you more than that initial first blush, yes or no. You know, I’m a six out of 10 and they won’t do that if they feel like it’s confrontational or argumentative or, you know, like, Oh, this doesn’t feel safe, but having that open.

Oh yes, of course. Tell me being neutral. Yes. Tell me this. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Thanking everybody. Right. And I know that’s a whole thing about moderating. that we could talk about for a whole nother session. But I always just tell people if you’re new to moderating, like just the key is open ended questions, asking everyone the open ended questions, right?

And then not following up. I think that’s probably one of the other things too, that happens when we think about a very different between a lawyer mindset and a focus group researcher mindset is kind of sometimes the follow up. We have a tendency to. Oh, yeah. Oh, I agree with that, too. Right now. You just imputed your bias, right?

Versus somebody else in the group who maybe hasn’t given their opinion yet, and they know. Oh, [00:16:00] no, I’m disagreeing with you. Okay. Maybe I’ll just agree just to go along to get along, right? Get over with this focus group versus, you know, a very open opinion. Yeah. Neutral researcher mindset would just say, okay, and next and next and next because your job is to direct traffic, right?

You’re just making sure everybody’s getting their opinions in there. You’re getting here from everybody, right? You’re not actually right trying to tell people where to go Right, that’s kind of the difference between like, oh, no, no, we’re not gonna listen to that anymore. We’re gonna go over here But I’m going to say thank you so much for that.

And then I’m not going to say thank you over here, right? So that also cues people in very subtle, small things that can happen. So obviously the encouragement from this episode is to shift your mindset when you are moving into doing a focus be very aware that’s half the battle. Sometimes it’s just looking at what we’re going to do and being aware of, Oh, that actually is showing my bias.

That’s showing my preference. If I say it that way. And if [00:17:00] you do, right, the whole goal of focus groups is to get new information, get out of your point of view, find other points of view that you can’t get on your own. Go try and ask them a lawyer. Guess what? They got the same mindset as you, right? Oh, well, I’ll just go ask my family.

No, wrong. They’re just biased, right? Because they depend on you, right? I’ll just go ask the church group. Now, again, they know you, right? We need some strangers, some non lawyer people to ask and get information out of to build your case for the jury, right? We got to get out of our, out of our way. And listen.

So that’s always the goal with our focus groups and so I’ve made a little checklist for you and don’t worry this is going to be in the show notes if you are driving or working out or walking down the street listening to this. These are going to be in the show notes and I’ve divided it up into kind of a presentation slash planning and then moderating.

Now, I will [00:18:00] say from one of the best things you can do is write everything out. Write out everything you’re going to say, write out all your questions. Now, I know you’re thinking, gosh, that is so tedious. That’s not how I do anything in my practice, Elizabeth. I understand, but what we’re doing in this focus group is so very specific and it’s just so easy to tee off right and reveal your bias if we don’t really pay Attention and be really aware of it.

Now, as you keep doing them, it’s going to be second nature to you. All right. So, okay. Well, hold on. If I say it that way, that’s actually going to reveal a bias or that’s actually giving a little pretext. Okay. So, that’s the best thing I can say is be able to write it out, leave it, come back, look at it, be able to say, Oh, okay.

That’s a lot of legalese, but we’re just looking at our checklist and thinking about so let’s talk about our planning and our presentation checklist, right? So we’re putting together a presentation and maybe you’re going to write it all out. Maybe you’re just going [00:19:00] to do a really heavy outline. It’s also a really great way to do it.

And so here are five things on my checklist that I would say, Hey, have this checklist out to look at your presentation. When you’re thinking about planning your presentation or the case you’re going to do, you know, put this checklist there. And number one is remove legalese. There is always another way to say negligence, to say malpractice.

There’s always another way. We are in a focus group. We’re not in a courtroom. Okay. When you put in legalese, it’s confusing to people. Some people won’t even ask you what it means. They’ll just make assumptions. Or what I see sometimes is we spend so much extra time explaining the legalese when we could have just used that language to begin with.

Okay. So think about that legalese. Think about that plaintiff defendant. They may not know what the word plaintiff is, but they do know the word defendant. So again, we’re already charging things up a little bit for confrontation wise, so easy ways to remove those. Think of other ways to say it, [00:20:00] right? So number one, remove legalese.

Number two, you want to give context, not pretext. Okay, so let me give an example of this. Let’s talk about a car wreck because that’s generally pretty easy. Generally, we always all have one, but this works for almost any kind of case you may have. So context is in a car wreck cases. The weather is clear.

We are on Burnet and Jones Road. There’s two lanes on Burnet. There’s four lanes on Jones. At this intersection, there is a three light traffic signal. I’m just giving context. Pretext is, this is a presentation about a car crash. This is a presentation about a surgery gone wrong. Now, I’ve just, I’m pre, I’ve put you, wherever your mind goes.

I’ve gone ahead and planted you there, right? Versus giving context. So always be thinking about when we’re putting out our presentation, am I already setting people on a direction by what I’m saying? Or do I just need to give context, right? And sometimes we give context to remove [00:21:00] questions later down the road.

Always be thinking about, am I doing one versus the other? Maybe I just need to give context. If you can’t, you find that like, I just, I don’t know how to do that, Elizabeth. Just Line through that sentence all together. Just don’t say it, right? Just don’t say it. Because if you can’t think of a way around it, then maybe you just don’t need to say it.

And what happens is, this is one tip I would say is, for me, when I am putting together a presentation or I’m thinking about how do I say this, I love to create my outline and walk away from it, come back the next day and look at it. Because what’ll happen is I’ll be like, Oh, you’re not going to know what bad faith is.

Well, here’s the other way to say this. So I love putting things down and coming back to them. Even for a day will help your brain be able to refresh and look at it. Checklist for the presentation number three is the way to remain neutral is to have both sides. And it’s again, it could be, this is the point of view of the red car.

This is the point of view of the blue car. [00:22:00] This is the point of view of the doctor. This is the point of view of the patient. neutral language that goes along with this in our checklist here that we’re using neutral language. We’re not jazzing up our language. And if you’re not sure what that means, right, this is when we say, you know, crashed into versus, you know, four force flew right into the side of that car, getting a little bit excited about that.

Right. Our fourth checklist is just going through and removing very language that’s subtle, my case, removing those words altogether, your logo. A lot of people have kind of a sample PowerPoint that always has their logo on it. Take that out of there. The caption. Some people always want to put the caption in their presentation.

People don’t know what that is. So it’s one, it just starts off on a confusing, and it’s also a little bit of pretext too. So just remove it. People don’t know what it is. You’re not, you’re just basically starting off on a confusing point. And our last one would be thinking again about looking at our presentation [00:23:00] and if you’ve outlined it, you’ve created a PowerPoint, going back through and looking at it and saying, am I repeating myself?

And lawyers are really notorious. If there’s a point that they really, really love, they say it multiple times. I understand. You’re right. An opening statement. You’re going to go in the courtroom. You’re going to get a closing statement. You’re going to want to repeat yourself. The rule of threes. That’s great.

But we’re in a focus group. So we don’t need to do that. We really want to make sure that we’re not repeating ourselves too many times on the same point. Okay. So that’s our checklist for presentation. Let’s talk about our moderating checklist. And again, we’ve got five things on this checklist. Thank you.

Number one, most important to make sure we are staying in our research mindset is open ended question. Who, what, when, where, how come? Those are easy questions, right? People can take them anywhere they want and that’s what we want. We just want to make sure we get on those, get what’s in their brains.

Number two, ask everyone the big questions, right? So I typically have, here are three issues that [00:24:00] we need to make sure and ask questions about. So, I got to get everyone on that question. What can happen is sometimes we get stuck and we ask one or two people and then we end up following up and we don’t finish the round with everybody.

Well, that’s a very easy way to expose bias is because you’re only listening to people that you like and you’re skipping everybody else. So that’s a really easy one. Ask everyone the big questions before you follow up. That’s right. Ask everyone the big question before you go back and follow up. Super easy to do.

Super easy to forget to do. Number three, it’s always, tell me more, not why, just write, tell me more, just, you know, write it on your sheet in front of you, tell me more, right, instead of why. And it’s just a very easy, subtle thing, use this in choice selection, lots of people would agree with me, right, tell me more.

Number four, this one again is huge for a research mindset, [00:25:00] is don’t give more facts. Number Lawyers love to do that. They love it. Focus groups are always going to ask more questions, right? They’re inquisitive people. They want to know more. We don’t give them more. Why? Because give them what you gave them.

You want to get what they think about this information just as it lies. If it was important enough for you, you should have put it in the main one. But a lot of times what people want to do is they want to dribble facts out. Well, I want to see how this influences them. Well, no, that is influencing them.

Let me withhold this fact and then tell you, right? Couple things happen. Number one, people start to realize you’re withholding information. So they start to withhold their information. Oh, you’ve got more. Number two, people start to say, well, it depends. Well, it depends. You have more. It depends. Now, does that, it depends help you with any?

No, that doesn’t help you with your case at all. And then number three, people, most of the time when they do it, everyone asks about speed. So the speed of the cars was 35. [00:26:00] You know, why is that important to you? Now I’ve asked why, and now I’ve just implied that it’s important to you. So it just gets us in a hairy, hairy mess.

So if you’re starting out or even you’ve been this whole dribbling facts out, right? It’s not great. Even if you put it in a question. So what would you think if the police officer gave this car ticket? Okay, so they already know. What else do you have? So if it’s important, put it in the presentation. Also, if that comes into evidence, put it in the presentation.

Okay, so anyhow, If you’re just starting out or you’ve been maybe doing this for a little while and you’re getting stumped in the discussion, that’s a very, very good reason why the faucet turns off of information and you get this. Well, it depends. Well, it depends. Or you just get people who just don’t talk anymore.

So that could be a big one. So put facts in your presentation and then hold your guns. Great. That’s information you’d like to know. Okay. Tell me how that would help you or not. So now I’m following [00:27:00] up. I’m getting what you want. Some people say, Oh, I just wanted to know, right? Versus you may think an opal.

You don’t know. So that’s the followup to getting a question about, Oh, well, I want to know if the doctor said this to the patient. Okay. Well, tell me a little bit more about that. You know, tell me how, like, how is that fitting in? Again, I’m just trying to get more information about how. All right, last one, moderating mindset number five is don’t pit your participants against one another.

We talked about this earlier, trying to pit people against one another takes a very, very skilled moderator to do that. And also just generally just don’t do it. If you want to pit people against one another, pit them against you, right? Play devil’s advocate, put them against you and make them take the opposite side, right?

I’m going to take the opposite side or of what they think. So you want to pit somebody against another person, pit them against you as the moderator, right? Okay. This episode was a little bit longer, but I appreciate you guys hanging in there. And don’t forget the checklist for presentation, planning, and for moderating to keep our research mindset will be in the show notes [00:28:00] for you.

Ultimately. Y’all, the goal is always to get more information to build a better case for the jury. That is what we’re doing here. We don’t want to stifle getting that information in our focus groups. We work so hard to put them together to get these people here. We take our time present and create. We really want you to get that feedback and learn from your cases instead of getting that one set of feedback.

So that’s what this episode was about. I hope that you enjoyed it. If you did, please like review on your favorite podcast platform. That way more people can find it, follow it so you can download the new episodes when they come in. Also, just so that you know, please join the email list. There’ll also be a link in the show notes.

There are other new things that I release checklist downloads, even some new courses that are coming out about helping lawyers create their own focus groups, run focus groups better to learn more. So. Join that email list. The link is in the show notes and [00:29:00] until next time, thank you.

Learn how to revolutionize your trial strategy with the wisdom of Tulsa attorney Ashley Leavitt. Ashley joins me in this episode to discuss virtual focus groups, which are shaping the way lawyers prepare for trial. Our conversation explores the nuanced ways in which these online platforms are not just convenient but also powerful tools for eliciting unguarded insights from participants. 

We talk candidly about the edge virtual groups give – from capturing subtle emotional cues to the ability to analyze reactions and discussions at leisure – ensuring no vital piece of feedback is overlooked. Ashley and I traverse the landscape of legal preparation, sharing personal stories of how virtual focus groups have helped refine courtroom approach. From the challenge of simplifying complex information to the strategic selection of evidence and the artful use of visuals, we dissect the elements that can make or break a case in the eyes of a jury. We delve into the psychology behind certain words and the unexpected power they wield, revealing how even the title “engineer” can sway perceptions. 

This episode is an essential listen for those eager to adapt and thrive in the ever-evolving arena of trial law. Join us for a session brimming with strategic insights and heartfelt revelations that promise to enhance not only your legal prowess but also your client relationships.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Comparing virtual and in-person focus groups’ benefits
• Simplifying complex data and strategic evidence selection for juries
• Impact of terminology and visuals on jury perceptions
• Case study: roof damage claims and virtual focus groups
• Managing client expectations using focus group feedback
• Enhancing legal approach and client relations via online jury analysis

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Supporting Resources:

To learn more about Ashley Leavitt please visit: https://www.kollertriallaw.com/

If you need to reach Ashley for help with a first part insurance claim in Oklahoma, please email her directly at: Ashley@kollertriallaw.com  

Want to learn more inside tips and tricks for focus groups? Sign up for Elizabeth’s monthly email list by visiting: www.larricklawfirm.com/connect

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 I sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hi there, Elizabeth here. I wanted to pop in very quickly and give you a quick background on our guest, Ashley Leavitt.

She is a lawyer out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She works with Kohler trial lawyer who they now have offices also in Oklahoma city. You do personal injury [00:01:00] and first party insurance claims. If you want to reach out to Ashley, her information and link will be in the show notes. Hope you enjoy. Hello, and podcast trial lawyer prep.

I’m your host, Elizabeth Laird, and today’s episode, I’ve got a fun guest to come talk about virtual focus groups and opening statements. And we actually, Leavitt and I have done many virtual focus groups together. So she is going to be super helpful to talk to us about her experience. And then we will walk through kind of a case example for a format that we do together.

But Ashley, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. Zooming all the way from Tulsa, Oklahoma. That’s right. One of the nice benefits of doing virtual, right? You just pop on and get one done with some Oklahoma folks and then move on with, with your day. Yes. 

Ashley Leavitt: And despite the weather, [00:02:00] it might be cold where I’m at or warm depending, but.

Today it’s nice. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yes, and typically what I always tell people when I, you know, checking in with my guests in Montana, wherever they’re from, like, okay, what’s the weather like? But I know springtime, because this is when we’re recording this, is like the most hectic time, I would say, for Oklahoma weather. 

Ashley Leavitt: Yes, yes, we are in the midst of truly spring, where it can be all four seasons in one day, and your allergies are going crazy.

Elizabeth Larrick: And possibly a tornado, maybe, maybe not. I remember my time of living there just thinking like, Oh, it’s always such a treacherous time, but it is nice when it warms up. So, and it’s even busier for you right now because you guys are doing a lot of property claims, 

Ashley Leavitt: right? Yes. And with the way that insurance companies like to set up their statute of limitations, we have about a year before we get an influx of claims.

I can write down, Oh, there was hail today. And a year from now, I’m going to be busily drafting petitions. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yes. So anyone [00:03:00] listening in Oklahoma, you have family in Oklahoma and go through a storm. Remember Ashley or contacts me in the show notes and that one year statute, because that is, I know it’s different all over the place.

So good already piece of good nugget to tell us. So let’s talk about what you’re here to talk about, which is virtual focus groups. So just from off the bat, like You’ve done in person before, doing virtual. What do you like? What are the pros and cons for 

Ashley Leavitt: you? I definitely, the first thing off the bat from going from in person focus groups to virtual is the need for less icebreakers.

People come in to a in person focus group and they all don’t really want to talk. They’re not really sure about it. It’s, you know, in a lawyer’s office or somewhere else that they feel might be kind of fancy. And so it just takes a little while to get people talking. And the first case that is up or discussion that starts, I don’t feel like you get quite the same amount as the last one of the day.

But virtual people are appearing [00:04:00] from the comfort of their own home and they’re not face to face with someone. And I just don’t even notice the need for an icebreaker. They just kind of pop in and they’re ready to talk. That’s what they’re there for. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yep, absolutely. And they don’t have to go anywhere, which always like lately, that’s what I’ve hearing from my participants.

It’s like, please don’t make me get in a car and drive somewhere. And, you know, we were talking a little bit before we started. One of the things too, that. You pointed out that I love to also point out to people is like you get such great facial recordings of every single person. 

Ashley Leavitt: Yes, every person is sitting in front, square in front of a camera.

So there’s a camera directly on their face and you can have in your in person focus groups, you could have multiple angles of cameras. You’ll be hard pressed to put a camera in front of every single person’s face. They’re sitting in the same room as the other participants. And so they’re less likely to use body language.

You know, when we have the virtual focus group and one person is talking, you’ll [00:05:00] actively see other people shaking their heads or nodding along in agreement. I don’t feel like that really happens in the same room very often. 

Elizabeth Larrick: From a, from a, like a moderator perspective or like just observing the focus group perspective, you can’t even catch that with your eye.

But when everyone’s in a Brady Bunch box, like it’s so much easier for eye to catch, like, shoot, they’re agreeing with that. Let me go over there then and ask like, yeah, I saw you nodding along. It’s much easier to see some of those little. Even just the slightest amount of body language. 

Ashley Leavitt: Exactly. And I found that when I was trying to take notes about what certain people were making reactions to, I’d scribble down, you know, Elizabeth rolled her eyes.

Well, at what? I don’t remember anymore. And I am less focused on trying to take notes when I know that this is all being recorded and I can see it again, I’m going to be able to rewind it and notice that. And. I’m able to really fully just be a observer during the virtual focus group [00:06:00] knowing that I’m, I’m going to have an opportunity to see it again if I want to, but I get to watch it unfold as opposed to trying to take notes.

Elizabeth Larrick: That’s such a huge point. I mean, I just like, it’s such a huge point. Tell me a little bit like what you get out of just being able to sit and observe it unfold. 

Ashley Leavitt: Well, so again, it’s not so much that you’re trying to note, okay, this person shook their head or this person. Exhaled when I said this or, or whatever, you know, I really got to focus on my delivery of my opening statement, as opposed to, you know, checking in, how am I doing?

Do I need to adjust? I’m really just delivering it the way that I want to knowing that I’m going to get to watch the reactions back and not worried about that. Not trying to make a note, not trying to make. necessarily adjustments in that moment, because I’ll be able to see how they react to me later.

Elizabeth Larrick: You know, it goes down to the basic things, you know, our brains really can only do one thing at a time. And if you are so honed in on taking a note about something, you are going to miss what you just said, the unfolding. Because [00:07:00] being able to watch Everybody, especially with virtual, their faces and just be able to just take it all in and process it and then listen to everybody really intently is such a, like, it’s a great thing to do on the first go round, because what I find is then when I go to the second go around, or when I just read the transcript, like, Oh, like it comes so much full circle in your mind and you get so much out of it because you’re going to get You know, ideas are going to be flowing when people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

And sometimes it’s just better to write down the idea than it is to be like, you know, Fred said yes to, you know, question one, like it’s going to be, Oh wow. What about that idea? And then that idea, cause that’s really where, cause that may never come back. That’s true. The 

Ashley Leavitt: idea may never come back. And the point you just made with the transcript, you don’t, nobody’s typing up a transcript when you do it live.

And so the transcript comes through, which is fantastic. And it eliminates so much need for, for you to try and take [00:08:00] notes that you can really just sit there and watch. And, and I, I mean, I will sit here with a paralegal and we’ll be like this one, this one gets it. She gets it. She’s with us. Just wait. When she starts talking, she’s going to be with us and then, you know, see what she says.

So it just makes it a lot more fun as opposed to, you know, just scrambling to try and get the most out of it that you can. I mean, a lot out of it because you can always refer back to it. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. And I will say also, I mean, the way that y’all do them, Ashley’s partner is Lori Kohler. When we do them in these smaller time fragments, either an hour, an hour and a half, or sometimes two hours, like that’s so manageable for you to go back and watch it, even if you speed it up.

Yes. You know, it’s so much manageable for you to be able to go back and rewatch it. Right. 

Ashley Leavitt: Yeah. Yeah. Even if you fast forward through some people that you’re like. I wasn’t a big fan of this one, so we’ll just skip forward about a minute, you know, let her not talk anymore. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yes. [00:09:00] Yes. Well, and that’s, I will tell you, truthfully, that’s one of the reasons why I like whenever we do a focus group together, I always ask for feedback.

And, you know, we have these forms that people give feedback on. And Ashley’s feedback on one of the forms was that she didn’t like the focus group. So I was like, oh, okay, well, we got to go back in and talk about this. So, and it was an opening statement focus group. So tell us, you know, in a very general, what were a little bit of the facts about the case and then how come you guys were ready to do an opening focus group?

Ashley Leavitt: Uh, so the facts of this case, pretty standard for us. Half of our practice is suing insurance companies directly for breach of contract and the breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing after they’ve refused to replace a roof and other damaged property after hail and wind storms. That’s just pretty general.

Everyone has different facts, but in general, they’re all the same in that sense. So this particular case, I was so excited about, and I had been working on it for about a year. [00:10:00] and really developing that there was all these really bad faith facts there. Most of the time I want to make arguments for bad faith and courts shut me down consistently, but this one I just knew.

We were in state court so our standard was better off and I had all of these just bizarre facts, but I just, I loved this case and I loved telling people about it. So we were coming up on a trial date. I was supposed to try that case in January of 2024. And this was, I think we did our first opening statement in November of 2023 on this case.

So it was coming up about two months away. I was really excited about it. I made a, a PowerPoint that I was going to potentially use at trial because I knew it was fact heavy and I wanted to give a visual so that they could follow along. Well, I told this focus group every single bad faith fact that I had, [00:11:00] I told it in order, this is what happened.

And then this was what happened. And then can you believe that they determined through their engineer that birds ate the roof. And, you know, I just kept building on all of these crazy facts, and I end, I sit back, and I’m watching, and they had no idea what I said. The only thing that they remembered was the very first inspector didn’t get on the roof.

He just leaned the ladder up against the house, and climbed to the top of the ladder, and pointed his camera up over the roof. The eaves and took pictures that way. He didn’t get on the roof. And I was like, but you didn’t, you didn’t remember that the birds ate the roof. You didn’t remember, you know, all of these other crazy, interesting, like slap yourself in the forehead facts that I thought, you know, I, for sure, I’m going to get this huge verdict.

So basically they were like, no, you’re a dork. We don’t understand why you’re so excited about this. And I don’t [00:12:00] follow it. So frustrating. Hence the review.

I tried, you know, I tried very hard not to, that was not a google review where it was public. I 

Elizabeth Larrick: know. Well, no, no, no, of course not. It’s internal. But I was just like, oh, okay, well, but then I realized like when we, so, you know, naturally we run the focus, you know,

And it’s all these other facts, but there’s, you know, there’s a good level of confusion and it really came down to, okay, you had some visuals, but we need some other visuals to kind of give them more, like more perspective and, and ideas. And we got some really good things, but from that focus group, but I think also it was just a little bit like, You 

Ashley Leavitt: really interpreted it well for me because I was just so defeated about it and got my feelings hurt, really, if I’m being honest, that they weren’t on the same page as me and they didn’t see it like I saw it.

And so I [00:13:00] had a hard time coming up with, well, I, I just, you know, Don’t know what I could do better. And you were like, well, here, let’s try this. And so you started me on this path and you pointed out different things that different people said that led to that. And so I was able to make a lot of changes and I really just tried to simplify it, even though there was a whole bunch of juicy facts that were going to come out later during the trial.

We just decided it wasn’t best in an opening statement because it just left them so confused. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And one of the things I think that really kind of stood out that a lot of lawyers come to find out about is how powerful is the other expert. And we found out like just by dropping the word engineer, ooh, okay, there’s a lot of power behind that, you know, and you just made a really good point too, which is, selecting the facts for opening versus waiting for, you know, later development when you have more time and more like cross exam, like that kind of stuff, which again, I still though, feel like we came back and tested him again.

Like, okay, [00:14:00] let’s put them back in there because he’s the big, you know, one of the biggest things they rely on. And so you, you did, you refashion it and came back, but we, like I said, we did hear some really good things, but we also disappointed, but. And I think what also to give kind of, you know, people listening a perspective of this whole, one of the biggest facts that we heard from nearly every participant was about like how crazy it was that the very first person who showed up to look at the house never got on it.

Well, this was a 4, 000 square foot roof y’all. We’re not talking about like, you know, small residential home. This was a big home and they had that house and they had two other outbuildings, large outbuildings again. And so to them, they just were like, wait a second, what? So helpful to know, like, okay, this is a juicy fact.

Like you didn’t think it’s so juicy. Let’s give it back to them. So that was a big one. And then also again, kind of the visual concept of, and then the learning piece. Because that’s the other thing, too, is, you know, when people are so confused, you’re like, okay, [00:15:00] do I need to simplify or are they just lost because they don’t know how a shingle roof works?

It was a little both. 

Ashley Leavitt: Right. That’s exactly it. And I think, well, I’m not a roofer, but I have been working these types of cases for about three years. And so I tell everyone at this point, I could be a supervisor at least. Oh yeah. Joke because I can’t get on the roof. I’m too scared of heights. But you know, it was just interesting to really focus on the one thing that they kept going back to, which was the first bad faith fact I gave them.

He didn’t even get on the roof. I see that all the time in a lot of claims. And I just have been numbed to that fact, but it stood out to them. And so I leaned on that in the second round. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And I think we also had people like we were kind of missing like you had the facts like you had this kind of juicy story where it’s like they were disbelieving the client but the client had literally visual video and [00:16:00] footage documented like Can’t dispute, like we couldn’t make this up kind of stuff.

And that was such a like, Ooh, okay. We know we have this thing and they kind of hit on it, but it was like, okay, we’re still not aligning this in a way where it’s just like, wow, like how could they say, and we just had bombarded them with so much stuff. So it was like, okay, let’s come back and try it again.

And so you came back for the second one. And what’d you do to prepare for, for the second virtual focus group? 

Ashley Leavitt: I cut a lot. I cut just a lot of facts out and I remember there was something to do with, you know, to me, these big holes on the shingle roof. It’s clearly hail damage, clearly, based on the video that we have showing the hail pelting down at this residence on the day in question.

And That first focus group was like, but is that it? I don’t know what hail damage looks like. I’m like, really? Like you don’t just assume that that’s hail damage. What do you think it would be? And so we did some more explanation [00:17:00] of roofing procedures and how many hail hits per test square it takes to total a roof.

And we put a visual up there for them to understand. And it didn’t even seem like an issue at all in for the second group. 

Elizabeth Larrick: One of the things too that I think we forgot to talk about that you made sure to mention was people were had this impression that like if it is damaged, therefore it leaks like that was what they were looking for.

So if they hadn’t replaced it had been so long, is it leaking? And so it was like, okay, put that in your opening. And I remember you made sure to talk about how they would not have net that. Do you put that in there? Like they couldn’t have known it was leaking because the way the roof was made with some seal stuff or something.

Ashley Leavitt: Right. And that’s part of the insurance company’s denial was this cosmetic damage exclusion saying that if it were to be damaged in order for it to be covered, there would have to be leaks. But this particular house had 12 inch spray foam insulation underneath [00:18:00] the roof. So for my clients to know that they had a leak, that water would have to penetrate through 12 inches of insulation.

