Grief affects us all differently and can manifest in many ways beyond the loss itself. In this episode, I’m sharing valuable insights on how to better communicate with and support clients experiencing grief, how grief shows up mentally and physically for clients, and some practical tips for avoiding common communication pitfalls.
As lawyers, we can better support our clients by learning to communicate with empathy and understanding. By listening without judgment, we can help clients identify and name their losses, and provide education and resources. With these simple strategies, we can make a real difference for our clients navigating grief and loss.
In this episode, you will hear:
Grief as a normal reaction to any loss or change, like loss of job, health, or freedom
How grief manifests mentally with reduced focus, isolation, emotional rollercoaster, and numbness.
How grief manifests physically with disturbed sleep, eating changes, body aches, and fatigue
“I can’t imagine how you feel” vs. “I know how you feel”
Helping clients identify and name their losses – tangible or intangible
Asking clients to tell you their story and listening without judgment
Avoid common myths like “stay busy” or “be strong.”
Provide clients with education on grief and resources.
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Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and this is Trial Lawyer Prep.
For the past two episodes, we have been working through grief, what it is, how we’ve been taught to look at grief, understand it as little [00:01:00] kids and as adults, and ultimately, this episode, we’ll be looking at ways grief manifests for our clients and for ourselves. and ways we can help navigate that with our clients and communicate better.
Why are we talking about this as trial lawyers? First and foremost, as a personal injury lawyer, we have wrongful death cases, but as we’ve learned, grief can manifest itself, can pop up as a normal and natural reaction to any change or loss in a familiar pattern or behavior. Loss of a job, loss of your health, All these are ways lawyers help people divorce, business, personal injury, criminal cases.
All these involve this emotional component of grief. And so that’s why I wanted to talk about it here today. Also, everything that we talk about as far as grief and [00:02:00] what we’ll talk about next episode as well, which is the grief recovery method is based on the certification that I achieved or did in March to become certified as a grief recovery specialist.
And my journey to that certification came through me actually having some really deep seeded grief. That was getting in the way of my focus, my concentration and for months was clouding what I was doing in my personal life and in business life. And so it wasn’t until I had a very good friend, a very good mentor that said, Hey, You’re carrying around some really heavy grief here.
Do you want to do something about it? And I said, absolutely. Thank you and help. So we went through the grief recovery method and came out on the other side and I just said, oh my gosh, this is so powerful and what so many people are struggling with and may not even know if they’re like me or maybe they know they don’t know how to process it.
That’s why I want to [00:03:00] do a series on it here on the podcast to spread that education And if you have clients that are struggling, you will be able to have better tools in your tool belt. As far as helping them and communicating with them, let’s talk about ways grief can manifest. And from my personal experience, this is really where I feel like can help more for talking about the work itself.
And so we’re going to talk about mentally how it can manifest and physically how it can manifest and also recap and bring back in that short term energy relieving behavior, those action items that People can take to relieve some of that emotional pressure from that grief. But let’s talk first about mentally what we may be seeing our clients experience, which would be reduced concentration or focus, maybe emotional isolation, they could have a roller coaster of emotional energy.
[00:04:00] Yeah. Sometimes it’s a sense of numbness. And again, there’s no universal response or mental response to it. But from my personal experience, reduced concentration and focus was definitely something that I was having a really difficult time with and just could not figure out. My self discipline was not kicking me into gear and just seemed like there was a very heavy fog that just couldn’t seem to break through.
And I think what happens a lot for our clients is we have to get things done, right? We have to move the case forward. So we need discovery responses. We need photographs. We need these emails. Hey, we need stuff that’s, we got to do our job. We need stuff from them and we just can’t get them to focus long enough to Right.
We’ll get on the phone. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And then nothing. And it’s okay. This person used to run a multimillion dollar company, but they can’t get me some photographs here. [00:05:00] What’s the issue? And so just keeping that in mind, that those are definitely ways that people can experience grief and also physically, right?
So on the physical aspect, we got disturbed. sleep patterns, changed eating patterns. Sometimes we eat more, sometimes we don’t eat at all, right? Body aches. Nausea, headaches, fatigue, increased inflammation in the body, lowered immunity. These are all things that can manifest physically. And what research has shown on the physical aspects is those body aches, those headaches, that emotional pain activates the same region of the brain as physical pain.
So, those are the same receptors, even though we haven’t had anything physically happen to us, right? Those body aches, those are real, our brain, it is real to us, and so, it is real to your clients. So, just keep that in mind. [00:06:00] That what happens with over time is that’s where you’re gonna see some increased inflammation in the body.
You’re gonna see lowered immunity. You’re gonna get sick more often. They’re gonna be struggling with staying healthy, even increased blood pressure. Now also under this category, I have depression with an asterisk. Okay, because most folks research out there, researchers, psychologists, don’t want to go into Group grief and depression together, right?
Depression is a separate situation. If you had depression before, grief can obviously trigger that, but it’s not that grief causes depression, okay? So definitely want to make sure that we clarify that because when we go to talk to people who are experiencing grief, to talk to our clients, a lot of times that’s how it gets treated, is with anti depression medication when that’s not necessarily going to solve that emotional problem, get [00:07:00] rid of that emotional pain or body aches that we’re dealing with, right?
So there’s an asterisk there because obviously if you had depression before it can, and grief can cause an episode, but all in all, those are not things that go together, right? Grief doesn’t cause depression. And what we talked about as well, other ways that grief can manifest for our clients and relieve that pressure is some of those short term energy relieving behaviors that we talked about.
And what you’ll start to see is someone who has had a major grief event in their life, they’re working with you, whatever reason that brings them to a lawyer to deal with it, wrap it up, hold somebody accountable, or dissolve the business, whatever it may be. What you’ll find is that many people begin to alter their life choices after a series of unresolved losses.
And so they’re just protecting themselves from any further heartbreak. But what happens is that quality of their life goes down significantly. [00:08:00] Because they want to live a guarded life so that they don’t have any more of these losses, right? Any more of this grief. And so we want to be able to help people navigate this.
we communicate with them, avoiding comparison, helping with education, because we’re not, let me just put it out there. This is not, I’m not saying, hey, lawyers, you now need to go get the certification. You need to relieve and help process people. Absolutely not. There are lots of specialists out there that can do that, but what we do As helping people with lawsuits, helping navigate the legal system to resolve a problem for them legally that they have to have a lawyer for.
We can do a better job of communicating, of giving some space to talk about feelings, give a little bit of education between us, with our staff, with clients. But also that helps [00:09:00] us when we’re frustrated, when we can’t get answers out of people, when we don’t understand what the issue is. We’ve got a gambit of people or cases, and they’re all reacting differently to the loss.
And we don’t understand that, and it’s frustrating for us. And sometimes, like I said, it can be looked at negatively. And don’t you bet, that’s exactly what the jury is going to do too. Because they’re in the same boat that we are. They don’t know that grief can be normal, natural reaction to any loss or change in familiar pattern of behavior.
So yeah, they’re totally going to be judging the different people based on how they’re reacting and what they’re portraying to the jury as their grief. But more specifically, let’s talk about how to communicate because I think some of these things are really small. But they make a huge difference when it comes to clients and navigating their grief.
The first thing is, and again, I’ve had this conversation [00:10:00] with many people, done the CLE for organizations, and if you have an organization that you’d like to have this put together for you all, just let me know. But we have a tendency to say when someone communicates with us how they’re feeling or their loss, I know how you feel.
You don’t. No one does. Okay. And so a better, because again, I know how you feel means that your loss was the same as their loss, but you don’t even know that yet. And it could be a completely different type of grief event that they’re experiencing versus what you had. And instead of having a comparison, I know how you feel.
I lost my dog last year. I know how you feel. I had a divorce as well. That’s just means, Oh, let’s not talk about it. Okay. I know how you feel, don’t talk about it. Instead, a very easy thing to say, which validates and [00:11:00] acknowledges what someone is saying, is I can’t imagine. I can’t imagine how you feel. I can’t imagine that type of loss.
You’re just validating, you’re just acknowledging. It’s there. And you’re not going to say, I know how you feel. The other thing that’s a great way to communicate is to help people identify and name that loss. Whether it be tangible or intangible, this happens with me really frequently when I sit down to help people get ready for testimony.
And we start to talk about, and we start to list, and we put pen to paper, and we put it up on the wall, can’t play with my grandkids. Can’t exercise the way that I want to. No longer drive on the highway. My husband has to drive me everywhere. Yeah, once we start to put that step up there, then it’s hey, this is real losses.
What have you lost [00:12:00] here? Lost all my financial security. You lost trust. Absolutely. People don’t do that for themselves. They don’t. Again, we’ve talked about a last episode. We weren’t really taught how to process. Grief. Process. Some feelings, not all our feelings, but we’re talking about grief here. If you can help people just by saying, gosh, this is a huge loss, you’re having some loss of trust, right?
Ask it in a question. Wow, that’s a, it’s a huge relationship that you’ve lost, right? Yeah. How are you feeling? Are you feeling sad? Are you feeling conflicting feelings? Help them name those feelings. The best thing we can do is just ask them to tell you the story. Because they want you to know, they want you to hear it.
They want you to hear how it feels. Now, people always tell you, I don’t have time for that. We’re in a hurry. We can’t always be talking about feelings. Listen, you’re going to know [00:13:00] when the opportunity arises and when it’s appropriate, when it’s not. Also, most of the time, people just want to get it out once because nobody else in their life they can talk to about this.
You are helping them process. The loss, the change, legally, they’re trying to process it emotionally, right? So having them tell you that story, you being able to hear how it feels, you’re doing a significant service to them because they don’t have anybody else in their life that’s going to do that. Now you’re going to think, well, I had to watch it every time.
You’re overthinking it. You’re getting way in the weeds here. Ultimately, listen, we, at some point we have to be. A big heart with ears and just listen. And when we do that, we really restore some of that loss of trust and listen, they will appreciate it. That trust that you build [00:14:00] by listening, by just taking a moment and it’s okay to switch gears and say, thank you so much for telling me.
I can’t imagine how you feel. Can I ask if we can talk about this other thing? Or, I’m here if you want to talk a little bit more. Okay, look, that was a polite way of doing that. We can be polite. Sometimes I think we forget, we need to be polite. Yes, we have a job to do, right? But again, we signed up for the intellectual side.
We’re going to get the emotional side too. And this is part of the reason why I want to do this series all together. And ultimately, the other thing, how we communicate is we really have to avoid those myth statements. That, go out and replace it, go get you another one, go, hey, go stay busy, join a gym, get a new hobby, you got more time on your hands, you just, you need to be strong for others right now.
Hold on, what’s our other ones we got here? Be strong for [00:15:00] others. Can you go do that at home? Do I need to call you back, right? Go grieve alone. Stay busy. Be strong for others. Just give it time. Right? Avoid all those statements. Right? Because again, what are you saying? Which is, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear your feelings.
They’re not important. Take that somewhere else when they’re very important to our cases and they should not be ignored because if you start to ignore that at some point, you’re going to erode the trust that you’ve got with your client and they’re either going to go on somewhere else or you’re going to have a very difficult client to deal with.
And lastly, a way to help. Folks with their navigating grief. It’s education. Five minutes on what is grief. Helping them see that, hey, listen, you may have heard somebody say you just need to stay busy. Somebody may say you just need to suck it up. Move on. And you can’t. And you’re really struggling with it.
You’re gonna be having some grief here, right? What is it? Helping people with just a little bit of education can just blow the doors off of it. That’s what [00:16:00] it did for me. I had no idea that’s what it was that I was struggling with. I just thought that I was in a funk, that I needed to do something. Change what I was doing and I was trying all kinds of intellectual ways to deal with the problem But never once did I try to sit down in a process that emotional feeling that I was having And it was gonna stick with me until somebody outside of myself Said hey, here’s your problem And that’s the beauty of having folks around you that can do that and sometimes we got to hire people To be able to say, Hey, you’re struggling with this, or this is what it looks like.
This is what I’ve seen before. Does this fit for you? Having that extra person on the outside, well worth it. Otherwise we sit and continue to struggle. So we’ve talked a little bit about how this mentally can show up for [00:17:00] people, physically, how it can show up, those energy relieving behaviors. And then how can we navigate with our clients their grief, right?
How we communicate with them. And this also goes to not asking people, have you had a breakdown yet? Or have you fallen apart yet? Or do you fall to pieces? All that language, all those things, that’s all from, that’s negative stuff. That’s social media stuff. Okay, then you’re, then that means, okay, good, you’re done.
I don’t want to hear about it then. If you already fell apart, you’re fine now. You’re on your, you’re on the up and up now. That word choice is so important when we communicate with clients, avoiding comparison, I know how you feel, change that around, I just can’t imagine. And then ultimately education, helping people have just a little bit more awareness, sending them to the resources.
We’ve got in our show notes, we’ve got a website, Grief Recovery Method has wonderful resources. My website has some resources, an e book, [00:18:00] I know that Grief Recovery Method has several e books that address different losses. It could be pet loss, could be spouse loss, may have the grief recovery method and a few other books available as well.
I hope that this podcast was helpful as we learned a little bit more about navigating grief and dealing with our clients who may be struggling with that. If you follow the podcast, the episodes will automatically download into your app so that it’ll be ready there for you when they come out on Wednesday.
Have you ever been told, in the midst of loss or grief, to ‘stay busy’ or ‘give it time’? This episode explores how such childhood messages shape our perceptions of grief and loss. We’ll be unpacking these often confusing and unhelpful strategies, shining a revealing light on how they can negatively impact our adult responses to grief. Then, we’ll be discussing ways to reframe these ingrained messages and come up with supportive strategies that promote healthier processing of grief.
Next, we’ll venture into some invisible backpacks of unprocessed emotions, a weight we unknowingly carry from childhood. We’ll uncover how these emotional burdens can manifest as short-term energy-relieving behaviors. Maybe you’ve noticed yourself overeating, drinking more, or shopping excessively.
As professionals in the legal field, we’ll dig deep into how our clients’ behaviors can be connected to these emotions and how we can help them navigate their grief. This episode is a heartfelt journey for anyone, lawyer or not, seeking a better understanding of grief and its complex layers.
In this episode, you will hear:
Ways we’ve been told incorrectly during childhood to deal with grief
Why time doesn’t heal grief; and what does?
Invisible backpacks of childhood emotions
Short-term energy-relieving behaviors and how lawyers can help clients process them
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.
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: Now, here’s Elizabeth. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and this is Trial Lawyer Prep.
It is a podcast dedicated to travelers preparing cases better, and we are going to do a series on grief. Probably three to four episodes, and I [00:01:00] want to bring this to y’all because it came up recently. Really applicable in what we work on, which is what I work in, which is pain. Plan of personal injury. But there was a recent Texas Supreme court decision in a wrongful death case that specifically came up over non economic damages that the jury put in the verdict.
There’s a very long discussion about the history of non economic damages for tort cases. Just the opinion is they took away the jury verdict and they said the lawyers didn’t tie the number rationally to the evidence. And I think there’s always a struggle when I speak with lots of lawyers about wrongful death cases.
There’s the moniker out there. What good is that money going to do? It’s not going to bring anybody back. And I think there’s a struggle there. So that’s definitely, this is a great series for folks who have wrongful death cases. But really what I want to do is [00:02:00] crack open. What we think of as grief and how it applies in more than just wrongful death cases, it applies to many ways to all kinds of litigation and how we can, as trial lawyers, understand it better, navigate it better, help our clients better.
And hopefully help ourselves better. And that’s really what brought me to talking about this is I personally was struggling with grief and I did not even know it. I had a very good friend, a mentor who spotted it instantly and she and I worked together specifically through what is called the grief recovery method.
And I was so appreciative that she said something and she spoke up, but walking through this process, walking through the method, really opened my eyes. To so many people out there who are struggling with this. And of course, thinking of our clients, [00:03:00] but I loved the way that it worked so much that I actually became certified in March so that I’m also a grief recovery method specialist.
And so a lot of what we talk about here and then our few episodes together is really going to be based on things that I learned and was taught through that certification. We’re not going to dive too deep into the work that I did because we don’t have time for that, but it’s enough to say that it really opened a door of awareness for me and relief that I just wasn’t finding anywhere else.
And I think that is a presentation that many of our clients have, maybe we have as well. And so that’s really what I want to do is to be able to pass on a little bit of this education to help you talk with clients, but also maybe even help Maybe something that you’re struggling with. So what we’re going to cover in this series is really the basics.
This episode is going to cover what is grief? Like, how do we define [00:04:00] that? Our next couple episodes are going to talk about ways we’ve been taught to deal with grief, some new ways that we can talk about grief. about it. And then ultimately, what is the grief recovery method? If you are interested in that, that’ll be a brief episode, but in all the show notes for this series, there’ll be a link to the grief recovery method website, which has wonderful resources, as well as a link to my website that also has A little bit of resources, but a free ebook as well, if you are curious, or if you know somebody, or if you have a client who is struggling with a loss, those are great resources for them to go.
There are lots of ebooks out there that they have at the grief recovery website as well. So with that being said, let’s jump in to what is grief. And when you look it up on the internet and you go to Merriam Webster’s, it says that basically it’s a distress caused by bereavement. [00:05:00] Distress from death, basically.
And I think that’s where we all kind of, okay, somebody passes away, there’s going to be some grief. Okay, we’re all good with that. But I think that’s a real huge limitation on what grief really is. And it’s a much better approach if we open it up, we know that grief is an emotion. We know that it’s feelings and it is the normal and natural reaction to change or loss of any kind, right?
any kind. And grief has also been described as conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. So that is a huge definition that’s much Bigger than just the feelings that you get after a death. And that’s what we really want to do is really kind of open this up to a larger definition.
And of [00:06:00] course, it’s like we talked about, it’s emotional and it’s not a pathological condition or a personality disorder. As we get further into the discussion, my hope is that we’ll all realize, Oh, it’s all around us. And it’s something that sometimes it comes at a big level and sometimes it’s just a little level and just really depends on what it is.
And the best example that I have is we’ve all experienced loss of what life was before the pandemic. Everybody experienced loss. Tons of loss, like loss of graduations and weddings and births and deaths. Plus going out in public in a normal way without a mask on. There was a huge change and it was a hundred percent out of all of our control.
Right. So it’s not anything that we had in our control, but we all experienced some kind of conflicting feelings, emotional feelings when it came to [00:07:00] dealing with the pandemic and the loss of life as we knew it, as we had been living it. And that’s probably one of the best big examples that we’ve got, but we’re going to talk more specifically about other examples as well.
And what we’re going to do is just make sure that we have as many open definitions as we can to kind of gather everything up. And another definition that is offered through the grief recovery method is the feeling of reaching out for someone who’s always been there for you. Only to find that when you need them one more time, they’re not there, or said in the opposite, reaching out for someone who’s never been there for you, only to find that when you need them one more time, they’re still not there.
That longing, that loss, that conflicting feelings. And so, Bye for now. Let’s talk a little about conflicting feelings, because I think if you’ve ever had a loved one or a close friend that had a terminal illness, there’s a tremendous sadness, but yet there’s also feelings of [00:08:00] relief, right? There’s a conflict there, and You don’t know whether which way you’re supposed to feel, but most of the time what we end up doing is just stuffing down those feelings.
And we’re going to talk about the ways that we do that in the next episode. But again, just sticking with our definition here and looking at really placing grief in a place where it’s individual, it’s very unique to each person because it’s very dependent on the change or the loss. And the uniqueness of the relationship.
And so each person and the relationship they have are different, which means how we deal with each loss will be different as well. So there’s no real formula that I can give you or discuss when it comes to client grief. and what you can expect. Of course, there are definitely going to be broad categories and they’re going to be things that we can look for.
And I can definitely share what my experience was, but instead I also [00:09:00] encourage you just to view each client’s grief as unique and individual. And I think where this can come in as a curiosity or rather I get sometimes a negative feedback from people when I work with clients and they’ll, there’ll be a loss.
There’ll be a wrongful death. And each family member involved is processing things very differently. And again, it’s based on that unique relationship with the person who passed away, but then there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s, definitely some negative feelings between the family members. They don’t ever go to the grave site.
So they didn’t really love them, or they didn’t do X, Y, Z. They’re not really sad about everything. They don’t need as much money. I need more money without getting the money part involved. But you see how, when we have a loss, everyone’s reaction, everyone’s emotional feelings about it can be very different.
And then that causes friction of itself because we have out there that we’re supposed to be reacting in these, It’s very specific ways and we all do it the same [00:10:00] way, which is just not true. So another way to think about grief is, hey, what causes grief? The loss or my reaction to the loss? And it’s actually both.