It was, and I will tell you since then, the case has resolved. The clients have a new roof and they had to redo all of that insulation as well because it’s moldy, just like we expected. But, you know, without getting in there and destroying things, we couldn’t prove that. And you’re asking our clients now to cut a hole in their roof to prove that they need a new roof.

That’s just crazy. But having that, I don’t even think I had to put a picture of the spray foam insulation into the side, just telling them how it was made just made the difference for them. I just don’t feel like it was a, an issue at all. I don’t remember it being an issue at all for the second group.

Elizabeth Larrick: It wasn’t. Yeah. And I think because we had one of things, of course, was like, you know, how would you know? And what questions do you have? And like, we made sure and kind of, okay, this is a big one. Multiple people are asking this. So that was definitely something that you put in there. So refashioned it, put some more emphasis on the, on the roofs of things, answer some [00:19:00] questions.

How did you feel like the second virtual focus group went? 

Ashley Leavitt: The second one was good for my ego. It gave me that little confidence that I needed when the mediator came calling and said, Hey, they’re wanting to talk more settlement again. And so it was a nice confidence booster before trial. I mean, we were, I think, a week and a half from trial by the time we settled.

Maybe even less. So I thought I was going and when the case settled, I was heartbroken, but it needed to happen. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Well, and I think even after your second one, you know, you got good feedback again, and then I think we still said, okay, this is still a thing with the engineer. Like this is still a thing that’s just not really coming through all the way.

It needs more development. Let’s, you know, make sure and put that. In cross exam, but you know, put it in there as some, you know, some kind of excuse fashion, 

Ashley Leavitt: right? Yeah, I did learn that [00:20:00] I did not have an engineer on this case and they did and I didn’t feel at the beginning of the case that I needed one because the engineers conclusion was because there was bird poop on the roof.

within two inches of a hole in the roof that therefore birds were eating the roof because they burrow from the ridge of a roof down, which is ridiculous. And I just thought everyone would understand that and that this engineer meant nothing. But I found out that Just because he’s an engineer. He holds some weight.

So that was interesting and disheartening, but I’m definitely moving forward with that information on every other case that I have to engineer something ridiculous. Yeah, that it’s going to repeat itself. Right, exactly. And that’s what’s really nice about these, these focus groups too, is even though that was specific to that one case, like I said at the beginning, all of our cases are pretty similar.

They’re all [00:21:00] denied roof replacements from insurance companies because of weather related events. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And I think the other thing too, that you guys were testing in both of them were kind of the fraud aspect, because, you know, that’s, that’s always an underlying theme for, for the, for the insurance company.

And it’s, you know, as we saw in both groups, there were people who were just like, well, there’s a lot of people out there who, you know, just want a new roof. So it’s, it’s fraud. And it was just like, okay, well, you know, here’s all the things that, and I think by the time you got to the second one, like, here’s all the things they did to.

You know, follow the rules to show the damage and still were, you know, 

Ashley Leavitt: I completely forgot about that. So the first focus group on this particular case, they had a prior claim within a year before this incident. And they had gotten a new roof the day of the storm. The day that this, or actually it was the day, yeah, day before the storm happened.

They had a new roof on one of the three buildings. And then [00:22:00] the storm happens and they deny the claim again. So their first claim with this insurance company was denied. Eventually they paid it, but it was, it turned it into this dramatic thing where they ended up having to do a lot more repairs because of the spray foam insulation issue.

And so. When they made the second claim, they were really not expecting their insurance company to do the right thing because they’d already had this previous experience. And I, as an attorney, am going, that’s pattern in Practice . That’s bad faith. And, and the first focus group hated it because they decided that my clients were litigious and just constantly making claims and wanting new roofs and that wasn’t it at all.

And so even though I felt like it was a huge. You know, point that I could make in my bad faith claim, we decided to completely forego it and we did not talk about the prior claim at all. And that was my intention going into trial. We were not going to bring up the prior claim at all, even though the same adjuster that adjusted the second one had [00:23:00] adjusted the first claim.

We just decided to scrap it all together. That was a huge part of what I thought my claims were going to be. But it really made the difference. It really did. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, there weren’t as many people. I think y’all know there’s always going to be somebody in the crowd who says, oh, there’s a, you know, but that particular fact was like, oh, they’ve already had a clean before.

Like, oh, you know, and also I think one of the things too, from the first to the second one was we had a lot of people in the first one say, well, I mean, how old was the roof? Because if it’s an older roof, they should just go ahead and replace it. But if it’s brand new, well, they used me trying to get a new roof.

So in the second one, you made sure and said, okay, here’s a picture of the, you know, beautiful home with the roof and it was built in this year. And like, but yeah, completely left out the other flame altogether. 

Ashley Leavitt: That’s probably the biggest thing I learned from that focus group. And here I am a couple months out and I’d already forgotten.

Elizabeth Larrick: No, you’re fine. And that’s kind of how you like, you know, kind of comes back to you as well. Cause [00:24:00] there were other facts that were in the first one where it was like, because we wanted to see like, what is it that they need to kind of. Not bolster them, but what’s something they can lean on is like, we’re doing our job, we’re telling insurance everything, and they had hired their own private adjuster.

And I want to say, I don’t know if we talked, like, I think we dropped it in there, but that concept alone was just like, what? Like, mind blown. We don’t know what this is. 

Ashley Leavitt: Right. That no one from the insurance company, no one who was directly employed from the insurance company ever went to the property to inspect.

There were. Three different inspections in that one. And it was a third party adjuster. Then it was a, just somebody hired to take photos and then it was an engineer and none of them were employed by the insurance company. And again, that is common. So for me, I’m working these cases for three years and being around dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, that’s so common, but [00:25:00] people did not like that.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And they just didn’t know. I mean, that’s. You know, I think people who had a lot of experience. Kind of new, but I mean, it’s just one of those things that we take for face value of like someone shows up at your house with, you know, ex insurance company, you’re like, okay, here, like, you know, we just assume that you’re, you know, employed by them, but they’re just not at all.

So, I mean, it was definitely lots of really good feedback. And then again, being able to do them back to back. And we didn’t like you put in, you know, here’s what the defense is going to say. And then, you know, we try to do some questions about it, but we, you know, we didn’t put a defense opening in there because didn’t really need one for the purposes of what you guys were doing, because it was like, okay, keep testing, keep testing.

Cause even after that second one, you know, we talked about, okay, how could you then tweak and change and refashion it to get it ready. So even though I know you settled, did you feel like the opening statement was pretty well set? 

Ashley Leavitt: Yes, absolutely. I felt like after the second [00:26:00] one, I sat there and I watched them all talk about how great my case was and how I was probably going to get such a high verdict.

And I just I was nodding along and they’re telling me what they found most egregious. And it was just kind of a check, check, check, check. Now I feel really good about where we’re at. And then once you have your opening, it’s everything else just falls in, in line. So I did, I felt very prepared to go to trial after that.

Elizabeth Larrick: How did you feel about the numbers? Cause I know the numbers were a little bit like different than what people would normally expect for, for Ruth claims. 

Ashley Leavitt: So they did have a little bit of an issue with my contractor numbers. Because I had a public adjuster and I had a contractor and the numbers are different, but I didn’t even put it in.

I don’t think I put in the public adjuster number on the second and they were picking apart my contractor number because it was an extremely high amount. Like [00:27:00] you said before, it’s a 4, 000 square foot home plus two. And that was an asphalt shingle. And that was two. Outbuildings that were metal roofed.

And so the total that I had, which was actually an old estimate that I showed them was like 123, 000. And that’s the actual damages. And so we’re asking for more than that. And these people just couldn’t fathom that that’s how much a roof cost. And I, I mean, that was a real estimate. That’s the real quote of what it would have cost at the time it was written.

That was a little bit scary to get past, but then in the end, I think all of them. You know, said more than what the, the estimate was. 

Elizabeth Larrick: We’re frantically talking, you know, texting to each other. Cause I was like, what, it was all this included. And so I think once they understood like, okay, it’s roost, but it’s also the trim pieces and drains and guttering and garage doors and all these, all the, they’re like, oh, okay, well that, that made them feel a little better.

Yes. [00:28:00] 

Ashley Leavitt: The hot tub cover. Oh my goodness. The video was of the hail pelting the hot tub cover and the insurance company waited until two years after the claim to pay for that. So yeah, it was, 

Elizabeth Larrick: I mean, and we talked about, okay, like how can we, of course, you know, a jury in Oklahoma is going to understand this so much more because they’re all going to have experienced.

having gone through a hailstorm, but then at least their cars or, you know, some kind of damage, but the size difference between what he had in it, in his hand, in that picture versus what, you know, the engineer said hit their house. Like it was such a drastic difference, but you couldn’t convey that verbally.

Like you, I was like, okay, you’re going to have to get something. Hobby lobby or something to show them like, this is what we’re, you know, so lots of good ideas, but overall, like, what was your kind of big takeaways from kind of doing both of the virtual focus groups for this case? 

Ashley Leavitt: My big takeaway on this was that focus groups are [00:29:00] so necessary because I thought that I had.

this case in the bag. I thought I understand these facts forwards and backwards and I’ve been living and breathing this case and been so excited about it and I don’t need to refer to my notes at all. I can talk about this case ad nauseum and that is not what’s going to get a jury to understand the claim.

And so if I hadn’t had that experience, I would have Well, I certainly would have gone to a jury and given an opening statement in a different way that a jury probably was not going to follow. So even though I had thought it was really simplified and that a jury was going to just follow along with me, that I was going to be leading them down the path, they just were not as excited as I was and they didn’t get on board.

So I had to make it a whole lot easier in order to get them on board. And part of that was cutting out things that I thought were really important, that my clients thought were really important and having that conversation with [00:30:00] them in preparation for trial, like this is what we have to do. So really as cliche it is to say it, focus groups are so necessary because we just live and breathe this.

All day long and think that everybody’s going to be with us, but we have to remind ourselves that of where we were or where the average person is not knowing anything about these types of claims or the legal implications or conclusions or anything else that goes along with the claim, like we’ve got to take it back to a baseline knowledge and give them breadcrumbs so that they can follow along.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, exactly. I’m curious, did you, like, did you talk to your clients about the feedback? I did. 

Ashley Leavitt: I did. My clients are, those particular clients were more involved than the average client, I would say. They’re self described gamblers. And most of my clients do not want to go to trial. Like, that is the ultimate, like, nope, I would rather settle for less than what this claim is worth than go to trial.

Not these clients [00:31:00] at all. They actually had experienced a jury trial before, years before for a different issue, not because they’re litigious, but they’re just willing to fight the good fight for what is right in their mind. And so they were very much wanting to be involved. They were very much wanting that first claim to be introduced as evidence.

And so I did have to talk to them about the focus group. I told them that I was going to do the focus group before I did it. And then afterwards I talked to them about what I learned and what we were now going to pivot towards for trial. So they were on board with it. Because they, they trusted me and I was able to explain why, but that’s not what they wanted to originally do.

They wanted to talk about the first claim. Yeah, 

Elizabeth Larrick: you just nailed it. Like, if you are a lawyer and you’re going to explain the implications of a focus group. Cause I, I’ve got a pretty strong opinion about like not having people watch them live, like never have your, especially like personal [00:32:00] injury clients or even really any client because they can’t really fathom what’s happening other than it feels like a constant personal attack.

Right. They’re really close to the case. When you think we’re close, like, you know, they’re, they’re super close. So like, I love the way you, obviously you always got like, Hey, this is what we’re doing. We, we want to test it with a group of people who. No, nothing about it. Right. These could be potential jurors.

And then going back and saying, okay, here’s what we heard. But here’s what that means for the case. And really, why are they saying it? Right. So being able to really give the full picture because a lot of times people say, well, hey, we folks script your case. They hated it. You know, sorry. We’re going to settle it or you know what I mean?

Like, cause they’re like, well, why? I don’t understand. Like, cause then they’ll still be stuck in their mindset of like, I need that for like, they need to know the injustice that I had. And it’s like, Ooh, actually that fuels the fire for this whole other, like, you know, fraudster thing that we are trying to tamp down that is, could get out of hand and we’d turn around and get, you know, a zero verdict and not [00:33:00] understand.

The jurors have been like, Oh, they’re just fraudsters. Like huge thing to really learn in a focus group and not in 

Ashley Leavitt: the courthouse. Exactly. And I did not have my clients watch the video and I didn’t give them quotes or anything just because I didn’t think it was necessary. They understood what I was trying to tell them when I explained it to them.

So I didn’t feel the need to, to share that I’ve never had a client watch a focus group at this point. There may be a time when I need to, but I have enough rapport with my clients that I’m able to tell them, communicate what I learned and how I’m using that. And this is where we’re going because of, of this focus group.

So, 

Elizabeth Larrick: so helpful. I mean, cause a lot of people think sometimes we get Excited and sometimes it’s hard to like translate that into like, okay, you know, we had to get this information in, then we had to dissect it and process it and put it into the action plan for the case. And then, you know, if it’s against what the client wants or, you know what I mean, like getting them on board, [00:34:00] they kind of have to go through that process on their, like themselves with the information you give them.

Ashley Leavitt: Right. I had already gotten over my hurt feelings. I didn’t need to coach them through theirs.

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, that’s funny. Awesome. Well, let me ask you one other question, and I know I want to respect your time, but if there’s somebody out there who’s listening who’s just not really sure whether virtual is the way to go or not, like, what would you tell them? 

Ashley Leavitt: I would tell them, especially if they’ve already done a focus group that was live, A virtual one, it’s so much better than the live because the camera on somebody’s face that you get to watch back over and over and over and all of the audio that picks up the transcript that you get, that types it all out for you.

Like all of those things are just compounded on top of, you know, the benefits that you know, that you’ll get from. a live focus group or in person focus group. But if you haven’t done a focus group at all, then you’re missing what the average person thinks about your case. And these, these simple little things that [00:35:00] are like, duh, Ashley, why didn’t you know that?

But I mean, it took a focus group for me to realize those things. So it puts cases into the perspective of a juror, what a juror is going to think about it. And there’s multiple thought processes and you get those. in the focus groups and you get those people arguing with you so it’s a or arguing with themselves each other and you’ll know what deliberations are going to be like 

Elizabeth Larrick: even if it is guided i mean and we’ve had some you guys have brought some unusual unusual cases where it’s just been like wow i was not anticipating like this kind of discussion I guess maybe I should have, but I mean, you guys just have some cases that have like several layers to it and it’s hard to know like which layer is going to catch with people and then which way people like with their experience, they’re going to talk about it.

So, right. Yeah. We’ve had some fun ones. Yeah, that’s for 

Ashley Leavitt: sure. Ashley, well, thank you so much for joining the [00:36:00] podcast. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much for having me. I hope that I was able to communicate a little bit about why I think it’s so important to have these virtual focus groups. And I appreciate so much your willingness to have me on and to keep dealing with me.

Elizabeth Larrick: With focus groups. In our crazy cases. It is always fun to work with you guys and I always enjoy like, we’ve got a different one. I’m like, okay, let’s do it. Let’s see what they say. So it’s always a good time. So, you know, it’s always helpful just to give your thoughts and feedback and you know, you were disappointed and that’s going to happen.

And like you came back for another round, even though it was disappointing. 

Ashley Leavitt: Yes. Yes. I wouldn’t have done that with a lot of people, so I knew, I don’t even fully remember the review that I gave the focus group, 

Elizabeth Larrick: but I think it was like on a scale of one to 10 and it was not, it was not, I was like, Oh no, like it was, it was not a personal, 

Ashley Leavitt: no, nothing to do with the process, everything to do with my [00:37:00] disappointment in myself, but we fixed it.

So that’s what matters. 

Elizabeth Larrick: We did. We did. So awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I know everyone appreciates hearing your experience. Thank you. Awesome. Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening. If you have a property damage claim, Ashley’s contact information is going to be in the show notes, or if you have questions about her experience with virtual focus groups, I know she’d be happy to answer questions as what I, so as you haven’t may have heard.

I do virtual focus groups, so if you are interested in a virtual focus group or are curious about how may help to help your case, just set up a free consultation call. That link will be in the show notes. Otherwise, please like review, follow the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, thank [00:38:00] you.

In this episode, I’m taking you behind the scenes of a gripping courtroom drama, unraveling the intricate process of using virtual focus groups for a trial’s success. Let’s explore the case of an 18-wheeler collision through the eyes of Fidel Rodriguez, Jr., a seasoned trial lawyer, and discover how he harnessed the power of virtual focus groups to transform the case narrative. We’ll dissect the importance of visual evidence, tackle jury confusion, and reveal how meticulous tweaks based on focus group insights can lead to pivotal changes in a jury trial’s outcome.

This episode is more than just a recount of legal strategy – it’s a lesson in psychological finesse, where we reveal the courtroom as a theater and jurors as the audience whose verdict can pivot on a single piece of evidence. We walk through the dramatic transformation of a high-stakes liability case, scrutinizing every nuance from opening statements to surveillance footage. Take this front-row seat to witness the meticulous crafting of a winning case, proving that sometimes, the path to justice is through the screen of a virtual focus group.

In this episode, you will hear:

• The importance of visual evidence
• Addressing jury confusion points
• Shaping the case’s narrative based on focus group feedback
• Pivoting strategies based on juror insights

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. 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 get more details about the sequence of virtual focus groups, check out the blog: https://larricklawfirm.com/case-study-how-virtual-focus-groups-flipped-disputed-liability/ 

Ever wondered about setting up your own virtual focus group system? 

A system that could easily produce a virtual focus group that allows you to test your cases with lower cost and stress. 

Well, I am setting up an online course for lawyers to do just that on May 1st. But you need to be on my email list to get access, use this link: www.larricklawfirm.com/connect

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 I sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello, and welcome to the Trial Lawyer Prep Podcast. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and I’m glad you’re here.

This episode, I’m going to walk through a case study where we look at a particular case and how that lawyer used virtual focus groups. [00:01:00] and what the ultimate result was for them. And this one actually went all the way to a jury trial, so we’ll be able to talk about all the fun details. This episode is for you if you are curious about virtual focus groups, meaning maybe you’ve tried traditional in person focus groups, mock trials, but you’re not really sure how that virtual works.

And it’s also for you if you’ve never even done a focus group or a mock trial, because we’re going to get into the style of the virtual focus group, what we did to prepare, kind of what our results were, and then how that all was folded into the case and ultimately that result. So let’s jump in and just talk about real briefly to set it up the facts of the case.

So this is a crash that occurred about five a. m. In the morning. So it’s dark out. This involves an 18 wheeler pulling a trailer and a small car. 18 wheeler driver has just packed up the trailer and is literally leaving the distribution center, makes a [00:02:00] left hand turn, and that small car runs right into the back of that trailer, right into that back wheel.

Almost an underride, but not quite. It bounces off, right? Resulting in some severe injuries. We’ve got a traumatic brain injury. We’ve got some deep lacerations, including a laceration to the left arm that causes some nerve damage where he can’t even walk. Use his left arm to lift anything anymore, some tendinitis and then some other, you know, scrapes, break abrasions, bruises, that kind of thing.

Some, some more minor injuries as well. So this lawyer, Fidel Rodriguez, who I work with quite often, came to me to run a virtual focus group during the discovery phase. So they had already gone through discovery, had some depositions underneath the belt. If you know anything about Fidel, he is great to work with.

He is a 30 plus year lawyer, lots of trials underneath his belt, lots of mock trials used. He runs Rodriguez trial law out of San Antonio, Texas. He was an early believer in virtual focus groups, and he and I had [00:03:00] done several for his office before this particular file came along. And for this case, his main concern was disputed liability.

As you can imagine. This driver of a small car does not have any memory of the crash. So all there is, is the 18 wheeler driver. So of course, they’re disputed liability. And he wanted to know how much would a potential jury put on his client, this small car. So what did we ultimately do? We had four virtual focus groups over the course of 16 months.

And each focus group involved a planning call, creating or tweaking a PowerPoint presentation, obviously presenting to a group, and then having an attorney or a lawyer debrief, right? We talked about the feedback and then also a focus group report. So let’s dive in and really look at what were these four virtual focus groups and what did we do?

Now, almost all these focus groups Run with a few months in [00:04:00] between them and the last one had eight months since the last ones. Because again, as you all have probably experienced, there’s continuances that happen, there’s delays, there’s extra depositions, there’s all kinds of things that can kind of delay a case, even though he came to me in the middle or how little bit in the middle of discovery phase, right?

They still had quite a few things to do, but they had a lot of information and they knew contrib. was going to be a problem. So they came to me and our first focus group that we ran was a one hour focus group. We did a neutral narrative where we tested liability and a little bit about damages. You know, again, the main concern was how much responsibility is this small car going to get?

So we focused and built a presentation really around that. And the main thing that we learned out of that was really needed to get better photographs and angles of the photographs at the scene of the crash, right? So there was a lot of visual, they’re trying to create it in their minds. What does this really look like?

We had some pictures, But they were kind of dark. They’re from the, [00:05:00] you know, from the scene at that night. So it was very dark and hard to see. So we thought, okay, visually, we need to get some better photographs to show these people what each driver was seeing. And there was also some confusion on mechanism of injury to the ear and the arm.

And again, I think it came back to, again, they were, they could see this picture of this car, which was like demolished, but they couldn’t quite figure out like, what does that happen to his ear? So. Just learn some, obviously when we’re doing neutral narratives, we always want to pick up what are our confusion points.

You know, what is still lingering out there at this point? The liability boat was a little bit 50, 50, but mostly we’ll say on the white car, so, which we already expected, but we just really wanted to learn and how much we could do. So we came back for our second focus group. We, again, we, uh, what we did was basically in that planning session, we took what was created before and took a look at it and decided, okay, how can we move some things around, meaning move some facts around, take some facts out.

And put in some new facts. So they had [00:06:00] actually at that point, a couple of months later, learn some more things about training. And so they wanted to put that in. How much is this training route training going to help? How much is like night training? Is this going to help this at all? And again, we tested out some of those damages again, and we had more visuals because we knew we needed to put some more visuals in.

To this particular one. So we really were able to kind of build, but also at this point, now that we’re doing two, we have really the ability to remove facts and see how does that play. And again, at this point, we’re pretty sure he’s going to run another focus group too. So we run that second one. Again, we’re still getting some confusion points.

And we realized the strength of some of the other facts. One of the facts that we had left out was that the 18 wheeler driver had changed his story. So on the scene, he had a story. And then of course, when he talks in that position, he had a story. So he had changed his story. So that fact, we left it out.

Because we really want to test this training back. So [00:07:00] the training helped, right? But we ended up our small car still, still not doing good on our responsibility liability vote here. So again, take some time, a couple of months go by. And this time they come to me and said, okay, we’re gearing up for trial.

So let’s go ahead and let’s do, let’s do an opening. Okay, great. This one is this virtual focus group is an hour and a half, and I should pause to note to let you know for these particular groups, because his venue was going to be Bexar County. We used only Bexar County. Participants as well. So one thing that’s important, especially if you’re going to trial is to do that.

But for Adele, when we set up focus groups, okay, this is a sidebar, by the way, we set up focus groups. He is very, you know, conscious of, Hey, we need to look at these things early on and not wait till last minute. So typically what we’ll do is we’ll set up a three hour. And then we’ll divide it up between the cases to figure out what cases need to go.

Sometimes it’s four. Sometimes it’s three. Sometimes it’s five. [00:08:00] We put fit in there for so keep in mind when we’re doing these, right? Like, that’s kind of how we’re setting it up to make sure. Okay, we’re getting the panel who could be in this jurisdiction, but also we’re maximizing what we’re doing with these virtual focus groups for this office, right?

Coming back to our story, we’re on our third focus group. We’re getting ready now for trial trials coming up. It is look, it’s going to settle, right? Let’s do a plaintiff opening statement. So put the plaintiff opening statement in there. One of the things too, that was added in here is for damage. What’s the life care plan and other things that were in there.

And again, with advocacy now, right? So we’re taking away the neutrality. We’re putting in the advocacy. They put together that opening statement. So when their office ran it live and then I jumped into ask questions, whereas before basically I had been our neutral moderator, right, create the presentations presented his crew watches and then we would have a debrief session after each focus group.

Also, each focus group has a report. So that also helped us [00:09:00] when we were going back to look and see. Okay, it was a couple months ago. What did we do? So for this plaintiff’s opening, right? We had our two reports. What’s high? What’s low on confusion? What do we need to be hitting? Let’s test out this thing or put some things around for liability.

Again, just to see, like, with advocacy, are we nailing liability now or are we still loose? So did all of that. And again, still kind of a little bit squirrelly on liability, but we’re getting better, right? We’re they’re hitting the good stuff. We’re getting better. Naturally, trial gets continued. So a couple months go by in actuality, eight months go by before I get that call.

Hey, We’re got our trial date again. We feel really confident. It’s going to go. Let’s do this last virtual focus group. Awesome. So this one’s going to be a three hour only on this case. So you know, what are we going to do? What have we tested before? So before we met for a planning meeting, I got together [00:10:00] all the reports that I had, and I created a really simple chart to basically be able to have everything in one place to compare.

What was the style that we did? What was the main feedback that we did? And then what was the general demographics of the group? And especially if there were any outliers. So that’s what I did. Generally, you can go back and look at that report and remember, Oh, yeah, that’s that person, you know, that said all that crazy stuff.

Like, let’s put that as that outlier, right? Like, because again, that helps you if you’re, they’re going to try on at this point. So I want them to be able to see the demographics, think about it. So I pulled all that, put it in a chart together. So that we would know what was tested before. What was the liability vote?

What needs to be tested now? Because at this point, we’re eight months, we got more information, but also knowing what was excluded, right? So there was some testimony that was going to be excluded or some pieces of evidence that were going to be excluded. Okay, great. Now we know. And how [00:11:00] strong were experts in depositions, right?

How strong are they going to actually advocate for us? What do we need to do? So this also is a point where Fidel and his team had very specific questions that they needed to get on feedback, which we had before. But at this point, they knew, like, okay, we’ve got to get information on this. We’re going to try.

We really need to know. So we set it up. as a plaintiff opening statement versus a defense opening statement plus client credibility. They really were very concerned about how is the jury really going to receive this person? Are they going to want to give this person a large amount of money? I mean, we’re talking millions and millions here.

What concerns should we have be going in? So, which was great. So, the other thing that we were able to do is with this comparison chart was pull The defense points like the strong topics that defense participants had circled around and commented and put those into the defense. Opening statement, right?

So we’re trying to craft that. What is the best defense [00:12:00] opening statement? And we have the information to do that. What jurors are going to feed off of. So we put that in the defense opening. Of course, they put together their strongest plans opening, and then we had them do it live. And then I went in and had discussions.

We had those specific questions that Fidel wanted. So we did a little bit of that. And then, of course, we had a for the client credibility portion. We had a video of the client answering very basic questions. What’s your name? What happened? What are your injuries? What’s bothering you now? Like four very simple questions because we didn’t want to inject any long direct exam questions or anything where it’s just yes, no questions.

Because trust me, participants will notice that it’s one of the biggest things that sometimes they notice when we make clips. And you know, one clip has this person talking a whole bunch, and then all of a sudden this other witness only has yes, no questions. Trust me, they can, they, they, they detect that stuff.

So we tried to make a very neutral, but also we wanted them to just hear from the client and they did. And [00:13:00] they told us they ranked. credibility on a scale of 1 to 10. What were their concerns? What questions would they ask them? The other thing we had here against his video of just him asking neutral questions was defense surveillance videos.