Said another way, what ruins the picnic? The rain or my attitude about the rain? And it would be both. Again, always trying to put things into a perspective of being unique, individual, but a normal. natural reaction to a change or loss of any kind. How does that really apply for us as lawyers? We are knowledge workers, right?
We are, we fill our brains up and then basically people come to us to solve problems that involve a legal system, right? Our knowledge. And that really puts us in our headspace a lot, right? We are in our headspace where you’re intellectually feeling frequently, often. That’s how we solve almost all of our problems as a lawyer.
And this instead, grief, is the heart thing, right? It’s a total emotion thing. And so what we have to do is remember that When we’re dealing with folks who are in this heart space, [00:11:00] replying with them intellectually doesn’t necessarily help the heart space. It just brings you back up to your head. For example, many times when folks say, Oh, I’m here for a loss.
My husband passed away. Oh, I lost my mom last year. That’s an intellectual fact. Not so emotional. Okay, so you’re saying, okay, I’ve had a loss as well. So, okay, we’re on the same page, but we’re not. And that’s kind of part of understanding grief. It’s like you’re not on the same page and you might not ever be able to understand how they feel.
However, opening up for them to be able to talk about feelings is one of the ways we’re going to talk about navigating it. But more importantly, when it comes to lawyers, lawsuits cannot help a person become emotionally complete after a law. So, lawsuits do very good things. 100 percent agree with that. I obviously wouldn’t be in the profession that I am, but it doesn’t make somebody emotionally complete.
And my very sad example is, I helped an [00:12:00] individual who unfortunately lost his 12 year old son. In an apartment fire, and the apartment didn’t have fire alarms, didn’t have all kinds of things, and just a terrible, two other children died as well. And this father had to be deposed, so we helped him get ready.
And ultimately there was a settlement that was very, it was large. Very large, more than he could have spent in his lifetime. And on the second year, on the two year death anniversary of his son, he went to the graveside and committed suicide. That money didn’t make him emotionally complete. And we have to sometimes remember that we’re fighting for this lawsuit.
We’re being an advocate, but there’s a huge emotional component here that we need to make sure that we recognize. Obviously we talk about pieces of a lawsuit. That’s where the damages come in. But really we just want to look at coming back down to that person and talking to our [00:13:00] clients one on one and respecting those feelings and giving space for them.
So the other part is, We as lawyers, we’re not really well equipped to deal with grief because. As a society, we aren’t either, right? Like I told you, Merriam Webster’s like their number one definition has distress caused by death. That’s it, right? Super limited. So there’s a lot of things that we’ve been told and socialized about grief that we kind of want to look at and undo.
And so that’s kind of what I talk about now are just some misunderstandings that we have about grief. And most of these things, Or because we just take a very intellectual approach, meaning, Oh, you had a loss. Oh, I’ve had a loss. Okay, we’re on the same page. When we could be vastly different. Because those relationships were vastly different.
So it’s always important to check in on the feelings part of things. But let’s talk a little bit about misunderstandings. And of course that first one that we’ve been talking about quite a bit, which is [00:14:00] grief only happens when a person dies. That’s just not true. Grief happens, like we talked about, with a change or loss.
of familiar behavior. Death comes as an example first, but other tangible losses that cause grief are divorces, losing your job, incarceration, moves, graduations, illnesses, violence, abuse, Loss of your pet. All of these things are losses that will cause grief and depending on your relationship with that loss, it could be a very large grief event for you.
Losing your job, losing your financial stability is huge for a lot of people because most of us are in families and we all depend on each other. So those are definitely types of changes that cause grief, but also we can experience grief from intangible losses. Right? So think loss of trust, loss of safety, loss of [00:15:00] security, loss of your dreams, of hope, of respect, of faith.
And this is kind of where this opens up for us as lawyers, places where people are experiencing grief. from the situation that brought them to you as far as the lawsuit. For example, a business divorce, a business dispute case, right? They’ve lost trust in their partner. They may have lost the ability to trust anybody else in business with a personal injury case.
When you lose, That ability to drive on the road because you can’t expect anybody else to follow those rules Along with loss of your health as well. Then of course thinking about divorce. You’ve lost trust in your spouse in relationships All these are intangible losses. And again, they’re all grief events And so there’s a lot of ways that grief can come along to changes In familiar patterns, another huge misunderstanding about grief is that there are [00:16:00] stages.
There are universal reactions that people will go through. There are not stages. Grief that follows death and divorce or other losses should not be regarded in the terms of stages. It can really hang up people who are grieving because they’re having this expectation, Oh, when am I supposed to get mad? Oh, wait, when am I supposed to be sad?
Oh, I didn’t do that, so maybe I’m not done. The stages, is. And this research came from Elizabeth Kubler Ross. She did extensive research on people who were dying of terminal illness. So the stages are for folks who are dying with a terminal illness, not for people who are grievers after a loss. So it has caused a lot of muddling for people because we talk about that.
Oh, Hey, there are stages that people go through, but there aren’t right. So if you’re talking to people who are experiencing a loss or a death, and you’re saying there [00:17:00] are these stages that people go through, Whoa, that ignores the fact that the nature and intensity of the feelings caused by a loss relate directly to the individuality and uniqueness of the person.
Okay. So we’re going to talk a little bit about individual and unique relationship, right? Everybody’s going to have an individual and unique relationship with that loss. So those feelings are going to be different for different people. And yes, it sounds lovely. Let’s put everyone into a stage so it fits into a box that makes it much easier for us.
Of course it does. That’s intellectual, okay? You can’t think of it that way, right? But it really has to come down to individual and uniqueness of the relationship. That nature and intensity of those feelings and I really think we talk extensively about this in the certification class that it really can trip people up because they sit around waiting for these stages and they may never get there and so they get hung up on thinking, guess I’m just, [00:18:00] I haven’t gone to that stage so I’m just going to sit around and wait for me to get angry about it.
When there are definitely 100 percent ways that we can work through grief, you shouldn’t have to wait through stages. But that’s one of the big misunderstandings about grief is that there are stages to it, which basically means there are universal reactions that everybody goes through, which is just not true.
There are no absolutes in grief. There are no reactions that are so universal that even all or even most people will experience them. This is a lot of information. So let me just offer a quick recap for this episode about what is grief. First and foremost, we’re blowing the lid off that grief only happens when a person dies.
Nope. Grief is the normal, natural emotional reaction to change or loss of any kind. We’re talking about these conflicting feelings that can be caused by end or change in a familiar behavior. A good example is a move. Moving to a new place is great, but you’re leaving the old place, and there’s familiar patterns, there’s good [00:19:00] memories there, but there’s new stuff at the new place, right?
There’s some conflicting feelings, and that’s a pretty low grief event that we can talk about as an example. But basically, grief has a big definition, very wide, to cover more than just feelings that occur after a death. So that opens things up then for people and clients in our cases that they’re going to experience grief on some level that’s unique and individual to them.
When it comes to divorces, business divorces, personal injury cases, criminal cases, we have these changes. And also we’ve got these intangible losses that are hanging out there as well. Loss of trust, security, and safety to name a few. So we know that Many of our clients are struggling with grief, but don’t even know it.
I was one of those people. So as we continue our series on grief, next time we come back, we’re going to talk about some misinformation that we have to process grief that we’ve been told from very [00:20:00] little and things that we can look for in our clients. And then also we’ll come back again for another episode to talk about how to navigate.
Grief with our clients, how to help them come to a new understanding about these conflicting feelings so they can maybe navigate and have a better quality of life. If you have any questions about grief, please don’t hesitate to contact me. My email will be in the show notes, but also there are going to be some resources there to take you to the grief recovery method.
There is an ebook that’s available as well as far as a guide for loss that will be available if you’re curious. But until next time, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on your podcast platform. Thank you.
Have you ever thought about the role grief plays in our lives, especially in a legal context? As a seasoned trial lawyer, I’m shedding light on this often-overlooked facet of litigation. Grief is not just a reaction to death, but a universal response to loss. From wrongful death cases to personal injury disputes, this emotional journey can be a complex maze. In this series, I guide you through my own experience with grief recovery, offering lessons that can aid your personal journey or provide understanding for your clients.
We go beyond the conventional understanding of grief, debunking the myth of universal stages and exploring how it can be triggered by both tangible and intangible losses – a business split or a criminal case, for instance.
It’s time to realize that lawyers and their clients may not be cognizant of their own grief, and how it can be navigated. If you’re a trial lawyer or anyone grappling with loss, this series presents a fresh perspective on grief and recovery. So, let’s journey together through this complex spectrum of human emotion.
In this episode, you will hear:
Understanding grief and its many forms
Understanding grief in trial law
Misunderstandings about grief and loss
Expanding the definition of grief
Follow and Review:
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Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and this is Trial Lawyer Prep.
It is a podcast dedicated to travelers preparing cases better, and we are going to do a series on grief. Probably three to four episodes, and I [00:01:00] want to bring this to y’all because it came up recently. Really applicable in what we work on, which is what I work in, which is pain. Plan of personal injury. But there was a recent Texas Supreme court decision in a wrongful death case that specifically came up over non economic damages that the jury put in the verdict.
There’s a very long discussion about the history of non economic damages for tort cases. Just the opinion is they took away the jury verdict and they said the lawyers didn’t tie the number rationally to the evidence. And I think there’s always a struggle when I speak with lots of lawyers about wrongful death cases.
There’s the moniker out there. What good is that money going to do? It’s not going to bring anybody back. And I think there’s a struggle there. So that’s definitely, this is a great series for folks who have wrongful death cases. But really what I want to do is [00:02:00] crack open. What we think of as grief and how it applies in more than just wrongful death cases, it applies to many ways to all kinds of litigation and how we can, as trial lawyers, understand it better, navigate it better, help our clients better.
And hopefully help ourselves better. And that’s really what brought me to talking about this is I personally was struggling with grief and I did not even know it. I had a very good friend, a mentor who spotted it instantly and she and I worked together specifically through what is called the grief recovery method.
And I was so appreciative that she said something and she spoke up, but walking through this process, walking through the method, really opened my eyes. To so many people out there who are struggling with this. And of course, thinking of our clients, [00:03:00] but I loved the way that it worked so much that I actually became certified in March so that I’m also a grief recovery method specialist.
And so a lot of what we talk about here and then our few episodes together is really going to be based on things that I learned and was taught through that certification. We’re not going to dive too deep into the work that I did because we don’t have time for that, but it’s enough to say that it really opened a door of awareness for me and relief that I just wasn’t finding anywhere else.
And I think that is a presentation that many of our clients have, maybe we have as well. And so that’s really what I want to do is to be able to pass on a little bit of this education to help you talk with clients, but also maybe even help Maybe something that you’re struggling with. So what we’re going to cover in this series is really the basics.
This episode is going to cover what is grief? Like, how do we define [00:04:00] that? Our next couple episodes are going to talk about ways we’ve been taught to deal with grief, some new ways that we can talk about grief. about it. And then ultimately, what is the grief recovery method? If you are interested in that, that’ll be a brief episode, but in all the show notes for this series, there’ll be a link to the grief recovery method website, which has wonderful resources, as well as a link to my website that also has A little bit of resources, but a free ebook as well, if you are curious, or if you know somebody, or if you have a client who is struggling with a loss, those are great resources for them to go.
There are lots of ebooks out there that they have at the grief recovery website as well. So with that being said, let’s jump in to what is grief. And when you look it up on the internet and you go to Merriam Webster’s, it says that basically it’s a distress caused by bereavement. [00:05:00] Distress from death, basically.
And I think that’s where we all kind of, okay, somebody passes away, there’s going to be some grief. Okay, we’re all good with that. But I think that’s a real huge limitation on what grief really is. And it’s a much better approach if we open it up, we know that grief is an emotion. We know that it’s feelings and it is the normal and natural reaction to change or loss of any kind, right?
any kind. And grief has also been described as conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior. So that is a huge definition that’s much Bigger than just the feelings that you get after a death. And that’s what we really want to do is really kind of open this up to a larger definition.
And of [00:06:00] course, it’s like we talked about, it’s emotional and it’s not a pathological condition or a personality disorder. As we get further into the discussion, my hope is that we’ll all realize, Oh, it’s all around us. And it’s something that sometimes it comes at a big level and sometimes it’s just a little level and just really depends on what it is.
And the best example that I have is we’ve all experienced loss of what life was before the pandemic. Everybody experienced loss. Tons of loss, like loss of graduations and weddings and births and deaths. Plus going out in public in a normal way without a mask on. There was a huge change and it was a hundred percent out of all of our control.
Right. So it’s not anything that we had in our control, but we all experienced some kind of conflicting feelings, emotional feelings when it came to [00:07:00] dealing with the pandemic and the loss of life as we knew it, as we had been living it. And that’s probably one of the best big examples that we’ve got, but we’re going to talk more specifically about other examples as well.
And what we’re going to do is just make sure that we have as many open definitions as we can to kind of gather everything up. And another definition that is offered through the grief recovery method is the feeling of reaching out for someone who’s always been there for you. Only to find that when you need them one more time, they’re not there, or said in the opposite, reaching out for someone who’s never been there for you, only to find that when you need them one more time, they’re still not there.
That longing, that loss, that conflicting feelings. And so, Bye for now. Let’s talk a little about conflicting feelings, because I think if you’ve ever had a loved one or a close friend that had a terminal illness, there’s a tremendous sadness, but yet there’s also feelings of [00:08:00] relief, right? There’s a conflict there, and You don’t know whether which way you’re supposed to feel, but most of the time what we end up doing is just stuffing down those feelings.
And we’re going to talk about the ways that we do that in the next episode. But again, just sticking with our definition here and looking at really placing grief in a place where it’s individual, it’s very unique to each person because it’s very dependent on the change or the loss. And the uniqueness of the relationship.
And so each person and the relationship they have are different, which means how we deal with each loss will be different as well. So there’s no real formula that I can give you or discuss when it comes to client grief. and what you can expect. Of course, there are definitely going to be broad categories and they’re going to be things that we can look for.
And I can definitely share what my experience was, but instead I also [00:09:00] encourage you just to view each client’s grief as unique and individual. And I think where this can come in as a curiosity or rather I get sometimes a negative feedback from people when I work with clients and they’ll, there’ll be a loss.
There’ll be a wrongful death. And each family member involved is processing things very differently. And again, it’s based on that unique relationship with the person who passed away, but then there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s, definitely some negative feelings between the family members. They don’t ever go to the grave site.
So they didn’t really love them, or they didn’t do X, Y, Z. They’re not really sad about everything. They don’t need as much money. I need more money without getting the money part involved. But you see how, when we have a loss, everyone’s reaction, everyone’s emotional feelings about it can be very different.
And then that causes friction of itself because we have out there that we’re supposed to be reacting in these, It’s very specific ways and we all do it the same [00:10:00] way, which is just not true. So another way to think about grief is, hey, what causes grief? The loss or my reaction to the loss? And it’s actually both.
Said another way, what ruins the picnic? The rain or my attitude about the rain? And it would be both. Again, always trying to put things into a perspective of being unique, individual, but a normal. natural reaction to a change or loss of any kind. How does that really apply for us as lawyers? We are knowledge workers, right?
We are, we fill our brains up and then basically people come to us to solve problems that involve a legal system, right? Our knowledge. And that really puts us in our headspace a lot, right? We are in our headspace where you’re intellectually feeling frequently, often. That’s how we solve almost all of our problems as a lawyer.
And this instead, grief, is the heart thing, right? It’s a total emotion thing. And so what we have to do is remember that When we’re dealing with folks who are in this heart space, [00:11:00] replying with them intellectually doesn’t necessarily help the heart space. It just brings you back up to your head. For example, many times when folks say, Oh, I’m here for a loss.
My husband passed away. Oh, I lost my mom last year. That’s an intellectual fact. Not so emotional. Okay, so you’re saying, okay, I’ve had a loss as well. So, okay, we’re on the same page, but we’re not. And that’s kind of part of understanding grief. It’s like you’re not on the same page and you might not ever be able to understand how they feel.
However, opening up for them to be able to talk about feelings is one of the ways we’re going to talk about navigating it. But more importantly, when it comes to lawyers, lawsuits cannot help a person become emotionally complete after a law. So, lawsuits do very good things. 100 percent agree with that. I obviously wouldn’t be in the profession that I am, but it doesn’t make somebody emotionally complete.
And my very sad example is, I helped an [00:12:00] individual who unfortunately lost his 12 year old son. In an apartment fire, and the apartment didn’t have fire alarms, didn’t have all kinds of things, and just a terrible, two other children died as well. And this father had to be deposed, so we helped him get ready.
And ultimately there was a settlement that was very, it was large. Very large, more than he could have spent in his lifetime. And on the second year, on the two year death anniversary of his son, he went to the graveside and committed suicide. That money didn’t make him emotionally complete. And we have to sometimes remember that we’re fighting for this lawsuit.
We’re being an advocate, but there’s a huge emotional component here that we need to make sure that we recognize. Obviously we talk about pieces of a lawsuit. That’s where the damages come in. But really we just want to look at coming back down to that person and talking to our [00:13:00] clients one on one and respecting those feelings and giving space for them.
So the other part is, We as lawyers, we’re not really well equipped to deal with grief because. As a society, we aren’t either, right? Like I told you, Merriam Webster’s like their number one definition has distress caused by death. That’s it, right? Super limited. So there’s a lot of things that we’ve been told and socialized about grief that we kind of want to look at and undo.
And so that’s kind of what I talk about now are just some misunderstandings that we have about grief. And most of these things, Or because we just take a very intellectual approach, meaning, Oh, you had a loss. Oh, I’ve had a loss. Okay, we’re on the same page. When we could be vastly different. Because those relationships were vastly different.
So it’s always important to check in on the feelings part of things. But let’s talk a little bit about misunderstandings. And of course that first one that we’ve been talking about quite a bit, which is [00:14:00] grief only happens when a person dies. That’s just not true. Grief happens, like we talked about, with a change or loss.
of familiar behavior. Death comes as an example first, but other tangible losses that cause grief are divorces, losing your job, incarceration, moves, graduations, illnesses, violence, abuse, Loss of your pet. All of these things are losses that will cause grief and depending on your relationship with that loss, it could be a very large grief event for you.
Losing your job, losing your financial stability is huge for a lot of people because most of us are in families and we all depend on each other. So those are definitely types of changes that cause grief, but also we can experience grief from intangible losses. Right? So think loss of trust, loss of safety, loss of [00:15:00] security, loss of your dreams, of hope, of respect, of faith.
And this is kind of where this opens up for us as lawyers, places where people are experiencing grief. from the situation that brought them to you as far as the lawsuit. For example, a business divorce, a business dispute case, right? They’ve lost trust in their partner. They may have lost the ability to trust anybody else in business with a personal injury case.
When you lose, That ability to drive on the road because you can’t expect anybody else to follow those rules Along with loss of your health as well. Then of course thinking about divorce. You’ve lost trust in your spouse in relationships All these are intangible losses. And again, they’re all grief events And so there’s a lot of ways that grief can come along to changes In familiar patterns, another huge misunderstanding about grief is that there are [00:16:00] stages.
There are universal reactions that people will go through. There are not stages. Grief that follows death and divorce or other losses should not be regarded in the terms of stages. It can really hang up people who are grieving because they’re having this expectation, Oh, when am I supposed to get mad? Oh, wait, when am I supposed to be sad?
Oh, I didn’t do that, so maybe I’m not done. The stages, is. And this research came from Elizabeth Kubler Ross. She did extensive research on people who were dying of terminal illness. So the stages are for folks who are dying with a terminal illness, not for people who are grievers after a loss. So it has caused a lot of muddling for people because we talk about that.
Oh, Hey, there are stages that people go through, but there aren’t right. So if you’re talking to people who are experiencing a loss or a death, and you’re saying there [00:17:00] are these stages that people go through, Whoa, that ignores the fact that the nature and intensity of the feelings caused by a loss relate directly to the individuality and uniqueness of the person.
Okay. So we’re going to talk a little bit about individual and unique relationship, right? Everybody’s going to have an individual and unique relationship with that loss. So those feelings are going to be different for different people. And yes, it sounds lovely. Let’s put everyone into a stage so it fits into a box that makes it much easier for us.
Of course it does. That’s intellectual, okay? You can’t think of it that way, right? But it really has to come down to individual and uniqueness of the relationship. That nature and intensity of those feelings and I really think we talk extensively about this in the certification class that it really can trip people up because they sit around waiting for these stages and they may never get there and so they get hung up on thinking, guess I’m just, [00:18:00] I haven’t gone to that stage so I’m just going to sit around and wait for me to get angry about it.