And so we tested those out to how strong are those? Is he a liar? He can carry boxes whenever it may be. And they gave us their thoughts. And a lot of those thoughts and opinions really helped them. Meeting Fidel and his team craft questions around that for other people to answer experts for other, you know, all kinds of stuff as far as like kind of defeating the surveillance thing and we had, you know, the liability at this point was much better.

There was still just a little bit on our small white car, and that’s okay still to be expected. But one of the things that they were able to do then at this point, right? Or focus groups down or sets of reports. What’s working, what’s not working. And so they made a decision about where they would go [00:14:00] for liability to what’s their theory, what’s their pinpoint, what’s their, you know, where are they going to go as far as getting this 18 wheeler driver responsible.

And so they stuck with just the rules of the road, right. Got to stop complete stop, look both ways, you know, and also they did the route training, right. Cause there was actually a shorter route for him to take a safer route. Yeah. He just chose not to do it. And so they focused on those two things, right?

Training and that particular role, you know, you got to look both ways, make sure nobody’s coming instead of looking at distractions because they had a video of the defendant driver in the cab. Looking very distracted. I don’t know what we couldn’t really ever figure out what he was doing, but it did look like he was distracted.

But every time that they talked about that distraction, it ended up coming back and blaming the small white car. Well, if this guy’s distracted, what the heck is the other guy doing? How did not see a giant 18 wheeler trailer? So I said, okay, we’re going to scrap that whole distraction [00:15:00] thing and put all eggs in the basket for this training.

And this rules the road. So off the trial, they go October, 2023. It’s a two and a half week trial. They are battling it out. They go to jury deliberation. They had an alternate jury, juror, who they approached and asked. She got released, so they went outside and she said, oh, it’s 100 percent your client’s fault.

So they’re looking at each other like, oh boy. Ultimately, the jury had to take two breaks because of heated arguments in the jury room. They deliberated for six hours and ultimately assigned 20 percent to the small, white jury. Hooray, everything else went to the driver and the employer. So that’s awesome.

Then they came back with the verdict of 1. 2 million. So in this, you know, scenario, this ended up being a huge success, right? They started out with 80 percent or more on their client and then ultimately being able [00:16:00] to move that needle down, down, down 50, 50, you know, ultimately at trial only having 20 percent on their client.

So very difficult case, highly contested liability, putting it together. They both sides had used significant amount of experts for liability and Fidel knew early on, he needed to move that needle on that responsibility percentage and use focus groups to find out how to do it. So strategically, right? We started using small one hour virtual focus groups during discovery, a few months apart.

You know, 80 percent 50 percent Ultimately, after those four focus groups, six and a half hours total jury came back at 20%. So, so helpful to know. Also, where were they needing to put that responsibility? Where was that persuasion? What were the rules of the road? What were the violations that were going to be needed to pin that responsibility on [00:17:00] that 18, right?

Which was don’t go for the distractions, go for the rules of the road, go for that training. And also, you know, what they learned along the way as well was what were the confusion points on the damages, which were significant, but if they were so confused on how it happened, so. We talked about that. How do you walk them through that?

How does the client walk them through where the body would have hit all that kind of stuff? And they had pictures to kind of substantiate that, right? I mean, they’re busted out windshield, like there was all kinds of stuff and there was also blood in the car too. So that helped to, you know, ping things around and they had lots of pictures of the cars.

So, and then ultimately I think that that last Focus group they did where they really asked themselves, what is it that maybe terrifies us the most, which is client credibility. And so we put it up there, right? Put up that surveillance video, created that video so that we can test out that client credibility so they, and they would be able to go in with confidence to know, okay, we’re going to ask for millions and millions.

Like we know that our client’s not going to be one of the stumbling blocks. for them in this situation. So [00:18:00] excellent use of virtual focus groups. I mean a total time of six and a half hours. Sometimes all people have a run as a mock trial and it could be six and a half hours. You wouldn’t have all these data points.

You wouldn’t be able to do this comparison. Where it’s like, oh, hey, what’s good, what’s bad, what’s working. How do we tweak these things to test them out? And that is just to me, one of the coolest parts about doing virtual focus groups and stacking them up, especially the way that Fidel and his team stacked them up to be able to help them test things out, move things around and come back at it again.

So I hope that this case study was helpful for you. I hope it was encouraging to you because again, 80 percent on their client. And they were already mid discovery, by the way, they had already put some money in on depositions on experts. Right? So they knew this thing’s going to trial. We need to figure out how to move this needle and what the jurors need to hear and what they don’t.

Right. So it’s the same, what we need to hear, what we don’t need to hear, how to put that best [00:19:00] case together. I hope this was a great example for you. If you haven’t figured out by now, I run virtual focus groups. And if you want to work with me, just reach out and let me know. We can book a free call. All right.

Until next time, please write a great review five stars on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you so much.

Ever wondered how trial lawyers can peer into the minds of a jury before setting foot in the courtroom? Rian Butler, a battle-tested attorney from Austin joins today’s discussion to unveil the secret weapon of litigation: focus groups. 

Rian illustrates how a focus group’s fresh eyes can reveal critical aspects that attorneys might miss. Our candid conversation exposes the strategic edge that focus groups provide in sculpting arguments and honing in on ways to genuinely connect with jurors through compelling narratives. 

Navigating the modern landscape of trial preparation, we swap tales of virtual and in-person focus group dynamics. The episode is packed with practical advice on keeping participants on the edge of their seats and how multimedia presentations can solidify an argument’s impact. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• The importance of focus groups in litigation
• The challenges and strategies of conducting virtual and in-person focus groups for trial preparation
• Understanding jurors’ perspectives
• Adaptability to trial schedules
• Unexpected jury deliberation outcomes

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. 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:

Learn more about Rian Butler and his Austin law practice: www.butlerinjury.com 

Ever wondered about setting up your own virtual focus group system? A system that could easily produce a virtual focus group to test your cases with lower cost and stress. Well, I am setting up an online course for lawyers to do just that on May 1st. But you need to be on my email list to get access, use this link: www.larricklawfirm.com/connect

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 I sent you.

Episode Transcript

Hi there. It’s Elizabeth here. I want to jump in before we get to this great content, an interview with Rian Butler and tell you a little bit more about him.

He grew up in Houston, and fun fact, he was born in Ireland. He had some litigation experience in Houston before [00:01:00] traveling over to Austin, where he calls home now. He runs his own firm, but he’s done plaintiff’s personal injury litigation for many years before opening his office, and I had the pleasure of working with him on a particularly large file, and you’ll hear more about that in our interview here today.

Ryan is growing his law firm. So if you know anyone who may be interested in a new position who might want to move to Austin or already lives in Austin, please look him up and his contact will be in the show notes. All right, let’s get to it. Hello and welcome back to the podcast trial lawyer prep. I’m your host Elizabeth Larrick.

And today we have a guest, a local guest for me. Which is wonderful. Who’s going to come and talk to us about focus groups, Rian Butler, who runs his own office here in Austin. You already know that because I told you in the mini intro. So welcome to the podcast. very 

Rian Butler: much, Elizabeth. Great to see you again.

It’s been a little while and appreciate you having me on. I’m looking forward to talking with [00:02:00] you. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Awesome. Well, I know that my audience is looking forward to hearing from you because there may be people who listen in and they’re just really not so sure about virtual focus groups, about these little mini focus groups.

And so I love having people on to come tell us your experience because you’ve Been running focus groups for we did ours together and you know, we’re going to talk about that case that you had and run through those, but tell us, you know, what was your first introduction to doing focus groups? 

Rian Butler: The first one goes way back, actually, before I was a lawyer.

I think it was during law school, I worked at a law firm in Houston. They did a lot of big single event cases, but then also stumbled into some mass tort cases just based on where they were. And they had a 20, 000 person plaintiff mass tort event. My boss was on the steering committee. They brought me into trial prep and strategy and stuff like that.

And they ran a focus group [00:03:00] back then. And so That’s been 15 years, almost 20 years, since I first heard about the idea of it and refined it and it’s different than I realized at first, but yeah, it’s, it’s valuable. It’s so valuable. And so, it’s something I’ve been around for a while. 

Elizabeth Larrick: I’m really curious.

What was your impression like watching it? Like the very first one? 

Rian Butler: It was different than anything I’d done. I mean, you just think legal things, legal cases, lawsuits are for the courtroom, for judges, for lawyers, and they decide everything and they figure it all out. It’s different. You learn pretty quickly that we’re not in as much control as the lawyers aren’t in as much control as you think.

And a lot of different viewpoints. These people, I call them potential jurors, but people on the focus groups just, they think of things you don’t think about, they see things differently. You’re, you know, we’re in this exposure case. 20, 000 plaintiffs and we thought we had everything figured out and they’re asking questions we’d never considered.

And so it’s just a, it’s a really refreshing look, maybe frustrating sometimes, but it’s an invaluable process. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, it’s a really good word, refreshing, [00:04:00] because we get so buried and like you said, you think you have it all figured out, you’ve got your frame, you’ve got how to look at it, and then they just blow it all away.

Uh, yeah, 

Rian Butler: I mean, the one we did last year together, I got close to trial. I think I told you two or three times we were, we had a continuance two days before we were down to pick a jury the second time before continued. And you’re so ingrained in it. I mean, you know, every, well, you think, you know, every little thing, but you’re going through witnesses, you’re outlining for Dyer and you’re just in it from your view and other people see it differently.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. So let’s jump in. So we did virtual and then we did an in person, but before we even get into that, why this case, what made you think, okay, this is a case that needs to be like, I need to hear from a focus 

Rian Butler: Yes, I think reached out to you on this one a couple of years into my practice. I mean, partly it was just timing.

And as the practice built into more complex and trickier cases, this one stood out, it had issues on both sides of it. As we, as we see them as [00:05:00] plaintiff’s lawyers, it had some liability issues or questions and a lot of damage questions. It was a very serious injury, but we had some issues with our treaters.

We had a lot of preexisting stuff. It’s an older client, which you tend to have the pre existing stuff and again, you get so close to a client, you can get wrapped up in it as a lawyer and wanted to make sure I had an outside view of how is somebody that’s not talking to this person every week, every day, going to see this and.

Think about, you know, the issues that are at play. So for me, it was just one of those cases where it had the two complex issues on both sides, you know, it’s not just one thing it had high limits. So it wasn’t just a simple policy limits, standard policy limits case. So we, we had a lot to figure out and it from the get go, it wound up settling.

But from early on, it just seemed like a case that was destined for trial and we almost got there. So, you know, a lot of them you prepare for trial, but. You kind of feel like it’s not going to get there. This is what I really thought was going to get there. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting the lay person’s [00:06:00] perspective.

For the first time when I was waiting for a verdict or something, you know, wanted to have that input. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and I think, you know, just talking through just kind of the basics of it. I mean, it was a premises liability case, which are always tough. I don’t care what venue you’re in. And here in Texas, like, There’s always a chance of MSJ.

So I know that you had put a lot of pieces into play to make sure, right. We, we jumped out over that hurdle, but then also you had put a lot of damages pieces into place to make sure, you know, those client depositions went well, because you managed not only your client, but two very close people to your client as well.

So you had kind of a, you know, Spread kind of thin when it comes to client management, right? 

Rian Butler: I wish I’d had a bigger firm back then to manage all the pieces, but it definitely helped me get ready for the trial. I love premises. I say that as a relative term. A lot of firms, people don’t take them at all. I have a few.

They can just cut both ways so easily. Like this one, one of the best facts is that, [00:07:00] uh, my client had tripped over this area before reported it. They refused to fix it and that’s great. So now they have actual knowledge. They’ve disregarded the property management company. They’ve done nothing about it.

But it goes right back to, to your plaintiff’s knowledge and open and obvious issues that we’ve seen so many bad cases in Texas on. And so you have one piece of evidence that’s great and it cuts against you at the same time. So definitely wanted to work through that. I think we got some on that particular note, some great quotes and little threads from the focus groups on what a home means and how people should fix things and do it right the first time.

So we got some good things from that, that I was getting ready to weave into my opening before Dyer. Yeah, they can be such difficult, tricky cases. If, if a property management company is supposed to fix something, why, why shouldn’t the person also have to look out for it and avoid it? And, and you know, when you already have a big battle on the damages side, it’s like every, every piece of.

fight or piece of energy that’s going out to fight something is taken away from elsewhere. [00:08:00] And so I wanted to have liability as tight as we could to focus on the impact to her. Cause yeah, it was, it was a, it was a brain injury case. So much about brain injury, I think is overlooked by doctors, by, by lawyers, by the public can be misunderstood by everyone saying involved and just a lot of moving parts.

Yeah, we had a lot of issues. We can talk about the brain injury issues specifically if you’d like, but a lot of moving parts to sort through. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and we will. So let’s, let’s talk first about doing virtual. So we did virtual for this one. Had you done a virtual focus group before? 

Rian Butler: I hadn’t, I had not done a virtual.

No, I’ve, uh, I’d sat in on one where we were watching through a camera. So it was kind of, I had done it, but everyone was, was in person there. So I hadn’t done one with everyone remote. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And how, like, just thinking about like that format or ever where you. Did you have like any kind of worries that like, it’s not going to be the same.

You’re not going to get as much information on them. 

Rian Butler: Yeah, I [00:09:00] think probably a lot of the same concerns we go through. And I don’t know if we all as a, as a practice have consensus on this yet, but the stuff we worry about in trials, you know, are they going to be paying attention? Are they distracted? Are they watching TV or something else going on?

Or, you know, they’re just getting a check. To show up. So some concerns, I mean, on the whole, I was excited to do it. It was better than, you know, certainly better than not doing them, but there’s some issues there, but I think the people that signed up, the people that are taking their time out, we’re, we’re there to, you know, do what they said they would.

And I think the types of people that sign up for them, find it interesting or at least want to know more. So I think we kept their attention pretty well. I don’t think it was, I don’t see a downside to it. It was certainly better. The second one we did being in person, but. There were no concerns by the end of it.

Certainly. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we, you know, as far as thinking through, you know, keeping people engaged and involved in what you’re saying, like we had, you know, you’d made some great power points. [00:10:00] We had some great clips of different people to do credibility, you know, and I think that’s kind of where.

Liability wasn’t totally super easy, but that’s where I feel like we got a lot of good comments for you to use, because I want to say, and you correct me if I’m wrong, were you getting ready for mediation? And then the in person was getting ready for trial. Does that sound right? 

Rian Butler: Exactly. So, yeah, I think I used stuff from both for trial, but the first one was in preparation for mediation and gave us some good ideas.

I was thinking as you made the point, I mean, I think the virtual, it’s kind of like a virtual hearing, as long as the connection is good, as long as everyone’s, I tend to prefer it because it’s so much easier to share stuff and point on the computer. You’re not turning around and wondering if they’re watching.

So there are definitely parts of it that, that helped, I think. But yeah, that, that first one was to try and refine some things and sort out mediation. Good, good memory. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I remember really specifically you had brought, we had a clip and it was the client’s [00:11:00] sister and she was so fiery, like super, super fiery.

And it was a little bit disappointing because like what we got from like from that group on damages was, Oh my gosh, Rian, you got some work to do. Like we gotta, you gotta go figure out someone’s got to give us a baseline, you know, there’s gotta be, you know, because the sister was not nice. She was a little bit, but like, she literally was like, I don’t know why she’s not doing this and blah, blah.

And so there was like, from our perspective, I think, you know, you know, the client so well and the medicine and what’s causing all this, but the focus group’s reception of that was very much what the sister’s perception was, right? Like. We don’t get it either. Like, we’re not really sure about, like, could she really be or is it just the family making it up?

So there’s lots of toss around on the, on the damages for that virtual one. 

Rian Butler: And we’re in Williamson County in that case, and this family was from rural Texas, you know, as [00:12:00] classic as you can get of pull yourself up, why do you need to sue someone, figure it out type of thing. So those were concerns from, from some of those family members and stuff.

We were worried about getting from a jury. So again, it’s. Better to hear that stuff six months before from, from someone else to refine. And I think it makes a good point. So those videos. Were recorded videos I did and anticipation mediation. So we had some family members, we had a sister, a cousin, some other folks.

They all wound up giving depositions, which weren’t quite as bad because for those videos I tried to pull some stuff out, you know, good and bad. So that was a big thing that first, first folks year I told you about. We got a big number and, and we won everything. And I was like, great. We’re looking good.

The lawyer said to tell me, no, you know, that’s not what we want. That’s not the point of a focus group. You want to get kind of hammered. You want to get beat up and find the bad stuff. So that’s what I was kind of trying to do going into mediation of, you know, showing the group the bad side of things or not the bad side, but not all the rosy stuff.

And [00:13:00] maybe the stuff that might come out on a witness stand if we were in trial. So it’s good to get out ahead of that and gauge the reaction and figure out how to present it differently or, Insulate against it. Or we might have decided to cut that that sister. I think we decided she didn’t have enough to try to bring her at all.

Elizabeth Larrick: Well, we, we noodle, I mean, I noodled on it and I just was like, you know, from my perspective, let’s reframe this because that is who your client is supposed to be right now. Because that woman, I think, was she like a year or two older than your 

Rian Butler: client? We had a sister and a cousin and they’re both the same age, right?

Okay. Yeah, that’s a good point. That’s something I, I wrote some, I think somebody mentioned that or maybe we came up with that, but they were a good baseline of what, what this client should have been. Yeah. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I like, okay. If you want to know where this woman was supposed to be in life, like, boom, she’s right here, you know, and she is fiery and she is, you know, but there was still that disconnect of like, she couldn’t quite grasp that the head injury was causing like all the rest of the stuff.

So 

Rian Butler: it’s hard when you’re [00:14:00] not in it in any brain injury case, and deal with it every day. And then in that one, especially Their particular relationship, my client would go see her every couple of months and vice versa. And they’d hang out and they had lost that. And you can kind of tell the story of what they lost, but the sister’s not seeing it play out every day.

And so we had some really good stuff from the family that her son and her daughter in law. that she had to move in with. And so those folks, I think that probably helped ease it a little bit too. You know, the sister’s going to have some of that view, but the people there every day were just great witnesses on, on the gradual decline and in the step by step because they see it every day.

And not that I wish I had that in every case because I was, it was sad how she had to be removed from independent living to live with family to take care of her. But it was so powerful to have those people that can talk about every day and, and the irritability and the mood swings and the lack of You know, just wanting to do anything or the things they used to do.

Whereas maybe his sister comes to town every six [00:15:00] months and client gets up for it, pushes through, puts on a brave face and doesn’t seem so bad because everyone has good days and bad days and brain injury. Folks have had some really bad days. Mm 

Elizabeth Larrick: hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so then we, then we turned around and you did in person and we, we changed up the style.

We did a totally different style. Came in and did kind of a little, a little mini mantra, right? We had some openings and some, some statements and some closings. 

Rian Butler: Yeah, exactly. I think that was, Probably my, my biggest drive for that one was, was that type of stuff, refining some themes and some stories and some trying to get ideas on different things from, from the potential jurors.

But that was the shift on that one was let me practice some board IR questions. Let me practice some openings. You know, because you’ve got a few hours, but you can’t put on an entire case. So if makes you put on a succinct case, put on the high points, what are the high points of how this has affected her?

We brought in [00:16:00] my friend that did the defense side and had to put in a succinct case of how do we lose this? Or how do we get, get dinged? So it really makes you focus. And really, I don’t know. I mean, I’m, I don’t know that openings need to be more than 15, 20 minutes. I mean, I think I feel like going much longer than that.

You’re maybe boring, Jeremy. Certainly any case can be different and maybe case calls for it. But if you can tell your story in 10 or 15 minutes. I think that’s gonna be pretty powerful. So it kind of helps in that sense of what’s rambling, what’s unnecessary, what’s too much info, and it’s, it’s good to practice it.

I mean, I love getting in the courtroom, love the, the rush of it. We don’t get enough of it. I don’t think as civil lawyers, you know, what, how many cases go to trial? 2 percent or something still. So any opportunity to practice that stuff is huge. And so that’s what I use it for. I think, I definitely get the idea that a lot of people go in as the defense lawyer so that they can attack, they know the case better and they want to play the defense lawyer and poke holes in their own case.

But for me, I wanted to run [00:17:00] through some themes, some practice questions or practice opening and try and hit some of those themes and see where it landed. So that was really valuable for me on that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: You’d be surprised how many people would go ahead and pick their side. And I always tell people like, listen, I love playing the opposite side.

So let me give me giving my hands on that because I will definitely throw in some things that I’ve heard from participants say that I’ve heard, you know what I mean? So, and the defense, the whole shtick, like, because You know, that’s what makes your feedback better is a really strong defense case. And you guys put on like, or, you know, he talked about and went through in a PowerPoint, like, here’s what the defense expert’s going to say.

And, and some of it had a little bit of traction because that, you know, the preexisting, I think was really difficult because you had a retiree. I mean, you had somebody who was already having some, some issues as you, as you do when you age. 

Rian Butler: Exactly. But a lot of. [00:18:00] similar peripheral issues, you know, trigeminal neuralgia and so different pain that maybe she was similar to what she was going through post concussion, depression, anxiety.

I mean, who doesn’t probably have that in their record somewhere, but when that’s the thing dragging you down and there’s a bunch of it in the records that can make it tricky. So yeah, I think, you know, I’m in growth mode in my firm. Hopefully next time I’m this close to trial and doing one. I have someone else that’s in the case with me because I think one thing that maybe held us back a little bit and my friends stepped up, it was huge, it came in, actually my first guy canceled and so the one that did it for us was on real short notice.

But, you know, you need to have someone that’s in it, and can pick out every little thing on both sides and some of that I think was me putting my, my take on the player side, you want to make sure you have enough pushback. And it’s not just a walkover. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Mm hmm. Yeah, what do you feel like was kind of one of the couple of big takeaways from that in person one?

Rian Butler: For me, I was, I was really trying to focus on [00:19:00] floor dire and opening, and so I was really trying to get some good principles, get some good rules, figure out what types of topics kind of move people, what types of principles they agreed with. Got some great quotes, which I, it’s been a while now, but I don’t know exactly how I was going to weave them in, but I was going to kind of work backwards and for dire, like a sorry, did a lot type start with your ending and get, let’s them get there.

But I think somebody had to go like, you got to do it right the first time. So, you know, they’re saying if a property management company has an opportunity to fix something and they don’t, you know, they should have done it right the first time. I think that’s a pretty good kind of principle to go to.

Somebody had said something good about, you know, home should always be safe and this is outside the home. And so that was a theme or a, or a principle I was going to try and get to. And if you can get, if you can get a jury to say stuff like that, I think on their own in Fort Iyer, I think that would have hit pretty good, but that’s kind of what I was trying to get with some of these things that I think, you know, somebody that’s not been in the case, somebody that’s looking at it with fresh eyes, what are they going to think of, and then I can kind of, Feed that [00:20:00] to a, to a jury and let them get there in the short time we might have on, on board.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I mean, those in person ones are, I mean, they’re priming you for your presentation. You know, they’re forcing you to put that opening together. They’re forcing you to put some questions together to, like you said, just to get up there, stand on your feet and, and deliver and take what they give to you.

Rian Butler: And there’s, there’s still something different about staying at the front of a room and looking folks in the eyes and going through, I mean, versus on zoom and everyone’s kind of got used to zoom and going through that. It’s, it’s still a little different when you get there in a room and you’re, you’re looking in the eyes, telling the story of what your client’s been through and what happened and it’s got to hit, right.

It’s getting a little different and you can see it from them. If something pops up a little bit with that one with, I think we were testing Two things I wanted to test was Our issues with the treaters. We didn’t have friendly treaters that wanted to be involved in litigation. They wouldn’t talk to us.

They would, we were going to have to subpoena them to depositions. They wouldn’t talk [00:21:00] informally and they didn’t do much help in the records. There was very, you know, cut to the chase. They didn’t do us any favors. And so we had to talk about, well, you’re going to hear from retained experts and not the doctor’s treatment.

And how’s that going to go? And so you get some looks and kind of feel the vibe from people on that. Also wanted to kick that around the idea of. Our client not being in the courtroom, you know, I think it’s tough to ask this person who’s been through all this to then come into court and hear from their family and friends about how bad their life is or how, how much worse it is than it was before.

I think we got some pushback on that. I think by the end, people came around to us, but there was enough initial pushback that it, that it concerned me about doing it because. I was not going to be able to talk to the jury and explain to them why you’re doing things. So it was good getting that feedback in person.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yep, yep, yep. Well, so the case continued, right? Again, because you had a couple of continuances. Did you go back? Did you look at any of the focus group materials to help you when you’re getting ready again for that [00:22:00] second round of, of, of trial? 

Rian Butler: Yeah, for sure. So I had kind of different notebooks for board IR and opening and closing and made notes early on.

I think we did ours in December and the first trial was going to be January. So that was pretty fresh continuance two days prior. So I had a lot ready to go and then the next one was going to be May and we were down there to pick a jury. Great. Before we had to continue that morning. And so that was pretty much, it was, I knew my case by that point, I think it’d been two and a half, almost three years, you know, every little seam.

And so really I was kind of going back through the notes. Well, you know, what, what are these jurors that are about to come in going to be thinking, what do I need to reinforce? What do I need to do to get this across to them in short time? We have, so I know I said it before. I just, it’s so helpful and powerful to.

We don’t have these people. I mean, maybe we have some in our lives, your spouses, your friends, you can kind of stifle with, but to have 10, 12 people come in and give you their opinion and the types of people that show up for a focus group [00:23:00] are probably more prone to call you on some stuff or to give you some strong opinions than maybe some jurors are in a courtroom.

But that’s what I was going back through is what, what are these people that are seeing this for the first time, hearing these things? These concepts in the story for the first time, what are they thinking? Try and put myself in their shoes as I was about to question them. Man, I’m getting, I’m getting fired up now thinking about it.

I was so ready that morning and we went from number seven to number two. That first one just wouldn’t settle. It was a plaintiff and a defendant in the courtroom. It was a state farm car crash and they wouldn’t settle it. And so we got bumped. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Wow. I appreciate hearing you say, you know, that going back to hear what Everyone said the good people, the, the naysayers, because there’s like some kind of magic when you say what’s on someone’s mind and that’s what you can do if you’ve actually on focus groups, you can walk into that jury selection and nail what somebody may be thinking and they’re like, Whoa, like, [00:24:00] yeah, you nailed it.

Rian Butler: Cause I’m reading a lot and thinking a lot about, and we talk a lot in our industry about persuasion, but I don’t know. And this is an original thought of mine. I think you’ll hear some smart people say, but I don’t know that you can persuade anyone of anything. They have to persuade themselves. And so you got to understand what they’re thinking and how they’re going to get somewhere.

And, you know, firing from the hip on the first time is, can be tricky. So, Kind of knowing how other people are going to think about things and we’ll have our biases We’ll have our views on things and how we attack things and if we’re stuck in that And how we see it we’re going to miss out on a big perspective of how other people are thinking about things 

Elizabeth Larrick: And the other thing I was I had lunch with another lawyer and he was talking about his wife had just been a juror.

And she said, when they got back there and deliberate, like all of a sudden everyone’s personal experience come in and then it’s, and that’s what we get in focus groups is all of a sudden, like, I may ask a question or you may ask a question. All of a sudden they’re like, well, you [00:25:00] know, my, and it’s like, that’s not the question, but that’s what happens back in, in behind closed doors in that jury room.

You want to know what those discussions are. And that’s what focus groups give you. 

Rian Butler: Yeah, I sat on a jury in law school. I’m surprised they picked me, but we, it was interesting getting the discussions in there and afterwards, it wound up being a directed verdict. And it’s funny because Directive verdict.

You understand the judge rule as a matter of law. It was a criminal case that not guilty, and we’re in the, the jury room afterwards, and some people were ready to convict like . They, they just see this totally different than, than some of us that are in the, in the industry. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. I mean, that’s. I think you nailed it.

Like, you don’t want to go in blind and learn on the, on the very first, you know, go around for, for jury selection, like some really strong opinions. And then, you know, you don’t really know how to navigate that because you’ve never experienced or heard that in practice. 

Rian Butler: Yeah, I think this year I’m kind of penciling a few to just do more and [00:26:00] more the ones that are really going to get close to trial or, you know, maybe are going to get past the first mediation and settle after that because it opens your eyes.

It’s there’s a guy I was talking to at a conference who kind of similar idea. He does a life care plan or a mini life care plan light on every single case. You can get some with nurse practitioners and things like this on a lower cost, but he gets every case. And I think On any litigation and battle case, I mean, I’m, I’m kind of thinking you probably need a focus group on anything worth, you know, fighting that hard on.

So 

Elizabeth Larrick: yeah, because I’m not just 

Rian Butler: saying that to you as you run this. But I just, I think it helps a lot. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Well, you’re speaking my love language there because I totally agree with running a focus group on every, I think if you are going to invest in litigation, which means if you’re having litigation where you file it and you do one depo when it turns over, like, I don’t know where you’re litigating.

Cause that’s not the world I lived in. But if you’re going to make the dedication to litigate a [00:27:00] file, you know, it’s going to take time. You know, there’s going to be a couple, but you’ve got to build that case because that’s what the expectation is. And why not run a one hour virtual focus group and figure out what are the holes?

What may you be missing right off the bat that you could go plug it up, ask a defendant, ask a, you know, corporate rep, or at least know like what kind of possible. Education gap that you’re having, meaning you got a car at case. Listen, we kind of all know how those things are. You may have an unusual injury or you may have an unusual other kind of glitch or maybe liability concern.

But, you know, if you’ve got different kind of case or different theme of liability or, you know, some unusual damages or something, you just want to test out to see what else do I need. To make this damages case, you know, there’s nothing. I mean, you’re always going to learn something. I have not yet run across a lawyer who told me like, I’m so upset that I ran this.

I didn’t learn a dango thing. [00:28:00] Okay. 

Rian Butler: Yeah, I mean, you gotta look at the cost benefit and hopefully it always makes sense, but I don’t know how you’re doing something wrong. I think if you’re, if you’re not learning something, I mean, they’re going to give you something and something a little different you hadn’t thought of or different than you thought about it.

So, yeah, I mean, two depo, minimum limits, car crash, clear liability, maybe you don’t need it, but you know, anything that gets a little more complex and a little more high value, you’re just, you’re, you’re leaving a lot out there if you’re not getting outside views and perspectives. I’m curious how much the defense side does them.

I mentioned it to, you know, built up a pretty good working relationship with the defense attorney. I told him we’d focus grouped it twice. Like I’m like, Hey, you know, we’re ready. We’ve thought through all this stuff. I don’t know if that ever played into it or if they went and focus grouped it after the second reset, but it resolved a month or so after we got reset again.

So maybe they went and focus grouped it. But no, I think I’m curious. Do you know, have you seen much, or do you know much on the defense side, how much they are focused grouping things? 

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:29:00] Well, you know, I know of a firm or two in Austin that does it, but you’re going to see when it’s a larger entity that they’re going to be doing that.

But are the, the, the insurance companies, they just don’t have a lot of, yeah. I mean, it takes a pretty skilled defense counsel to get them to do it, you know, because. You know, it’s tight purse strings over there. So it’s 

Rian Butler: insured. Somebody don’t want to pay for 

Elizabeth Larrick: it. It’s an easy return on, yeah. Okay. So I think an hour in and maybe a little bit of money, but the return on that is going to be exponential because I can use it.

In my mediation, I can use it here, how I think about it, how I actually say, you know, what it is and all those things kind of factor into the return of, you know, the investment. 

Rian Butler: Yeah. And it’s coming back in that case. I did a lot of things, a lot of the stuff I was asking about and trying to get reads on, obviously it was case specific, but a lot of this stuff weaves throughout our cases.

And so, you know, I was testing some, [00:30:00] some dollar asks we did and some framing of per diems and things like that and that stuff. It helps you think about things in every case, not just, not just the one. So yeah, it’s, you’re leaving it out there if you’re not, if you’re not at least doing one or two here every year, I think.

Elizabeth Larrick: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . And I, yeah. Like I said, I don’t know, I know like some of the larger entities, when I say that I’m talking like UPS, FedEx, like Home Depot, like those folks who are like, they’re in a little more control over kind of what’s happening. Sometimes those insurance companies, not so much, but I have seen it.

We could probably go through an example or two that we’ve heard probably here in Austin. It happened actually just the other day, but we’ll talk about that off this episode. So you’ve done a really good plug for focus groups and I appreciate you. 

Rian Butler: I don’t know if I plan on being the focus group salesman coming on, but I’m just getting excited talking about it.

Now I’m trying to think of other cases we can do it. 

Elizabeth Larrick: It’s fun. I think it’s so much fun. And, you know, I just want to reiterate something that you said earlier in the episode, which [00:31:00] is it’s new thoughts they give you, but it’s new language and phrases. And so you mentioned like pulling those literally what they said, writing that down and bringing that in with you.

And that’s really what we need help with as lawyers, because we’re going to say it in the lawyer way, non lawyer people think, and that is just so powerful. That’s why, like, you know, we get everything transcribed so that. If you want to get that second double dip of learning, you read it. You don’t just watch that video.

You actually read it. And then you really absorb the words even more. 

Rian Butler: Yeah. I think there’s a big push or maybe it’s the stuff I listen to and read, but I think there’s a big push towards more plain, plain English, a lay person terminology and phrasing, and why not? That’s, who’s going to be deciding your case.

And so getting their thought process and their language, I think is. Sometimes it’s big. Nobody wants to listen to lawyers speak legalese all day. 

Elizabeth Larrick: No, and it makes everybody else feel inferior. You know, I mean, they just don’t like that. I don’t like that. As a little kid, nobody likes that. I mean, [00:32:00] it’s where that little feeling comes from.

So Rian, thank you so much for joining the podcast. And telling us about your experience. 

Rian Butler: Thanks for having me on. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Awesome. If anyone is interested and wants to talk more to Rian about his experience or what he’s doing in Austin or growing his firm, which is wonderful. I congrats his contact will be in the show notes.

Also, of course you already heard, but just in case you may have missed it. Focus groups is what I do. So if you’re interested in doing a focus group, please reach out. And lastly, I started an email list. If you want to join the email list, free downloads, case studies, other kinds of tools that I may be using.

I’m going to pass that along in those emails. So you can sign up for that and the link in the show notes as well. All right. Until next time. Thank you so [00:33:00] much.

Virtual Focus Groups give a unique view into juror’s minds and facial expressions. Join me for a riveting discussion about the new frontier of legal preparation. Get an insider’s perspective on how virtual focus groups have revolutionized how we examine participant feedback, scrutinize facial reactions, and dissect video evidence – all crucial in today’s camera-laden society. I’ll guide you through the nuances of camera setups and recording settings on platforms like Zoom to capture every critical detail. 

This episode is a must-listen for any legal professional eager to polish their trial strategy with the power of digital tools. Whether you’re looking to access case studies, master presentation tools, or seeking aids for your trial approach, this conversation is a treasure trove of best practices and expert guidance. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to elevate your practice with the insights from our latest session – where we go beyond the screen to bring the court to life, virtually.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Best practices with virtual focus groups
• Importance of close face-to-face interaction
• Virtual focus groups improve video content
• Optimizing zoom settings for focus groups 

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Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello, and welcome to the podcast, Trial Lawyer Prep. With me, your host, Elizabeth Larrick.

If you’ve been here before, welcome back and thanks for joining us again. This episode, I’m going to talk more about virtual focus groups and specifically a [00:01:00] bonus that you can’t get in person. And that would be that face to face interaction that you just can’t replicate in person. So who might this episode be for?

Because think in mind, maybe it’s you, or maybe it’s somebody you know who’s curious or on the fence about virtual focus groups. Even today, in 2024, after I’ve run over a thousand virtual focus groups, I still get the holdouts. Are you sure that it works? We’re going to use virtual if you think we can get what we need.

Absolutely. So this might be somebody who’s on the fence. Or maybe you’ve tried virtual focus groups and you really want to enhance it. So at the end, I’ll talk about how to enhance or how to make sure that you have the settings correct. But let’s just back up because I’ve done both in person focus groups for many years.

[00:02:00] That’s really how I learned how to do focus groups from places that I worked, from seminars I went to, when I worked with Mr. Kian, we did all in person. When I started doing my own side hustle of focus groups, I did all of it in person. And it wasn’t until the pandemic that really forced, and it was a force, to get me into virtual, but I’m really glad that I did.

But I totally know that there is a place for in person focus groups and, and mock trials. And if there’s a person out there who needs to practice their presentation, their courtroom presentation, I mean your, your jury selection, your opening statement, even practicing role play of a cross exam is really important to do with a mock jury or with focus group participants because you want to be able to know your body language and your engagement and making sure you’re being engaging [00:03:00] and not turning someone off and walking through that presentation so you get familiar with it.

I know the cues, right? A lot of people want to memorize their presentation, meaning your opening statements, or they want to be able to memorize the questions for a choice selection. More power to you, but if you don’t practice it, right, it’s really hard to memorize it. So, in person focus groups, mock trials, are a great place to practice those presentation skills.

Totally need to do that. But the one thing that stands out for virtual that you can’t get in person is that really close face to face interaction that you get when you use the Zoom platform or if you use Teams or another platform out there that allows for that, you know, camera to be very close to their face and close to your face too, right?

And It’s so important and it’s [00:04:00] such a cool bonus to get with the virtual platform that every single virtual focus group that I have, we make every participant, you know, get on the camera correctly, right? Like we, Hey, move your camera around. Hey, the light’s looking bad. Like we want to make sure that when we’re doing that focus group and we’re recording it, we are getting the best possible look at their face that we can.

Because you don’t want to miss a reaction, right? Like as a moderator, as somebody who is a lawyer watching this, you want to make sure you’re, you can see everyone’s reactions really clearly. And if you are in a room and let’s say you don’t get to sit perfectly in front of everybody at that perfect angle, like you’re going to miss people’s facial reactions, especially if people, there’s just little reactions happening, right?

Not big gasps or, you know, dropping their mouth open. You’re going to miss it, but you would catch that on a virtual focus group because they’re [00:05:00] so close to the face. The other thing that you get when you have this face to face interaction is very detailed reactions. And again, you wouldn’t be able to do that in person because it would require, first of all, you gotta have a professional videographer.

Hands down. I used to do all my own recording. Don’t do that. You’re not made for that. You’re a lawyer. You got a lawyer brain. You need to be working on the presentation. Hire someone else to do the videography because trust me, it will, Well be above and beyond the expense of hiring them because they will get a great video with great sound.

That’s my side plug for, for hiring a videographer for in person. But if you wanted them to get that closeup shot of reactions, they’d have to zoom in on every single face. You can’t do that. Generally have one camera there. Maybe you have two cameras, maybe, but you wouldn’t be able to have that zoom in on every single face.

And that is, the awesome part of virtual because that is what you get. And so let’s just walk this through like where would [00:06:00] this really amplify your feedback on a case? So many people nowadays have a video recording of the incident or what happened in their case because there’s so many ring cameras, every Nearly every building’s got some kind of surveillance camera.

There’s, you know, cameras on 18 wheelers. Now people just have cameras on their cars now, right? There are people whip out a cell phone really quickly and record something. So there’s, there’s a lot of videos out there. No, they’re not all, not all equal. And that’s where the focus groups come in, because when you have that video and you can give them that very close up watch, cause that’s what they’re going to get.

When they watch it on their laptop or their tablet is they’re going to get a really close up view if I couldn’t do that in person, right? And so you want to know, okay, they’re getting a front row seat to this video. What are their reactions when you’re going to see literally their facial reactions really well, but they’re going to be [00:07:00] able to talk more about what they see.

And you’ll be able to go back and rewatch it, right? To see, okay, what facial reactions are we getting? Cause sometimes we have a video, we think, oh man, this video is, it is key. It says everything. It’s great. It proves our case, but then you put it in front of a focus group and they’re not so keen, or they pointed a bunch of things that Are distracting them or they miss it altogether or they just don’t find as much value in it as you do.

So then you kind of learn, okay, Oh, I need to do X, Y, Z for this video. Or there have been times where there’s videos that you just don’t even want to use it obscured, or it doesn’t show what you think it does. Either way, focus group is going to tell you that, but having that face to face interaction in a virtual focus group is something you could not get in person.

And on the same [00:08:00] scale with visuals, and it could, I mean, beyond just thinking beyond a video, just think about if you’ve got a picture of damages that you think is awesome, or you’ve got a diagram of a surgery, you know, and you want to show it, or you want to say, does this visual aid actually show what I, when I want it to show, is it going to get that reaction that I want?

Like, Oh, right. Whoa. You know, those cool reactions were like, yes, that is what I want. I want that first impression of your brain to go. Whoa. And we talked with Annie in the last episode, right? About having, you know, two dimensional, three dimensional, and all those can be put in front of a virtual focus group.

So they can get that really close one on one interaction with it. And that’s what you want. You want, before you spend any more money on a visual or before you, you know, invest a whole lot more into, Hey, this video is fantastic for us. You’re going to get that feedback back before you do those things, right?

[00:09:00] Save time, save some money. And here’s the thing, if they can see more, Meaning if they have that video, they have that visual very close to them. They’re going to be able to say more, right? You’re going to get more feedback than you would if you were in person. Cause it’s going to be further away from, and so I’m such a big proponent of virtual focus groups.

Obviously, you know, that if you listen to these podcasts episodes, you know, that I am a proponent of it. I love it. I think that they save time. Meaning we don’t, if you want a virtual focus group, you can put it together in, in, in a less than a week sometimes, right? You save expenses. It’s very inexpensive to put one of these things together compared to doing in person.

There’s a lot less headache as far as managing the location and feeding people and, you know, there’s a lot less pay when it comes to a participant as well. And participants love it. I mean, they tell me all the time, like, I’d rather do virtual. I don’t want to get my car and drive anywhere. I’m really lazy.

Okay, cool. That’s fine by me. Just show up on the [00:10:00] zoom and, and we’ll, we’ll have a great time. And that’s very different than mock trials where there is a lot of expense and expense of like literally money, but also expensive time, like getting it together, getting where you got to go the whole day out of the office.

The other thing about this face to face is this is how a lot of the big data surveys are actually done. They rely on this close face to face interaction to detect eye movement, detect reactions. They’re using AI to detect all those things and put them into those reports. I’m not making this up y’all if they’re using it.

And that’s obviously on a quantitative, right? So they’re doing thousands of people, right? 2000. They’re doing large amounts of people. Like that’s what they call it. Big data on just a few points, but they’re using that face to face interaction to help them enhance the results, right? They’re using that AI software detection to help enhance those results.

And you can do that too. [00:11:00] When it comes to virtual focus groups, right? That’s just a little more on a qualitative scale, right? Meaning we’re more about the quality of the feedback from this one person and being able to follow up on those questions. And as a moderator, it is so much easier to watch people to be able to catch all the reactions in front of you and then be able to ask questions.

Hey, you know, Bobby, I noticed while you’re watching that video of that witness, you kind of got a chuckle going on. What was that about? Tell me what that was about. If we’re in a large room, I might not have been able to see that. But if they’re on that Zoom, they’re really close to me. I can see that. I can make a note.

I can follow up on it. Just makes it so much easier. So true proponent, obviously a virtual, but this is a bonus that you really kind of can’t get in person and I just wanted to point it out for any of those folks who may be still sitting on the fence, like not sure they’re going to get, are they going to get as much stuff?

Are they going to get the feedback? Is it worthy? It’s totally [00:12:00] worthy. So let me just tell you if you are running virtual focus groups and you are not getting the gallery view, right? So a lot of times when we are running virtual focus groups using zoom, we save it, but it only saves gallery view with shared screen.

What that means is. It gets the shared screen, which would be the PowerPoint presentation. And you don’t get to see their cute little faces the whole time. So be really careful about that because I’ve run into folks who I’ve watched their focus groups for them to help critique, to help them learn more about, Hey, what to do, what not to do.

And, and they didn’t know that was even a possibility. So if you’re running virtual focus groups, if you’re using zoom, please go check your settings. So what you want to do is you want to log in. You want to go over to left side, scroll down to account settings. Now, if you’ve been using zoom for the past three years, you’ve noticed four years, sorry.

The settings have been you over there, just astronomically [00:13:00] grown. So go over to account settings, click on that. You’ll come to a new screen. And what you want to see is there’s actually. A horizontal bar at the top with lots of different settings and you want to go to recording and when you go on recording then it really just brings you the screen of it’ll ask you what type do you want and you just check what you want and for me I do gallery view a shared screen gallery view speaker view I think maybe there’s one other one and I check them all just in case I may need those.

I may need them or I may not need them. But I’ll always have that gallery view where I get to see their faces and what they’re doing, what they’re reacting to those videos every single time. So important. So make sure you go in there and change those settings. And I’m Doesn’t cost any extra, but that’s definitely something that you need to make sure you go and do check it, save it.

And so that next time when you run your virtual focus group through zoom, whether you [00:14:00] record to the cloud, which is what I would suggest. So you don’t take up so much space on your laptop. you will be able to have that option to download that. And that will significantly help you be able to see their wonderful faces and their reactions that they’re giving to you in this, in a one hour, two hour, three hour virtual focus group.

And again, in person can’t get it right. You’d have to zoom in on everyone’s face. That’s just not really possible. So I hope that this episode was helpful if you were on the fence or helpful if you weren’t even sure or knew about those settings that you could change and get there just a nice square of their faces during that whole presentation when you are sharing screen which we generally share screen quite a bit and so you definitely want to make sure you can get those reactions but Thank you so much for tuning in.

If you didn’t know, I actually run and offer virtual focus groups as a service with my law firm each month. If you’re curious, reach out, get ahold of me, interested. The email is in the show notes. Also, I [00:15:00] am doing an email list, starting an email list, which is basically, uh, one email, maybe two emails a month.

Where we got case studies, tools that I use, or new tools that are coming out, downloads to help you prepare presentations, visuals, help with focus groups, witness prep, trial strategy, each month. If you’re curious, if you want to join in, there will also be a link in the show notes as well. Alright, until next time, thank you.

That’s the scene Annie Gough helps create. In today’s episode, Annie’s expertise as a certified medical illustrator takes center stage. Imagine stepping into a courtroom where the complexities of medical malpractice and product liability unfold like a storybook, where jurors are captivated not by words alone, but by the artistry of visual persuasion. 

Together, we unravel the fabric of legal storytelling through the lens of detailed 2D illustrations and lifelike 3D animations, which turn abstract concepts into tangible realities for those who decide the fates of others. 

Visuals can make or break a case. Listen in as we discuss the process of crafting images that resonate with a jury’s sense of belief. We also delve into the territory of human anatomy, where a seemingly small detail on a medical illustration, such as the precision of a spine model or the exactness of a surgical animation, can pivot a juror’s understanding of the truth.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Impact of image in courtroom proceedings
• Importance of 3D models in court
• Medical illustration case preparation process

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. 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:

You can watch the interview video & see all of Annie’s examples here: https://youtu.be/7hbj4wLHDR4 

Want to work with Annie?

Email her directly: anniegcmi@gmail.com 

Website: www.injuryillustrated.com 

Want to work with Elizabeth? Need a virtual focus group?

Set up a free consultation call: https://calendly.com/elizabethlarrick/30min

Website: www.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 I sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome back to the podcast Trial Lawyer Prep with me your host, Elizabeth Lyric. And welcome to the podcast, our lovely guest, Annie Goff. Hello, Annie. Hi, Elizabeth. Thank you for having me on again. Again, because you are [00:01:00] amazing. Yay. Oh, thank you. Of course. Well, so here’s the deal.

Annie and I have had lots of conversations since the last time she came on, and one of the things that I always get asked when getting ready for trial or case preparation or looking at cases, or even doing focus groups is about animations and about illustrations and really how to visually present your case.

And. I know I always had lots of questions when I was gearing up for trial, what’s the best. And I always had a lot of assumptions because of my experience that it was really expensive to do animation. So I thought, you know, who better to come talk to all of us about this than my good friend, Annie. So Annie, you got to come back on the podcast and help us out because we want to know what is the difference between illustration and animation.

So she’s going to be here to talk to us all things. And that’s because you have experience in both. So tell us a little about kind of your background. Cause again, before we [00:02:00] came, we had you come in certified medical illustrator. We totally know you do that fantastic stuff, by the way, since Annie and I worked together, I’ve gotten to see her work.

We’ve even focus grouped it and I got to tell you very good stuff. So we’ll do how to contact Annie. All of her information will be in the show notes, but tell us about your experience with animation. Thank you. 

Annie Gough: Yes. So I’ve been a medical illustrator since 2001. And since then I have been involved in tons of animations, especially because I started work at Frank Branson’s office in Dallas, where I think he was one of the first lawyers that started actually videotaping his own actors and reconstructing his own.

traumatic scenes. So he would request animations a lot. There’s a difference between 2D, which is two dimensional, not 2D, which I do have experience [00:03:00] doing, and there’s 3D animation, which requires a different skill set. In 3D animation software, and I have worked with a ton of 3D animators, not only like crash reconstructionists, but medical illustrators that also do 3D work.

So yes, I have worked extensively and incorporated a lot of animations into many of my cases. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Awesome. I should also point out, and I got really excited because I’m glad that Andy is here, that we are going to put this particular episode on YouTube. So we’re recording the video because Andy is going to be showing us a lot of actual visuals, differences.

So there’s actually a PowerPoint that goes along with this podcast. So I’m really encouraging everybody to go watch it. The link will be in the show notes as well as I’ll probably put the link also on LinkedIn. So just so you know, she just gave us a quick visual and I forgot to tell you guys we’re doing this [00:04:00] also the video will be on YouTube.

So, okay. So you’ve done lots of animations as far as like casework goes. So lots of experience with that. So let’s just get right to it because as a lawyer, my lawyer brain One, the experience that I’ve had in working with Mr. Keenan, other people is really, really expensive and the front end, it’s a very big expense.

And then if they don’t do it the way that you were thinking about, because maybe you’re not really clear, then it’s really expensive to make edits. So kind of walk us through, you know, you talked about. 2d 3d animation kind of walk us through if you can the differences. And I know you’ve got a visual aid as well.

So whenever you want to queue up that PowerPoint, 

Annie Gough: please do so. I did. I brought some examples, but like in short, a 3d animation. Is going to be 3D models like airplanes crashing in the sky. This can be very expensive or it can be done simply. It depends a little bit on whether it’s just a demonstrative aid to tell a [00:05:00] story, or if it’s demonstrative evidence and every single thing matches the record perfectly.

And then in 2D animation, you might be able to illustrate like a baby in a uterus in a birth trauma case, and you show the uterine wall. contracted and then you do the same drawing with the uterus while not contracted and you can just make it look like the uterus is contracting in a birth trauma case.

So, and that can be cheap or it can be expensive and it really depends on how you’re going to use it in your case. So, I will show some samples. And for those of you that are just listening, if I say 2D a lot, I mean two dimensional and two dimensional is essentially like drawing on a piece of paper or I use a tablet.

If it’s two dimensional, I’m literally just drawing on my tablet, just like I would draw on a piece of paper. And then, yeah, I’m going to [00:06:00] show some examples of this. I think it will help me. 

Elizabeth Larrick: I’m new to like everybody else listening here. So three dimensional is obviously looks like there’s shadow. 

Annie Gough: Yeah.

It’s like the difference between Shrek and Tom and Jerry. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Okay. I love that. Okay. Shrek versus Tom and Jerry. Okay. Okay. 

Annie Gough: I am going to share my screen and. Walk through a couple of these. This is just my information. If anyone wants to take a screen grab of this, my website is here. And I did want to mention that I do have medical animators on my team right now.

I’m working with Sarah Constantine all the time. She is a medical illustrator. We all go to medical illustration school and take the first two years of medical school. Our background is mostly medicine, and then she works primarily in animation, where I work primarily in illustration. 

Elizabeth Larrick: So, [00:07:00] not to totally sidebar, but so, when I hear animation, I think, like, you’re gonna hit play, and it’s gonna go, and then You are correct.

Okay, and so, then, illustration is just like you’re saying, like, you draw a leg. It doesn’t move. 

Annie Gough: No. Okay. It doesn’t, unless You put it in a viewing software as simple as PowerPoint. So for example, gotcha, through a leg, the medial side of a right leg, this is normal. So another thing that I love attorneys to understand is if you start with normal, You have an opportunity to teach the anatomy to the jury and set up the crash that is going to happen.

So you can talk about, do you want to use the word femur or do you not want to use the terminology? Do you want to say calf? Do you want to say gastrocnemius? Like what is the word you want to use? So anyway, this is just a drawing of a normal leg. And then this slide is a drawing of an [00:08:00] injured leg. And this drawing matches the x rays.

So in any case where there’s radiology, MRI, CT, x ray, fluoroscopy, ERCP, you name it, if there is black and white proof in the medical record that’s visual, I will always do your drawing to match that so you can enter it as evidence. So these would be the x rays, This would be the two dimensional illustration of the injuries, and this would be normal.

So if you’re an attorney and you want to talk about this crash, whether it’s an opening, closing or with the expert or with a witness, just depending on how fast you go through the slides, it looks like it’s animated. So it looks like this leg getting crushed. So that is an example of a two dimensional illustration that looks animated and that [00:09:00] animation the attorney can control on their own.

This gentleman is a similar example. So this is our client. He rollover crash with a roof crush. So this is his normal and this is his crash. And these are just two slides. And I’m just moving in between these two slides and you can see C5 crushed in half. And of course it matches his CT. So this would be the CT, the injury, the normal.

Elizabeth Larrick: While you’re doing that, let me court reporter this for people who are listening. She’s literally clicking through the slides, but I think like for the first one with the leg, it was the normal leg then a broken, and then she literally had the x ray and that’s what we’re looking at right now as well. So it’s like, there’s three slides and that last slide actually has the x ray.

In the slide, I don’t mean to be totally nerding out, but like, how are you putting that x ray, [00:10:00] are you putting that down and then drawing on top of it? 

Annie Gough: Yeah, so I’m opening up all the radiology films, all the radiology scans are saved as, they’re called DICOM files. Which is really weird. But if you work in a lot of catastrophic trauma, you know what a DICOM file is.

And that’s the way all the radiology scans come from the hospital. And so I put that into a radiology viewing software and I go through and I choose the best images of all the fractures. I take them, they’re now files, and then I put them on a white screen in Photoshop and I stack them all up so that they’re anatomically in position.

And then I literally draw over the top to match them exactly. Gotcha. And you can see that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: For people who are not, like, if you’ve not gone to see the YouTube yet, if you’re just listening to this for this episode, like, that’s what you can actually see is, you can see basically the outline of the leg or the outline of the neck, and, but you can [00:11:00] still see the black and white imaging, uh, that basically 

Annie Gough: lines up.