When there are definitely 100 percent ways that we can work through grief, you shouldn’t have to wait through stages. But that’s one of the big misunderstandings about grief is that there are stages to it, which basically means there are universal reactions that everybody goes through, which is just not true.
There are no absolutes in grief. There are no reactions that are so universal that even all or even most people will experience them. This is a lot of information. So let me just offer a quick recap for this episode about what is grief. First and foremost, we’re blowing the lid off that grief only happens when a person dies.
Nope. Grief is the normal, natural emotional reaction to change or loss of any kind. We’re talking about these conflicting feelings that can be caused by end or change in a familiar behavior. A good example is a move. Moving to a new place is great, but you’re leaving the old place, and there’s familiar patterns, there’s good [00:19:00] memories there, but there’s new stuff at the new place, right?
There’s some conflicting feelings, and that’s a pretty low grief event that we can talk about as an example. But basically, grief has a big definition, very wide, to cover more than just feelings that occur after a death. So that opens things up then for people and clients in our cases that they’re going to experience grief on some level that’s unique and individual to them.
When it comes to divorces, business divorces, personal injury cases, criminal cases, we have these changes. And also we’ve got these intangible losses that are hanging out there as well. Loss of trust, security, and safety to name a few. So we know that Many of our clients are struggling with grief, but don’t even know it.
I was one of those people. So as we continue our series on grief, next time we come back, we’re going to talk about some misinformation that we have to process grief that we’ve been told from very [00:20:00] little and things that we can look for in our clients. And then also we’ll come back again for another episode to talk about how to navigate.
Grief with our clients, how to help them come to a new understanding about these conflicting feelings so they can maybe navigate and have a better quality of life. If you have any questions about grief, please don’t hesitate to contact me. My email will be in the show notes, but also there are going to be some resources there to take you to the grief recovery method.
There is an ebook that’s available as well as far as a guide for loss that will be available if you’re curious. But until next time, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on your podcast platform. Thank you.
Ever wondered how the legal world and technology intersect? Well, get ready to demystify that as we chat with John Rubin, an innovator changing the game in the legal scene. A seasoned lawyer and entrepreneur, John brings an in-depth look at how he’s leveraged his experiences in the courtroom to create ground-breaking tools for attorneys and mediators.
Join us as we navigate the legal landscape with John, exploring the concept of LitX (Litigation Exchange), a brilliant tool designed to enhance the efficiency of mediation. Probing deeper, we get to unveil the inner workings of LitX, its robust features, and how it’s poised to transform the legal field. From its seamless integration with case management software to its secure, HIPAA-compliant environment, LitX is more than just a tool—it’s a game changer.
But the conversation doesn’t stop there. Together, we unravel the future of legal case management and how LitX is leading the charge. With its freemium model and potential integrations, we delve into how John envisions the platform’s evolution. Whether you’re a lawyer, a mediator, or a technology enthusiast, this episode offers a unique perspective that you wouldn’t want to miss. So, buckle up and join us for this enlightening conversation with John Rubin, and let’s unearth the future of law and technology together!
In this episode, you will hear:
About John Rubin and his backstory
Chess game-like case management platform
Inviting and sharing documents on LitX
Cost-saving solution for the insurance industry
Creating LitX and an overview of LitX platform features
Legal case management software features
Freemium model and future integrations
Supporting Resources:
If you want to learn more about LitX or try it for free, please visit: www.litx.legal
Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. trial lawyer prep. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick.
And today’s episode, we are being joined by a guest and a good friend of mine who I’ve known for a little while and knew when I practiced law. And that is Mr. John Rubin. He is here in Austin [00:01:00] and he is one of the go to mediators. And in fact, He doesn’t know this, but I totally stole his CLE and made it into a podcast here recently.
So he’s got some wisdom to share, but more importantly, I want to invite John on to talk to the audience, talk to you guys about a new fancy. No, it’s not really fancy. I’m kidding. A great new tool for lawyers to help with mediation. So John, welcome to the podcast.
John Rubin: Thank you for having me.
Elizabeth Larrick: Awesome. Well, I know we’ve got folks listening from all over, so tell us about yourself.
John Rubin: I have been in Austin practicing a little over 20 years, went to UT undergrad, then went up to Waco, Texas for law school up in Baylor, stayed a longhorn, didn’t convert to a bear. Sorry for all the bears who are out there. Came right back to Austin, started practicing here with a defense firm, [00:02:00] primarily doing defense work.
Thank you. I did that for a number of years. Same for my clerked within law school. Then I switched over to the other side. I did started doing plaintiff’s work with a couple of guys here in town, and it was a small group, so we had two partners and myself, so a lot of trial by fire, if you will, learning the ropes, figuring it out on my own in many ways, not that they weren’t there to assist, but the three man show you wear more hats.
And then in 2007. Hung out the shingles, started doing what I call door law, which is whatever walks through the door you take because you got to make ends meet. And I had a, I remember I had a, I had a desk, I had a computer and I had a phone and that is it. And I had no clients and I had an office I owed rent for.
And that’s how I started. And three years into that, things were going pretty well. And I thought to myself, you know, what would be really neat to do? Mediate. [00:03:00] My former boss, Jeff Jury over at Burns Anderson, very well known mediator. I watched take care of business and thought one day maybe that would be fun to do, but I don’t have any gray hair, at least not then.
And
Elizabeth Larrick: very little now,
John Rubin: some hidden. Yeah. I’m glad you can’t see it, but I thought, well, I’ll do the training and 10 years from now, I can say I’ve been a licensed mediator, a certified mediator for 10 years. And. I speak fluent Spanish and I had a little niche there that I could explore and started working that angle, if you will.
And before I knew it, within three years or so, I was doing this full time, was mediating full time, which left very little time for continued litigation. Although I still took interesting cases here and there. And I think the last case I tried, maybe it was an 18, but became full time mediator. So I’ve had in my career, the.
Lucky opportunity to work defense and plaintiffs and all sorts of different areas from injury to [00:04:00] construction to toxic exposure. I’ve seen many avenues. And then through mediation, like all of the rest of us lawyers, you get exposed to different subjects and learn about those things and more so in the mediation business than I had otherwise.
And fast forward, I am doing it full time. So that’s my legal career. I have a little bit of an entrepreneurial itch and little known fact, not by many, but by some in 2016, when the legislature passed the Compassionate Use Act. I founded the, what is now the market leader for medical cannabis in Texas called Compassionate Cultivation and aptly named because it’s under the Compassionate Use Act that we can even do this.
And it’s as a DBA of Texas Original, but like I said, it’s now the number one medical cannabis Provider in Texas. And there’s only three, there’s only three licensees currently. [00:05:00] And started here at the desk I’m sitting at, found some folks up in Denver to contract with, got some investors, got together, built a huge facility, got the license.
And now we employ, I think we’re around 70 employees with board members all the way from California on over. And our gross sales exceed a million a month and everything’s going really neat. So I started as the founder and CEO there backed off as the company grew into a general counsel role. And then now I remain on the board that didn’t stop my entrepreneurial itch, unfortunately for me.
And I focused on again, mediation, continue doing the mediations and. It hit me one day that we have a pretty significant problem that has never really been addressed. And thus I came up with litigation exchange, LitX for short.
Elizabeth Larrick: [00:06:00] Sweet. Well, first of all, back it up. You just said a million in sales a month is neat.
Okay. That’s pretty awesome, man. Okay. Let’s not sugarcoat that. That is neat.
John Rubin: We’re pretty thrilled about that. Okay. That’s
Elizabeth Larrick: pretty awesome. I mean, I did not know that. I mean, that is super cool.
John Rubin: It’s been one hell of a ride. It’s a lot like that show Silicon Valley on HBO, if you’ve ever seen it. Or one day you’re thinking, Oh man, this is, we’re going to be so happy.
He’s going to go so great. And the next day you’re thinking, we’re going to go bankrupt. You’re never going to survive. I can’t believe we’re in this trouble. And then the next day you’re up and it’s just highs and lows and highs and lows, and that evens out. Over time. I think that’s the case with a lot of startups, but especially in that arena.
And the nice thing about that company has been seeing the stories of the patients who have taken the medicine and have done so well on it, obviously it’s not a hundred percent effective for a hundred percent of the people, but. It’s pretty darn impressive what it has done for a lot of [00:07:00] folks and it’s fun to see that.
And it’s interesting when you have a room full of board members who hear some of these stories and start to pull out the handkerchiefs and get all teary eyed about it. But it’s all, if nothing else, we feel like we’re doing a lot of good for a lot of people.
Elizabeth Larrick: Well, hey, helping people is a pretty good purpose for making a company.
So
John Rubin: yeah, that’s
Elizabeth Larrick: pretty awesome. I didn’t know that. That is really cool. So first of all, I got to ask as a practicing lawyer, is this why you haven’t been available? Let me tell the people like trying to get on John Rubin’s calendar is like, it’s booked out six months and there’s not even a waiting list.
And here’s the thing. He is an amazing mediator. He gets things done, which is probably why you are an amazing business. Owner and entrepreneur, because you want to get things done and he’s worked so well with people of any background. I’ve mediated with him several times myself, but yeah. So is this, what’s been keeping you so busy?
John Rubin: I I’d like to say yes, but it hasn’t been, it is the [00:08:00] mediation practices that have been keeping me busy. Although Lidex takes up a lot of a significant portion of my time as well. But I, I work that. On weekends, wherever I find gaps in the day, I work late into the night. So it’s a little bit of a two full time jobs going on.
And I, that’s intentional. I need to stay connected with the world of litigation if I’m building litigation software. And yeah, it’s been a pretty tight schedule.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Oh, also, by the way, he has kids, so it’s not like he’s just hanging out by himself here. Yeah.
John Rubin: And a very understanding wife. Yeah.
Elizabeth Larrick: That’s right.
Always got to give a shout out to our understanding partners. So tell me a little bit more about the problem. Okay. So what were you seeing was this problem in mediation?
John Rubin: It’s a problem I saw in mediation because that’s what I was doing, but it’s a problem throughout litigation. And that is I got tired of hearing day in and day out, multiple times a day.
You, for example, I have one [00:09:00] party on one side and one or two on the other side. And I go into one room and say, all right, well, what are your total medical bills? They’re make up a number 30, 000. I’d go in the other room and say, all right, they have 30, 000 medical bills. And they’d say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
What are you talking about? They’ve only given us 10. And I’d go back in the first room and I’d say, well, they only have 10. Well, we supplemented a month ago, a month and a half ago with additional medical. And I’d go back to the other one. This I’d say they sent it to you. No, they didn’t. Yes, we did. No, we didn’t.
Who did you mail it to? Well, I faxed it. Oh, who’d you fax it to? Well, we never got it. And onward and Upward. Everybody’s heard some version of this at some point. You were just
Elizabeth Larrick: hearing it every day, like every
John Rubin: single day. Almost not a mediation went by goes by where that doesn’t pop up. And so what that really means is that whatever we’re doing The systems we’re using now to exchange information doesn’t work.
It [00:10:00] works. Okay But it can work so much better And that was the problem. I thought, why isn’t there some simple solution to this? When we want to file something with a core, we use E file. Easy enough. It works. Simple enough. But yet, everything outside of E file doesn’t seem to work right. And that’s when the idea came, was, well, If it doesn’t exist, why not build it?
So what we built was a platform. We call it Linux, which is the first purpose built workspace for adversaries to use. It’s a bit of, if you can imagine if e file and e service had a baby with share file and Dropbox, what would that look like? And that’s what this is. So it is a neutral HIPAA compliant, secure workspace, a transparent platform where both parties can exchange information, serve information to each other with a simple click, drag, and drop.[00:11:00]
And by doing so, not only are you serving the other party basically instantly, because they have the same access you have, you are creating a record. Which is a repository. So that information, when I, for example, drop you a document in the case on LIDEX, you get a notification that you have a new document to go view and you can quickly log on, you can download it to your own system, you can view it on LIDEX, but there it will sit.
And remain in a perfectly preserved state for the entire life of the case and you know Who sent it what was in it when it was served and it doesn’t change It’s the same as if I mail you something or email you something. I can’t take it back once I give you that information and let’s say I am no longer the lawyer in the case and you have churn, you have rotations of lawyers and staff, all that is quickly and easily updated on LitX.
You always are [00:12:00] confident that you’re getting the information to the other side and that they received it and there’s no more question of, I didn’t get it, you didn’t send it to me, what you said you sent me wasn’t what you sent me, because there it is. And so it works especially well in multi party litigation.
Say you have four or five parties, construction cases where you have 10 or 12 or more, exchanging information back and forth, attorneys and staff rotating in and out of those law firms, coming into cases later as folks are brought in. Rather than try and reconstruct what was done in this case. I’ve just been assigned, or now that I’ve been pulled into this litigation, it’s been going on six months.
Everybody send me everything. You avoid it. You log in, you’re added to the case. Everything’s there for you to review, download, whatever you want to do. And so that’s essentially it. I’ve taken to the analogy lately of a case being like a chess game, sometimes with more than one player across the other side, [00:13:00] and we all are playing You know, if you’ve got a docket of 50 cases, you’re playing 50 chess games at once and keeping track of all those moves is important.
And the way we’re playing chess right now is we’re just telling each other our moves, right. And over time, but we can’t view it all at once at a glance. And sometimes there’s oftentimes there’s a dispute about who made what move and when that is resolved with this platform. So that’s how it works in a nutshell.
Elizabeth Larrick: So just to kind of like get a little deeper into the platform itself. And I know you guys are still working on it and building it out. So basically me as a lawyer, I sign up, I get my accounts. And then is the interface pretty well, like set, meaning like add a case. And so it’s just says plaintiff versus defendant.
And then if you want to invite a co counsel or invite your opposing counsel, you just invite them. And then everything is tracked under the case [00:14:00] name or is it under the attorney name?
John Rubin: It is tracked under the case name. Now I can actually I know this is hard to view on a podcast.
Elizabeth Larrick: Okay, he’s going to show me.
I’m going to walk you guys through it. I’m going
John Rubin: to walk you through it.
Elizabeth Larrick: That’s right.
John Rubin: Um, so this is the login screen. I’ve just entered my login and password. And I’ve just entered my username and password. And then of course it’s a two factor verification. So it’s asking me to enter my verification code.
So what happens next is you get an email from LitX with your verification code. This will soon also be offered in a text version. And so you simply place your code in, you hit verify, and you’re brought to the primary screen with all the cases. And so there’s a sub panel, a menu here on the left with different items or areas of the app.
You can go to settings, invitations back to the case list screen. And what you’re seeing on your [00:15:00] screen is here is a list of, let’s say, a pretended docket, right? It’s a fake docket. Obviously the names of Kenny versus Cartman and salt and battery case doesn’t really exist, but we’ll have the case name, we’ll have a cause number.
your internal file number, which will be visible to you only. And then of course you can organize by any recent activity or when the case was added, who created the case and you can go into any particular case. And I’m trying to think of what did I load into what case? Here we go. So here’s a fake case involving Looks like four parties.
And within that case, you see every file that’s been added to it. Here’s a new file that was added obviously by me, but it gets a little new flag. So it’s easy to identify what files you have and haven’t seen, but this is the primary interface. And so you would see, for example, if you represented [00:16:00] Mr. Smith here, you’d have your name there and your staff listed underneath who would have the same access you have.
And as we go along, we can add new parties. As we add parties to the case, we can invite folks to join in on the representation of different parties in the case, we can go back to our case screen. We can set up a new case and this is all very straightforward, pretty familiar interface.
Elizabeth Larrick: Very much. Yeah. So
John Rubin: you, as you see here, you click create a case.
You simply name the case. We’ll call it. Plaintiff three versus defendant three. You type in the court you’re assigned your cause number. You can select what kind of case it is. We’re going to say it’s an MBA. I’m going to represent plaintiff three will be defendant three over here. So we say create case.
I’m going to say, like I said, represent plaintiff. I’m the attorney. I create the case and I’m brought to what we call the case [00:17:00] agreement, which is like a rule 11, right? Now this works for paid users. In other words, folks who are already on the platform, we want them to use the platform for all exchange in the case.
That way you’re capturing everything, right? I’m not just using this and then mailing you things and faxing you things and emailing you things. The idea is let’s have it all in one place. So what this is providing is that by using. LidX, you’re agreeing that you’re going to use just LidX. Now, if we’re going to serve documents or other files outside of it, then we can sign an agreement to that effect.
And separate agreement says, look, we’re going to also use a different method of service as we work together. Now, this doesn’t apply in a guest access situation, which I’ll explain here in a minute, but once you have enough users, once hopefully all of us are using Linux, then this is when it works best when we’re just using this platform and capturing all of the information [00:18:00] for the case through this method.
So all sides sign this and you’re in. There’s your case. It’s immediately set up. I invite you over my opposing counsel. I go through this list. I hit invite case and you will get an invitation. John Rubin has invited you to share documents on LidX. And then you go in, you sign up. It’s a five minute process.
And if you are not a paid user, if this is your first time. Being invited to the platform, just as you would with a share file or some other file sharing service, you just, you pick a username, a password, and you get access for free to this case on the other side, you do not need to pay anything. Now, if you want to open your own cases, then of course there’s a free trial.
You can start, and if you really like it, which we hope you will, then you become a paid user. But the guest access feature exists so that we always [00:19:00] have a way of having our paid users be able to take advantage of this, even if the other side is not a member of LitX. If they’re not a user, they can still access information.
They can still send you information through this. So it really is no different. In that sense, from me sending you my Dropbox link, except for the fact that once I send you my link, I still have power over my Dropbox, can remove files, put some in, restrict your access. Once we’re both here on Linux, that is no longer the case.
It is open, it’s transparent, it’s neutral. Even if I’m a paid user, when it comes to this case, I don’t have any more access to this than you do. So that’s the platform, how it’s set up. The UX is friendly. We’ll be obviously working and iterating and adding additional features as we go on and our users.
tell us yes, we want this or no, we don’t want that. But in the settings, you can [00:20:00] add photos right now. It’s just my initials, but you can change different aspects of how you get notifications. Again, right now it’s send me an email. When a new document is added, there’ll be other options here, including just give me a digest.
You know, if I’ve got a hundred cases or if I’m a supervising attorney and I’ve got, an associate multitude of associates handling cases. I probably don’t want a new email every time a document comes in. I may select that. I just want a daily digest, right? Tell me what’s happening on what cases that I’m supervised.
So all of these things will be built out and available to our users.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I mean, that’s a super simple platform just for everybody who’s listening and driving their car right now. We’ll probably put the video up on YouTube, but it’s a super simple platform. And that was one of my biggest questions and objections that what I was going to ask you about was lawyers as a whole do not like new technology.
I mean, we just, we’re a little bit of a hole out on getting rid of [00:21:00] paper on, you know, doing this online, but you’ve built a platform that, I mean, I kid you not. We’re in the, the entry screen. There is one button
John Rubin: and
Elizabeth Larrick: the menu on the side has four options, you know, super simple, anybody could learn it. And what I love is there’s so much technology out there for lawyers, case management software, trial software.
And there’s always a pause when it’s like, Oh, here’s a tutorial. And it’s like, Oh, like,
John Rubin: yeah,
Elizabeth Larrick: this is not super intuitive. Like. Lawyers are just not going to use it because we don’t have a ton of time to stop and like do a significant amount of learning and training on, on a software program.
John Rubin: Amen. Yeah.
All that is very true. Yeah. Legal is really one of the late industries when it comes to adopting technology. That said, I think there’s a couple of factors that have accelerated our adoption. One is of course COVID. We all got stuck at home and having to figure out, well, how do I do the same [00:22:00] job? But in front of it.
Almost exclusively in front of the computer and two is the younger generation attorney as time has gone on are becoming partners are going solo are in control of their own law firms and making decisions for larger firms and those younger attorneys are attorneys who have used technology more so than the generation before them.
And so on and so on and so on. So now we have lawyers in their forties and thirties who grew up using a lot of tech and are in those decision making positions. So this, like you observed is designed not to be overbearing. We’re not asking you to replace your entire system. We’re not asking you to take a course to learn this.
We are going to make this very simple, very straightforward. I have the case. And just start using, you can start immediately using it within five [00:23:00] to ten minutes, right? And in terms of accessibility, we’re not going, we’re not here to gouge anybody, right? I think no slight to other software out there, but it’s expensive.