Yeah. And then if I just delete the x rays away, then that’s like the standard just injury illustration. And from that, Where those broken bones are jagged and displaced from one another, I can take my drawing and I can make it into what was the normal leg before that. So you basically put all the pieces back together to show normal.

But as an attorney, you would start with the normal and then show this. So it’s the same with the head. You would start with normal and then fracture him. And CT. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Gotcha. Versus Trying to animate, if we ever say, Oh, well, I want an animation. That is the neck breaking, 

Annie Gough: breaking. Well, so you can animate this in that way.

So because this is a two dimensional illustration and there are two drawings. You could [00:12:00] put both of these in an animation software and have one fade from one to the other. Or you could even, like, have the frame flip upside down and you could talk about the car rolling over and then break his neck when the roof crushes.

And then you would put that into a movie file that would play in QuickTime. So you could do that. And then as the attorney, all of those visuals would be in one file, and when you wanted to play it, you would just hit play, and it would play through. One of the things that you want to think about when you have an animation is, is this file going to get thrown out?

Is opposing counsel going to fight it? Is the judge going to say, no, it’s too inflammatory? And then if you lose your animation, do you still have any other visuals? So you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. So you’re still probably going to want these individual illustrations somewhere in your exhibit list, just in case [00:13:00] you lose your animation.

And this is one thing that happens. So if you want an animation for your trial, create it way in advance. Get used to working with it. Use it with your experts and show it to opposing counsel and get them used to it early so that they’re not going to throw it out. Because if you spend a lot of money making an animation and you walk into trial and the other side is like, whoa, wait, what’s this?

We haven’t seen this. And then they argue it. You’re toast. You have no visuals and really quick. So this actually happened with a series of slides, just these 2D illustrated slides. This man, our client had a lot of preexisting back problems. He had previous back surgeries and then he had our injury and then he had many, many back surgeries.

And so to do all the drawings of what went on in his back, we had 65 slides. Wow. Yes. [00:14:00] And they took him to court and the other side argued, No, we can’t use them. And they fought tooth and nail over every slide. But they ended up keeping 14 slides. And those 14 slides were enough for the jury to see what was going on.

And so If they had put all of that into an animation, they would have had no visual at all because it would have been thrown out. So that’s something to think about when you’re preparing these. And this is another just really quick example before I show an actual animation. So this is a 2D. illustration of our client, but this is a three dimensional model of a product that is going to explode.

So it’s still a 2d illustration. We did have a medical animator, make the model of this product so that we could show it exploding. But if you look at this, and I click to the next slide, do you really need to spend the money to [00:15:00] animate the canister exploding when all you really need are the two pieces?

And then all of these pieces of the canister are exactly the pieces of the canister that we found at the scene after her injury. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Gotcha. So, Behind the scenes here, Annie sent me these and I thought somebody threw this at her like My lawyer, Ray, was like, someone threw this at her. So I’m glad that you explained it exploded, but that would be obviously a very, you know, the crux of the whole case would be the explosion of the product.

Annie Gough: So this is a cream whipper that you use when you put cream in your coffee and it’s under a nitrogen pressure canister. And back in the day, they used to make these with a plastic. Ring and the plastic would explode. Now they’re all made in metal, but at the time that this canister exploded, all of the plastic canisters had been taken off the market in all markets, except for the United States.

And so through this case, we were [00:16:00] able to get the plastic ones also removed in the U S. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Wow. That’s amazing. I also have to say this really quickly because you said this before, but like in our other podcast episode, and it didn’t really click with me until I saw some of your work with one of these cases that we were focus grouping and you make the person like the actual, like, like their leg or the face or whatever, like you make it in their likeness.

And I was just like, wow, And they didn’t really hit me until I actually saw them. And I was like, Oh, this makes it so much more, like you said, like much more connection with the person. It makes it much more realistic to the focus group and the jury we’re talking about, but I just want to say like, if I ever hire you, can you please make me with like six pack abs and like, you know, muscles, like, My question is, can we make requests about bodies?

Annie Gough: I actually had a client request some augmentation to her anatomy. Yeah. Oh my gosh. For her illustrations. Yeah. [00:17:00] Like, okay. The attorney was like, we better just do it. I was like, all right, here we go. 

Elizabeth Larrick: I mean, that would be like the dream being like, I’m not so sure, but it really does makes it so much more realistic, even though it is an animation.

I mean, an illustration. But it’s custom to the actual person. 

Annie Gough: Yes. That can be really good if they’re there in trial, but also if they’re not present in trial, so that it’s still like a real person, and you have any photographs from the family, or if the person’s passed away, it’s really nice to have that likeness in everything.

Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And also, I mean, from a preparation standpoint, I think that because jurors have so much time to sit and critique, They critique what you’re wearing, they critique what pen you’re using, they critique, like, did you get binders or did you not, like, and there’s always this constant comparison and so if you’ve got an illustration with, like, a guy with a six pack and, like, big shoulders and then you’ve got an average [00:18:00] size.

Person. They’re going to be like, wait a second, like, yeah, just win and pull something off the internet. So also it does like those tiny little details or things that really, whether they consciously or subconsciously do it, like it definitely makes a difference. 

Annie Gough: It does. It’s an excellent point about using stock illustration that is just of a generic male or generic female.

If it doesn’t look anything like your client, it looks like you just stole it off the internet. It really does. Like the Ken Barbie doll versus who your person really is. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, the average person, I mean, does not look like that. No offense. A majority 

Annie Gough: sees through that. Yeah, for sure. So I am going to share my screen again.

What I’m going to bring up here is I’m going to bring up a 3d animation where everything in the animation is modeled. So it happens in a 3d software. The man is a 3d object. The car is a 3D [00:19:00] object. Like, I feel like this is what the typical attorney thinks when they think, oh, I want to animate this. So this is a 3D animation of a very unusual incident that is definitely easier to describe as a motion animation than with words.

So let me come back up to my screen. I’m going to get out of PowerPoint and I want to show you this scene. So this is a typical 3D animation. So the car pulls up to the railroad crossing. I can narrate this since some of you are just listening. So the So the railroad crossing is bars down, but then it goes up and there’s no train and the railroad bar crossing ends up coming down on his car.

So he has to get out of his car to push the bar up and off. And because this is a malfunctioning railroad crossing, it does come down on him and hits him in the [00:20:00] head. And he suffers a neck injury. Well, it lacerates the top of his head, but he does experience neck injury from this, and this is a great example of.

a typical 3D animation with people and a scenario and a vehicle and things happening. This was a very successful animation because it’s a weird story of how he got injured. And it’s just kind of like, really? Does that really happen? But if you see it like a movie, the jury’s like, Oh, I can imagine that happening.

And they’ve seen it happen. So now they understand the story. The attorney was able to reinforce this story with lots of witnesses that live in this area that also struggle with the same railroad crossing. And really, I’m going to go through these slides really quick, but kind of like I was talking about, there was a set of illustrations that was 65 slides.

This is a lot of slides, but you go through them really quickly. So this is the man that got hit in the head. With the railroad [00:21:00] crossing and he can see here on the lateral. He’s got a neck injury. He’s got a laceration to his head. It matches his MRI and on the left hand side of the screen, you’ll see that there’s a surgical incision.

We’re going to do his surgery where the green drape is. I’m just going to go through these really quick. So these are just 2D illustrations, but it kind of looks like animation because we’re going to go through each step of the surgery. So the discs are removed, the end plates are prepped, the replacement cages go in, and the plate goes on.

And you can see if you go through these really quick. It’s kind of like animation. So if you’re the attorney telling the story, let’s say an opening or closing or whatever, you can go through this quickly. But if you’re have your expert on the stand, you might want to go slower and you might want to stop here and be like, okay, so what is a vertebral.

disc replacement. And what does this look like? And why do you do this? And you can let [00:22:00] the medical expert talk more in depth about what’s going on. And of course it matches the x ray. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And I can also see, cause you talked about like getting the slides in early and I could see if you were trying to do an animation of the surgery, which I’ve seen many of, you know, this is a cervical 

Annie Gough: ACD 

Elizabeth Larrick: replacement with hardware cage.

I could see where if you were trying to get your medical expert or your treating physician or surgeon to say, okay, I want you to go like Go through this animation and say, like, there would be probably lots of red flags that they wouldn’t feel comfortable with. Plus you’d have to stop and go versus if you do it like this, they can see each slide.

It gives enough room for them to be like, okay, that’s a spacer. And this is what it’s made of. And, you know, bid, it’s not like super specific. So if they need to have a little wiggle room in describing it, like it wouldn’t be difficult for them to do. And like you said, [00:23:00] boom, it’s done. It’s in, they’re relying on it or they’ve walked you through.

So there’s not really going to be any objection with them. Or if they want to make changes to it, you can do that very quickly before deposition to get these things in there. Exactly. 

Annie Gough: Exactly. Your point. Exactly. Okay. I’m going to start a different case. I want to talk about, this is still an injury case, still a 2D illustration, but I’m going to go more into 3D models.

So this client, she did not pass away, but I have a black box on her face because she didn’t give permission to show her likeness. But again, you always want to do a custom illustration so you can see your client. And this is her skull next to it, and I’m just going to click to the next slide and you will see her catastrophic skull fractures.

And if you go back and forth, you can watch, especially if you watch her upper teeth on the right, you can see how her hard [00:24:00] palate is crushed. And you can just go back and forth. And the more you look at it, the more you can watch the septum of the nose break. She has a brain bleed, her jaw breaks, but yeah, very extensive skull fractures.

And this is her CT. Now, the CT is really junky. It’s hard to see. So this is something also to remember. Whatever data you have, if you have a really bad CT, if you have a junky CT, you’re going to get a junky model out of it. If you have a really good CT, you’re going to get a really good model out of it.

That’s why you want to have an experienced medical animator always, because You want them to be able to work with even a junky CT and create a beautiful model that is anatomically correct. So this isn’t the 3d model. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Let me just slap you real fast because I want to ask because again, my lawyer brain says Are most animators, not [00:25:00] medical illustrators.

So 

Annie Gough: well, 

Elizabeth Larrick: here’s why I’m asking. Cause the way you described it and was basically, if you have a crummy or an unclear, or you called it a junkie CT, which if you’re listening to this, I mean, it looks like it was from a scary movie. What she just showed us, like it could jump out of the screen and scare you.

But. Obviously this is someone’s actual medical CT, but it’s just not very well done. But what you’re saying is if you have somebody that has a medical background, they’re going to know and be able to kind of piece that back together to create a better model or an illustration versus if you just. Hire an animator who’s just graphic design and they just throw it in there.

Annie Gough: Right. Okay. So there are plenty of people that make beautiful models and that create animations, but they’re not medical or scientific or anatomical. So if you’re just working with an animator that [00:26:00] crashes cars, Chances are they’re not going to be completely anatomically correct when they crash a skull, but if you have a medical illustrator that has a background in animation, a medical animator, they’re going to be able to understand not only the radiology scans, but how that data transfers actually anatomically into your client to make it accurate.

So yeah, it’s just a question you can ask before you work with your animator. If it’s purely medical, you can ask them what their medical background is. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And then also, because again, if you’re going to have to pass this off to get it admitted, either through an expert, which is generally the way you would do it.

You don’t want to create something that is not going to be admitted or your expert says I can’t even remotely begin to endorse this because it’s not anatomically correct. Exactly. 

Annie Gough: Gotcha. So this is the 3D model that’s made and you can just see it here on the screen and what you can do with this model is you [00:27:00] can animate it.

So let me go to the animation. And so this is that same model that you see placed in a 3D software. So you can see how you can pull the pieces apart. You can take the craniotomy off. You can see the internal bleed. You can rotate the skull, take the jaw off, see the hard palate fracture. Let’s look at that one more time.

So it’s the skull, it’s just the model of the fractured skull with the pieces exploding, coming apart, coming back together, moving around, the jawbone is removed so that you can see different angles of the skull. But that would be a 3D animation where you would have this file and you would just hit play.

And then the other thing that you can do with that same 3D model is you can take that file and you can 3D print it. So this is where we’ve taken that exact same model that you’ve become accustomed to. We’ve put it, we have [00:28:00] placed the file correctly into a 3D printer and this is what it comes out like.

So these are all the pieces of plastic of all the individual pieces of skull and when they come out of the machine they’re scaffolding, um, and all that has to be removed and cleaned up. This is the jaw. This is the large piece of the skull and you can tell we did go ahead and cut the craniotomy in the skull so we can take that skull flap off and show her brain bleed underneath and the compression of the brain inside her skull.

This was really cool with the top of the skull flap and the brain. We’re able to squish them together with silicone in the middle and actually make the exact size of the subdural bleed. So the subdural bleed is also removable and it’s just a silicone piece of plastic, a little rubbery piece of plastic.

And then I take all the pieces home and I paint them. And then we put them all together. These are all the pieces that I’m painting. We did paint her [00:29:00] two teeth and I had the attorney. I was like, this is a great idea. Keep these teeth in your pocket. in trial with the jury when you start talking about her and how she was found at the scene and hell, like, I’m pretty sure she went by helicopter to the hospital.

They found her two front teeth in her stomach. Um, my gosh, these x rays of her body. Yeah. So I was like, just put them in your pocket. And then when you talk about her teeth, you can pull out the teeth and hand them to the jury box. And we did try eyes. Because she did have an eye injury, but we decided this was just way too creepy.

We were not going to pass this skull around to the jurors with eyes in it. So the eyes did not make it. Yeah. It 

Elizabeth Larrick: looks like from the movie back to Mars or 

Annie Gough: whatever. Eyes are so bad without eyelids. And so this was the final 3D model. And you can see how that skull flap comes off and the bleed is [00:30:00] underneath.

And then the bottom jaw is actually just like this one. This is a different case, but the jaw comes off. And so I learned a little trick. You can attach the jaw with magnets. Oh, nice. So you can put the jaw on or you take the jaw off and then you can look inside and see the other fractures. So that’s what we have here.

You can see with the jaw removed, you can see that hard palate fracture. I mean, her upper jaw was just smashed. Here, I’m going to stop sharing for a second. I have one more case to present. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Nice. That’s a lot. I mean, for a 3D model with your experience, how often are you doing a 3D model? I mean, are these things that are just really, we’re going to trial, this is an unusual injury, like how often are you doing 3D models?

Annie Gough: I probably only do two or three a year and sometimes we do them for mediation because they’re really fun to set in [00:31:00] the middle of the conference table during mediation and talk about what happened. But you want a 3D model definitely when you want the jury to touch something or when you want to see something in like a lot of angles.

Where if you do the 3D model and you put it in an animation file, you don’t have control over which way you rotate that model. You just set it up in advance, you create the file, the file is set, rotation is what it’s set to, whatever the animator and you choose. But like, let’s say, like in the animation that I showed, we rotated around the skull and then we moved it But then the expert and then you pause it and the expert goes, Oh, well, can you just move it a little bit this direction?

Well, you can’t, it’s just part of the animation file. But if you have the skull in your hands, and your medical expert is holding on to it, they can show this any way they want. They can point to anything. So it just [00:32:00] kind of depends on the facts of the case, whether a case would warrant something like that or not.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Are you seeing, because with some, a lot of attorneys do a lot of the same cases, they’re seeing a lot of common injuries, I should say, like to the spine. Are you seeing any requests or is there any need or If there’s not a need, can we create the solution, which would be like a spine that can be taken apart or just the lumbar spine, like a lot of people just have the full skeleton.

Right. And that’s cool. But I think sometimes having the spine, the bones with the dish and then, yeah, yeah. With this, yeah, yeah. So like, can you create one of those, like just to have like, 

Annie Gough: Yes, so there are some like stock ones that you can just order from an anatomical company that will have various, just like a standard lumbar spine.

And some of the [00:33:00] discs will be desiccated or dry. Some of them will be bulging. Some of them will be herniated and you can squish them and they go bloop, bloop, like little balloons. So yes, those do exist. We can find them. And if we can’t find them, we can make them, but it’s always better to just print it.

From your client’s CT. So if you have a good CT of their spine, you might as well make their spine. And then there’s no danger of it getting thrown out because it’s just a stock. Well, you can’t prove that this is a man or a woman or a child or a, an adult. Well, yeah, because this was printed directly from the client’s CT.

And then you just have the expert back that up. And then whatever you’re showing is exactly what you have. I did do a lumbar spine once for a client here in Denver, and it was so unusual. The disc bulge was so big that it looked like that was the spinal cord and the bulges on the other side, because the spinal cord was so squished and [00:34:00] compressed that it was like solid black and it looked like the disc bulge.

Wow. We did create that so you could see it in all dimensions and then you could pull it apart. And then we did the little laminectomy piece. So you could see where they went in to do the surgery and they ended up cutting the spinal cord instead of cutting a piece of herniated disc. Yeah, it was really ugly.

Elizabeth Larrick: I’m curious about people who, you know, cause these are super cool cases from a lawyer stand of my point of view, be everybody always remember we’re talking as lawyers in the sense of like unusual and different, and some people may not get. A case like that, but they may get a herniation or they may get an unusual situation with someone’s spine or that would be helpful to have even a 2D illustration or I mean, when I focus group, I see a ton of.

No ones with like the shots that are that way. And now all the injections. Yeah. 

Annie Gough: Yeah. And that’s all I’m [00:35:00] curious, right? Yeah. So I like to illustrate those where you have the back kind of like this, right. And it’s just a drawing. And then you do like all the injections from October and then you add on all the injections from November and you go through the chronology and you just do them as a series of slides, but you add injections on top of like needles plus needles, plus needles.

to show like a voluminous set treatment. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Right, and needles because people don’t like needles. 

Annie Gough: No, and bring a needle. Have your expert bring a needle to court and talk about how long the needle is and how far it goes in for the skin. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Please make sure you check with security before you do that because that would be a very big problem getting into the courthouse.

Just thinking practically here. Awesome. Okay. So I know like, as far as like literal, like kind of the differences, and one of the assumptions is like when having dealt with animations is they’re very difficult to change, [00:36:00] to make adjustments as compared to doing kind of what you’re talking about with the 2D.

So walk, walk us 

Annie Gough: through that. So the 3D model has to be created in 3D software, right? And so then you have that model. Then that model goes on to a stage. The stage needs lighting, whatever the background is, and then you have camera movements. Then you create all those keyframes. And then you have to send that into the render.

And then once it goes into render, it could take an hour or three days to render to produce that final movie. That quick time movie. So if you have a change to the lighting, you change the entire movie, which means you might need another three days to render, there’s no way to shorten the time of the movie of what it takes to create whatever animation you’ve created.

But then if the change that you have is to the, one of the [00:37:00] models. Then you’re going all the way back to the original file. You’re changing the 3D model. Then you have to put it back into the scene. And then you have to re render. So changes, they might not be very difficult to just like, Oh, can you just move the tooth?

Well, yeah, everything has to be done. It could take three days to make a simple change. And that’s why you want to do animations well in advance of trial, get used to working with them because you can’t change something the night before trial in an animation, maybe, but most likely not, which means whoever your animator is, if you call them the night before trial, and you’re like, Oh, the car’s green, it’s not blue.

They’re going to be up all night for probably 48 hours trying to fix that for you. It’s not fair. You might accrue a rush charge. All kinds of bad things can happen. So you definitely always do your visual exhibits well in advance. [00:38:00] Plus, if you have them before the depositions and you use them in the depositions, they are already exhibits to your case.

So they’re already demonstrative evidence. The jury can look at them. There’s no reason not to do them. in advance and have them be part of your case. You don’t want to just spring them on somebody the day of trial. Cause if you’re not well prepared to use them, then you’ve kind of wasted your money. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah.

Okay. Let’s get your opinion on this. Okay. What’s better for an animation. medical stuff or like the event itself, like the injury causing event. So what’s your opinion, Annie? 

Annie Gough: Ooh, I like to crash cars. I think it’s fun to see the actual crash, to understand from a bird’s eye view, who was where I feel like crashing vehicles makes sense.

It puts the jury at the scene. They’ve actually seen the crash. And then the surgery in an [00:39:00] injury case, I don’t think ever needs to be animated. It’s very expensive and animating a surgery can be done with 2d illustrations. But if we’re talking medical malpractice. and the surgery is really complex and the anatomy is really complex and we’re talking about how long it took to do something or how something was situated behind something where you like need to rotate or you need to talk about time then you might want to animate that surgery so that you can see it in different angles as opposed to just a flat drawing and I have an example of that.

Let’s see it. Okay. All right. This is a liver case. We’re just going to start with that. This is a 2D illustration and we’re going to take off the rib cage and we’re going to zoom into the liver. These are just 2D illustrated slides. This is all the hepatic system. Hepatic [00:40:00] means liver. So the hepatic system is all the vessels and it’s the inner workings of the liver and how it creates bile, which is a digestive enzyme that breaks down fat, which It’s all about like bile is stored in the gallbladder and eat really fatty foods.

The gallbladder squishes out the bile and it helps you digest and all these things. It also has arterial supply. So there are hepatic arteries that come off the aorta that supply the liver. Yes, blood oxygen. And then there is also the portal system, which are the veins that take everything out from not only your intestines and help you digest food, but also takes blood back to the heart.

So anyway, this is anatomy, just very straightforward anatomy with 2D illustration. And you can see what we’ve done is this is our client’s condition. So her gallbladder has been removed. She has [00:41:00] an arterial pump for chemotherapy, and you can see these two yellow dots are liver tumors. And so if we fade the anatomy away, you can see the tumors back there.

And so I’m going to show you what we illustrated in this case. So this is just an illustration of the anatomy, but you can see how being able to rotate the liver is helpful. So now I’ve rotated to the back of the liver and you can see where those tumors are. We go by the side, we look underneath the bottom of the liver.

Is it helpful or is it too complex? This is something that you might want to think about. As an attorney, is this animation beneficial for showing where these tumors are? 

Elizabeth Larrick: Okay, my lawyer brain is like, I don’t want to answer that question. Yes, what is your answer? I think it just depends on what ends up happening to her because if it really, if the position of the tumors doesn’t have anything to [00:42:00] do with, then it’s not a big deal.

But I liked you doing all that just because, I mean, truthfully, I think most people And I’ll put myself in this, like, we don’t know how big our organs are. Like, we don’t know how big our livers are, or we know where things kind of are in our bodies. But I like the idea of just like, just showing like, this is a really big organ and it’s really important to us as human beings, I just like that.

Yeah. How big you showed it was. Cause even if this 2d animation and I’m not actually touching it, like I still got a good impression that this is a really big organ. Okay. Fantastic. 

Annie Gough: Now we’re gonna talk . No, that’s a great answer. And it’s important ’cause the jury has no idea either. No. How big their liver is or how significant it is.

What we really wanted to express was how close the tumors are to the critical structures to, I missed that, the arteries. Exactly. But anyway, , now we’re gonna [00:43:00] talk about what happened to her. So the surgeon in question, 

Elizabeth Larrick: and we’re back to 2D by the way, we’re back, like she showed us the animation, now we’re back with the regular slides.

Yes, we’re back 

Annie Gough: to 2D. So this entire case was done in 2D slides and animations. There was both available throughout the trial. So what happened was the tumors line up to the PET scan. And then when they did the treatment of these tumors, everything is axial. So all of a sudden you’ve gone from everything looking like our client, the patient is standing up and now everything’s going to be axial because she’s in a CT machine, laying down, she’s laying down her feet or closest to the viewer, and you are looking up the nose.

That’s how you best describe a CT or MRI positioning. So you understand why right is left and left is right. So basically we’re looking up into her liver and these probes come in from the outside and [00:44:00] they’re going to ablate with microwave ablation. They’re going to basically burn her tumors. So these are just two dimensional slides from her.

intraoperative ablation in the machine. And I’m just clicking through these slides, but it looks like the probes are moving. Yeah. And you can see how many probes there are. Yeah. And it’s like, wow, once we put this together, we’re like, wow, they ablated, they microwave ablation her a lot. And so this is obviously medical malpractice is always much more complex than just an injury.

So these are two dimensional slides. breaking down how long they use the ablation probe on each tumor. So I’m just going to click through these really quick. We used a clock because it’s important to talk about which probes we’re in for how long. So we have 57 minutes of ablation. Yeah, [00:45:00] so here, let’s try it on this one.

This one better is an animation, so we’re going to actually show the timing of the ablation. Obviously, it’s faster than 57 minutes. Thank you. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yes. This podcast is not supposed to last that long. 

Annie Gough: No, but see the clocks are moving. The ablation, you can actually zoom into the tumor. You can see the changes in the liver.

It’s matching all of the fluoroscopy radiology images, which is evidence in the case. So this is able to be approved of, created with the expert. So the testifying expert was with us all along in the creation of this animation. And this was able to be introduced as evidence. And so what we’re watching is we’re watching these probes come into the liver and burn the tumors.

Just destroy 

Elizabeth Larrick: it. You’re just [00:46:00] destroying the liver. That’s what we’re supposed to be seeing, right? 

Annie Gough: Yes. The amount of ablation that happened in this case is absolutely obscene and completely negligent, not the standard of care. These probes, the ablation I think is supposed to be a maximum of 10 minutes. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh my gosh.

Annie Gough: And they used four probes for 57 minutes. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Wow. 

Annie Gough: Yes. And this animation was critical in the jury understanding what they did to this patient. Sure. And if I recall correctly, she, her liver completely shut down. The hepatic arteries started bleeding, the portal vein completely clotted off, and I think she passed away while she was on the liver transplant list.

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh. Yeah. Annie. I know. That’s a very cool animation because while it’s showing you [00:47:00] the probe is like lighting things up and it’s like yellow and red, like the liver is turning black, which is like pretty cool. So that would make sense as far as like, cause I think medical malpractice and like showing people what went wrong is, Oh my gosh.

I think that would help medical malpractice like tenfold because those are the hardest trials, like hands down. Like if you’re doing them now, like. Anybody else can try and come to me like, well, this is so hard. I’m like, no, statistically speaking, like med mal trials are the hardest. So, yeah. So that’s definitely like, what a good, and I’ve seen one of those thermal cases before, and it’s just like, it blows me away.

And like, shouldn’t use them on people just yet. I mean, cause this is a whole nother case that I, you know, the ones that I’ve had experience with where I’m just like, wow, how is this even like, we should we really be allowing people to use these things on our bodies? I don’t know. Yeah. That’s a probably a whole different podcast.

Annie Gough: Yeah, go ahead. No, you go [00:48:00] ahead. Oh, I was just going to say the mediation for this case, we use like a bag of microwave popcorn to show how, if you use the right timing, you make popcorn. But if you go in even 30 minutes or 30 seconds, too long, um, everything’s fried in black. So burn popcorn was part of the case.

It’s always fun to use analogies of things that people do every day. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Well, yeah. And someone’s definitely burned the popcorn and it definitely has a very distinct smell. So it’s like, Oh yeah. 

Annie Gough: Yeah. You’re throwing that out. 

Elizabeth Larrick: That liver is coming out. That liver is going. That’s right. Awesome. Okay. So let’s do a little summary.

Cause okay. And again, If you’re listening to this, I really encourage you to go watch the YouTube so you can actually see all of the visuals that Annie has shared with us today. So, animation, showing things that are complicated, that are hard to describe, easier to picture. 

Annie Gough: Mm hmm. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Illustrations, though, can become 2D with [00:49:00] movement.