Anything you do is expensive, and there’s not always an easy way to justify the expense or to recoup that expense. So with that in mind, we want to make this accessible and provide a way for this to add little to no overhead to the individual firm. So the pricing model is 12 per user per month and 1 per case per month.
So should you choose, you can expense that whopping dollar to that case and never pay any usage cost, right? You simply pay the 12 per user per month, which when you compare that to every other software you pay for is a fraction, it is a drop in the bucket. Oh yeah. So the bar to entry is low. [00:24:00] That learning curve is.
Slight, and it’s a secure, safe way of exchanging information that you know will always be there. You don’t have to worry about those heart attack moments. Oh no, did I send that thing? If it’s on here, it was sent, right? There’s no question about it. And you have it at a glance. Did my secretary do this? Did my legal assistant do that?
Did they send me that stuff? It’s all right there at a glance. If you’re working in a firm with, you know, 40 lawyers, you get assigned a new case or somebody leaves and you can sign 10 cases at a glance. You can see exactly where the information has gone, who got it and what. And so there’ll be future features, of course, which will be primarily dictated by our users.
Other things on the roadmap to tackle, but we’ll take them as they are demanded.
Elizabeth Larrick: And that was one of the things that I had in my mind was, are you guys, you already have this is integrations with other case software or other CRMs [00:25:00] that send you text messages. I mean, there’s just so many different. So are you guys, do you have any integrations yet?
And is that something that maybe is in the future?
John Rubin: That would be future at this stage. We are in our beta looking for a public release this month. And integrations will definitely be coming down the pipeline because we want this to easily sink in with your existing case management software. If you have it, if not, you can click and download directly into your folders.
If you’re not using case management software, it’s that easy. Down the road, we are going to offer private file hosting. So in other words, You’ll have a window where you can see everything that went back and forth. Everybody sees the same thing, but you’ll have your private area as well, where you can actually just store all your files.
And it’ll be as simple as I’m going to click from one area to the other area. And now I’ve sent it to the other side, extrapolate from that. That’s how you can e file, right? You’ll be able to at some point e file directly from Linux. [00:26:00] And yes, APIs will definitely be on the map so that we can integrate into the most popular software as it is demanded and needed.
So absolutely. Good question.
Elizabeth Larrick: And I’m assuming you already said HIPAA compliant, all those lovely things. So where are the servers hosted at?
John Rubin: It’s Amazon web services, S3 buckets. It is about as secure as secure can get. And then of course, we also have to comply with other requirements to be HIPAA compliant.
And the nice thing about this is. You are protected from all the phishing and the viruses and the trojan horses I mean i’m getting I don’t know about you, but i’m getting emails that look like from other attorneys, but they’re not and That I think is a real problem It’s almost like when you’re on lit ex you’re sitting inside a safe with opposing counsel and you’re not worried about The rest of the world trying to get in being on Amazon web services.
AWS is ensuring that this is a 99. [00:27:00] 999 percent uptime doesn’t go down. So you don’t have to worry about access to the files going down. There’s plenty of firms that still have their own servers that go down now and again, this, you don’t have to worry about that, but that’s pretty neat.
Elizabeth Larrick: That’s super helpful.
And I’m always like, I’m always slightly shocked when I hear about people who are like, Oh my gosh, you know, the desktop version of this software has gotten so expensive. And I’m like, have you tried the online version? It’s 12 or 20 a month. They’re trying to push you forward.
John Rubin: Well, you know, it’s interesting that more and more software has gone web based.
Right. And there’s the monthly costs and people wait versus the desktop. But the nice thing about. The SAS model, which is what we’re talking about. The web based model is that you never have to worry about updating your software, your software crashing on your computer. So your computer goes down. You can as easily access on something else.
When we update something, we worry [00:28:00] about it. You don’t. You just log in and all of a sudden you have this nice new pretty feature and that’s it. And so there’s a lot of maintenance that you don’t have to do.
Elizabeth Larrick: Now, as part of coming up with this and ins and outs, I heard a little about this before, but, and one of the reasons why is because I asked like, how in the world are you going to convince insurance companies, which is mainly what most lawyers are dealing with is some kind of level of insurance somewhere, not always, but there’s, you know, my background is that.
So. How in the world are you going to convince insurance companies that this is safe and it’s good to use and this is a reimbursable expense for opposing counsels?
John Rubin: Sure. So there’s a technology adoption life cycle, right? And it’s a bit of a curve. You have your innovators, folks who really love whatever’s cutting edge.
I want to try it. I want to use it now. And that moves forward through your early adopters. And then you get over to your late adoption folks, which is where you’re going to find your insurance carriers and et cetera. So The [00:29:00] starting users are going to be individuals in small, solo, medium sized firms. And that includes defense firms who are outside of the direct control of an insurance carrier.
You’re absolutely right. Staff counsel, unless they’re allowed to receive. electronic communications of any kind, for example, Dropbox links, share file links, whatever. If they’re not allowed to use that, then they’re not going to be allowed to use this. But that really only applies to staff counsel. And take a company like State Farm, for example, they primarily use outside counsel.
They’re paying either flat fee or by the hour to individual attorneys or firms. They don’t control what those individual attorneys or firms are using in house, right? They have their reporting requirements and how they want data back from them. But when, for example, when I was at Burns Anderson, we had our partners picked some various systems that they wanted to implement for their firm.
And that was that the different carriers that were [00:30:00] their clients don’t have a say in that. Right. So there will be a somewhat of a delay when it comes to getting. carriers to jump on board for their staff council, their internal people, no question about it. And that will be a target when we have a good enterprise plan put together for those folks.
One of our advisory board members is senior staff counsel at Farmers Insurance. And so we have definitely explored what will it take to get Into their good graces. And that’s what will it will take is enough usage, enough people using it and establishing ourselves as a reliable product. Right. And the nice thing about this is the cost is so low when you compare.
Not only would it cost now to use all these different platforms or use service, different apps to serve documents, but the litigation or the fights we have, the wasted time that we have [00:31:00] that results from these disputes. You can reduce, if not eliminate, by having a reliable source like this. And that’s cost saving and that’s going to be attractive, not only to carriers, but to anybody.
Elizabeth Larrick: Sure. Sure. Especially, I mean, in the context that you created it, which was for mediation, which is resolving things efficiently, hopefully in a decent time in the case, but you went out and got advisory board. That was one of the things when you were talking to our group last month, I guess about how like, yep.
Thought ahead, don’t worry, Elizabeth, I got this here. And that’s the cool thing about John, right? He’s got the ear of many, many people that you can bring in to help and make this a successful software. Hopefully that everybody’s going to use to alleviate a pretty significant problem that we’re having.
John Rubin: And that’s the neat thing about this is I’m not in search of a problem, right? It’s it’s a [00:32:00] solution for an existing issue that we can really grow into solving other issues, including one of our big challenges down the pipe is scheduling between attorneys adversaries. That’s a big one, right? But now with AI out there and other potential engines that we can use, we can solve that.
But we got to start somewhere and we start here, right? And then we, we add from there. And I do want to emphasize that while this is a problem I saw most often in mediation, really it’s built for the entire process, right? From start to finish. And so at some point, We’d want to see it with enough adoption, be something you could use throughout the life of the case from pre lit onward.
So all that is in our purview and looking forward to working with the folks and listening and learning and answering the hard questions and some of those questions. I go, Hmm, that’s a good one. I got to figure that one out. But like you said, we had this advisory board put together, which has partners from, [00:33:00] I’m looking at the screen now.
Four of the six are defense attorneys from staff council to medium sized to large law firms. So we know that that is some of the hardest audience to crack. And so from the get go, we wanted their involvement.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Well, coming from a solo point of view, having that expense be so stinking reasonable. It’s hard to say like, I’m not even going to try this.
That’s most of the time when I look at trying a new piece of technology, one, is there a trial period? You know, can I at least try it? And then also who else is using it? And a lot of times. I’ll try something and, oh yeah. And it’s great. And I sign up or sometimes I’m like, well, I’m going to take a risk.
I’ll just send them. And then it stinks.
John Rubin: Right. You can’t get your money
Elizabeth Larrick: back. And you’re like, oh man. So, I mean, I appreciate, and you showed it to me here today. Like it’s the interface is just simple. I mean, it’s not overly complicated. Like, I love that you’re [00:34:00] starting at a level, like anyone can do this.
And then you’re going to build into more making it. I’m not going to say complicated.
John Rubin: Robust, more useful. Robust, robust, more features, more features. And you brought up a good point and that is trying it for free. freemium model. We’re not here to trick anybody. You can cancel at any point. It’s not trying to get you into any sort of contract.
It’s a month to month deal. You get 30 days for free. Once you’re in that free trial, you do put in a credit card, like in any other freemium model, but the moment you decide you don’t want it, you just go into the settings and cancel out and you don’t have to deal with it anymore. Don’t have to call customer service, no, no, no emails.
It’s a couple of clicks and you’re done.
Elizabeth Larrick: Fantastic. Well, is there anything we didn’t cover about LitX that you want to let everybody know about?
John Rubin: No, I think we did a pretty thorough review. I’m looking forward to our public release, which will come later this month, [00:35:00] once we get through some more QA. And for folks who are interested, we do have our signup page, which is litx.
legal, litx. legal. If you go there, we’ll put a link in the show
Elizabeth Larrick: notes. So if you’re
John Rubin: Perfect
Elizabeth Larrick: driving right now, please don’t there’ll be a link in the show notes. I’ve already signed up myself. It’s super simple. Click the link. It takes you to the page and just put your email in. So,
John Rubin: and we’ll announce from there and yeah.
I’m looking forward to seeing where we can go. It’s exciting.
Elizabeth Larrick: It is exciting. You should integrate soon in the future, right? A way to schedule maybe a calendar kind of situation in the program. That’s what we’re working
John Rubin: on. Yeah. That’s a big one. I
Elizabeth Larrick: blow my mind. Like, I mean that scheduling, I think. Any profession struggles, like with the meetings and the getting on everybody’s calendar and then everyone’s on a different platform.
Oh, you’re Google. You’re not all that’s right. So a
John Rubin: lot of integrations, a lot of integrations to do there. And it’s a tricky matrix of [00:36:00] decision making that goes into that. But if we can find. And we can build a solution to that. I mean, the amount of time saved would be astronomical. And I know there are firms that we’ve spoken with who have folks on staff and all they do all day is schedule different events in different cases.
I’m not looking to eliminate any jobs, but we can make their lives certainly a lot easier.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I mean, there’s plenty to do. Trust me. Like there’s more than enough things to do to go around. So awesome. Okay. So I got to pick your brain really quickly. Well, I got your line. We got a little time left. So are you using chat GPT?
In
John Rubin: my practice, I’ve started toying with it in mediation. It doesn’t really help me with anything. That said, when I want to write a introduction to something having to do with lit eggs or the cannabis company, I sometimes, if you’re fumbling for words, I’ll say, write me a quick introduction to a potential patient on this product, [00:37:00] and it’ll spit it out real quick.
It’s always, I think, easier to. Start with something you’re given and edit and work from that point, and come up with something from scratch. And I think that’s what chat GPT or those other AI engines really do for me anyway. Right now, I know they’re fully capable of so much more, but I did see an order the other day.
I think it was a federal court order. Somebody posted the judge are requiring folks to sign that they didn’t just go to chat GPT to .
Elizabeth Larrick: There was a guy who got caught. It was a, there was a. Found it. Ernie Spenson, Ernie, the attorney. I follow him and he posted this thing on LinkedIn about like how a guy Like went to chat GBT and was like, what case law is there for this?
And he literally copy and pasted and wrote a brief and sent it in and he had to tell the judge like, I didn’t and made up check.
John Rubin: Oh boy. No, they
Elizabeth Larrick: were not real cases.
John Rubin: Oh, they were made up cases.
Elizabeth Larrick: Chat, GBT paid up. Oh wow. I was like, oh yeah. So I , it’s a helpful [00:38:00] thing to get you started, but it doesn’t finish with the job, so.
John Rubin: Wow. Remember that case of Rubin versus Larrick, Texas Supreme Court. Yeah. Wow. Okay.
Elizabeth Larrick: So.
John Rubin: Good. Good. I’m always
Elizabeth Larrick: interested. I’m trying myself to do the same thing. Help me get started or just start generating some thoughts and see what’s out there.
John Rubin: It’s great for thought generation, right? It really may just throw out some ideas you haven’t thought of and you can go from there.
So it’s going to have obviously a lot, it’s got a long ways to go, but it’s got a lot of use to it now.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, John, thank you so much for joining the podcast. I’m excited about Lytics. I think it’s going to be awesome. And I like the approach that you’re taking, I think is. It’s amazing because so many people develop software to just basically ring lawyers and they don’t care if it’s really useful or not.
They don’t care if it’s functional. They just want lawyers to sign on and pay the bill.
John Rubin: Pay the bill. Yeah. And we’ve all been there, right? We’ve all been caught in a two to three year contract for [00:39:00] some software and you’re like, why? Yeah. We’re not here to do that. We’re here. I
Elizabeth Larrick: appreciate that.
John Rubin: So thank you.
Elizabeth Larrick: You’re welcome. So Check the show notes. If you are listening in, we’re going to have the link to sign up for Liddex to get the notifications. I’ll have John’s information if you have ideas for him, but I would also encourage you to follow him on LinkedIn. Cause I know for sure, once Liddex comes out, like there’s going to be a blast out there too, and that’s probably one of the main platforms you’re going to use to announce things, maybe socially.
John Rubin: We’ll have Liddex, Facebook, I think Instagram is on the radar and it’s all starting next week.
Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, very exciting. Awesome. Well, congrats. I’m excited for you. And thanks for joining the podcast.
John Rubin: Thanks for
Elizabeth Larrick: it. All right. Until next time. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, like, or follow it on your favorite podcast platform and until next time.
Imagine being able to improve your trial practice by utilizing DIY focus groups – well, that’s exactly what our guest, Clint Schumacher, has been doing. As an attorney specializing in eminent domain cases, Clint shares his fascinating journey of implementing focus groups to enhance his practice, and how Zoom has become an essential tool in facilitating them. We also take a deep dive into recruitment strategies, discussing the importance of finding the right participants and sharing the tips and tricks Clint has learned along the way.
When it comes to condemnation cases, people’s emotional reactions are often at the forefront. Clint and I discuss the complexities of these cases, the inherent bias against the government taking property, and how to gauge the emotional value of a particular property case in order to better communicate with the jury. We also explore the scaling question, which measures how much people care about the case, as well as the importance of communicating facts clearly in focus groups.
Setting up a virtual focus group may seem daunting, but we cover everything you need to know, from the geographic area to be sampled to the recruitment process and the electronic confidentiality form used. We also discuss the challenges of finding participants in rural areas and how Clint and his team have been successful in using Facebook ads and Google forms for recruitment. Finally, we touch on the challenges of virtual focus groups, the strategies needed to handle them, and the undeniable importance of focus groups for trial lawyers. Don’t miss this engaging and informative conversation!
In this episode, you will hear:
DIY focus groups for trial lawyers
Measuring emotional engagement in focus groups
Virtual focus group process and challenges
Managing remote meeting disruptions
DIY focus groups for lawyers
Supporting Resources: If you’d like to know more about my guest Clint Schumacher, please visit his podcast or website.
Clint has represented property owners of all sizes that are being impacted by public projects. Over the last twenty years, Clint has developed a particular expertise in condemnation for highway projects. He is able both to work with the condemning authority to try to minimize impacts and, when that fails, to seek full compensation for the owner. He will often recognize what others miss. His varied client list includes Fortune 500 companies, Wall Street investment firms, national restaurant brands, international hotel chains, individual investors, developers, and families. Before joining Dawson & Sodd, Clint represented regional toll authorities and mass-transit authorities in some of the largest projects in north Texas.
Clint continually seeks to build on his extensive litigation experience by studying and practicing the art of effective advocacy. This dedication to excellence has led him to being named as a Texas Super Lawyer in Eminent Domain by Texas Lawyer magazine (a Thomson Reuters publication) in 2014-22 and to being recognized by D Magazine as one of the top lawyers in Dallas.
Clint is the host of The Eminent Domain Podcast which can be found on ITunes, Stitcher, Spotify, or at its home website: www.eminentdomainpodcast.com. The podcast covers all things eminent domain and reaches listeners across the U.S. and in several foreign countries.
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.
Transcript Episode:
Elizabeth Larrick:
Hi there, Elizabeth here. I wanted to pop in before our episode begins to introduce our very wonderful guest, Clint Schumacher. Clint practices in the eminent domain area. Specifically, he helps individuals and companies who are having problems with [00:01:00] the government taking their property. So Clint has been doing this really specialized work for the past 20 years.
He has his own podcast. If you were interested called the eminent domain podcast, Clint reached out to me about focus groups. He started his own focus groups and had some questions and I was happy to help him. And then I said, Hey, why don’t you come on the podcast? So I hope you enjoy this interview with Clint.
Hello and welcome back to the podcast. My name is Elizabeth Larrick. I’m your host for Trial Lawyer Prep and this is a podcast dedicated to lawyers preparing for trial or preparing cases better to get better results. We generally like to talk about focus groups, and so I’ve brought a guest on here who has started his own DIY focus groups, which I know I encourage people to do.
If you’ve been tuning in here lately, the past couple episodes we have really been trying to talk about focus groups, setting them up. I heard from my recruiter, we had a replay about like when to do focus groups, six good times. So I hope this is helpful, but I really wanted to bring Clint [00:02:00] Schumacher on because he has started his own DIY focus groups.
And I thought it would be great to bring him on to talk about it and see how it’s helping his practice. Hello and welcome to the
Clint Schumacher: Well, Elizabeth, thank you. Thanks for having me join. I have been a avid listener to your podcast. They’ve been extremely helpful to me. So hopefully I can pass something along to your audience that may be helpful to them.
Elizabeth Larrick: I appreciate that. Now, as you all probably heard in the intro, Clint has his own podcast. It deals with property, which was one of my worst classes in law school. So I can’t quite say that I can help with that at all. But I know that you are here to give some good advice and some sound feedback on doing your own focus groups.
But Let’s get started from the very jump. What even got you interested in doing focus groups? How does that mesh?
Clint Schumacher: I do have a really specific practice niche. We represent property owners that are having their property taken by the government condemnation or imminent domain cases. And so early in my career, I had some excellent Mentors [00:03:00] who, when the case was right, encouraged using a jury consultant and have had a lot of experience working with jury consultants in the past and have done focus groups and mock trials with jury consultants.
But Elizabeth, as you and your audience know, that can be very expensive and not every case warrants that expenditure. And so I have seen the value of it, but have often shied away from it in all, but the largest cases. Because of the expense associated with it, then during the pandemic, you know, everybody’s life changed a little bit.
And as I started networking and listening to really personal injury lawyers who had very good practices, I listened to them talk about how they were doing their own focus groups. And. That you could do it a lot more economically and get tremendous feedback. And then as the country started figuring out how to use zoom and lawyers started to [00:04:00] incorporate using zoom in their focus groups or a similar tool, Microsoft teams, whatever, into their focus groups and the added.
Convenience the additional shaving off of cost. I was intrigued and I figured out this is really powerful. You get a lot out of it. And if I can figure out how to do it at a price point, that makes sense for cases that I might have and be able to do multiple of them, then wow, that could be really impactful to the.
Practice and really helpful to the clients. And so as we, and my team are starting to figure out how to do that, we’ve actually found your podcast and listen to some of the tips that you had for doing it yourself and they have been enormously helpful. I think we, and my team reached out to you even, and you’re very helpful to give us some specific tips and that’s been very helpful to us.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, we reached out about recruiting and that’s probably one of the number one questions that I always get, which is like, how do you find these folks? Always happy to help. And I’m excited to hear that. I think a lot of people learning zoom in the pandemic [00:05:00] was already a challenge. That was already new for lawyers.
So then. Learning the second layer of doing focus groups online virtually is a whole nother one. So how do you feel like you’re doing? How do you feel like the team’s doing as far as putting on the focus groups?
Clint Schumacher: So definitely a learning curve. As you said, I think recruiting is probably the most intimidating part of it.
Figuring out how do we find people that are qualified and helpful. We started. Really do and do it yourself, I would say a year ago, and we’ve gotten better as the year goes at figuring out, okay, what works, what doesn’t work, how can we get the right people in? And I think we’re obviously we’re still continuing to learn, but we’re really starting to hit our stride.
And we try to do at least one a month. I know there’s probably people that do more, but one a month seems about right for us. And we’re starting to get it figured out. It’s not as hard as it may seem.
Elizabeth Larrick: It can be a little scary. I can remember my first one. We had three people
Clint Schumacher: understand.
Elizabeth Larrick: But we did a short one.
We just did two hours, I want to say. [00:06:00] And it was like, okay, that felt a little painful because you got to get through. It’s not just, okay, get them in there. Like it’s navigating the technology and keeping people engaged and keeping the flow of conversation going as well. So you’re setting up a system, but also you’ve got to learn moderating and putting stuff together too.
So how is, as far as. Do you normally do the moderating or do somebody else in your office do it? Or how do you guys split up that work?
Clint Schumacher: So when I was coming up watching jury consultants do it, the jury consultant would do it. So that was the model that I was used to when I first started trying to do it self focus groups, I was doing it in tandem with another lawyer here in town.
I practice in Dallas, and there was another lawyer I was having this conversation with. He’s, yeah, we’ve been doing these for a while. I would love to moderate yours. You can come participate in mine. And so he moderated ours. For a bit, we’ve tried it with kind of another, there’s another, I would say, jury consultant that works remotely that we’ve had moderate one [00:07:00] recently, but I’ve gotten to the point where I feel like it’s best if I moderate them because I know what questions I want to ask.
And I can hear what the. Focus group is saying and direct questions into things that I know are going to tie into the case. The obvious downside to doing that is remaining neutral. And I don’t always do that perfectly, but I’ve gotten to where I’m most comfortable just moderating them myself. And I know that I can get it.
If something comes up in the focus group, that’s unexpected. I can adjust a lot more easily than if there’s another moderator that’s involved.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, I would say when I was talking to another friend of mine about focus groups and one of the gems of doing focus groups consistently and. Even if you are just listening, right?
Being moderating helps, but you get into a really good habit of taking bad news. Because you’re inevitably going to get, like, you, and you get to where that fight, that, that real, that fight, that defensiveness [00:08:00] that comes up, that urge to convince, it just goes down and goes to a point where you can listen, stay curious, stay curious.
And not get completely, Oh, I want to, I want to convince this person, but yeah, you get used to hearing bad stuff every time. And I’ll
Clint Schumacher: tell you the last time I did a Vordire and forgive me for all your non Texas residents, but Vordire is how we say it here. So forgive me if I am not sounding, that doesn’t sound correct.
I noticed that I was a lot less, I’m going to say inflamed. I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but when that juror is giving you something that you know is not going to be good for your case, I think we probably all feel our temperature start to rise and the anxiety start to rise. And I noticed the last four dire I did, I was a lot Better at keeping that feeling at bay.
And I think it was because I had moderated some groups before then. And as you say, you get used to hearing the bad news. You’re not taking it personally. And you learn, gosh, when you’re doing the board, are you that that’s gold? If somebody is [00:09:00] going to tell you they don’t like your case, that’s gold. And not being able to get overly passionate and to remain dispassionate, to be able to hear with them, deal with that, figure out who else feels the same way, that was a big help.
Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. It’s a very good skill to learn because in litigation, you’re always going to hear the bad news from the other side and sometimes it can be legit, but you’re such an advocate. So I always think focus groups help you prepare for hearing bad news, being able to listen to it. Stay curious. You don’t have to take it like you said, don’t take it personally.
But then when jury selection comes, it’s like, Oh, cool. I’ve heard this before. Oh, cool. Another one of those people. Cool. Weird. Tell me a little more about that. Like you said,
Clint Schumacher: do you, do you moderate your own groups?
Elizabeth Larrick: Oh yeah. Oh definitely.
Clint Schumacher: Okay.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and I, of course, it’s been several years and I do several months, but yeah, so it just got to where it was just like, oh, okay, okay.
You know, like I hear bad stuff all the time, and what I always strived for when I started [00:10:00] was just staying curious and also. You got to nail down that poker face. You’ve got to nail down that. Okay.
Clint Schumacher: Oh
Elizabeth Larrick: yeah. Okay. And then you just kind of like, okay. You know what I mean? And it’s, you start to, okay. And you can always tell somebody who, and again.
I’m just saying, throwing this out there. If you’re having this issue, just so you know, this is kind of where it’s coming from is I’ll have people who come in and I’ll set a focus group and people will come use my space or we’ll do the virtual focus group and the followup that always gives the little cringes, what if you heard, and you’re like, Oh, like your bias immediately comes out.
So it’s just a skill to learn. And I think it really makes you. Such a more well rounded lawyer just in practice and just probably in life to hear like, Of course people are gonna disagree with you and do you really need to try and convince them of your But tell me a little bit about, let’s get back to yours.
So how, tell me about [00:11:00] how has focus groups or how have focus groups helped your practice? in particular.
Clint Schumacher: So probably not anything that’s earth shattering. But gosh, what I’m going to say is not earth shattering. The information we get sometimes is, but it helps me see things that I’m blind to. Right. So I inevitably almost every time they ask questions or think about things that I had not ever focused on or thought were important.
And so that’s always a big takeaway to hear their feedback on that subject. But then a lot of times, if there’s a key. Issue in the case or two or three key issues in the case to get their feedback, not only on how they feel about that, which is obviously important, but if someone were to present evidence about that at trial, who would you expect to talk about it?
In other words, Is this going to be a fact, is this going to come out of a fact witness or is this going to come out of an expert witness? And what is their expectation about that in what we do, which is very heavily expert [00:12:00] driven, that’s been a really helpful thing to hear that, Hey, that’s something that really our client or whoever the fact witnesses needs to cover as opposed to having our expert evaluation person talk about that.
So that’s been a big piece of it too.
Elizabeth Larrick: I would assume, and again, this is my assumption because I don’t know any, that a lot of what you’re trying to understand is what do people even know about condemnation and what are their kind of attitudes about it, and have you found any kind of universal assumptions people are making?
Clint Schumacher: Absolutely. So there is generally a bias against the government taking property, and There are a fair number of people in the population that don’t think that’s even allowed or permitted. So they’re surprised to find out that can even happen. But then inevitably, one of the things that we always try to gauge in our focus group is how passionately do they feel about it in this particular circumstance.
And so if you’re taking property from a family and that land has been in the family for four [00:13:00] generations, you can imagine people. They have a sense of emotion that’s tied to that, and it’s very different from, say, a commercial piece of property that someone has owned for 10 years and their business is on it, or they rent it out to someone else.
Those can elicit different sets of feelings, and so one of the things that we or I say, should say I, I kind of subscribe to the reptile theory even in our property cases, and inevitably if we can communicate with the jury at an emotional level. That’s going to help us and one of the things I’ve got to gauge in every case is how emotionally connected does this group feel to this set of facts in this particular piece of property.
And so that’s always helpful to us to see, do we have a case that really drives that or is this one that they’re like, eh, it’s not a big deal. Are
Elizabeth Larrick: you scaling that or are you? Doing a word association with that, give us a little bit more. And I’m happy to share how I gauge emotional, the emotional value or the emotional engagement, if you will, with folks [00:14:00] group,
Clint Schumacher: actually, I really want to hear your feedback about that.
Cause I don’t know that I have a good system to do that. It’s really, I feel right now it’s just my field, like how involved are they? So how much feedback are they giving me? And we normally will do a two hour focus group and we’ll have two different cases. And you can tell they’re a lot more emotionally connected to one than to another.
But I don’t know that it’s systemized. And so if there’s a way to do that, I am all ears.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I did not create this by the way, to totally did not create this. It’s just a scaling question on a scale of one to 10. How much do you care about what happened here?
Clint Schumacher: Oh, that’s a good idea. Yeah, that’s a good idea.
Today, let’s start with the best time to run focus groups. Sure, you can run a focus group at any time. But if you want to get the most out of it, there are actually six spots to run a focus group in your case.
These are great places to help you prepare the case better. But these are all opportunities for you to grow the case better and to help you look at things with a new set of eyes. You can always do more – or less, but at least do one or two to have that outside perspective that will help keep you moving along.
In this episode, you will hear:
Running a focus group during case planning (before the lawsuit)
What to focus on after key deposition testimony
Why do short focus groups 30 days before mediation
The purpose of a focus group 90 days before the end of discovery
Things to consider 60 days before trial
What to do 30 days before trial
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Supporting Resources:
If you have questions or suggestions, email Elizabeth directly for assistance: 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.
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome to a new episode of trial lawyer prep. Thank you so much for joining us in 2023.
You may be listening to this a little bit later and that is certainly okay. But to those who are right on track, welcome. I wanted to start out today with a [00:01:00] reader shout out. This was review for the podcast, amazing podcast. Elizabeth does a fantastic job, and every bit of content helps make you a better trial lawyer.
Also, her voice and demeanor are wonderful to listen to. Well, thank you so much. That was Monty Tines out of Mississippi. So thank you so much, Monty, for that review. I always appreciate a review that helps other people find this podcast. So please rate review on your favorite podcast app. All right. So let’s start this episode and I really want to focus this particular year.
So 2023, let’s see. Think about the next few weeks, months of how this podcast can better help you. And we’re focused on preparation for trial lawyers. And I really want to look at how can we look at things differently or maybe look at new opportunities, new ideas for you to plug in and use. There are [00:02:00] so many wonderful things that folks are doing.
And sometimes just spreading the word on, Hey, I did this. It worked better. I did that. It did not work well. And as you listened in my year end review for 2022, I like to look at technology. So we’re going to talk a little bit about technology along the way this year to find things that can help you do your job better.
Maybe market better, maybe have easier flow and systems within your office to get things done. And so today we’re going to talk about focus groups and tackle one of the questions that I get a lot, but I think is also really important, which is when is the right time to run a focus group? And we’re talking about focus groups.
We’re not talking about mock juries. So let me just set that out right away. And Each one of these little focus groups that we’re gonna talk about, I’m gonna try and confine it for you and put some parameters on it so you can know like, [00:03:00] okay, so you could technically run one anytime. But that doesn’t help anyone.
So it’s helpful to have kind of a focus and a framework. And so we’re going to look at six spots when you can run a focus group in the case. But the first hurdle, you’d always want to make sure that you’re tackling, is this the right case? And got to be thinking about the value. Is this the case you want to spend the time on, right?
Is this the case you want to have this expense on? Is there going to be a tradeoff when you’re expending your time, your expenses, your resources, and getting that value back out? So this podcast, I’m assuming you’ve done that kind of calculating like, okay, this is the case. This is a large case. And again, sometimes this is a case where it’s like, is this going to be as difficult as we think?
Or is it going to be easier? Are people going to get it? And that’s why with our six different places you can run focus group, we’re starting off right [00:04:00] off the bat with before you even file a lawsuit. And I talked a lot about using this in case planning in an episode a couple weeks prior, and episode has much more detailed about that.
What it is to run a focus group before a lawsuit, but basically the rundown would be that you are looking at maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour max. You’re just tossing out some facts and getting some feedback and it’s helping you plan what people want to know more about. What’s important to them. Test some things that you think are important.
Does a jury give it back to you? But a short and sweet one, just to kind of give you again, some framework for the case and then also help you down the road. The next spot that I would suggest to run a focus group is after key deposition testimony. And by key depositions, I’m talking about the defendant, the corporate rep, maybe there’s a supervisor, key eyewitness statements at the plaintiff, Having those as well and then [00:05:00] basically putting that together Where again, we’re looking at maybe an hour, but you’re looking at maybe getting five to seven minutes of each video Deposition testimony and just getting people’s blink reaction.
Are these people credible? Does this story make sense who might be the weak link right in these stories, but that’s really gonna help You know where to hone in Are things fitting into your theory the way that you hope they are, but it’s a really easy focus group to do. It is a little bit labor intensive because you have to find those pieces of testimony.
You’ve got to create those clips. If you’ve got great video editor, use them, right? Save your resources and have them do it for you. If you have somebody in house that does it, There are lots of programs that will do it. There is a learning curve to them. So I’m not sure whether it’s worth your time to learn it, unless it’s something you’re going to be doing often and frequent.
I do it often and frequent. I have been doing that with focus groups. I learned [00:06:00] it through, through fire, on one of the very first trials that I worked with Mr. Keenan, the Keenan Law Firm, but Movavi is what I use. But again, I’m not going to encourage you to go learn any kind of video editing. If that’s just not your thing, don’t worry about it.
Hire it out. Have somebody else do it. That’s also what you’re going to hear a lot is, Hey, if you can delegate this task to someone else, let’s do it. Let’s save you that time, right? You’re still going to get the same value, but you’re going to save your time. All right. Third place to run a focus group would be in the.
30 days before mediation. And I also have 21 days on here. So kind of a window because sometimes what happens is mediations. Oh, we’re going to do one. Oh, there it is. The court set one. It’s 20 days away. What do we do? Well, I encourage you because right before mediation, the hope is that you’ve got everything together.
There aren’t any major missing pieces. You know what people are going to say, you know the defenses, you know the theories. [00:07:00] And you can put that all together into a mediation presentation and then test that presentation. Again, these are short focus groups we’re talking about. You’re probably going to need to take an hour on this.
Because again, these are your larger cases. You’ve got a lot of facts, a lot of evidence, right? You’ve got to condense that down into that fancy mediation presentation and show that to the focus group. I think it also helps you to kind of put everything together. One of the reasons I love doing focus groups when we get closer towards mediation, closer to trial, closer to end of discovery is it really is focusing us to skinny down, to start formulating that opening statement, start looking at things because discovery starts.
It’s like you’ve got the whole world, you’ve got all this discovery, you’ve got, you don’t really know which way it’s going to go. But that, doing it, mediation really makes you focus in, formulate everything. That’s why I love doing those focus groups, because then it pushes you to do it even earlier. And then you’ll have time to regroup, re [00:08:00] edit, go back forward again.
Also having the confidence from that focus group feedback. All right. Our fourth spot that I suggest to run a focus group would be 90 days before the end of discovery. Okay. Now, you could do 60 days as well, but the purpose of this focus group is to make sure you have everything you need. So this may be a little bit bigger focus group.
This may be a two hour or even a three hour focus group. Because you’re really trying to make sure you’ve got all the puzzle pieces in place, right? All the evidence is fitting together. You’re not making any leaps, right? You’re not saying things you can’t prove. And if there is a hole, if there is something that’s missing or a big red flag for the focus group, you can go get it.
You can go get that deposition. You can go find that missing eyewitness. Get that police officer’s deposition nailed down if that’s what’s missing. And again, it just helps like, okay, we’ve got everything or we don’t. [00:09:00] And you have time to go get it. So many, many heartbreaks happen when you were in the focus group and discovery’s done and they’re saying, hey, well, that’s cool.
I need to hear from what the police officer has to say. Well, oh no, I need to hear. There was an eyewitness that was on the police report. Why don’t we have that? I need to see that. Oh, you’re hiding something because it’s not there. Right? Then all these assumptions happen. So save yourself that heartbreak.
Do the focus group before the end of the discovery period. Our fifth place would be again, as we’re, if you’ve not notice, we’re kind of progressing through the litigation phases. So this would be 60 days before trial. Again, we’re forcing you to get your opening together. We’re doing an opening versus opening here.
Maybe we’re doing opening plus some evidence, but we’re really focusing in on trial opening statement and making the lawyer put things together. Get it down on paper. Get it ready to present. Get that PowerPoint ready. We’re getting ready for trial at this point. We really want to make sure that we are [00:10:00] keying in on what the jury wants to hear and wants to see.
And our last place would be 30 days out from trial. I personally love doing focus groups like the weekend before. But, that’s very stressful. Don’t stress yourself out, just keep it, even if it’s 30 days out, you’re still going to get a lot of good information. You still may not have all of the motions in limine heard and the evidence, what’s coming in, what’s coming out.
You can probably make pretty good guesses though, if you’re 30 days out from trial, what the judge is going to do. Hopefully, you already have all those rulings and you can have a focus group that really is focused in on the evidence that is coming in, but if not, you’re going to have a good shot at it.
So all of these are great opportunities, great places to help you prepare the case better. You may not get through to the trial, you may just get through mediation, but they’re all opportunities to take action. in that place to help you grow the case better, to help you look at things [00:11:00] with a new set of eyes.
Anytime you can get that outside perspective, move past, right? Get out of the weeds. Get that 30, 000 foot view. You’re going to be able to prepare that case so much better. And that’s really a lot about what focus groups are and that’s why beginning of the episode I said these are about focus groups, not mock trials, not mock juries.
This is helping you get perspective. Getting that perspective over and over and over again to make sure okay, am I hitting what they want to hear? Do I have everything in order? Can they see this presentation? Where am I making leaps in my evidence? And, hey! If nothing else, if it just builds your confidence, then that’s great too, right?
You may have everything done, Elizabeth, I know how to do this. I’m going to run these focus groups. They’re all going to agree with me. Hey, that’s great too. Confidence is good. We need that because there’s a lot of uncertainty in what we do. And having confidence helps. So I hope that this podcast [00:12:00] episode was helpful for you.
All these different opportunities to run a focus group, six different places before the lawsuit, after key depositions, 30 days before mediation. 90 days before the end of discovery, 60 days before trial and 30 days before trial. You could always do more. You could do less, but I always encourage you to at least do one or two.
That way you can, again, keep with that outside perspective to help you keep moving along. And they’re fun. It’s inspirational, right? Places to be creative. So I hope this episode was helpful. I look forward to more episodes with different opportunities and ideas for you to prepare your case better. All right.
Have you ever wondered how to set up a focus group system that not only saves you money but also provides invaluable feedback for your courtroom success? In this episode, I share my insights and experiences on creating your very own focus group that will help you improve your skills and case strategies. I cover the non-economic damages model, the confusion around it, and how it could create gaps in your case. Plus, I discuss how to eliminate a defense argument and even add facts to your case from the focus group feedback.
We dive deeper into strategies for ensuring reliable feedback from your focus groups, such as preventing repeats, providing clear instructions, and utilizing the right tools for communication, payment, hosting meetings, and advertising. By treating participants with respect and making it easy for them to participate, you can guarantee they’re engaged and providing honest feedback. Listen as I discuss how these strategies can help you get the practice and feedback needed for courtroom success.
Lastly, I touch on streamlining focus group logistics by suggesting the use of tools like PayPal, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Dropbox. To help you get started, I’m offering a free download of my questionnaire. So hit play and join me in this episode to learn how to optimize your focus group system and ultimately improve your abilities in the courtroom. Don’t forget to leave a review and follow the podcast to help others find it!
In this episode, you will hear:
Learning from focus groups
The value of having a Gmail account
Setting up and managing focus groups
Ways to improve communication and directions
How to select from a diverse focus group participants
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Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. My name is Elizabeth Larrick and I’m your host for Trial Lawyer Prep, a podcast dedicated to folks getting ready for trial and preparing cases the better way.
I’m Last episode you met Rhonda, my focus group recruiter, and we talked pretty extensively [00:01:00] about the system that we use to recruit. And I wanted just to hit a pause and take this episode to dive just a little bit deeper into setting up your own focus group system. Because I know that there is still a lot of hesitation out there to running your own focus group.
And I think it’s something that we can totally do and totally handle. And one of the things I’ve heard over the weekend, ran focus group here in Austin with some great lawyers going to trial and I heard through the grapevine about another focus group that costs a set of lawyers 88, 000. Now that’s a lot of cheese.
So that’s why I want to take time and walk through this with you and setting up your own focus group system. Um, because It is so vital. It’s essential. It literally is not a step that you should [00:02:00] skip because we need the feedback and we need the practice. That’s all there is to it is these focus groups are an amazing place to get that feedback to get that practice where you wouldn’t get it somewhere otherwise.
And again, I’m going to go ahead and say again, focus groups, okay, because we’re not talking about. mock trials. We’re talking about doing things and efficient, getting things done in an hour, getting it done in two hours, maybe even getting it done in three hours, depending on what needs to get done, but making it really efficient for you so the cost is efficient as well.
So talking to my trial lawyers here, Which found the podcast. So you know that this is for you and wanting to give basically what I have learned in my eight years with the focus group system that I have set up for me. And remember when I started doing this, I was basically a sole lawyer and I didn’t even have any staff when I first started out [00:03:00] doing focus groups by myself.
So this is a system that has been evolved, but it still evolves, but basically it’s set, it’s easy, we follow it every time. I’ve had many, multiple people, multiple staff follow the system without a problem. And then of course Rhonda has picked up that system and we’ve carried it forward. So focus groups.