Annie Gough: Mm hmm. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And those are quick, much quicker, much faster to produce. Typically. Typically. Right. Typically. Is there anything we’re missing? If people are sitting there thinking, well, so what’s better, animation or 2D illustration? 

Annie Gough: It totally depends on your case. A lot of people ask me, well, how much does it cost to have medical illustration?

I’m like, well, that depends on a million different things. You know, do you have good radiology files? Do you have bad radiology files? What kind of. Anatomy are we talking about? Like, are you able to tell the story from one view or are we going to have to show it from the front and the side? Cause then you have two sets of illustrations.

Is it a car crash? Is it medical malpractice? Is it a broken ankle or is it a brain surgery or an aneurysm in a complicated part of the brain? Like, so ranging from simple to complex is the whole gamut. And that’s why it’s [00:50:00] best to just call and be like, this is what happened to my client. What do you think we want to show?

I was just talking to someone about a case with a retained sponge. Like, do we want to do a 3d print of the size of the wound and then actually take one of the sponges and stuff it in there to see size comparison? Or do we want to draw that? Or do we want to animate that? A lot of times you just want to sit and brainstorm it and talk it through.

Talk about budget, talk about timing. Do we have 30 days or do we have six months? Preferably we want six months because we want to make sure we have the right expert, and we want to make sure that they’re on board, and then we want to use it in their deposition so that then you are totally prepared to use it for the jury in teaching the story.

All varies. Like even just the anterior cervical discectomy, it depends on have they had a prior surgery, have they had prior injuries. Sometimes someone, have an attorney call me and say, Hey, I just have [00:51:00] an ACD. Can you illustrate this for me? Yeah, sure. Please send me some photographs of your client. So I can make it look like them and then send me the DICOM files, you know, the radiology scans, and they already have hardware all over their neck.

I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Now we have to pull all the medical records from the beginning. Like, when did they start as normal? How many surgeries have they had? Then what happened in the crash? then what happens now. Otherwise, the other side is going to be like, it’s all pre existing. So it all varies, 

Elizabeth Larrick: which they say no matter what we do.

So it was already there. Nothing was waiting. So you can help people like in just talking with somebody, like with your experience and like thinking through all that stuff and brainstorming, like you said, like you can be able to say, Hey, I would suggest just doing 2d, or I would suggest this is a case.

That [00:52:00] you could do not only a 3d model, but also do an animation, 

Annie Gough: right? 

Elizabeth Larrick: Okay, awesome. Cause I think sometimes that’s so helpful because we see things often infrequent and so it makes it difficult sometimes for us to know. Oh yeah, this is just a simple laminectomy. No big deal, Annie. And you’re like, well, wait, let’s slow down just a second and think about it in a different way.

And that’s why I always, I think having an outside perspective is always helpful, no matter what you’re doing, because you’re going to have a different point of view and bring in your experience and be able to say. Hey, Elizabeth, that’s not going to work really well with your particular client and here’s how come, or you’re going to be able to say, that sounds super complicated.

Have you thought about doing an animation? Because. I’m lost. 

Annie Gough: If timing is important, or if movement is important, you want to have timing or movement. You want to [00:53:00] animate. But like sometimes you don’t need that. Sometimes educating the jury, simple is best. And the more clear you can be with your story, the more they’re going to understand your story.

So the more exact you can be, it’s just like they say, you only want one theme. You don’t want five themes. You want one theme. And you want to be able to tell your story. To a fourth grader as easily as possible. So, adding a million slides in an animation might not help clarify things. It might make things more complex.

So you really need to sit down and do each one case by case. Figure out how to best tell that story. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and we love to complicate things. And by we, I mean lawyers. We, oh my gosh, we love details. We love them. And we think every one of them has their own special place in the case, getting outside help. So, okay.

So Annie, if somebody wants to see more of your work, of course, they’re going to watch this lovely YouTuber putting together, but if they want to see more of your work, they want to learn [00:54:00] more about you. Where should they go? What should they do? 

Annie Gough: They can go to the website, which is injuryillustrated. com, which is the same name as my book, Injury Illustrated.

There’s tons of stuff in the book and there are lots of examples on the website. And I will admit I’m not perfect about it, but if you want more up to date illustrations, I do add a lot to my Instagram page, so you can always follow there. For gross and unusual drawings. Oh, it’s your social media. So my Instagram is a G C M I or Annie Goff certified medical illustrator.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And we’ll put all the links in the show notes for anybody who’s driving down the road right now and thinking like, I want to see more. But your website is great. You know, you’ve got tons of examples there and they can reach out to you via email or your contact you through the website or even send you a DMN on Instagram.

Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. [00:55:00] This has been something that I wanted us to talk about for a while. So I’m glad you came back. 

Annie Gough: Yes. Thank you for having 

Elizabeth Larrick: me. It’s wonderful to see you. All right. Thank you everybody for listening in today and don’t forget to go check out this video on YouTube.

Um, there’ll be a link in the show notes should be on my YouTube video. And if worst case scenario, we’re going to let Annie have a copy of a tune, put it on her YouTube as well. So Thank you so much. If you had or enjoyed this podcast episode, please rate, review, follow on your favorite podcast platform.

And if you really loved it, send a nice review. So, all right. Thank you all. And until next time, thank you. Thank you so much.

Imagine walking into the courtroom armed with insider knowledge that guarantees a powerful impact on the jury – that’s the kind of edge you can bring to the table with virtual focus groups. 

Just one hour can dramatically reshape your trial preparation. This episode is a deep dive into using virtual focus groups to gauge juror impressions, assess client credibility, and polish your visual aids for the courtroom stage. Learn the ways and the way you approach trials, mediations, and depositions will never be the same again. 

Stepping into our virtual conference room, we dissect the advantages of conducting one-hour virtual focus groups, a practice that has become a cornerstone of successful legal strategies. Learn how you can harness the chat feature to glean unfiltered juror perceptions and refine your opening statements to ensure they strike true when it counts. But it’s not just about the prep work – I’ll reveal how to use focus group feedback to prepare your clients for the spotlight, safeguarding them from the jarring impact of raw critiques. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Virtual focus groups assessing client credibility
• Client credibility and virtual focus groups
• Exploring alternative legal solutions

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. 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:

Curious about working together? Send me an email elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com or click to schedule a quick call. 

Want to inside tips & resources? Sign up to be on my email list.

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 I sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick. And today we are going to tackle how a one hour virtual focus group can help you in your case right now.

Now, who really is this episode for? My podcast is designed for lawyers who are working through [00:01:00] litigation in personal injury, employment law, business litigation, but really for folks who are in litigation, who may be going to trial, having to prepare for mediations, take depositions. So somebody who’s at a pre lit position might find some of the things that I talk about a little bit abstract, and that’s fine.

But today, I’m really trying to tackle those folks who maybe are really curious about virtual focus groups, and they’re thinking, how can I try this out without wasting a bunch of time, money, and effort? Or maybe you’re running virtual focus groups, and you’re doing them in a longer format. Maybe you are doing in person focus groups and you’re still thinking virtual.

I am just not sure that actually works. Tune in. We’re here to give you all of those answers. It’s 2024. And at this point I have run over a thousand focus groups. Specifically, over [00:02:00] 500 of those are a one hour virtual focus group format. We’re going to talk through things that people have learned, but I realize at this point your lawyer brain may be saying, that’s really not enough time to cover all the things that need to be covered.

Or that’s really not enough time for having a good discussion with people about the things that may be covered. All in all the juice just ain’t worth the squeeze. When I started doing virtual focus groups, I’d never done one. The pandemic hit. I was against doing things virtually, but pretty soon I realized we were not going to be able to go back in person for months.

And then in reality for years in a group where people would be comfortable coming in person, right? Sitting next to that person without being six feet away. Which we tried to do, don’t worry, I can tell you my experience on that, but that, that is another episode. So with this one hour focus group, what we’re looking at is a very [00:03:00] focused, meaning a very purposeful, intentful presentation that really is just going to cover one or two issues.

We’re just trying to grasp what is that first impression that the potential jurors are going to have to the simplified facts of your case. You wouldn’t, nor should you, give every single detail of a case in any kind of format for a focus group, because not every single detail is as important as the next.

We really have to funnel down what are just the nuts and the bolts, because Every detail you give a juror has to fit into a place. If it does not, their brain is still trying to figure out where does this go? Why didn’t they say that? With the one hour, we can be extremely localized on an issue, on a problem.

We can be really focused on the first impressions that a juror may have. [00:04:00] So what are some of the ways you can use just that one hour? A really good way to use a one hour virtual focus group is to look at client credibility or client likability. A lot of the lawyers that I work with come to me and that’s one of their main concerns.

A jury is not going to like my client. Say, okay, let’s do it. And so the format is pretty simple. We just get a couple of clips of the client. You may be thinking, I didn’t get the video of my client’s deposition. That’s totally okay. You can create one with Zoom. Just get somebody else’s voice on there to ask questions just so the jurors can hear.

So we’re really looking for open ended questions, short format, about five to seven minutes. You could even splice them up, do some questions, and then just have discussion. You’re going to get a lot of feedback on your client and whether they’re credible, whether they’re likable, and probably a lot of extra [00:05:00] information about your client as well.

Another good format for the one hour would be a general neutral narrative or short snapshot where we’re putting together the facts of what happened in a case. We’re looking for those first impressions. What are the assumptions that people are having? What are the attitudes that they’re having? What is it that’s missing for them that would be vital?

That’s a really great conversation to have right off the bat. When you’re filing a lawsuit or even before you file, because you want to know what do I need to go get? What are the assumptions I need to disprove or reinforce? There may be good assumptions that you have or that they have about your case.

Another good use of a one hour virtual focus group is just putting your visual aids or your demonstrative aids in front of them or your timelines. What are visuals that you think you may use even if you think you have a photograph? That tells the perfect story of the damages test that out because I have [00:06:00] a lot of times where we And so I have some photographs that go into virtual focus groups.

And the feedback is, I don’t want to see that. That’s too gory for me. I don’t like to look at that kind of stuff. And so they literally don’t look, you don’t want that to happen to you. Right? So there are ways to work around that. But you want to know that before you step into a courtroom that, Hey, this could be too much for some people.

It may be okay. But do you really want to risk turning off one or two or even three jurors? And a lot of times what happens is a lot of people put a lot of emphasis into a photograph because they believe it tells so much of the story when it doesn’t. That’s where that one hour focus group can help you.

Another great style for a one hour virtual focus group is just picking either just liability, Or just damages and walking through liability. You can even throw in some snippets of videos of the at fault and your client in there as well, just to [00:07:00] see whose story fits, what questions they still have.

Damage is the same thing. You may think you have a great damages story. Can we put it in front of a set of potential jurors? And just from the learning standpoint, it can be very confusing for them to look at that. And a lot of speculation comes in when they think, wait a second, what about this? What about that?

So there ends up being a lot of questions. And that’s so helpful when you are going to have your expert come live or you’re about to take them live in a deposition, right? You want to make sure that you’re answering those questions because when it comes time for the jurors, you want to make sure you answer those questions, especially when those are your big numbers.

Another great. Um, and I’m going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but I’m going to talk a little bit more about how you can use this style for a one hour virtual focus group is just running your opening statement. You may be thinking, Elizabeth, my opening statement is an hour. Don’t run that one.

Okay. Maybe focus it in on just doing the liability or just doing the damages or just doing a mini opening. Either way, what [00:08:00] you’re doing with this is you’re obviously putting in some advocacy. You’re putting in your case theme. Do you like to use rules? You’re going to have to test some rules, right, if you’re using a statistic or using some other hook, right?

While you’re testing all those things, that first chunk of time, right, the beginning of your opening statement, what they’re hearing first, is it hitting them correctly? You want to know that. Virtual focus group for one hour is a great way to do that. Now, knowing that we’re having a really narrow, or rather, a very purposeful presentation, that means we’re going to get very detailed discussions, we’re going to get detailed feedback.

And with the time that we have, we can actually dive deeper into those responses. Because we want to be able to know if your impression is that they’re a 2 out of 10 on a credibility scale, 2 being low, 10 being the high, you want to know, okay, what was it? Was it the body language? Was it the words? Was there something else going on?

You want to be able to dive into that. And that allows you to do that. The other cool thing for virtual [00:09:00] focus groups is the chat is a great tool to gather more data while you have them in front of you. And it eliminates any crosstalk or cross persuasion from people inside the room. So when I do client credibility or likability.

Um, we generally will do the presentation and we’ll ask for feedback first in the chat. I like to scale it, scale a one to 10 credibility. I like to ask them one or two words that they would use to describe and one question they would ask this particular witness. That gives you a lot of what are their first impressions and then discussion is easy.

Just go back through. Hey. Thank you. Susie, you gave an eight out of 10. Tell me about that. They’re going to answer, go wherever it is, but you’re going to get a lot of information about that. And then what questions they want to know. Then you get to say, okay, you asked this question. Tell me more about that.

Boom, easy. And again, if you have extra time, you can go back in and say, okay, we heard from this witness. And in this situation, they’re asking the responsible [00:10:00] party for. X amount of dollars. And here’s why. Okay, so tell me your impression about that. So you have a way to actually go back in and test when you’re just using that one hour.

You can really focus in, get really detailed questions. Or really detailed points that you want to cover and get that feedback that you need on that particular pain point for you. Client likability is a big pain point for people. A lot of lawyers worry excessively about client likability when it comes to jury trials.

Solve the problem, get some answers. Here’s the other thing that will give you some solutions too. If you don’t like this person, who else could you hear from that would help? And so you can dive more and learn so much more. Now let’s just take that client credibility. Let’s just put it on some steroids.

So we have done this before where we’ve done a one hour virtual focus group before their deposition. Now we went back and created a zoom video. [00:11:00] All right. Somebody else’s voice, easy questions, open ended with a reasonable amount of time. Don’t let people go on 10, 15, 20 minutes. It’s too much, right? Five, seven minutes, eight minutes tops.

But what you’ll hear back from that focus group is what to say, what not to say, how they’re appearing. If there’s some kind of body language tick or some other thing that maybe you don’t see because you spend so much time with that person, but they see it right off the bat. Explanations to give, things that may be missing.

It’s a great way to prepare you to then prepare the client. I do not allow clients to watch live focus groups, especially personal injury clients. I’m not advising you to use this tape and then show the person, okay? Because that can be so detrimental to someone. That’s not a good thing to do unless you are extremely well versed.

And being able to navigate that, which most of us just think, Oh, if I show this to you, you will [00:12:00] automatically understand. Promise you that is not what will happen. It is much better for you to take the information and translate it to them one on one versus having them just watch the video. You can use client credibility before mediation.

So then, if there is a chance for the client to speak to the mediator, you know what they need to be saying to that mediator. You know what they don’t need to be saying to that mediator. And of course, before trial, right, we want to know how they’re going to be perceived when they step up on that stand.

One format, three different spots to use it, but lots of information you’re going to learn on client credibility. From a big picture standpoint, we just honed in on one really big element of a case, client credibility, client likability, but let’s take it from a big picture standpoint and thinking about how a one hour virtual focus group can tell you about whether you should file a case or not.

We’ve had this happen. It’s been a couple of years where a lawyer came to me [00:13:00] and she had horrific damages. A woman who was a paraplegic was paralyzed. I want to say it was from the neck down. I was going to have. A lifetime of care and needs. And of course, not able to work. She was cleaning a construction site and fell into a pit that had not been Barricaded or there were no boundaries around it.

And they wanted to, of course, go after the construction company, go after the property owner. So there were a couple people that would have been on the hook. But a lot of case expenses into going after all these people. The experts that would be needed, because It’s not common. They would need some experts to explain why this would be necessary, what happens at the construction site.

It wasn’t just a regular building. It was a specific building for a specific purpose. Ran a virtual focus group, and despite all the questions that I had [00:14:00] for them, despite trying to see how The construction company or the building owner, or would even be a remotely, even a couple of percentages of liability.

And there was nothing there and they knew if focus group has given us zeros on this, the chances of us being able to sway a jury are pretty low and the expenses would be extremely high on a case. So that was one of the big things that they factored into their decision about whether to file or not. It can also tell you.

Whether you should settle something or go to trial. Now I know that’s a big question a lot of people always have when it comes to a case. When somebody’s just not 100 percent sure, I say put together the best possible. With all your best stuff, opening statement or mini opening statement. And just see where liability falls or just see where damages fall.

They’re going to help you with that. They’re going to say, Hey, this is still 51 percent on this client, or this is only going to be 40%. [00:15:00] And then at least you have the ability to know you can always run another one. One hour virtual is simple to do. We could run a longer one, but it’s going to give you extra information that jurors impressions to help make that decision.

Now you still may be saying this juice ain’t worth the squeeze. I got my time. I got my case expense money. I got my energy. All these things are limited. It’s just still doesn’t seem worth it to me. So what would be your alternative as a lawyer? I’ve used nearly every alternative possible, but I just want to talk about the main one that I’ve used many times, which would be just take a lawyer colleague to lunch and pick their brain.

Obviously, you’re going to pick somebody who has more experience than you, hopefully, or you’re going to pick somebody who had a really similar case, or this person had a jury trial on this Um, and then you’re going to get a lawyer’s opinion on this particular style of facts. Great. However, you’re still going to be stuck with a lawyer’s opinion, meaning you’re not going to get a potential juror’s [00:16:00] opinion.

So the lawyer’s opinion is going to be using the lawyer brain. Any feedback that you get from them is really going to be tailored to their experience. And at the end of the day, the solutions that they have are going to be, I guess you’re going to have to try it or settle it. That’s your decision. Again, they’re going to come back to you.

And sometimes I’ve had happen where I show up and I just get this laundry list of things that need to be done. And that laundry list means more experts or more depositions or more case expenses that I’m not even sure will actually even have an impact on how an insurance company is going to view the case or how a juror is going to.

This one hour virtual focus group can teach you more. They will teach you what jurors think about your case. The format is extremely approachable. It’s quick. It’s just one hour. The time that it takes you to prepare will probably be less than an [00:17:00] hour, right? The feedback you get is going to be precise on the issue that’s troubling you.

You can ask for solutions. What are ways to help or fix this particular issue? They are so quick and easy to set up. that you could find out the information that you need now so that you could even craft a solution or be able to know, okay, so that’s actually going to swing me a little bit closer to settlement.

So I’m going to focus on doing some things that will enhance Or I’m going to have a bit more certainty in my path or clarity about how to pursue the case in general. So I hope that you have seen that a one hour virtual focus group can significantly help you in your case. You can learn. Client likability, liability, damages, opening statement, visual demonstratives, any little case issue that may be bothering you.

And that’s a lot of times what lawyers come to me and they say, I have this kind of unusual [00:18:00] fact, and I’m not really sure what it is. Gonna think about it. Great. Let’s just run a one hour and really see what they do. Think about it, what they don’t think about it, right? . So I hope this episode has helped open the door to this one hour simple virtual focus group to help get you some answers in your case.

Now you may not know, but I actually offer virtual focus groups each month. So if you’re interested, be sure to reach out. Also, I am starting an email list. This year about one to two emails a month where they’re going to have tools, downloads, things that prepare your cases better, tidbits, resources that I can pass along.

If you want to join that email list, the link will be in the show notes. I greatly appreciate it. All right, until next time, thank [00:19:00] you.

Every legal case reads like a distinct narrative, and within these stories are the lives of real people bearing their truths. Enter Amanda, a plaintiff’s attorney with a history as a paralegal, who brings that very understanding to the forefront of her practice. 

Our conversation with her peels back the layers of the intricate relationship between attorney and client, exploring how deep trust is cultivated, especially when guiding clients through the stormy seas of recalling traumatic experiences. Amanda’s transition into the legal field amid a pandemic, and her innovative use of Zoom to bridge the client-communication gap, offers a glimpse into the evolving landscape where technology meets empathy. 

The courtroom is more than a battleground of wits; it’s a space where human emotions are laid bare. As we unpack the emotional breadth of deposition preparation, Amanda walks us through the careful balance lawyers must strike – acting as legal counsel while providing emotional support. Her candid recounting of a young sexual assault survivor’s case shines a light on the profound influence an attorney’s belief in their client’s story can have. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Learning the ropes of plaintiffs’ depositions
• Building confidence and validating client experiences
• The emotional toll of legal work
• Building trust in client depositions
• Connecting with clients and juries

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. 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 Amanda and connect with her go here. 

Want inside tips & resources? Sign up to be on my email list.

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 I sent you.

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello there. It’s Elizabeth. I wanted to pop in really quickly before we begin this episode to talk a little bit about my guest, Amanda.

She is. She’s going to come to us from Washington, however, by way of New Mexico. What I loved about our interview was her perspective as [00:01:00] a new lawyer on deposition preparation. She’s got some wonderful insights. We had a great time recording this episode and I hope that you enjoy it. If you want to reach Amanda for anything in Washington or depo prep related, her contact information will be in the show notes.

Enjoy. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast trial lawyer prep with me, your host, Elizabeth Larrick. I am excited to kick off 2024 with a bunch of really wonderful interviews with amazing, powerful trial lawyer women. And today I have one of those. Amanda is joining the podcast. Hello, Amanda. Hi Elizabeth.

Amanda’s coming all the way from Seattle, Washington. And I met Amanda. She reached out to me about depo prep. And we had this amazing conversation and it was like, she was reading my mind. And so I said, Hey, come on and let’s talk. Let’s come on the podcast because that’s what this [00:02:00] podcast is about.

Helping people prepare cases better with a fine tune, looking at using focus groups, deposition prep of clients and of yourself. And so Amanda, just start us off. Tell us a little bit about your journey and then what made that depo prep part of your passion. 

Amanda Carmody: Thank you so much for inviting me to be on the podcast.

I’m super excited. It’s my first time ever being on any podcast ever. I don’t mean to go so far back in time, but I discovered that I wanted to be a plaintiff’s attorney when I was a paralegal working in a plaintiff’s firm and saw the impact that getting a settlement had on one of our clients who was catastrophically injured.

It really connected dots for me. It’s not just about making claims against insurance companies. It’s about people and helping them improve their lives and seeing the change that this person went through when somebody finally took responsibility. Set something off in my brain and I was like, Oh my gosh, I need to [00:03:00] do this.

I need to be the person running the show. And got to law school and just have worked towards that ever since. It’s been my second job out of law school. I worked for an amazing attorney named Molly McGraw in Las Cruces, New Mexico. And she is who really planted the seeds of plaintiff’s depositions are not awful.

We never even talked about it. Like we just went in to prep our clients and she showed me the ropes and I learned so much and it just has been a journey about getting to know people and figuring out how to help them tell their story. Absolutely. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And so, again, this is why we were talking and I was like, yep, hello, she’s my person here.

We’re going to have so much fun on this podcast. But what I also love is your perspective. And I think a lot of people who listen to the podcast, a lot of people that I work with, we’re not at the place where you are, which is like you’re fresh out and you had this total challenge of beginning [00:04:00] your kind of quote unquote legal career.

In the middle of a pandemic where you basically have only zoomed court. And so that’s a whole other challenge of learning the ropes. Learning to connect with people, but you just started off in zoom, right? You just started off doing everything over the phone or video. And it’s hard for us to be like, so what’s that like, what’s that perspective?

Cause you’re like, I don’t know the other side because I didn’t start that way. How has that been thinking about people who still struggle with using zoom to help people prepare or talk to people or really coach them through getting ready for mediation, like. Give us a little bit of that perspective of how, for you, using Zoom is second nature.

Amanda Carmody: Sure. So definitely there is a benefit of being in real life with people. There’s physical touch, you can take physical cues. I like Zoom, which is, you’re right, how I started, because you are in the person’s face. And I appreciate we’re a podcast, but I have my hands like horse blinders. They have to look at you.

They [00:05:00] can’t look anywhere else. And if you, Position your camera so that you are looking into the camera when you are talking to the person you’re talking to. Like, they’ll look at you. We all look at ourselves, I think, a little bit on Zoom. You want to make sure. Like, I have a huge pimple today. And I want to make sure that it’s not showing.

But if you can make it so your little image is right under your camera, no one will ever know. And if you have that dialed in, blinders on, connection, it’s a lot easier to talk to your client and get them to trust the process and trust you. I also take as much time as I need to. Thank you. If I have a client who is older, they are not comfortable with Zoom.

And sometimes I will actually go help them get set up the first time and make sure we can do that process together. But you’re right, it’s hard to think of it because I’ve never been into a courtroom for a hearing. But no, I think there are definite benefits of being on Zoom that you don’t get in real life.[00:06:00] 

Elizabeth Larrick: And I think you nailed it. It’s time one on one with people that really ends up being the most like, of course, it’s great to be in person and it is, but I think it’s that one on one time. And like you said, you are face to face and you normally wouldn’t be that, you wouldn’t be that close to somebody sitting, even if they’re a client that you have a really strong connection with, or you’re super friendly, or you just really jived really well.

You still wouldn’t sit that close. 

Amanda Carmody: That is 

Elizabeth Larrick: zoom. Zoom. 

Amanda Carmody: And it goes both ways. I know we’re talking about plaintiffs, but deposing a defendant, you can get right up in the camera looking at them and be like, can you see me? I’m looking into your soul, sir. And so it’s fun. 

Elizabeth Larrick: See, this is how I know you’re supposed to be a plaintiff’s attorney because that’s exactly right.

I didn’t even think about that, like getting right up super close when you’re deposing an expert or whoever, maybe somebody on the other side. Let’s talk about thinking through client deposition and you’re [00:07:00] talking about helping them tell their stories. Walk us through your perspective on what is a struggle for clients and what kind of battles they may be having that a more timely, more structured depo prep helps with.

Amanda Carmody: Yeah. I, I always start at zero with my clients. I pretend that I am hearing about their case for the first time. I tell them. to start talking to me. Like I don’t know anything about what has happened to them. And I try to structure my sessions, depends on how big the case is or how complex the events are that you’re talking about, but typically.

I have one prep session to go over the facts of the case and the event. I have another session to go over what I would call general damages and the impact it’s had on the person’s life. And after that, I decide if we need a third session, which is usually short, to tie anything up or to get them ready for their actual [00:08:00] deposition.

But in that first session, we started just zero. What were you doing before X happened? Whether it’s Slip and fall, car crash, sexual harassment, just get us started. And we really break it down bit by bit. And I found that it’s really intimate. Nobody prepares you in law school for this type of exposure you get into somebody’s life.

They’re oftentimes telling you about the worst thing that has ever happened to them. Something really traumatic. And that is, I think, an honor and a privilege. They don’t share that with very many people. Usually. Usually it’s none. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Usually 

Amanda Carmody: you’re 

Elizabeth Larrick: the only 

Amanda Carmody: one who they’re talking to. Exactly. Especially if you catch them early and you say, don’t talk to anybody about this.

You and I have attorney client privilege. You can’t talk to anybody. Sometimes people have therapists, a lot of times they don’t, but you as their attorney have to, while you are not their therapist, treat them with the [00:09:00] gentleness and kindness that a therapist would while you walk them through this event.

Elizabeth Larrick: And I think even most people who have therapists don’t talk about it in the way that clients that come in the door, we have to dive into both sides, the facts and the logic and the emotion and the impact, they are totally gnarled up together. I love starting from ground zero because Do you take nothing for granted?

And they don’t either. That really helps because that’s how the defense is gonna come in, or opposing counsel’s gonna come in, is at ground zero, and sometimes that tension and frustration alone for a client can really throw them off because they think you already have discovery. Well, you already have all this information.