Just to touch on that, why would we do focus groups? And let me tell you, every focus group, no matter what, the number one thing I hear from lawyers after we finish a focus group is, I learned something new. And that’s what we need, is that outside perspective and the testing. And these are lawyers who, with years of experience, 30 plus trials, right, they’re telling me, hey, wow, I wasn’t expecting that reaction.
Or, I’m glad I learned to see how people see that fact, because I thought it was different. Or, wow, we’ve got a hole in the case right there that we need to fill up with some facts and information. Let me give [00:04:00] you a concrete example. Doing a testing in a focus group of a damages model. Right, so what the lawyer believes will be a way to calculate the damages in the case.
Generally, when we talk about a damages model, we are talking about that. non economic part of things, right? Economics are easy. We can add up numbers. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the non economic stuff, right? So in some places, it’s mental anguish. In some places, it’s pain and suffering.
Okay. So that’s really kind of what we’re talking about. We want to test it out. Okay. Which is, I think, a great way. We, sometimes we come in with what we want to test it for, what the number is, but really it was the model, how we’re calculating came in with us. Seems super clear, but in the feedback from the focus group, Was just confusion and the way that had been calculated people thought that he was referring to lost wages And so people got on tangents about [00:05:00] lost wages and some people just Because of the level of kind of confusion just turned him off altogether now That’s a pretty valuable piece of feedback.
Now, how long did it take to do that? 30 minutes We’re talking very efficient use of time, and then again, turning and getting that feedback back from focus groups. Another example that I had where we were doing a focus group and testing both sides of a case and the lawyer learned that that one defense argument made a lot of ground with these people.
And that was one thing we kept hearing over and over again in discussion. It was like, okay, we need to eliminate. that argument and give these facts. We have these facts in the case. Always going to learn something new, and again, sometimes it feels really subtle, what you’re learning, but it has a giant impact on the case overall.
And we talked a little bit about this at the beginning of this episode, that [00:06:00] what’s the holdout? What are the problem areas for us? Generally, I hear, well, it’s too expensive. Or it’s too time consuming, or I’ve never done it before. I’ve never even done a focus group at all. So I wouldn’t even know where to start.
So let’s tackle our first top two things, which is it’s expensive and it’s time consuming. This is what this podcast is about. And that’s what a lot of the feedback is on in the blogs and on my website. And even in the handout that I had today is, you set up your own system so that you can control that cost.
And you set up that system to eliminate the time consuming part of things so somebody else can do this for you. Now, of course, you can offload all of these things, but that can increase the cost. And that’s what we’re trying to be really cost conscious for trial lawyers who are out there who are solos.
Maybe you’ve got a mid sized firm. And time consuming because maybe you’ve got a lot of cases on your plate. And being efficient with your time is really something that you need to do. And, of course I’ve never done it [00:07:00] before. Well, that’s, we’re here to talk about, there’s lots of, again, episodes that I’ve done and even blog posts about never done it.
Try this first. And maybe that will be another one that we refresh and bring back to never done before. Let’s talk about it. And I do know that in the month of June, this month, I’m going to have conversation with a lawyer who had never done focus groups before and picked it up and has run with it. And so we’re going to talk about, Hey, feedback on that part of things.
But let’s talk a little bit about a solution which would be never done before. How can we set up the system to make it efficient time wise and expense wise? When I started out in 2015, I had a rough idea how to set up a focus group. I’d had some prior experience with my prior job where we’d run a few focus groups, but we had some staff that was helping us.
So, when I went out on my own, without any staff, I kind of had a few holds to figure out. And, the two main things that I did right from the start, one of them was, um, uh, I[00:08:00]
And that would be collecting, recording, and storing all the past participants and having it in a program. I use Excel, nothing super fancy, to be able to collect data points like emails and no shows along with the date they attended, the time they were Of course, once we turn virtual, then we add that virtual column in there, virtual person, but collecting all that data from the start is fantastic because that then allows me to search to see who has ever attended before to prevent repeat attendance.
Now, I know that repeats can be used. I do, but what I want to see is I want to see time pass before these folks come back. Six, eight months, sometimes two years. And of course, some people are not ever invited back, but what’s really important is we don’t want focus [00:09:00] group people who do this for a living to join into our focus group because most of the time they’re just parrots.
They just mimic, right? They don’t actually tell us real feedback. They get either really upset or they try to take the opposite view, be a contrarian inside the focus group. You never really can nail down what the actual feedback is or the truth is from the feedback. So that’s why I always try to prevent repeats, especially back to back repeats.
So I track that as well. And then again, of course, I don’t invite people back who don’t show up. Now, there are people who reschedule, or there are people who need to cancel. That’s different than just a complete no show, so we always track that as well. And that just, again, prevents a lot of frustration on recruiting and getting people in there.
And I really harp away about this prevent repeats because of course it’s super easy to invite the same people back, even though it’s a different case, Elizabeth, it’s no, they’ve seen you before, they know what the song and dance [00:10:00] is. You’re not going to get solid feedback, that’s reliable, right? We want to make sure we can rely on what we’re getting, otherwise focus groups are a wash.
It’s garbage in, garbage out, right? So if you put whoever signs up first out the gate, not vetting at all, and then you have focus groups. And you think, wow, that went really well. Who’d you have sitting in the seat? How do we test our reliability? Who was sitting in the seats and then what’d you present?
Because a lot of times we can do a really great job of putting a great set of people in there. And then we get a presentation that argues with people. That’s extremely biased. And we tried to set up things to make sure that we’re being neutral and people, the cover’s blown sometimes people say to me, and it’s just, okay, so can we really rely on it?
But anyhow, the second thing that I did from the start and I took time was that I always wanted to treat all our participants with respect. I wanted to make sure they knew where to go, when to be there, when they would get [00:11:00] paid. I want to make sure that when we were in person we had as many creature comforts as possible.
Sometimes it’s not totally possible to do that when you’re in a limited space or got limited funds. But here’s the thing, I knew from the very jump, running focus groups, I wasn’t going to pay top dollar. Okay, I get a lot of complaints still to this day. I went to this other focus group, they paid me 150.
I went to this other one and I’m like, okay, I hear you, but here’s the thing. The questions that we have to ask you are not personal. We’re not coming in to make people give us. A lot of personal private information. What we’re here to do is get your Feedback on the presentation. And also I know that there’s a budget that we have to accommodate.
Now again, that doesn’t mean I still pay the same amount of money that I did eight years ago. We’ve had to go up, we’ve had to pay more. But again, I still get complaints for that. But also I want to treat people with respect because I run a referral program. Which is basically asking people who’ve attended, had a good time, or a good experience to refer [00:12:00] somebody else.
And in that referral program, I have been able to gain people who are engaged, who show up, and make great participants. So I want to make sure we do that. Also, I’ve noticed, again, when people can’t find the place, or they get the time wrong, and they get super flustered, it’s really hard to get them to calm back down.
To then be able to focus on what you’re saying and get feedback. So I want to make sure to eliminate all those things so we can go over the top when it comes to giving instructions, to giving reminders. If we have a location, we give them, we link it with a Google app, right? Just to make sure we’re going the extra mile so that they know exactly where they’re going to go.
The two things we did right from the start, but I did right from the start to make sure. So let’s jump into really quickly. The focus group system and right up the gate, when you’re setting up your system, the first thing you need to sit down is you need to pick your tools. Some people [00:13:00] fancily call this your tech stack, but I’m just gonna call it your tools.
Cause I’m not a toll tech person. And I’m definitely not with all the up and all how much to talk about things. So it’s your tools. Okay. So for me, it’s Gmail, it’s PayPal, it’s zoom, it’s Adobe, it’s Craigslist. So what did I just list? How do I communicate with people? I use Gmail. How do I pay people? PayPal.
With virtual, what platform am I going to use to host the meeting? Zoom. For my confidentiality, I’m going to use Adobe. And for advertising, I’m going to use Craigslist. And I also use Facebook. So, in all of these things, always be thinking about what is the easiest for participants. You want it to be easy on you as well, because you’re learning this.
But most of these tools We’ve already been using as trial lawyers. I use Adobe for eSignature because it’s a program I already pay for. I use Zoom. It’s a program I already pay for. I also, when I started out, that seemed to be [00:14:00] the easiest platform. And so, I’ve taken it and used it over the years. They definitely improved it by and far.
There are new things you can do and fancy things you can do. PayPal, I chose that one. Just kind of, that’s what I chose. And, um, I see, here’s a couple pitfalls that I see with some of the technology people pick. One is you pick a lot of stuff. Meaning, I know some lawyers who they’ll use whatever payment platform people want.
Some people want Cash Appet, some people want Venmo, some people want PayPal, some people want Zelle. Like, that now becomes a logistical nightmare for your staff who’s going to be paying. So we, from the very start, PayPal, that’s it. If you don’t have it, sorry, you can’t be a part of it. And that makes it really easy when you’re going to go make payment to people that you have one program they log into and make the payment and it’s done.
Is it the best payment platform out there? I don’t know. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. PayPal and Venmo are the same people. But I [00:15:00] still get arguments both ways or either way from people who want to join but don’t have PayPal. I just say, sorry, that’s just the way we use it. I also see as far as picking your tools, I love Gmail because there are So many things inside that 6 account.
Always do the paid account. Please do not skip on this because you do not want any of that information. You don’t, it’s, again, you don’t have any privacy. Let’s just put it that way. You have zero privacy if you don’t pay for it. So pay the 6. It’s totally worth it because you want to make sure that none of this, all this stuff doesn’t get leaked, especially if you are using Gmail as a way to transfer videos.
Okay. To people, to co counsel, or you’re putting materials up in the Gmail for document storage. So pay the 6. It’s totally worth it to have that paid account. Now Gmail of course gives you document storage, like I talked about, or just general online store storage, but it gives you access to questionnaires that you can make.[00:16:00]
And of course the Google calendar. And we use those for every single focus group and it makes it super easy. It’s all in one place instead of having it in different places. Now again, this is the tool that we use to communicate with people, so we’re using that email and we’re using that Google Calendar to communicate with our folks.
And we are doing a questionnaire form, we call it a questionnaire, to get people to respond to our advertising. Some folks ask people in the Craigslist ad, hey, email me a response to these 30 questions. What are the chances you’re going to get somebody to answer all 30 questions? It’s possible. I’m not saying it’s not possible, but I am saying you may not get very many choices, right?
Because people want it easy. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to apply. And you also want to make sure they’re paying attention, right? So we use our questionnaire form to gather [00:17:00] information about people, but also to kind of run a little bit of a test to make sure are actually reading the ad.
The questionnaire or the makes it super easy for us to manage and seal information in one place, but also learning from Zoe chance and her book influences your superpower, which we did a review with Jason here recently. What’s the easiest, how do you make it easy and having a quick, easy questionnaire, we used to have a ton of questions on there.
I’ve narrowed that down again, out of ice for Rhonda, who talked about that, where people seem to have a hundred questions. questionnaire they have to fill out and then they’re mad when they don’t get picked or they just give up on it. So we want to make it an easy tool to use. Those questionnaires are super easy.
Of course, then it turns into a sheet so you can see everything everywhere. And also, again, it creates a little bit of a. tool to help people. If somebody fills out the form, okay, they’re eligible. If they send an email in response to Craigslist, they’re [00:18:00] automatically not considered because they’re not following directions.
And you got to have people follow directions, even if they’re doing in person, they got to follow directions to get there. Or if it’s Zoom, you got to follow the directions to get into the Zoom meeting. So you definitely want the people who get at least at a bare minimum do that because you want people who are going to actually show up at jury selection.
So part of the system, pick your tools. If you need to vet some tools, that’s good. But basically, like we talked about, you need to have a way to communicate with them. And I will say, having a separate Gmail account is key, right? Because if you’re emailing them from your lawyer account, they’re automatically going to be conjuring up things in their mind about lawyers and what the folks group’s about.
So having that separate Gmail to communicate and have all the other tools with it, calendar, all that good stuff. Pick a way to pay people. That’s helpful. Even today, when we’re doing in person, I still use that PayPal to pay people. I think it’s super easy, creates a receipt for every [00:19:00] person, and I don’t have to fumble with going to get cash.
Pick a platform for doing your virtual, I suggest Zoom. Pick a way to do electronic confidentiality. There’s tons of options out there, Dropbox now offers eSignature, HelloSign, DocuSign, whatever it is. Just Pick one and go for it. And then of course, pick how you’re going to advertise. I use Craigslist and I use Facebook.
To do that, there’s Nextdoor. There’s all kinds of ways you can advertise. Just consider what your budget is. Okay. And. other free ways that you can do that, which would be like one of the ways I use the referral program. All right. So picture tools, and now you need to look at, okay, so what can we automate or even semi automate in my system?
Emails. This is something we’re going to send the same email out for every single FocusScript, we’re just going to change dates, times, maybe the amount of the incentive, right? So emails, that’s great. Gmail will host [00:20:00] templates, right? I know Outlook will do that now too. Easy way to make those templates, get them set up and then just boom, you don’t have to retype those emails.
And again, first email, second email, reminder emails, day of emails, all of that can be put into a template and make it very easy. I will say I’ve tried group emailing and individual emailing. Hands down, do the individual. Because what I have found is people will respond more to the individual one. So I’ll get more people that say, Yep, confirmed.
I will totally be there. Versus if we do a group one. So I know it may save time to do one email with everybody on it. Even blindsees see it. Yeah, okay. Here’s the thing. We use the draft. So we basically draft. All the reminder emails, we draft all our zoom emails so that when it comes time to get it done, it’s just open it, put the email in and go or open it and hit send, you know, it’s [00:21:00] semi automated, right?
So you could use a tool that makes it very automated. That’s going to be more expensive versus having somebody do it semi automated questionnaires. Again, we just copy, create. I used to do a single questionnaire for every single focus group. Of course, that creates a lot of questionnaires. And now we just do one, pretty much one per year.
Or if there are some specific for focus groups, then we’ll create one specific for them. And of course the check in process. You can write that out and have that good to go for in person or in virtual. And it, again, was super easy where you want to check people’s photo IDs. We want to make sure they sign confidentiality and is the technology work, right?
Super simple things here, but again, write it out, have it done. And then you can always have it go back to refer to it. Or if somebody new comes in to step into that role, It can do it very easily. And finally, which would be fine tuning. Part one of your system is pick your tools. Part two is what can be automated or semi [00:22:00] automated, and then go ahead and do that.
So that makes it very easy to reproduce those things every time. And then last one is fine tuning. And that is just. It’s going to happen. There’s going to be something that you forget about that you, Oh, I need to add that. And this happened, of course, constantly. So when we first started doing virtual, we had people show up on cell phone.
That’s not going to work. So we found a way to put that very clearly multiple times. Then when someone showed up on a cell phone, we had a way of saying, Oh, I can’t have a cell phone. We had people who were getting in that didn’t have a PayPal because we weren’t reconfirming the PayPal. And one of the things, too, that we found were just the days that it took us to recruit.
And that used to be a week out. Sometimes we now start at 10 days out. And then just small things that were happening that we were realizing, like, Oh, okay, we need to figure out a way to vet for people who are trying to get in from out of the U. S. It’s not folks that we [00:23:00] want. Most of the time, If you tell people up front what you need, and what is not good, or what you’re not looking for, they generally will not apply.
However, sometimes they do as well. And again, that’s just a matter of, okay, how do we tell people politely, Hey, this is for people who live in the U. S., or this is a study for people who live in California. And then we put that in the questionnaire as well, right? So we want to make sure people Who may breeze past that or read it and breeze past the question.
We have a way to look at that and make sure. And again, that’s all just fine tuning for problems. Another thing that we ran into is, of course, people from outside the U. S. have PayPal outside the U. S., which then has a fee. Who has to pay the fee? We don’t have that in our system. Guess what? Now it’s in our emails.
Just to let people know, if you have, it’s connected to a foreign bank, you’re going to pay the fee, not us. And we haven’t had any complaints for that. Alright, so it’s a lot about the system. [00:24:00] And I know there’s a lot of information, so I wanted to let you know I do have a free download. It’ll be in the show notes, the link to it.
That gives you the questionnaire I used, the tools I used, the confidentiality form that I used. So if you’re curious about that or want to start beyond Scratch, please use that. Get started. And basically what the system puts out for me, it creates a table of folks for me to choose from. In the table, I can quickly eliminate people I don’t want to use, leaving us with people who are eligible.
And I will tell you a big misconception about, oh, okay, I get to this point, I’ll just I’m good to go. There’s still part where you need to pay attention and pick people. And I will say just from having used different staff to do this, one of the biggest things is most people come in and they think, Oh, I’ll just pick the first 10 people and send them an email and we’re done.
Wrong. We don’t want to do that. First of all, you got to vet for repeats, right? You still need to look at the information that’s given [00:25:00] and you got to pick a variety of people. I try to always have a variety of ages, a variety of education, a variety of jobs. Kids know kids, right? And if you pick the first ten people, you might end up having a panel of all single males.
And that might not reflect what the jury poll looks like. So you can’t just automatically pick the first ten, Oh, don’t pick the next ten, right? You’ve got to fine tune at that point and take a little bit of time to stop and look and pick folks. taking that time. Cause you’ve saved so much time on your system and getting people there or getting people to your table, uh, being able to select people is going to help.
So that’s one of the biggest jobs that I do is I go in there to actually select people than put into that email system. And of course, Rhonda helps with that. She vets out people are She’ll say, hey, we’re having a hard time with this person who’s responding or I’ll just say, okay, and we’ve learned I’ve learned if you’re difficult on the [00:26:00] outset, you’re going to be extremely difficult on the inside of the focus group.
So it’s generally a pretty red flag, but get a look and what some of those red flags are when you’re doing it. Okay. I hope that. this podcast episode was helpful. Let’s just stop and recap really quickly. Let’s get you into doing focus groups. Start small. Maybe you do an hour, maybe you do two hours. Set up a system to make it easy on you and your staff to find people to pick.
When you set it up, it’ll be outside your law firm, right? So it won’t be necessarily clued into people that this is a law firm that’s running make it easy on staff. If it’s easy, you’ll do it more. Because once you’re in there and you’re getting that feedback and you’re learning all that good stuff and you’re testing things out, you’re going to see, oh my gosh, this is immensely valuable beyond the expense of 1, 000, 1, 500, or maybe [00:27:00] even 2, 000, right?
Because the value you get out of that is 10x or more because you’re going to learn so many things that you just couldn’t see. We get blinders on, we get into our cases. I really want to stress like getting into this focus group, creating a system for yourself and your staff to start running focus groups.
So I hope that you found this episode helpful and my episode with Rhonda, who is our recruiter to walk through some of those things. If you have questions about focus groups, setting a system, please do not hesitate to call or to email me. And again, we’re going to have that free download of my questionnaire I use.
The tools I use and also confidentiality format free for everybody. It’s going to be in the show notes, but it will take you to another place. Just put your email in and you’ll get an email to you. And again, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review.
That’s a great way for other folks to find me. Also. If you want [00:28:00] to do the plus sign or follow on your favorite podcast platform, that also helps other people be able to find it. And it means a new episode will automatically go into your platform when it is available. All right. And until next time, thank you.
Discover the secrets to successfully recruiting focus group participants in my conversation with Rhonda, a seasoned virtual assistant based in Charleston, South Carolina. Learn how our innovative recruitment system, utilizing platforms like Craigslist and Facebook, has proven effective in drawing in participants from various locations across the US. Rhonda’s own experience as a focus group participant drives her passion for helping others find the perfect candidates for their groups.
In this episode, you will learn:
The importance of advertising and maintaining an active Facebook page for focus group recruitment.
How to utilize Google Forms and questionnaires to vet potential participants.
The benefits of using a step-by-step email sequence to confirm attendance and manage expectations.
The necessity of maintaining a master list and a no list to ensure proper eligibility and successful participation.
How to handle payments through platforms like PayPal and Venmo, and streamline communication using email templates.
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Supporting Resources:
If you have questions or a particular challenge with focus groups, email Elizabeth directly for assistance: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com.
Episode Credits:
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Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I am your host Elizabeth and so glad that you are here.
And we have a very exciting episode I’m going to get to introduce. My focus group recruiter to my audience. And I’m really excited to have Rhonda here with us. She’s going to talk a little bit about [00:01:00] what she does and how our system works and how we try to do our best to have focus groups that are full of folks that are going to talk with us, that give meaningful feedback and that are from the correct kind of location.
So anyhow, before we jump in, let me just go ahead and say, Rhonda, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. It’s good to be here. Fantastic. Rhonda and I normally communicate on zoom. That’s pretty much what we always meet and greet on zoom. And so that’s because Rhonda, you’re not here in Austin, Texas. Where are you located?
Rhonda: I’m in Charleston, South Carolina.
Elizabeth Larrick: Awesome. And is that where you’re originally from?
Rhonda: No. So I’m originally from Atlanta, Georgia. I’m a native Atlantan and I moved here about 15 years ago and I love it here. I wanted to be near the beach and it’s a great city to live in.
Elizabeth Larrick: We worked together remotely. How long you’ve been, was it a pandemic choice or was it, you’ve been working remotely for a while?
Rhonda: Oh yeah. I’ve worked off and on remotely in different jobs, but I decided [00:02:00] about two years ago. To take a turn and I wanted to be a virtual assistant because I wanted to set my own hours and I wanted to be able to travel and I wanted to be able to just take my laptop and be able to go wherever I wanted to go.
And it’s worked out really well.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I know that you help me, but you help a lot of other kinds of people in businesses as well. Right. That’s right. So tell me, did you decide, Hey, I’m going to be a virtual assistant and just put it out to the world? Or cause here’s the thing. I get a lot of questions about how do you find a virtual assistant?
Like, where’s it go? And I know how we met up, but maybe help everybody who’s listening to find out how can they find a virtual assistant if they want one through your path.
Rhonda: Yeah, so I just decided I was going to do it started researching doing a lot of research on what direction I wanted to go in and what kind of services I wanted to offer and I started putting it out there, I advertised a little bit on LinkedIn, [00:03:00] I went through some Facebook groups that I was a member of.
And I just would go out and network and talk to people. So that’s really the best way to do it. And if you’re looking for a virtual assistant, I think networking and referrals are the best way to go because, Oh, so and so worked with this person and they did a great job. That to me is the best way.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah.
And that’s how we found each other was through a locator, a recruiter, pretty much. Cause I had a really specific kind of virtual assistant that I wanted, cause I’ve been trying to find somebody to help me really specifically with focus groups. And Rhonda has been helping me for over a year now, and it’s been awesome to help get into the system and even fine tune it, but help it run smoothly because sometimes it can go haywire.
So you love it. You’re in Charleston. I’m in Austin. So where are some of your other clients located?
Rhonda: Oh, wow. So I actually had a client in St. Louis, Missouri. I have one in Chicago, one that [00:04:00] is actually located in Charleston, but I don’t ever see her. I’ve met her one time, and I’ve also worked with someone in Champaign, Illinois.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, so
Rhonda: all over. Yes. Awesome.
Elizabeth Larrick: Obviously, I had a recruiter that kind of put a lot of feelers out to find somebody. So what made you interested in doing focus groups or being in a focus group role?
Rhonda: I’ve participated in some focus groups over the years, and I always found them fascinating because you never know what you’re going to talk about.
They don’t tell you beforehand, usually, and you’re usually there with a very diverse group of people, right? So you never know what you’re going to hear and who’s going to be there. It’s just interesting.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah.
Rhonda: And
Elizabeth Larrick: before you started, I said, Hey, will you sit in and be on a focus group? So you got a little taste.
Awesome. Like I said, you’ve been here with me for over a year now. Let’s talk a little bit about the system that we use to recruit. So talk a little bit about folks who are listening, kind of [00:05:00] our system and how we put together. Participants in a focus group.
Rhonda: Yeah. For us, the first thing we do is once we have a focus group booked, we advertise, advertise on Craigslist.
This is what works best for us. So we advertise on Craigslist. We put it on Facebook, on your Facebook group. And the third place too, is referrals from past focus group participants. Those are the three main places that we pull from.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and one of the things too that you handle, which is, which I think is a big part of recruiting, which is keeping a really active Facebook page.
So we, moons and moons ago, I set up a Facebook page specifically for Advantage Focus Groups, which is the name of my focus group company and just started feeding it. Holiday stuff. And we do some survey stuff just to get followers. And I think that’s really helped when now, and again, you keep up the Facebook page and occasionally [00:06:00] I’ll get on there too, to hide some unnecessary comments that we get on our Facebook page.
But yeah, so I stopped you there just to talk a little about that Facebook page and how helpful it is. And one thing too, is once we put something out there, we do occasionally we’ll boost. a post, but most of the time we’ll get in there and share to individual groups. So one of the things that we always try to do is if we’re going to have a focus group in Danville, Illinois, then we go and I try to find a group or a page that has Danville jobs and then we apply to get in and then we’re in and then basically once we post on Advantage Focus Group’s Facebook page, then you can share it to any other page you’re a member of.
That’s another way, just kind of, it feels a little time consuming, but it’s free. And that’s where people go to look for jobs. Keep going down our road here. Our advertising. What else is part of the system?
Rhonda: Yeah. So after we advertise, we ask them to fill out a short questionnaire and it’s a Google form [00:07:00] that they fill out and then we can get their responses and then start pulling people from there.
The thing that I really like about our questionnaire is that it’s not long and complicated. So sometimes if you want to be a focus group of participants, they ask you to fill out a questionnaire and it could be a hundred or more questions. It’s long. And if you answer a question wrong, it won’t stop you.
It’ll make you go through all the questions. And then when to the end, it’ll say, sorry, you’re not a candidate for this focus group. But. Okay. Our questionnaire is very short, and then once they fill it out, we don’t tell them yes or no one way or the other. We’re able to siphon through and sift through and start picking people out that we want to invite to come.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, that questionnaire has been molded and manipulated over the years to weed people out on very easy questions. People who, before the pandemic hit, everything we did was in person, so it was pretty easy to weed people out. They had to be in the area. Now, when it’s [00:08:00] virtual, they There’s been a lot more challenge of finding people who truthfully answer where they’re located and how to sift through those people that don’t.
So sometimes we’ll tweak a questionnaire to see who people are or there’s been feedback on the Facebook page about do you accept people outside the U. S.? We don’t because obviously our studies are for people here in the U. S. Right. We added that into the top of the questionnaire. Don’t apply if you are not a resident of the U.
S. Some people still do, but I think that questionnaire definitely helps us do a vetting job for us. That makes it super easy for us to say, Oh, that person’s gone. And then one of the things about the questionnaire that, Rhonda and I go round and round about, and I think it’s because we’re both like super OCD is the way we communicate with each other.
Like who’s eligible. Who’s not is we’ll do a highlight green or yellow, and I will black out people. And Rhonda’s like, why are you doing? I’m like, that’s because I don’t want my eye to look at that person. I’m scrolling down to eliminate people. And I [00:09:00] know, Hey, that person participated before, or maybe they’re not from the U S.
Rhonda’s like so busy. You’re like, I know. I would invite people and be like, Oh yeah. And sometimes I’ll invite somebody. It will, we generally run it as the heavy lifts on the recruiting. I’ll pick up a little bit of slack on the weekends. And Rhonda will say, I don’t know if this is a real person, but I’m like, Oh, you’re probably from the group.
Yes. All right. So we use our questionnaire. What happens next in the recruiting?
Rhonda: So we use our questionnaire and start sifting three people and then we’ll start sending emails. The email system is really good because it really weeds people out that are not serious. Or that maybe they thought they wanted to, but then when they read the first email, they’re like, no, I can’t do that.
But the good thing about virtual focus groups to me is that we pay them accordingly, but they don’t have to get in the car and come [00:10:00] somewhere. They can just, if they can turn on their computer, they’re there. And it saves them a lot of time. We send a first email that lays out what the focus group. Is when it is, what time, what day, all of that, and what the requirements are that you have to be on a tablet or a computer.
You cannot be on your cell phone because we show slides that need to be able to see them all. And you have to be able to be on audio and video the whole time. We have to be able to see you and hear you the whole time and you have to have the ability to answer some things in chat. We send that first email out and we give them basically 24 hours to respond if they want to join.
And the other thing they have to have is a PayPal account. Because that’s how we pay people and we pay them the minute the focus group is over, we send them their money so there is no waiting for a check in the mail or anything like that. It’s super simple and I think people [00:11:00] really appreciate that.
They’re going to get paid that day.
Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, absolutely. And we used to get a little gruff about PayPal, but What I figured and I’ve seen other lawyers do it differently. Well, we’ll use Zelle. I’m like, why? Just one, just pick one of these things and then just ride that pony on, because it makes so much more complication for us to issue that payment or jump around on platforms.
And
Rhonda: yeah. And if they want to participate. That’s the deal, right? You have to have a PayPal account. And we even have some people that are like, Oh, I don’t have a PayPal, but my friend does. Can you send it to my friend? Sure. That’s what you want. And as long as you’re the one that gives us the information, sure, we can do that.
So we just ask them to confirm all of that kind of information as well. And once they’ve done that, then we can confirm them. And so then after the first email, if they answer us and say, yes, I can confirm and they give us all the information, we send a follow up email, like a second [00:12:00] email that says, Hey, great, we have you, you’re good, you’re scheduled.
And we give them next step. So every time we send an email, we give them next steps, hook them a little bit more. And so we will send a calendar invite. We highlight them green that yes, on our sheet that yes, they’re coming and we follow them through. So, once they’re confirmed, and we’ve sent them the email that says, hey, you’re confirmed and we tell them, we’re going to send you a reminder email the day before.
And then about an hour and a half on the day of the focus group, we’re going to send you a confidentiality agreement and they have to sign that and send it back. And only once they do that, will we send them the zoom link to get into the focus group via zoom. So it’s a laid out process. It’s pretty systematic.
And along the way that will weed out people that aren’t really serious, usually.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, usually, and I think also it helps us because I [00:13:00] know some people who do the system where it’s like they get everything done all at once, and that makes it really easy for you, but it’s been really hard to predict who will be there because we get people who.
We send the reminder email day before and they say, Oh, thanks. And you’re like, okay, cool. Now I feel like I can rely on you. And then with the confidentiality forms being an hour and a half, like if they don’t send it back, we already know we’re going to be missing those people.
Rhonda: That’s right. And so it works and they know what is soon.
I have it already. And once they send back the confidentiality agreement, I immediately send them the zoom link. So they’re in, we ask for people to show up 10 to 15 minutes. Before it starts so that we can make sure that their audio and video are working and that everything’s good to go. And also because it makes us really nervous.
If we’re five minutes out and we only have three people there. That’s when we panic.
Elizabeth Larrick: It’s only happened a couple of times, but it doesn’t happen very often. Yeah. And luckily, like the nice thing about is [00:14:00] I was doing it a certain way and then Rhonda came in and kept with the system and then it was like, Hey, can we try this a little bit or can we give it them an hour and a half to fill it out?
It’s the nice thing about it is we’ve been able to tweak it so that it works a lot easier. And one of the things it is a stair step process, but the nice thing is. Rhonda’s got email templates for everything. So we’re not retyping these emails. We create the drafts. So it really makes it really easy on the day of to get whatever you need done.
And sitting out the reminder ones, those are all drafted and ready to go to make it super quick. But what’s our last thing that we do to make sure that they’re eligible? What do we do in our, inside the zoom itself?
Rhonda: Oh, yeah. So once they come into the focus group, they have to show a picture ID. Now they don’t have to show us their address per se, but we just have to see that the person that they say they are is, and they have a valid U.
S. I. D. [00:15:00] And sometimes that will, once we get in there, we have had some people drop off because they knew they didn’t have it and, and we lost them that way, which is okay. But we, we tell them at every step of the way, remember to have your I. D. ready. Yeah.
Elizabeth Larrick: And I think that, again, It can be any photo ID. We’ll take your Costco card or YMCA card or whatever.
As long as you’ve got a photo ID that matches your name, like we’re totally fine. But even that requiring that level of, okay. And again, we tell them we’re not, we don’t need a state ID, cover up whatever you don’t want to show us. We just want to make sure that you are who you say you are. That’s right. So we talked a little bit about weeding people out.
We talked about the referral, how do we do the referral program?
Rhonda: Yeah, so we’re always trying to get feedback to see how we can make it better for the participants and for the people that we’re running the focus group for. So after we [00:16:00] send them their money, we send a thank you email. And then the thank you email, it gives them a little survey, how’d you feel about this and this?
And we ask them about the focus group, which is good feedback from people. And we also tell them, Hey, we love referrals. So if you. give us a referral and it’s someone we use, then you get a gift card and it’s a small incentive, but it works.
Elizabeth Larrick: And they’re generally good referrals. They show up. That’s what I love about the referral system is like, these are people who 90 percent of the time are going to show up versus we don’t really have that same percentage, but just people who are responding to your eggs list or the Facebook and filling out the questionnaire.
That’s right. Fantastic. Okay. Okay. So we talked about email sequence and the templates, the questionnaires on Google Forms, which I think is really helpful. The only thing was with the referrals. The way that we also stair step this is someone will give me their name, they’ll refer somebody, and then [00:17:00] there’s an email sequence for that.
And then once they make it through that sequence, then we send them to a specific questionnaire. That way we can track it because I have a lot of times people will say, I was referred by so and so and I’m like, I don’t have that down. I’m like, I’m not sending you or randomly a gift card when I don’t track it.
Yeah. Awesome. Let me see. Is there anything else that we haven’t covered about the recruiting system or some of the things that you do in your role?
Rhonda: Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. I think for us, Being able to have the system down and having worked through it so many times to know this is what works.
And the other thing too is like internally we are obviously creating some documents. One of the things that we always make sure is we have a demographic table for every focus group that gets, Circulated. Rhonda creates it, circulates it over to me so I can circulate it on to lawyers. And then we create other internal documents.
And one of the things too that is what I think is really helpful is, and somewhat [00:18:00] tedious, is Rhonda maintains our master list. So I have a list in Excel. I guess it’s Excel, but now it’s in Google. Of every participant who’s ever been in one of my focus groups. And so with more data in there, we didn’t always, so RANA is very good about maintaining that so that we can ensure Because we’ve had people recently who slightly changed their name and showed up again at a focus group.
And sometimes I’ll go back and try to re recruit from that list, but I think that really helps us be able to track who’s coming, but also who needs to not attend for a couple weeks or maybe a year or be on the no list. So, what’s the no list?
Rhonda: The no list is someone that was either. Inappropriate in the middle of a focus group and they said inappropriate things, or they didn’t participate at all because that’s the whole purpose of a focus group.
We need for people to participate and give us their opinion. And if you won’t do that, we don’t [00:19:00] need you in a focus group. That’ll get you on the no list as well.
Elizabeth Larrick: And sometimes I don’t mean to. But there are people who will just badger, continue to badger us over the email. I’m just like, okay, you’re not attending.
It’s okay. And then so generally we’re on a red flag going over here. Let’s figure this out. Nobody has a perfect memory. So that’s what we keep our master list. And also our no list so that we can read through that. If somebody pops back up to know I’m not coming back.
Rhonda: That’s right. And it sounds. Super simple.
It’s not. There are a lot of steps behind the scenes, but because we have been doing it so long, it is a smooth process. Now we got it down. There are a lot of steps involved.
Elizabeth Larrick: And also, even if I’m here in Austin doing an in person, like you’re still handling all the recruiting and you’re doing the PayPal.
We just, some of the things become paper and I just sent it to you virtually so that you can get started processing everything. That’s right. Any other fun stories or things to share [00:20:00] with our audience about the focus group recruiting?
Rhonda: I don’t think so. Yeah, it’s just interesting. You can tell the people that really want to attend because they’ll fill out the questionnaire like 10 times.
Please see me, please. I really want to come. That’s always fun. When you, especially if you pick them, they’re so happy. They’re so appreciative. They’re like, Oh, thank you. I really wanted to do this focus group. So it works. It was fun.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, it is. And most people do want to be there and there that don’t have any problems, but people who, again, we generally keep our eye out for people who are complaining, you know, saying negative on the Facebook page, but that’s one of the things too, that RUN has been so helpful because again, I have my perspective about the focus groups that I run, but I haven’t gotten to attend any.
I don’t think anyone would ever invite a lawyer on their focus group, but it’s been helpful because there are times where I just say, Do we need to pay people more? What’s happening? And Rhonda’s like, no, no, like here’s what people are telling me. And here’s what I’m hearing is we’re not asking people personal [00:21:00] questions about what laundry detergent they use or how much money they make.
Or so we started telling people like, Hey, we are priced. at a level for you just to be able to watch a presentation and get feedback. We’re not here to ask personal questions about you. Now, I don’t know if that’s made any difference. And that’s kind of one of those things to run as some people have to fill out like, yeah, you may make 150, but you’ve got to fill out.
100 page questionnaire.
Rhonda: It’s true. I think generally the feedback is really positive. And I think people feel like it’s fair compensation for what they do, especially once they’ve gone through it. They may be like, that’s a little low, but once they’ve done the focus group, they’re like, okay, get it. I understand.
Elizabeth Larrick: You don’t, yeah, there’s not a lot of heavy lifting on their side of things. Oh, then we do ask them to pay attention. And that’s one thing, one of the reasons, and this is just kind of trial and error. When I first was doing zoom focus groups was the instructions and like [00:22:00] setting their expectations clear.
From the very front and then in every email after that, so that they know when they show up on the cell phone, it’s not difficult for me to say, Hey, looks like you’re on a cell phone, gosh, we really need you to, and that’s one thing too, we’ve worked through like. How do you handle somebody like that? And how do you do it in a polite way?
Because everyone’s watching you interact with this person soon. And Rhonda does an excellent job. Customer service and being polite. And that’s, I feel like sometimes half the battle too is, cause I have done a focus group once where we all just were like staring at each other, the moderator wasn’t talking and we didn’t know what instructions we needed.
Having you on there. And that’s, Again, starting the zoom and doing all that, really being proactive with people when they’re on there. I think that really helps them immediately.
Rhonda: Yeah, I think so. Awesome.
Elizabeth Larrick: Rhonda, thank you so much for joining the podcast to talk about recruiting. You’re [00:23:00] welcome. I love it.
Okay, good. I hope so because I don’t want you to stick around for a long time. We need more focus groups. So Rhonda is the recruiter here with me in my office. Virtually, of course, and so if you want to learn more about Rhonda, we’re going to have a blog post. She’ll be on the website, but of course, if you have any recruiting questions, let us know.
I’ll put her contact information in the show notes. But if you have any other questions, let me know. Otherwise, thank you all for listening. Appreciate it. If you enjoyed today’s podcast, please, or follow it on your favorite podcast platform so that other people can find it. All right, until next time.
Christopher Russo, a seasoned lawyer with 32 years of experience, will be joining us to share his insights on this aspect of client preparation and role play. Roleplaying is a versatile technique that can be employed to prepare for challenging scenarios, including cross-examinations and depositions. As trial lawyers, it is an effective tool that can improve our preparedness to handle complex legal situations.
Today’s discussion will focus on roleplay’s application in getting clients ready for testimony, whether it is for a deposition or trial.
During our session, we will delve into the common stumbling blocks that can arise during a deposition and explore techniques to avoid them. We will also discuss how gauging the personalities of our clients can aid in choosing the most effective roleplaying techniques.
Our conversation centers on the value of roleplaying with clients, the importance of taking breaks during the process, and the benefits of roleplaying the deposition. By examining these topics, we hope to establish a more comprehensive understanding of how roleplaying can be utilized to enhance client confidence and performance in the courtroom.
In this episode, you will hear:
The common stumbling blocks in the deposition
Gauging the personalities of your patients
The value of roleplaying with a client
Roleplaying the deposition
The importance of taking breaks
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Supporting Resources:
If you have a question or a case in Rhode Island, please reach out to Christopher crusso@kirshenbaumri.com
Christopher L. Russo | Managing Partner
Kirshenbaum & Kirshenbaum
Attorneys at Law, Inc.
117 Metro Center Blvd. Suite 1003
Warwick, RI 02886
Office: 401.946.3200 | Fax: 401.943.8097
Christopher concentrates his practice in representing personal injury plaintiffs. He handles all matters assisting people injured in car collisions, slip and fall, bicycle and motorcycle accidents. He has handled many cases involving tractor trailer collisions. These cases require an attorney with knowledge of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and an intimate understanding of the dangers these vehicles pose to the unsuspecting victims.
Christopher also handles a variety of criminal defense matters. He has handles District Court misdemeanor offenses, Superior Court felony matters as well as Federal District Court matters.
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, it’s Elizabeth. I wanted to step in very briefly before we begin our conversation with Christopher Russo to give a little bit of background on Christopher and how we met.
Christopher is a personal injury lawyer in Rhode Island, and we actually met several years back while I was [00:01:00] teaching a witness prep course. After that, we kept in touch. Christopher and I like to trade ideas about. Witness prep, and especially if we get stuck, I’ll get a call from Christopher or I’ll reach out to him and say, Hey, do you have any ideas on how to handle this?