Like, why are you asking me again? That emotion can derail our thinking brain because we’re just. Frustrated trying to figure that out versus just like, okay, let’s just be in the moment. I have that expectation of going through it bit by bit. Lawyers, especially in larger firms, like cases are, I’m not going to say pass along, but that’s just the chain of custody.

It’s like it comes in and then [00:10:00] it goes to one team and it goes to the next team. Sometimes you have the same lawyer. Once you sit down for that one on one depo prep, you really are getting way more one on one time than you would have at any other point up to 

Amanda Carmody: that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy DevoPrep so much because I really like bonding with people, and that’s what it is.

And that’s why I think I’ve seen people be successful in their own depositions, is you’re giving them the confidence to sit there and tell their story. And when you have that connection and the trust in this person, you’re holding their hand through this, right? You can’t tell the story for them, but you can figuratively help them walk through it, and it’s just so nice.

To not only have that feeling myself, but to see somebody really own in to their own story and start believing themselves. I think that’s one of the most shocking things to me in prepping people is people doubt themselves so much and it’s not because what they’re saying isn’t [00:11:00] true. It’s because they’re in a system that is constantly telling them they’re wrong and that they aren’t that hurt and that what happened to them isn’t that bad.

I If you have that floating around in your head, even a little bit, you start to feel a little hopeless. Oh, yeah, 

Elizabeth Larrick: absolutely. And I think a lot of that that helps that is saying it out loud. You know, that’s a very big part of making it true is saying out loud and they live in their heads. You know, without you want to talk to about it.

So coming into depo prep with a very focused purpose, like you’re saying, it’s very structured and there’s a purpose behind it all versus just going in and just being like, all right, they’re going to ask some questions and here’s your discovery answers. I want to make a little note because you mentioned bonding.

Um, there’s a lot of stuff on bonding and I’m going to guess, but I think you’ll correct me. You’re not talking about, Hey, how are your kids? Let’s talk about going to the softball game. You’re talking about the intimate bond. Of a relationship of trust. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, definitely. I know my [00:12:00] clients in a very bubbled but detailed way.

A lot of them, I know their kids names and things like that. I have no idea what they’re doing that afternoon. Or something like a friend would know. But you start to know the deepest insecurities. that your clients have, that’s something they probably don’t talk about with anybody. And so that is the bond I’m talking about.

It’s a caring type of relationship. And I think making your clients feel like it’s a two way road is also really important. They depend on you in a certain way. You do not depend on them in that same way. But when you show enthusiasm for their case and show compassion, They can see when that affects you.

They can see it in your face. If you’re just sitting there checking the box, they’ll know that you’re not tuned in and you will not get them to open up in the same way you will as if you’re present and truly invested in what they have going on. [00:13:00] 

Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. And I think you’ve nailed it. It’s not the same two way road, but it is in the sense of attention and questions.

And. Thoughts, one of the things that I think people always glaringly miss in deposition prep is we are building confidence, but you have to tell them what you are saying is 100 percent true. 

Amanda Carmody: Yes, I didn’t appreciate this. One of the first clients that I helped prep was a young woman who was a sexual assault survivor, who was assaulted when she was a high schooler, and part of her claim was that all of the students were didn’t believe her.

This teacher got removed from the school, and she was called a liar, she was called much worse. Her own parents didn’t believe her. And we did our normal depo prep. That was just an element of it. And in her deposition, when opposing counsel was saying, what do you mean people didn’t believe you? Our client sat there and said, the first time I felt like somebody believed me [00:14:00] when I was talking was when I was talking to my attorneys.

And I didn’t realize it until that moment, and it was just like, my stomach, my heart just seized up. And I was like, oh my gosh, this young woman has walked around for years carrying this. Feeling like she wasn’t believed until we talked to her, like that isn’t right. But again, it goes into that privilege of you aren’t necessarily aware of the impact you’re having on your client’s life.

And so you have to be so careful and so gentle in the way you interact with them. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. And like you said, you got to encourage them out loud. You may be the only person who is saying this is real, what you’re feeling is real, this is real pain, you know, because a lot of times they’re walking around with a lot of doubt because the system has basically said you’re a liar, a cheat, and a fraud.

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, I took a mediation course in law school. That was not the mediation most of us are used to. I was expecting it’s going to be mediation how you sit in separate rooms and how you have tactics [00:15:00] negotiating with the mediator on the other side, not that. It was like touchy feely going into alternative dispute resolution, sitting, finding out what the parties really want, because sometimes it’s not always money.

It was that type of mediation. And in the moment, I was like, nope, don’t care. It’s always about money. It’s about. Reaching that ultimate goal. I have come back to what I learned in that class so much because it’s about validation of concerns and wants and then being able to reflect and reframe and so Sitting and listening to your client and telling them things like oh my gosh I can’t believe you’ve been through that that’s so hard or that is such a real thing that you are experiencing that Encourages them to open up more but it also helps them Hold on to it and own it and when they’re sitting in their deposition if they have the confidence to believe what happened to them is Real and true.

They will do so much better than if they think they’re trying to convince you [00:16:00] Somebody. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think you nailed it with the reflection, which is why you want to have multiple meetings because then you allow them the opportunity to reflect. One of the things I always hear back from clients after our first session is I was exhausted.

I was so tired and we did a lot of just emotional heavy stuff. They did all the talking, you know, and they said I was so exhausted, but then I felt so good because I just never gotten to talk that much about it. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, I try to let my clients know it’s going to be exhausting because that’s another thing people don’t appreciate about asking your client to sit for their deposition.

It is so emotionally and mentally hard to sit and talk through that stuff. And so I use the word gentle a lot. I tell my clients to be gentle with themselves because a lot of times they say, I don’t know why I can’t get over this. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to talk about this. I don’t know why I was so tired after a meeting.

And that’s another great opportunity to be like, Because what you’re [00:17:00] talking about is awful and hard to talk about. So be gentle with yourself. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And you’re bombarded with pictures and images everywhere else that say, you should be done. This is over. I always tell people it’s going to take much longer than this, but standing up for yourself, speaking the story in your own words and how you want to say it uninterrupted, will significantly help you in this journey.

This is a battle. This is a journey. This is not the final end all be all. It’s just going to take more time and nobody talks about that. And I always get really frustrated too, because I always ask people, especially depending on what kind of their injuries are like, what has the doctor told you about how long this is going to be?

Well, they just said, it just takes time and I’m just like, Oh my gosh, like please let people know. I see X patients with the exact same situation. Here’s generally how long it takes. Up to two years, because people think, Oh, six weeks, I’ll be fine. You know, it’s just like, you have to sometimes be that extra voice of, listen, this is what I do for a living.

And I’m [00:18:00] letting you know, it’s going to take longer. So be gentle with yourself. That’s a great way of putting it. Be gentle with yourself. It’s going to take longer. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, it’s always surprising to me how much pressure, not only our clients, but we put on ourselves to get over things. And another thing people don’t really talk much about is how it affects you, the attorney, to hear about these horrible things that happen to your clients every day.

Those details are swimming in your head, whether you’re consciously thinking of them or not. And hearing about traumatic events. It’s going to affect you too, so it’s just a, like, big bundle of be so soft and gentle and kind when you’re in this process because it will affect you too. It will be exhausting for you too.

I could sit and talk with some of my clients for four hours, but I try really hard to keep it to an hour and a half or two hours when we talk because I [00:19:00] know that it is going to be mentally and emotionally draining for both of us. And usually. Both you and your client have work you have to do afterwards, right?

Like you can’t just sit and curl up even if you feel like it. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Exactly. And I think Because being a plaintiff’s personal injury attorney for a lawyer for a period of time, like it wears on you and we don’t give ourselves enough rest when it comes to that. That’s why we have 30 minute prep meetings because it’s difficult.

It’s really hard. There are definitely times where I talk with lawyers and they just say, I feel so horrible knowing what they’ve gone through or feeling like in a similar situation, like my kid was the same age and it was just a really difficult time. Having a longer one on one conversation because it’s going to hit me so emotionally.

I want to be professional. I don’t want to get upset and to cry. And so it definitely, I think, comes into a shortened prep session because they think they’ll be fine. They can tell their story. Opposing counsel will be fine. We’ll do our [00:20:00] normal prep stuff because I do find the more horrendous Tragic injuries cases assume that they’re going to get a light touch when it comes to opposing counsel, but that’s missing 50 percent of the whole thing.

The other 50 percent is them showing up and the emotional burden just for them to show up and talk. 

Amanda Carmody: Exactly, and you’re asking them to relive something awful, and I’ll be a little, like, sidetracked squirrel for a minute. The amount of people that I went to law school with that sat there and said, It’s supposed to be Law is supposed to be logical.

Where is the answer? Where is the reason? Juries should be removed from emotions, and judges should be removed from emotions, and make decisions based on just the black letter law and the facts in front of them. And, yeah, that would be a really interesting way to practice, but [00:21:00] it misses emotional pain and suffering.

It misses the human experience of what somebody has gone through, and you will never get those damages accounted for if you are not comfortable sitting with them. Your client, in their emotions, in those horrible places. And if you don’t have the capacity to sit, like you’re saying, attorneys who sit for 30 minutes and can’t handle it because it makes them feel awful, that’s okay.

Identifying that you do not have the capacity to sit through that is really smart, but then you have to do something to make up for that, whether Calling in a person like you to come in and help them handle that, or even changing their practice to do a pellet work. It doesn’t have to be drastic, it can be manageable.

But if you can’t handle sitting with emotions with somebody, then yeah, their deposition is not going to go the way you want it to. And you’re going to really expose your client to being super vulnerable when they [00:22:00] already are so exposed. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Or just know that they’re not going to be vulnerable. They’re going to keep it all inside.

And then the next thing that I always hear is we’re just going to save it for trial. And I’m always like, gosh, 98 percent of stuff doesn’t go to trial. So you’re really missing the whole mark. A lot of people still have that mantra in their minds, like my day in court. And you watch it in TV or whatever, like such a different game working with a client.

And she was really wanting to get like, Big picture. Give me some big picture. Give me 30, 000 foot view. It’s depo. But normally I do that in trial to help them kind of get the big picture. But we literally drew a diagram of the courtroom and the big picture of, okay, it can come down to two questions. And she just was like, I never knew.

I’m like, yeah, you would never know like that. And here’s where you fit. Here’s your part. And it’s so important because you speak directly to the jury. They don’t want to hear lawyers. They want to hear [00:23:00] you, your experience, because emotion is the human experience. We decide everything on emotion. So in my focus group, people say, well, I just need to know the law.

We need to see the past. Where’s the law in the past? 

Amanda Carmody: Oh, it’s so cute. Yeah, it’s the part I really enjoy about what we do and it’s what makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. I always tell my clients I’m on the right side of the V because I want to make their best argument. I don’t want to tear them down.

I don’t have any. I don’t mean to get on a rant about insurance defense attorneys, but it would make me so sad to think about, okay, my job instead of building a person up is tearing them down. And I get that’s a very biased perspective. But when you’re sitting with a person, a human being who’s trying to Who’s hurt.

It breaks my heart to think that there’s anybody out there who would make them question what they’re going through is valid and real. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I think that’s the [00:24:00] terrifying part that most clients are absolutely positively just terrified because now it’s like the interrogation room. Like, that’s where the emotional warfare comes in.

They know they’re going to get grilled. What I always say is, Most lawyers say you’ll be fine. Just tell the truth. It’s just so silly. It’s telling a little kid who’s learning to tie his shoes. Just use your laces. It’s obvious we tell the truth. It’s obvious you use, but how do I tell the truth? And that’s where that prep comes in to help them know what the how is.

You’ve already got it. Let’s just. Tell me about it. Let’s just organize it. Where are you at and how can we help manage those expectations and get everything in order for you to feel confident? 

Amanda Carmody: One thing that I tell everybody to do that I learned from Molly is notice your own client’s deposition. Which is a really weird thing, but send the email to defense counsel, say, Hey, I want to [00:25:00] schedule plaintiff’s deposition.

Can you give me dates? And that gives you the ability to start their deposition. And you know, the right questions to ask, you know, how to get them to open up. Not only that, it shows your client that you believe in them and you’re confident in them, but it also sets them up for success when you pass them.

And it’s the defense attorney’s turn. Getting to go first and ask your client questions first is unbelievable. And it’s what you do in trial. I don’t know why we don’t do it in deposition more, but when you pass them and the defense attorney starts asking them questions, they get to say, I already talked about this.

They already know where the questions go because they’ve talked about it and sitting and learning what they’re going to say and learning what questions you need to ask to help them open up and then doing it and asking those questions. It all comes together beautifully. And you have a client who, yeah, when they get their day in court and you go to [00:26:00] trial, trust the process and know that you’re going to take care of them.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I think one of the biggest things that when I talk to folks about doing a structured witness prep and depo prep, they just said, wow, they felt so good about what they did. And then it was like, we went to mediation. And they were like, Nope. They still had that same confidence. And when we got to trial, they were confident to know, okay, I know that you guys are going to make the right decision.

So there’s so much more trust and I see a huge shift when there’s not trust and there’s a lot of infighting and struggle when it comes to even little things with the client. And I always just say, you’re worried about the jury liking. The client, but do you, because the jury is going to pick that up in a heartbeat.

And I can tell you there’s people who say, I want to make them likable. I’m like, well, if you don’t 

Amanda Carmody: like them, how are you going to convince people [00:27:00] to like somebody that you don’t like? That’s right. No, and it all is like, all these words are tied in so many ways into what we do. I do tell my clients, your job is not to convince anybody.

Let that go. Set that free. That person across the table from you is going to tear down every argument we make. They are going to look for the weak spots. They are going to judge you. And that’s scary, but just telling them right up front, don’t try to change that. Do not try to overcome that. I’m on your side.

I am with you. I believe you, and as long as we’re sitting there together, you’re going to do well. As long as you get that we are a team, we’re going to do just fine. It’s when your client thinks that they’ll convince the other team to help them score a touchdown, that they get in their head and wrapped up and trying so hard to show something.

No, we’re going to work on it ourselves. We are the offensive. We are pushing forward. We [00:28:00] will make our own touchdowns. Ignore them. Set it free. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, exactly. And I was just telling them, they’re just a mechanism. They’re asking questions. They’re just giving you opportunities. This is what this is about.

Literally opportunities. The minute you try to think of it as convincing or getting defensive, you’re working your brain in the wrong direction. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah. I love that. I love telling them it’s an opportunity. It’s not a question. It’s an opportunity. I really love that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I was like, you have the opportunity also to disagree.

And I was like, what do you mean? I’m like. How easy is it just to say, I disagree, that’s easy. And I’m like, is it true? It’s true. Like, okay. Did we just solve a really huge problem? Yes, because I want to disagree with him. Great. Does that mean you have to argue or be defensive or, and I was like, absolutely not.

Literally the simplest thing is just to say, I disagree. 

Amanda Carmody: I disagree. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And then like, they think they have to convince and do all this. And I’m like, no. And that’s why we always try to take it back to the most simplest form of what are we doing here? [00:29:00] And sometimes I literally get like a visual aid out to help them show like, okay, here are all the things that go into this case.

But here’s this little perfect puzzle piece that only you can fill. So we really need to hone in on what is it that you can fill and because we can get doctors to come talk, we can get the police officer to come talk or we can go get, so you got to give what your perspective is, the facts that you know, right?

But there’s going to be something in here that you can just let go of because like you don’t have to do that heavy lifting job. We’ve got other people to do that for you. And that’s it, 

Amanda Carmody: right? Yeah, I love the analogy of the puzzle piece, because another thing I’ve noticed is people feel super helpless through the whole process.

They feel helpless in the event that brought them to litigation, and then they feel helpless throughout litigation because it is something they don’t know anything about. Most people don’t know how to even deal with property damage when they’ve been in a crash, and so they feel [00:30:00] super helpless. And giving them that purpose of the book, we have the whole picture, except this missing piece, and that’s you, is such a remarkable thing to give your client that power, because they had probably felt powerless through years of living through this.

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, yeah. Just going through the beginning stages of getting it started, like, before they hire lawyers so frustrating, like even just a simple car wreck becomes, Oh my gosh, I have spent every day calling these people and it feels so disempowering. And then it’s, Oh, we’ll take care of everything. Lawyers will file the lawsuit.

There’s only just two or three things that you have to do. And that’s where I’m like, I say, okay, this is the thing we talked about. This is the place. Are you ready to rumble? We got to get you ready. That’s why we take so much time to get ready because it’s one of those things. And I added something to my list of things I always tell people, which is you got the right to understand the question, you need to take a break.

But then I haven’t yet gotten good wording on it, but it’s like. [00:31:00] The coolest thing and I do think it’s the coolest thing about deposition is you can’t be interrupted. Like how cool is that? A lawyer does not get to interrupt you. Like how cool is that? Of course, I’m a lawyer so I think that is cool because we get interrupted constantly by each other.

It’s just oh, it’s so frustrating, but literally they have to listen to you. That’s the opposite of it. It’s in black and white and it never goes away. Okay, that’s what people think. What’s the big deal about transcript? I’m like, oh, let me tell you because it. We don’t like as lawyers, we, Oh, it’s client deposition.

No big deal. But we like poor over deposit, I mean, of transcripts, like experts and like how we make our cross, like whatever else, why wouldn’t we really take that to the next level of explaining it and like how cool that is. Employer cool. But, wow, here’s another place that you’ve got some power. Alright, let’s take it, let’s do this.

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, it is really cool. I have a question for you. In between prep sessions, what do you do for your client to help them be able to [00:32:00] step away and give themselves a little break, but hold on to what you’ve talked about and not be starting fresh every time you leave? 

Elizabeth Larrick: I’m a huge fan of doing something visual and then you have to write something.

And a lot of times we use these giant notepads, right? So we’re organizing around what happened. We’re organizing around like maybe a piece of the damages. Or maybe we just do a timeline. I have them take a picture with their phones because generally we are creating it together. Make sure we walk through that, but that gives them something if they need to refresh, they can just take a quick look at it.

The other thing I like to do is I really like to give homework, but it’s just thinking homework. That’s why I tell people, okay, I’m going to give you some homework. I don’t want you to write anything down. I just want you to think about it and give it to your brain and your brain will start working on it for you.

The only thing sometimes I’m like, okay, we’re going to. Dig deeper on the impact and what’s going on. So it’s sometimes it’s helpful to go like whoever you’ve been living with, right? Maybe it’s parents, maybe it’s friends, maybe it’s [00:33:00] spouses and just say, Hey, do you remember, itty refresh my memory on some of that stuff.

Right. And then say, Oh yeah, like that’s generally the hardest part is just refreshing that memory of like. With so much time that’s passed. So that’s what I really like to do. Not give them anything super heavy, but just back of the brain thinking stuff or talk to somebody or take a picture and just take a look at it.

Amanda Carmody: Yeah. I think the visual aids is a very good idea because it keeps it simple, but it’ll trigger that memory of sitting there. I give my clients homework. I give them a sheet of homework that is, like you said, we make it clear. This is our communication. This is something we’re working on together. But I try to keep it light until a week before their deposition.

And actually have it be some of the heavy stuff because I want them to practice thinking through these things we talked about because it helps them when a defense attorney asks a question that maybe we haven’t practiced verbatim, [00:34:00] they know what to respond with because they’ve just sat with what they’ve said.

So I make the homework based off of our conversations. Which is another opportunity to show your client. I am listening. I care about what you’re saying. These are important things, but from practice or a prep session to prep session, it can be a little tricky I think because you finish the first one and your client wants you to shake it off get over it get moving and then you Come back and it’s okay.

We got to get heavy again 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, I’ve started to do like a mini meeting, like just to give them the guideposts, like here’s where we’re going and what’s going to happen. And then I remind them of that constantly. Here’s where we’re going next. So they’re like, okay. So that it’s always, we’re going to keep moving through.

And there are times where I’ve definitely worked with people and I put it pretty close to the deposition because I know literally our brains forget like an instant, like we, we are literally, so 10 [00:35:00] days goes by, we got nothing left and I’ve had it to where we do a piece of work and then I noodle on it.

And then I come back to him and I’m like, we got to do that again. Like it did not feel like it was right for you. And they’re like, I’m so glad that you said that because it just didn’t feel like me either. And I was like, great. Look at this. Let’s go back. And sometimes it happens that we, it really depends on the person, but you may not know that until you get in there and you start working through and you can, working with enough people and talking with enough people, you get a little bit of a spidey sense of, Oh, Oh, that’s a sensitive area.

Let me make a little mental note. Like we’ll get back to that. Maybe this session, maybe another session. And what I also love about the approach of literally asking questions and just listening and going through is so many lawyers have trepidation about I’m going to have to confront them about a B or C.

And I’m like, If you literally just sit down and [00:36:00] start talking to someone, she’s nodding her head. Yes, it will come out naturally. And if it doesn’t, you’ve spent all that time talking and listening, you can still say and bring up, I have this concern, or what about this thing? There’s no quote unquote confrontation.

Amanda Carmody: I am a big Ted Lasso fan. And there’s the whole line of be curious, not judgmental. And that is just the nail on the head to me. If you approach your client’s step prep as Okay, we need to figure out what problems we have so that we can fix them. That’s not a right way to talk to somebody about something that They went through, that’s horrible.

And it’s super confrontational, and they’re already in a confrontational system. If you approach it with, just start talking to me, let’s just work through this. And really try to learn where that person’s coming from. With curiosity and not sitting there thinking like, oh my gosh, this is a huge problem, we gotta fix it.

It just goes so much smoother for me. Everybody, for you, for your [00:37:00] client, like, you don’t have to make the process so exhausting. You can just take the easy road, which is, 

Elizabeth Larrick: And you’ll hear something, it’s like you talked about that mediation course, and there’s a book that I read, Never Split the Difference, and if you just sit and listen, it will solve your problems.

I’m like, it’s so true, like mediation, like if you will just listen, you will find something that will solve the problem versus you having to come up with the solution. And again, we as lawyers, we’re problem solvers, we want to have solutions, we really want to help people. And this is a place where I’m just like, Other places, yes, you’ve got to go find that solution.

You need to put your thinking cap on. You need to do that. This place with your client, though, like listening will solve so 

Amanda Carmody: many problems. I had a client who would say things like, 100 percent absolutely all the time, things that you tell your clients, stay out of those extreme areas. Never and always. It was killing me.

And [00:38:00] I could not figure out how to get this person to stop saying that. I said, if you say that, this is what they will interpret it to me and tried to explain it and then just let him keep talking. And it turned out he worked in restaurants for a really long time. And that’s the lingo. Think about going through the drive thru.

Okay. Chick fil a. And they say, absolutely, my pleasure. And you just are trying to be accommodating. And so by learning he worked in a restaurant, learning that was the vernacular he had picked up, we could start breaking that apart. You are not in a restaurant. You do not need to be accommodating with this person.

You are not here to please them and say, yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Let that go. And it was just a real aha moment that his experience in a restaurant was totally irrelevant. It was. Decades ago, it just was a habitual thing he had picked up. 

Elizabeth Larrick: What I always find when you point something out like that, you’ve listened long enough to say, Hey, if you notice that you didn’t, they’re like, no, they don’t even know.

It’s totally subconscious. And it becomes like that thing. [00:39:00] I want to fix that problem. But I always say like, you just wait a little bit, give a little space, ask some questions. Again, you’re still going to listen in and find, oh, That’s where it’s from. Now I know the route to go because sometimes we give that explanation of when you say X defense says things Y, or they’re going to ask now all these cross exam questions because they’ve never been in that situation.

That’s not scary to them. That’s the, there’s still no, it’s a complete disconnect. And so that’s why it’s. Just like you said, get back in there a little bit, get a little more in there. And then, Oh, like it’s a people pleasing thing. And how can we get out of that mode and have a little bit of presence about, Oh yeah, I don’t need to be a people pleaser when it comes to this deposition or really ever, but that’s a whole other podcast we could, 

Amanda Carmody: there’s so many tangents we could run with for like a whole series of podcasts.

Yes. 

Elizabeth Larrick: So I want to bring us back before we started recording. I was [00:40:00] talking to Amanda about being passionate about helping clients prepare for deposition, being passionate about client testimony. It’s not that it’s rare, but it is a little bit rare and trying to talk to people sometimes about this amazing thing happened or the helping part of it.

Going on a total tangent about like people, lawyers totally blaze over, they’re so gay. And so I was trying to come up with an analogy because we all get taught like how to prepare somebody for deposition. Just depends on what point in your career, normally early on. Sometimes you maybe you don’t do litigation, then you do and you just basically follow somebody else’s outline or you watch somebody like, okay, I guess that’s it.

We meet, we do discovery responses and good luck and send them all through the deposition and Good day. Amanda, tell me we had a good analogy. So we’ll talk through our analogy about what depo prep can sometimes look like. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, I’ve been watching a lot of Great British Bake Off. And so I immediately thought of cakes and just starting with all of the ingredients for a cake and dumping them into a [00:41:00] bowl and then expecting it to come out as a cake is not going to work very well.

Most of us just. using the analogy, are past the point of dumping all of the ingredients into a bowl and pulling out a cake. We can get to a point where you mix them in the right order and then you bake it, but that cake is probably not going to be super great. It might be from a box. It might even be the kind you take out of the freezer and thaw for 30 minutes before company comes over.

But the more You read your cookbooks, and the more you talk to other people who are baking cakes, and the more you The more you bake, though! The more that you bake, the more depositions you take and defend, the more you see what works. To the point where you’re getting to a place where you have something you can be proud of can be your showstopper.

But even when you get to the point of having like your beautiful cake that everybody agrees looks beautiful, tastes beautiful, there’s still a better cake out there for you to bake [00:42:00] and you can still get there. And so have your cake, eat it. I don’t know how far we can push this down. Yeah. As lost. Yeah,

Elizabeth Larrick: Because I think a lot of times, because it is something we do in every case, generally there’s some kind of, oh, this is how somebody else did it. And that’s why I said it’s like Duncan Hinz like, oh, it’s client deposition. All right. Here, let just do the same thing. I’ve always done egg oil go. That’s good enough.

Because yeah, it’s a client deposition. What differences does it really make? Once you really start to dive into like human emotion, human psychology, you don’t need a degree. I don’t have a degree in that. I just started listening and watching and paying attention to, Oh, if we order it this way, people There’s so much more that people grasp.

They’re so much better that they do. And that’s the same way with baking a cake. Okay. There’s a difference between baking soda and baking powder. Big learning moment. That’s right. And you get better [00:43:00] tools. And so you can help so many different people. And I think. You nailed it very early on, which is type of prep, the amount of time is very much fashioned around the person and the case.

You get so much better at doing that when you have built up your tools and your toolbox and know what it takes when you have resistance from somebody. Oh, I’ve got somebody who talks way too much, or, oh, I’ve got somebody who’s really defensive. You have this experience of like, okay, but what I always know and can always go back to is listening questions one on one time.

That’s always going to be a part of it. And same thing with baking a cake. There’s always going to be specific ingredients, a specific order. It changes up a little bit, but there’s such a huge difference between that cake you pull out of the freezer and the cake that you bake yourself. I mean, we were trying to think of an analogy.

Like 

Amanda Carmody: it’s such a good one. I’m sitting here thinking of more ways. It’s like cake. Some people don’t like vanilla cake. Some people are [00:44:00] allergic to gluten. It still is the same general idea. You’re making something that looks like a cake, but there’s certain. Frostings you wouldn’t put on certain cakes and certain cakes can’t handle weight.

Heavy things and heavy toppings. You have to be delicate and that’s just how people are too. And as long as you’re like, you’re saying to try to wrap this up nicely, as long as you’re approaching it with kindness and curiosity and just openness, you’ll be able to figure out what type of cake you’re baking and how to make your client.

feel like they did something good that they can be proud of. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And if you do it, if you just try a different one, one time, you will see phenomenally the difference. It may not feel like it. You may think, oh, it’s still the same, but that connection that you have with that client has completely changed. And final thought on our analogy here is a huge difference between a Martha’s story.

Stuart cake and Duncan Hines. And once you’ve had one, you don’t ever want to go back. Yeah. You don’t want the box [00:45:00] cake anymore. That’s right. That’s because you’ve seen, like, you see the change. You sometimes you actually feel the change and you may say, but Elizabeth, Amanda, it didn’t get the case a little quicker and we still had to keep doing all these things.

Think about the client. Like how much more happy were they to deal with you? How much more happy were they to get you whatever you want and turn down that low ball offer and not be. Emotionally tied up personally and thinking I’m not worthy because I got this low ball offer because that is a total thing.

You nailed it. Like people feel hopeless and worthless because that’s what they’ve been told the whole time. So 

Amanda Carmody: yeah, no, I think that’s 

Elizabeth Larrick: exactly it. Elizabeth. Oh my gosh, we have tackled so many things, but I’m really mostly proud of our cake analogy. 

Amanda Carmody: It might have gone a little too far in time, but I think I’m going to go get cake.

I don’t know that I’m going to bake it. I have a holiday party to go to, and I really hope there’s cake. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really enjoyed having [00:46:00] you. so much, Elizabeth. I appreciate you. Awesome. Hey, if anybody has questions for Amanda or you’re up in her area, I know she would probably love to grab a zoom with you or an actual real live person, coffee and talk about depo prep.

All of her contacts will be in the show notes. If you want to reach out to her, thank you all so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review on your favorite podcast platform. And if we are not connected on LinkedIn, please go and follow and connect with me so that we can continue this conversation.

All right. Until next time. Thank [00:47:00] you.

Have you ever witnessed the courtroom magic that a well-prepared lawyer can weave? Imagine the edge a legal team could have by understanding a jury’s mind before even stepping into the courtroom. That’s exactly what Florida attorney Brooke Grogan and I peel back the layers of in our insightful conversation. Brooke brings to the table her experiences with focus groups, revealing how these mock juries can drastically alter the trajectory of a trial. From honing opening statements to fine-tuning courtroom tactics, this episode is a masterclass for any trial lawyer eager to absorb the tactical know-how of leveraging focus groups for legal victories. 

Picture this: a tool so powerful it could swing a $3 million verdict in your favor. That’s the story Brooke recounts as we delve into how early focus group feedback reshaped her case strategy. We also tackle the virtual evolution of focus groups, discussing the conveniences and complexities of platforms like Zoom. Whether you’re a seasoned attorney or just legally curious, our exchange is packed with practical insights that underscore the transformative effects of blending technology with trial preparation. Join us to unearth the art of legal strategy through the lens of focus groups – a truly eye-opening dialogue for the courtroom tactician in all of us.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Brooke’s first focus group experience
• Focus group evaluation
• Importance of focus groups in evaluation
• Value of focus groups and input
• Adjustments and progress in focus groups 

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. 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 Brooke Grogan & her practice: https://www.injurylawyers.com/attorney-brooke-grogan/

 To follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-larrick-942447101/

 If you have a question or suggestion for the podcast, please email Elizabeth: 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 I 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. Hi there. It’s Elizabeth. I want to stop really quickly before we get into this episode and tell you about my guest today.

Brooke Grogan is joining us today. She’s an attorney at the West Palm Beach office of Stanger Green and Finer. She is a native of Florida and she enjoys using her platform as [00:01:00] an attorney to help others, especially those without a voice or Without sufficient monetary means or knowledge of the legal system.

I met Brooke through my very good friend, Neil Anthony, who also works at the same firm. And they actually teamed up recently and went to trial and secured a 3 million verdict. So way to go, Brooke and Neil. Anyhow, let’s jump into this episode because I think you’re really going to find it interesting what Brooke has to say about her first focus group experience.

Hello and welcome to the trial lawyer prep. Podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and we are here to talk all things case preparation. This is a podcast that’s really been set up for lawyers who are litigating cases in employment law and personal injury and work injury and business litigation as well.

Sometimes we talk about other stuff too, but mainly those are our main focus. And we talk about all other kinds of things that help people get ready for cases [00:02:00] and really how to’s. Today’s episode, I have brought on a wonderful guest who is going to talk about her experience doing her first focus group.

Brooke comes to us all the way from Florida. So welcome to the podcast, Brooke. Thank you. I’m excited to have Brooke because they came to me to do some focus groups. And after we did them, Brooke had some wonderful feedback for me. And I thought, you know what? This is what a lot of people out there are thinking and feeling about doing a focus group and what may be something that’s holding them back.

So I loved, and I always appreciate people giving me feedback, but Brooke also agreed to come on the podcast, which is the second hurdle. So Brooke. Let’s walk through this. Tell me what you were thinking. You guys are gearing up this case and that always helps people too. Like I know what I need to talk about.

Like we don’t really even talk about the facts actually, but just tell us like where you guys were in the case. Cause a lot of people have questions and we talk a lot about when to run a [00:03:00] focus group, like what point in a case and what case really would need one. So talk me through, tell us all about that kind of thought process when you guys were approaching doing a focus group for this case.

Brooke Grogan: All right. So thank you for having me. And I should just say first and foremost, I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong, but we brought you on early on in the case. We knew early on, we had a case with big damages and we were high valuation of the case. So I brought you on early on. And I think that really benefited the case in the long run.

Cause we got the feedback early on throughout those sessions. So there was a lot of really positive things that came from your involvement early on in the case. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Good. And I think, and you tell me, you guys approached once you guys got the trial date, but the trial date was still six to eight months away.

Is that sound about right? 

Brooke Grogan: Yes. So we decided we were going to do three sessions. focus group sessions. And that kind of put me at ease because in my mind, [00:04:00] having never done one before, I always envisioned a focus group, like a mediation where it’s like you go in and you present everything from A to Z and everything in between.

And the only difference between mediation and a focus group is you’re getting feedback at the end of it from complete strangers. That was What I was expecting and I was kind of a daunting thought thinking I’m going to have to really tackle an entire case throughout maybe a couple hours of a session.

So I was really happy when on our first call, you explained to me, we’re actually going to dissect the case. So we decided we were just going to tackle the opening in the first session. We were just going to tackle the liability and damages in the second session. And then the third session we decided we would use for one deer.

And that really put me at ease and knowing that I was going to have an opportunity to really focus on each really critical. Piece of the case, but over time, not all at once. So my case had a lot of moving [00:05:00] parts and I feel like the focus group your timeline. Our first session was, I think, 5 months before calendar call even and.

It forced me to prepare. It forced me to write my opening statement and deliver it five months before I was even supposed to be in court. So in the moment, I was thinking this is going to be a big commitment. But looking back, I’m so glad I prepared. I’m so glad I banged out my opening statement because I had so much time to make adjustments.

After that, and it really helped me frame the case as well. As far as file management, time management, the focus group really kept me accountable on making sure I was preparing the case in segments. So I really appreciated that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Awesome. And that’s a lot of times people just, you know, that same thing, the trepidation is there’s going to be so much work that’s required to do the focus group.

And it’s really not, especially like the format that we decided on, which was virtual. One of the things that. I always encourage [00:06:00] people to listen. We don’t really want to do a super long virtual focus group. Like people will lose interest. Here’s the sweet spot. Two hours, three hours, get a lot done still in one hour, but that makes you then choose.

We really have to hone in on these particular things. We can’t do everything. So I appreciate you pointing that out. What I want to ask. So let’s go back. Let’s take it back. Okay. Approaching this as you’ve never done a focus group before. What was in your mind? What were your worries? And you talked about one, the amount of work that would be acquired, like thinking, Oh my gosh, it’s going to be so much work I got to do.

What were some other things, concerns that you had about running a focus group? 

Brooke Grogan: So I think initially, the concern was the cost, and when I say cost, to make sure that the file justified the cost, but also that the client was okay with it, because ultimately it comes out of the case. And I realized pretty early on in speaking with the client, they were happy, they were excited, they were so supportive of us focus grouping the case, and I think it actually helped us build [00:07:00] trust, because They realized I was willing to do whatever was necessary to understand the hard issues in the case, the complexity of the case.

And I was really trying to understand it. And I don’t know for sure, but I would guess just based on my experience in this, that most clients, if their attorneys call them and say, Hey, we’re going to be focus grouping your case. They would all have a positive reaction because number one, the attorney seeing the value in the case and number two, the case is important.

So when the attorney is taking the case and making it an important case, I think that really builds trust with the client and it means something. I think they appreciate it. So in my case, I’m sure. Probably many other attorneys may say this, but the client was so supportive of it. And so cost really, it became a non issue pretty early on.

I realized, wow, the client wants to do this just as bad as I do. He’s just as interested as I am in the feedback. So that was a surprise for me that it was received so [00:08:00] well. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, you didn’t have to work hard to convince him he was no. Yeah, 

Brooke Grogan: not at all. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And that’s been my experience too. When I ran litigation cases, and I told people, this is what I did.

They’re like, wow, that’s really cool. What a great idea. Instead of just trying to rely on your own thoughts, your own experience, you can go ask other people. Absolutely. And I think cost is important. It’s always a concern when you’re running and you’re handling costs as a law firm or as a solo. Like you’re handling those costs.

I do think it’s always super important to talk to your clients and let them know and get that approval. But thinking it’s going to be a ton of work is one of the holdout thinking it’s going to be a huge expense. And then sometimes what I also hear from people is this worry that like. They don’t really know what they’re going to get.

What really are we going to learn from the focus group that I can actually use? Was that ever a worry from you? And I know you had another podcast friend chirping in your ear, Neil Anthony, who’s been on the podcast before. And so he was probably chirping in your ear a little bit, but was that a concern at all?

Brooke Grogan: So I don’t think I was [00:09:00] so sure about what the feedback would be, but being in it, I can tell you what it ended up being. And I think. Looking back, I’m like, Oh my gosh, it was invaluable. It helped me get my case resolved. But when you’re in it, maybe you don’t really know necessarily if it’s your first time.

I appreciate it now, but my focus on the second session we had was really a game changer for me because I went in concerned about my damages and my valuation. And that’s what I thought I was going to hear everybody talking about was the valuation was too high or the injuries were problematic or what have you.

Every question that the focus groupers kept bringing up to you, I believe, and the conversation kept going right back to a liability issue that I really wasn’t expecting leaving the second focus group even I felt like I had refocused on, okay, like I had more confidence in my valuation of the case. I knew I was on the right track there, but I really needed to focus on my [00:10:00] liability, and that’s where I did focus for the next.

A couple months, I ended up getting the case resolved because of that. That was the missing piece that ended up getting the case resolved as we didn’t even make it to the third focus group. We had the three kind of staggered and just, I have to say, understanding in the focus group, they would bring up defenses and things they were thinking about in words that made them think of other things.

And it just, it helped me refine my opening, which helped me frame the case. And then, I Refocus on to back to liability. I thought I was over liability and on to valuation and I realized I had to take a step back as far as what you can get from it. I think that every case is different. There is 100%. I wish I could focus group every case because there’s 100% Something to be gotten from the focus group.

Something someone says or thinks about that you didn’t think about. There are so many perspectives. It’s not just yours. It’s so nice to check your perspective. So [00:11:00] doing it, be open minded. You will learn something. You will learn about the difficulties of the case and to have a strength in your case, I truly feel like you have to understand those difficulties and hurdles to get over them.

So it’s helpful to that for sure. 

Elizabeth Larrick: That’s what my, my questions was. I know sometimes, and this is the feedback I get from other people’s watching it, it’s just like sometimes a total gut punch because they are just saying all these things that you didn’t even think about and it’s just, Whoa, wow, I missed that.

But sometimes. Again, we’re got our own point of view on things. It’s difficult to hear, but it’s always going to make you a little bit better versus not ever knowing about it. And then just going in blind with people for sure. For sure. 

Brooke Grogan: Absolutely. Yep. 

Elizabeth Larrick: So tell me a little bit about what was your, let’s go back to that first focus group.

You’re sitting there listening. And I think we, it was pretty, pretty general, I think on the facts and stuff. How were you feeling during that focus group? And after walk us through that, going 

Brooke Grogan: into that focus [00:12:00] group, like I said, it was, we focused on the opening statement. So I had probably my opening statement, 90 percent done.

Five months out from trial, which was I think pretty early. And I sat back and just listened and I just, that’s really all I did. I feel like in that focus group was I had an opportunity to present what I would be presenting in the near future. And I just listened and I was making notes to my opening as we were going, changing certain words, like I said, were maybe not hitting home.

Like I wanted them to, or maybe I missed a few things. So it was invaluable feedback for me to. Make the changes I needed to make over the next coming months. And it was the next couple of months were like a breeze because I’d already done all the hard work early on. And I didn’t really want to do it so early on, but you were so great cause you kept me accountable.

You’d be following up like, Hey, we’re going to be presenting in a week. Do you have any questions? And I was like, okay, we got to do this. I worked with Neil, my trial partner, and we just, we spent a [00:13:00] lot of time on it early on, but then it freed up. So much of our time getting closer to trial, we were able to focus on so many other things.

I really loved having an early timeline in hindsight. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Was there anything that surprised you from the focus groups? Not that I can think of. Okay. Okay. So I know that we did the two focus groups and then you went on to do quite a bit more in the case, meaning there were some depositions, there were some more conversations.

So how did the focus group work impact The rest of the things that you did in the case. I 

Brooke Grogan: think that having done so much work on this case early on, when it was coming time to crunch time with these expert depositions and tough conversations with opposing counsels on what they perceive to be problems in the case, I just felt like I had a layer of confidence.

The conversation in my mind wasn’t me wondering what, how a jury would perceive stuff. I think [00:14:00] they would see it this way, or I think that this fact would be received in this way. I felt confident that I maybe understood even how they would understand it because I had focus grouped it twice. And I think we had 10 people, complete strangers in the first focus group, about 10 and 10.

So I had already talked to 20 people that didn’t know me, didn’t know the case. It really gave me a pulse on what the strengths of the case. And that really flowed through. I think in my conversations, I was able, I just had a layer of confidence in my conversations with the client. Changed as well because the client would always ask questions about what do you think about this?

What do you think about that? And it would always be my perspective. Well, I think this but I don’t know how a jury will receive the information and the conversation was really taken out of that context to more. This is how a jury will probably perceive this information. So it was just a different level of confidence and knowing this isn’t just my perspective, but probably this is how [00:15:00] a strangers are going to see this case as well.

So it flowed into all aspects of the case. So it made me feel more confident, my depositions, my conversations, even with my client. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And that’s awesome. That’s, that’s sometimes having that feeling helps just to, and you guys got it resolved, which is. Pretty awesome. Cause when you guys came to me, the, or you guys were like, I’m pretty sure this is going to go like, we’re really, we’re 90 percent sure that we’re going to go to a trial.

So I was shocked when I got that email. 

Brooke Grogan: Right. And then we got to use the last session on a totally different case. And I got to practice a voir dire cause I had never done one of those 

Elizabeth Larrick: before either. So it 

Brooke Grogan: was really fun. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, exactly. Then we got to do some other stuff. Let me ask real specifically, cause I know you had to take some expert Was there anything from the focus groups that really gave you either some ideas or some confidence about particular pieces that you knew the expert was?

Either not going to agree with or didn’t even [00:16:00] consider. 

Brooke Grogan: I knew from, like I said, that second focus group, which I said was a game changer. I knew what piece was missing and what the case needed. I knew what the people were looking for. The question was the same question. I kept coming back to the same question.

So in, and that deposition Came after the appropriate expert to actually fill that gap and came after that focus group and I hammered it home. I hammered it home. I probably asked the relevant question five times sideways to make sure it was like a concretized answer, but I made sure that it was like a stone, like a really strong response to that because I knew that’s what.

That’s where the interest was. So I probably spent more time on that missing link because of that second focus group. And I know I did because I changed completely changed my focus from, like I said, the valuation, which was fine to this missing link on more of the [00:17:00] liability side. So it allowed me to craft my questions more so around that missing link and spend more time on it.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And that’s one of the things I always tell people and it’s hard to kind of grasp without going through it is you’re going to hear what, where the education needs to be. You’re going to hear What it is that they need to hear from an expert because exactly truly some experts are totally they just get up there and they just go and you’re like, there’s something really specific.

I need you to talk to exactly. They don’t get it at all. And so I really love that piece came through for y’all. And when it did, because again, sometimes people time these things when they have all the expert depositions and then they go to a focus group and the focus group, like you said, you kept hearing it over and over again.

And you’re thinking, Oh, I didn’t get to have my expert fill in that piece. And I didn’t get to hammer defense expert on that piece. And so that definitely, I think really is one of the big, [00:18:00] significant things that people, We have in our minds, that focus group is really just like you said, it’s like a mock trial.

You threw everything at them and then you get feedback. If you do it early enough, you’re really coming and bringing all of that into everything else you’re going to do next. Depositions, experts, having those conversations with that opposing counsel and then having a lot more confidence in your number and your valuation that you might not have.

Brooke Grogan: Exactly. In my mind, I was not gonna gloss over that issue. I was like, I heard it, I heard it once. I heard it twice. We are gonna be focusing on that issue. Thank you. . But it was good. It it, I, I was very aware of it and that was like I said, really great, maybe unintended consequence or, I’m not sure of that se really second focus group.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that people. Like you, you’re, sometimes people are curious about what they’re going to get and they don’t, they feel like sometimes it’s going to be like looking for an [00:19:00] Easter egg thing. But I’m like, no, they will tell you straight out and you’ll hear it more than once. And that’s when you know, okay, they’re ringing that bell.

Like that is something that we need to answer that question. Or a lot of times we may run a focus group. And I know for sure we had conversations once we finished where it was like, okay, here’s what they want to hear. Do you have this? Is this something that’s already in the case? Or do you have this witness who can come in and explain this?

Or, and you guys did, there were things that we heard about damages that Gave you confidence. Okay, good. This is how I felt about it. They secured it and then it was like, okay, how can we hammer this home if, if you guys go? And it was like, okay, we’ve gotta get the manager he worked with. We’ve gotta get people he worked with.

We’ve gotta get the boss to come in to really understand the magnitude of the job that this person was handling. And then couldn’t anymore. Sometimes we have all the things in the case, just not know how amplified they need to be. And then sometimes, like you [00:20:00] said, you got to go to that expert and ask those questions and fill those holes.

Brooke Grogan: And I think too, being in it presenting the opening, it was so helpful to have you as a third party, hearing it and really observing everything. And after the focus groups, we talked every after every focus group on your feedback as a third party, kind of. Like seeing reactions and stuff. I got a lot of information from your responses as well.

I don’t know if we had ever really talked about that, but your feedback on reaffirming, Hey, I think they sounded like they were accepting this part of the case, but now it seems like this is the question. And You and Neil were really good, like sounding boards on that conversation and affirming me and like where I needed to go.

So. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And I think we appreciate you so much. Of course. And I think sometimes I know for sure, cause I can remember one person in your focus group. Occasionally we have, we have 10 people, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to have 10 solid [00:21:00] people. Occasionally there’ll be a one off and I’ll be like, listen, we heard everything that Susan said, but.

Let’s just put that in a little bubble. Okay. Because that may be that extreme juror who never gets on. And I want to say you probably, I don’t want to say you had somebody like that. 

Brooke Grogan: I did. And you gave me, I was like concerned and you were like, no, they’re not all going to be like that. So I really took to heart your feedback.

So I didn’t get too wrapped up in the, I’m going to say the negative comments or whatever it ended up being, but it was good having your perspective too on that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And sometimes that happens it’s, and, and trust me, you’re not alone. That’s why when I see it happening, I generally make a little note myself and then just say, Hey, listen, we’re this person in particular, let’s just put them in a bubble because sometimes what will happen is our brain will just hear that comment.

And then. What I hear from lawyers, everyone felt that way. And I’d have to be like, no, that was just Susan. And nobody jumped on [00:22:00] Susan’s bandwagon. So that’s one of those things of having that extra person. And I always even like having you and Neil listen, and you guys then having that immediate feedback right after the focus group.

And that, and I’m glad we’re talking about that because sometimes people just, you know, Okay, good. Got it. Gone. And so if you like talk it through and sound off each other, you’re going to get such like a more in depth understanding of kind of what happened, especially bouncing it off another lawyer who just saw it.

And then we always, I think that having that immediate, like, Feedback so that you don’t go chasing that rabbit, that one little person who mentions that one kind of crit. No, come back. We’ll let Susan do her thing. You’ll know how to spot a Susan, but the majority of people, like you said, that it’s gonna, if somebody says something you’re looking to see who else is going to pick up on that and if it’s going to come back.

That’s always I think helpful to go back and look like, okay, 

Brooke Grogan: I think to the [00:23:00] majority of people, if not all, maybe but one were very committed to the process. I felt like I was getting really organic, real responses. And that’s a credit to you, too, in finding these people that are committed to the process.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, I think it’s just a matter of making sure everybody understands what everyone’s role is, and I think it’s so critical that when you’re running, especially an opening statement, like, you don’t then do all the questioning, right? Then they’re like, your brain’s confused. Wait a second. You’re obviously not neutral.

You just gave me this very biased, you know, statement. And so I think having that extra neutral third party to come in and be like, okay, I’m just here to ask questions. And we try really hard to make our questions a very open ended, right? Like, how are you feeling? And how do you think? And put this in the chat and give me your thoughts.

And that way we’re really. Getting everybody. And I always tell people it’s so key. It’s just like a [00:24:00] classroom. Like everybody has to have that individual attention. And in zoom, that’s really the only way to manage people. Otherwise you literally don’t get what people are saying. Cause zoom cut somebody off.

That’s another. Reason why I really love like comparing in person versus zoom is in person. So many people, especially post pandemic, I don’t know what it is. Talk over each other constantly. And it’s as a moderator, it’s a constant, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Cause you’re missing it and having someone to go back, repeat it.

Like someone’s going to lose something in there. So I appreciate zoom in that sense of being able to gather everybody up individually. Me 

Brooke Grogan: too. And if you can present your case on zoom. You can present your case in person because zoom, I think when you’re standing up and you can actually move around, it’s more effective.

So if you can do it on zoom and you may have a better pool on zoom as well. A lot of people don’t want to go in person because of concerns, COVID concerns or masking situations. I think you get a better, a larger pool of people probably [00:25:00] doing it via zoom rather than not just like a narrow group of people that, you know, you know, Don’t want to be in person.

Elizabeth Larrick: Right, and that’s what I was going to say. Did you have any concerns about being virtual? Versus in person? 

Brooke Grogan: I didn’t. I actually prefer it because, especially when you’re presenting, it’s so much easier to present. You share your screen, it’s right in front of the people. They can all see it. There’s no issues.

They can hear you, they can see it. I have no problems, uh, doing it via Zoom. And like I said, it’s probably you get a better pool of people. So I personally prefer it, but I don’t have any experience on the other side of doing it in person. So I don’t know, but I didn’t find that there were any issues for me.

I love that you posed your questions throughout the session. People, I could see their responses in the comments. It was what I was looking for. It, it, it achieved what I was looking for. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And again, we you’re in Florida, I’m in Texas. We couldn’t do it otherwise, [00:26:00] but that’s what I hear from so many people in doing the in person is they don’t even literally want to get in the car and drive somewhere.

We always try to have free parking wherever we go, or if we do reimburse it, but people even just, I don’t even, that’s what I hear. I don’t want to fight traffic. I don’t want to come down there and have some kind of crappy lunch and then sit through and. Maybe I’ll get sick or whatnot. So it’s, we definitely have a lot better response to recruiting for virtual versus in person.

Oh yeah. I would imagine. Yeah. And then I would just say the other thing thinking about cost wise to get some people to come in person, the cost is much higher because, Everything, renting a space, and then just paying people for their time, has really significantly changed since the pandemic. So that was definitely a helpful thing with virtual is we cut a lot of that stuff out.

Oh, it’s 

Brooke Grogan: good to know. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Brooke. Let me ask you to check in because we’ve got lots of people who are listening to the podcast and maybe they’re thinking about running their own focus [00:27:00] group or they’re on the cusp of like maybe pulling the trigger for a focus group. What would you, what would you tell them?

What would you, what would your advice be to them? 

Brooke Grogan: I kind of think if you have a case that has damages, like decent damages, regardless of the rest of it, invest in the case, the client will be appreciative of it, and once you do one, you’ll understand why you will want to do more. It helps you prepare early on, it helps you build confidence in your case, it helps build trust with your client, and like I said, if you have a case that warrants it with damages, I’m pretty confident you’ll get good feedback and have a good experience, like I did.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I would say just to that, that after that we, the first focus group, I think we did was just a one hour, just a one hour shot. We just did an overview. And I think that’s one of the ones where we really were like, Oh, we need to take, you guys need to take a step back. We need to really take this next one and look at.

Liability just to make [00:28:00] sure you guys are hitting it spot on. So I appreciate you saying that because sometimes you have to start a little small, just to alleviate some of those concerns and then be able to feel like, Oh, okay, now let’s move forward with a longer one, a bigger one, more preparation on you.

And then you’ll get more out of it. 

Brooke Grogan: Yeah, and I think along the way adjustments can be made. If you feel like you’ve really hammered home one aspect, you can always change the scope or the topic area of the next focus group, which is, I like that as well. We had our timeline and our subjects, but I think there was an understanding if we needed to refocus and We ended up doing that for the third one.

We made it into a voir dire. There was a lot of flexibility, but you were really helpful in, again, with the feedback on, Hey, maybe the next one, this is what we do. Your suggestions were really helpful. And I’m glad we implemented them because you’re more experienced in the focus group. I relied on you a lot for the feedback on how they should be run.

And it’s exactly where we should have been focused. And it was exactly what needed to be done to get the case resolved. In my case. It all really worked out. All came [00:29:00] together. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And you guys gave yourself a buffer. You gave yourself a month to almost 40 days between each one, just to buffer it and give yourself time.

And I think that’s a really smart move. Because when you jam it all in there and do two, one week apart or two week apart, you’re really having to buckle down to make those changes, those adjustments and go back and think and marinate and think, okay, do we need that question again? Or can we change it? So yeah, you guys really, I think, approached Having that space there, super thoughtful, like knowing yourself, knowing your caseload and other things that have to get done and not try to pile it on at the last minute.

Awesome. Brooke, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective about focus groups and your first time experience. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome. All right. All of Brooke’s contact information is going to be in the show notes. If you have questions for her about focus groups, I know she’d be happy to feel those.

And of course, if you have anything in [00:30:00] Florida, Florida is a big place. I’ve learned this. through working with people in Florida and knowing, Hey, do you do something in Tampa? Absolutely not. Here’s this other person. But I know that anyhow, we’ll have that contact information for you guys. If you have questions for Brooke, I know she’d be happy to connect and talk about that.

Or if you have a case in Florida, happy to put that too. Okay. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you haven’t done so, let’s connect on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn connection will be in the show notes. All right. Until next time.

Thank you.