Or Hey, what’s a new question you’ve been asking clients when they get stuck on this particular thing? And we also role play. So Christopher and I have a really good conversation about witness prep and role play. And I want to share that with you guys in the podcast. So let’s get to it. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast.
I am always excited to have a guest, but today I have a good friend of mine. Christopher Russo is joining us. Hello and welcome to the podcast, Christopher.
Christopher Russo: Hello. Thank you for inviting me.
Elizabeth Larrick: We are going to tackle a topic role play in a client witness prep. Now I brought Christopher on because he is on my short list.
When I need somebody to grill a client and they need a fresh face, I say, Hey, Christopher, we jump on the [00:02:00] zoom and grill this person for me. So that’s why I thought he would be a wonderful guest to come. Talk about preparing clients and this role play aspect of everything. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Now I will say on this podcast specifically, you’ve also talked about using role play as a way to get ready for a cross exam. It’s a way to get ready for taking a difficult position. Role play can be used in many different areas. I think it’s a great tool. for getting us ready as lawyers. And so we’re talking about today in the frame of getting the client ready for testimony, either as deposition or even for trial.
So that’s kind of where our frame is here today, but let me throw it to you first, Christopher, let’s talk a little bit, just generally, what do you do for client witness prep?
Christopher Russo: Actually, I think in answering that, I always like to share how I was first taught because I’ve been practicing now for 32 years and God rest their souls, my former partners and mentors, they really taught me more like you’re supposed to tell your client what to answer.
[00:03:00] And as the Jewish phrase used to be, come up with the mitzah, you have to come up with a story for them. And I’m like, Oh, okay. That didn’t really work. And so I have really embraced this concept through you as you were my teacher, the three step process and meeting with them over several occasions and not jamming it in all one session.
Because just like anything else we learn. If you just drink from the fire hose in an hour and expect them to show up the next day, or God forbid, lawyers who prepare them the morning of, and you expect them to digest everything and show up in an hour and perform, that’s amazing. Amazingly stupid, I would say.
So yeah, definitely over several sessions. I even have sent them some questions by email. A lot of clients like to do email, like to start the thought process going and let’s show up with your answers and go [00:04:00] over it. One of my favorites is really trying to find the guilt and their truths. Because getting, I realize I’m short circuiting this, but that whole process of getting to their truths, it’s so much more powerful.
When you pull it out of them and they hear it is their own words, as opposed to you just feeding it to them. It really ingrains it so much better.
Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. And thinking about old way, right? And this way that we’re talking about, sometimes people want to call these truths, the case themes. Would you agree with that or disagree?
Christopher Russo: I think depending on what the truth is, it very well can be a case theme, but I don’t go by the one shoe fits all. No, not every single truth is going to be a case theme. Some of them can be powerful and I do like to use them. I don’t ever like to say that to the client. I don’t know why I don’t want it because I feel like some of the lawyer trial process we can keep to [00:05:00] ourselves, the better.
Okay, I’ll tell one story that is not from me, and I’ll even tell you who it was if you want to know in the end. Because it’s been a powerful idea of a lawyer not sharing something with a client. It’s a very famous lawyer in Rhode Island who is trying this very large, I believe it was a medical malpractice case.
And the concept is this, it was a young boy who was left paralyzed. Picture an 18 year old boy paralyzed from the waist down. And just thinking in my mind’s eye, how many lawyers would have the foresight to not share some of the stuff I’m about to tell you and how it all played out. So fast forward trial, the plaintiff was not in the courtroom at all times.
Plaintiff expert on the stand. Mr. Expert, what’s a plaintiff’s condition? He’s paralyzed. And what’s his future? His future is paralyzed. There is no hope. There’s no changing, no nothing. Okay. Next witness was the plaintiff. [00:06:00] Puts a plaintiff on the stand. And I still get goosebumps when I tell this. Plaintiff on the stand, he asked him at one point, Hey Johnny, what do you see your future?
Oh, I’m going to walk again. I’m going to run. And as the story was told, there wasn’t a dry eye in the jury because he had the foresight to leave that child’s hope. intact. And I’ve often thought of that story thinking many lawyers that I’ve met in the past would have said to the client, No, you can’t say that you’re going to contradict our expert and would have totally presented a completely different witness, probably more a depressed witness, which some Oh my God, I’m You could, you can imagine the boy, right?
He would have been depressed. He would have come across that way. He would have came across like Eeyore, but this lawyer had the foresight to say, no, I want this excited child so that they can see what they took from him. [00:07:00] And I will say it was God rest his soul, brilliant lawyer, Lenny Decoff from Decoff and Decoff, who had that brilliant foresight to think like that.
And I think of that story a lot of times when I think of my trial prep with my client to what they might be saying, and in line with what you said, why, hey, maybe I would like to, maybe I might not call it a theme, but I think of that story when you asked me that question, and I might not share with them that I want to do this.
Because I don’t want them knowing what the prize at the end, so to speak, is. And sometimes, let’s face it, when people anticipate something, I think it affects how they’ll say it the next time. Make sense?
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, no, it totally makes sense. And I think from a perspective of What is more powerful? Truth is always going to be more powerful and themes.
That’s just strategy when you hear it. And I hear that’s just fluff. That’s strategy. The truth is what they need, right? That’s what’s going to, and the [00:08:00] truth for them may be a hundred, you know, maybe exactly what they need to be talking about. And the case theme could be completely different. My example would be.
Christopher and I are edge reptile followers and the teachings that the theme is always going to be putting the defendant’s conduct and putting the defendant first and things. So thinking about trial strategy, but also I always feel like strategy is that is well above being beyond the world that our clients have any idea about.
And they’re just trying to get through this deposition at this time. And I’ve talked about in this podcast before preparation is. Just this very serious time for this one thing, focusing as much as you can, as the lawyer and helping the client do the same. And if we bring in other things, Oh, this is the theme.
And Oh, this is the, now your client may need information to help them understand who will testify on this and who, you know, that way they don’t feel like that they have to do that. But most of them like, Hey, when we’re prepping [00:09:00] nose down to the grindstone, we’re doing our prep work just with you. We’re not talking about focus groups.
Of course, we’re talking about. Hey, here’s how folks could folks could perceive you. But let me ask you, since I’m the one interviewing you here, what do you find are common stumbling blocks for clients and depositions and think also about with the dynamic now. Post COVID most of client depositions are still zoom wise.
They are here for us here in Texas, and I assume that’s probably the same for you. So keeping that in mind, what are some common stumbling blocks you’re seeing?
Christopher Russo: Sure. Some of the common stumbling blocks I find is, I’ll give you one example that I had, Where this was, uh, was still pre COVID, but they get too stuck on a particular way, a question must be asked.
And the example I give, which I was stunned when this happened, it was a trip and fall case. And I’m sure we’ve all had triple [00:10:00] fall cases, but you know, they’re going to ask you to put on this drawing where you fell or on a picture or something, and so I prepped with her and I pulled out some of the pictures that I had.
And I said, you’re going to have to do it. Let’s practice it. And she did. So fast forward to deposition. And there was a picture that I used that had to be sent to the city to put them on notice of the claim. And the attorney pulled that out. And I’ll admit it wasn’t a great copy, but it was a black and white copy.
And the attorney asked the client, can you show me on this picture where you fell? No, I cannot. And I’m, I’ve never, I’m not a good poker player, but I got a good poker face. So I just sat there silent and we took a break and I called her out. And I’m like, what the hell happened? Oh, that was a bad picture. I couldn’t see it.
That’s didn’t say that. Don’t you say I can’t show you. [00:11:00] You can clearly see where you fell. And that’s one example where they get too pigeonholed. So I try to be more general on the topics so that they don’t get stuck with this particular phraseology of a question. One of the other examples was I do try and prep some of the clients on the lawyers personalities.
This one client I’m thinking of that if I could say this attorney has a reputation for, I’m not going to use foul language, but if I could I would. All right. We’ve all had those. And so I tried to prep her for that and not give too many nasty examples but and I. Second guess myself now because I didn’t meet with this person three times I met with this person like five or six times because she needed that extra time and we did some role play, and we’ll get into that later that I did it where I think in hindsight I shouldn’t have been the one 10 minutes into the [00:12:00] deposition.
She’s going sideways, and I’m not. Not understanding why and
Elizabeth Larrick: going
Christopher Russo: sideways, meaning he’s answering, he’s giving her, in my opinion, softball questions and she’s just answering poorly. So I asked for a break and I take her into the room and I’m like calling an audible here. What’s going on? He’s being an a hole.
He is one, but he’s not today. I feel like being kind of nice to you today because you’re being nasty to him for no reason. I think you’re gonna be careful with that too going forward. Maybe not so much get into the personalities and just stick to the plan, if that makes sense.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I think sometimes people, one of the summer blocks that I see pretty often is people are just, they’re heated.
Like they’re already very upset about the situation’s taking too long. And there are things they’ve had to do that are inconvenient and [00:13:00] frustrating and this should all be done. So they come in very, already upset and geared up to break them off a piece. And, and so sometimes that’s the blackboard’s like, Hey, yeah, we may have some tough questions.
You may get questions that have certain tone, or this person is known for this style of question. But at the end of the day, what’s going on here? Like how do we figure out and move through some of this like anger? Because if you go in there, like you said, and you just start ripping it up from right from the start, it’s like the lawyer, the person on their side is going to be like, I’m going to give it right back to you.
Or they’re saying, this is great for me. I’m still in. Let
Christopher Russo: me, let me throw one out to you in your podcast. Let’s see if you guys have an answer for me. And I’m also going to give you some good Italian legalese. So what do you do for a client like this? And the Italian slang is the term of art we use is What a cat get on is is somebody who can’t shut up another phrase.
We use diarrhea of the mouth. That’s [00:14:00] cat get on. So what do you do for the client that happened recently? We’re prepped them. Look, answer the question. He had it in his head. They need to know something. And come hella high water, I’m thinking the question wasn’t being asked, wasn’t all of a sudden the attorney asked a question about A.
He just stuck a square peg in a round hole Z. It was that thing that in his mind they had to hear. And afterwards we broke, I’m like, What are you doing? They needed to hear that. No, no, no. You needed to say it. They didn’t need to hear it. What are you doing? A client like that? I don’t know.
Elizabeth Larrick: Sometimes I gauge personalities and I always ask them, even if I have a really in gregarious person, or if I have a very quiet person, I always say, Hey, this is that time, right?
This is that one place where they’re going to ask you questions and you can [00:15:00] explain. And so what is it you want them to know? And on the flip side, we always ask it, what is it that you do not want them to know? So we always, whether it goes both ways. And the other thing is I always say like, Hey, listen, if there’s something that’s super important to you and you really want to talk about it and they don’t ask you, I’ll ask you.
Okay. So just hang out with me. I have a chance to ask questions and I know it’s important to you. Will you trust me that I will ask you that question so that, you know, that way they feel like, oh, okay, here’s the safety net. And that way. Now I get to solve the question.
Christopher Russo: And I assume in your answer that whatever was important to them, you also agree is appropriately to be spoken up.
Elizabeth Larrick: That’s right. Yes. Yeah. Cause we, half the battle is like, most of the time there’ll be something that we need to talk to them about. Right. Let’s say there’s a nasty email that came in, or let’s say there’s some other thing that’s in a medical record that we need to talk to them about. And that’s to say, like, we look at it.
Hey. [00:16:00] What happened? Just tell me about it. You just want to stay curious just so you get it. Because sometimes what happens is we say, Hey, look at this. And just say, Hey, it’s okay, but we don’t dive into, tell me a little bit about it. Give me some background, help me just a little bit and staying a little curious with a broad open question.
You may find a whole other side reason, or you may find either way, taking that just little side road to figure out where that foundation is can sometimes really help.
Christopher Russo: And see the way you just came across in asking those questions is, I think, a good And I think hope all you listeners will watch this.
Watch your demeanor. That’s why I think it’s important. One of your other points that you want to get to is, who does the hard cross? Because you just gave a demeanor that was very opening, trusting. I’m going to tell you all my little secrets. Can I then trust you if you’re also [00:17:00] crossing me? Now I know you won’t.
Did you just double cross me? Did you want to get all that stuff just so you can beat me up? So that’s why I do think it’s hard to play the Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde there.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and that’s exactly right. And that’s talking about like role play. One of the biggest, I think, differences in the way that I was definitely taught how to role play.
It’s definitely part of the mantra. If you take the Keenan Trial Institute witness prep classes, you do not role play. You don’t hard cross role play your client because the way we set things up and you’re a listener and you’re really diving into, you’re getting a lot more information in these prep sessions and then turning around and like you said, you’re going to erode that trust because you are never going to use the stuff you just learned to ask those questions and, you know, using somebody else, your office, or that’s one of the nicest things about zoom is, yeah.
That’s how I do it a hundred percent. Now, as I say, okay, we’re going to do a lot of work and then we’re going to practice that way you can see it all come together [00:18:00] and we’re going to use a complete stranger, because again, that helps because they’ve never met very rarely, but occasionally someone will have met the defense lawyer with at a hearing or maybe something else, but most of the time you don’t first time.
So it’s a stranger and it’s like, okay, here we go. You’re going to meet this person and answer these questions.
Christopher Russo: And I dare say the one that we did, there was also the added bonus. I feel like I’ve seen some attorneys from the South. The Southerner approach is a little softer intro approach. Whereas I hate to admit us attorneys.
I’m from Rhode Island. The Northeast is much a little harder edged right to the point. There’s no fluff intro into the question. So you get to see a little, probably very different approach than he did in reality.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And that was one of the things too, is whenever I asked someone to come in and role play, I’m like, Hey, here are the weaknesses and here’s the style that you need to put them through, because that’s what they’re going to, that’s, what’s going to mirror.
And most of [00:19:00] the time we try really to find the questions to be able to match up with what they’re going to hear. And occasionally we just come up with some good ones that like, they don’t get, but they’re still really good. We’re just like, oh, wow. You, how do you answer that question?
Christopher Russo: I know as you’re talking, I do have a memory of this one other time.
There was where again, before I met you, I was role playing with this client where this attorney had this really sarcastic way of asking questions. And I did my best acting job. Of how he would ask a question. He would just be like, you mean to tell me, you know, that type of guy. So we’re in the deposition and I felt bad because it was a nice lady and we’re like five minutes into the depo and he’s going full blown and I’m thinking, wow, I’m pretty good, I was just like him.
And I look over, she’s a bundle of tears. She was crying. [00:20:00] And that’s when I realized. You know what? As much as sometimes for these clients, you got to help them realize no matter how much we do it, nothing beats the reality. She still was feeling, I didn’t know then how to work with the guilt as much.
Whereas that poor woman, he had a way of making you hate yourself. And I felt so bad that I, although I thought I was doing a good job, I probably did not prep her enough, poor thing.
Elizabeth Larrick: We don’t know. We don’t know. It’s always about trying to learn. So let’s talk about just skipping role play altogether or sometimes putting role play in the wrong sequence of events.
What happens then?
Christopher Russo: Oh, see, I think that there’s a client I’m thinking of that I was actually thinking of skipping the role play with her, but no, it would have been devastating because I have other clients that I never had this opportunity because I didn’t really know about it years ago. And I just don’t feel like the deposition went nearly as well.
[00:21:00] Clients didn’t feel prepared. And weren’t able to really open up and tell their truths. Whereas I spent a lot of time with this client who, she had a bad car crash, but she had a lot of problems with her shoulders before. A car crash. And one of the issues was also there was many years of treatment and what worked really well with her.
So picture, the point I’m trying to make is between treatment and accident and actually a hearing on the case was probably close to four years. So what worked really well with her was taking those couch times to get her to go backwards in time. And she didn’t really grasp initially why, but it worked well because when she started to do it, she started to cry.
And I’m like, why are you crying? And she said, Because you bastard she [00:22:00] goes, you’re making me think about things that I buried. Um, and I said, I don’t want you to bury him. I said, I want you to, unfortunately, you may hate me, but I want those emotions because that’s what you’re trying to relate to them. If you cover it all up, but that’s not something you could just do in an hour session.
And so I just think that taking the time and obviously having clients who are willing to spend the time with you. I don’t know if you’ve come across that, but I have clients like, I don’t want to come in. Oh, okay. Sure case. So I think the pitfalls. And not doing it is you are never going to get the true value of your case because they’re never going to truly open up and talk about their case and what the truth is because they’re too wound up and worried about what’s going to happen, that those things are all just going to stay buried deep just like that client was honest with me.
They were buried and buried because also trying to [00:23:00] live because she had gone through. Two surgeries on both shoulders, the recovery, the therapy, and trying to raise a family and work. And that’s miserable. If that answers your question.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, no, it does. And I think the other thing is we get to see how people will actually perform because one thing they sit down with us and they talk and they say, Oh, I’m not going to tell them that.
And it’s okay. Then in your mind, you’re thinking, okay, wait, what are we really going to tell them? So I feel like the role play then really does give you a glimpse of. How are they going to do with a complete stranger? Yep. Tough questions. Yep. And what’s going to come out? And that also, once they have that experience, you’re like, Oh, whoa.
Now I know why we’re pairing, because I have no idea how to answer these questions.
Christopher Russo: And what you said earlier made me think of another client where see when I hear that’s not what I’m going to tell him. I don’t buy that because I don’t give anyone that kind of credit. You’re going to be [00:24:00] able to control your brain with this attorney who’s been doing a hell of a lot more than you.
This is probably your first time in a deposition. You’re going to remember, Oh, that’s someone I wasn’t supposed. And that’s the one you’re going to say, absolutely. And I’ve also, I’ve done this on a rare occasion, but I think it worked well for this client. The, one of the things that’s uncomfortable for me is having that conversation where you don’t really like the way you’re coming across.
And so for this particular client, in fact, I think I, you and I chatted about this, this was a confidential settlement. It was an anesthesia awareness case. where a client was undergoing surgery and actually awoke a little bit where she was experiencing and feeling but couldn’t move and couldn’t speak during the surgery.
Imagine everyone would think that’s horrifying. So I actually did a short direct with her and I recorded it and I played that for a focus group [00:25:00] and then I let her watch some of their comments. Where they were like definitely thought it was over the top. They thought that they’d got it They were appreciative of the horror of it, but when I then played her video, they just thought it was way over the top.
And that was immensely helpful for me to then bring her down from the stratospheres for a proper, meaningful, and ultimately settling mediation. So I think that process of it is also very useful and important.
Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think if you have somebody and you have the case that warrants it, and sometimes it’s a matter of you have a client, but the case expense doesn’t necessarily warrant it, then there are other ways.
And again, having that role play with another lawyer. Sometimes that’s what I tell them is listen, here’s the weakness that we’re struggling with and then I’m going to ask you to give some feedback, right? And I’m going to ask you to [00:26:00] give some hard feedback that maybe I can’t give, but because you’ve just had role play with them.
You have a fresh example and you can actually as a lawyer say, Hey, Let me give you some feedback. You did this well, but here’s what you did. And as a defense lawyer or someone that I’m, I love that answer. And let me tell you why, because it does ABC because half the battle, when we tell somebody, don’t say that, don’t do that, the brain just goes, okay.
And then it goes out the window unless this is why here’s where, like you do this one thing today, that’s like a domino effect. And here’s what it ends up happening ultimately at the end of the case. And that’s why I think having an extra personist, a stranger, and you have that fresh example, because if I give you an example where.
Oh, I had a client and they talked too much and they said all this stuff about their case and it ended up reducing their case settlement. Inevitably, [00:27:00] every single person always says, well, that’s not what I’m going to do. So that’s why having that real time, fresh example from somebody else. Okay. So you said, You took your dog for a walk for eight miles.
You have all, so this is what as a defense lawyer with my defense hat on, let me tell you what that does. And then that translates into, you don’t have any diminished value or diminished life quality of life.
Christopher Russo: Yes. And I do think it’s important, as you were saying earlier, you can’t just say, don’t say that because they’re not going to be able to take it out of their memory or put it in their memory.
Because, and I also think it’s unfair. When we do that, because again, I think that was old school. Okay. So my former partners, they were practicing in the sixties and seventies where lawyers would just, this is what you do, this is what you say. And they would listen to you. Whereas it’s, I just don’t think that’s a fair way to ask somebody to remember and be, they’re not going to properly feel prepared because they’re like, okay, you just told me not to say it, but I don’t [00:28:00] understand why.
Elizabeth Larrick: And I don’t know what else to say. So that is, then that’s my default. And the way that we practice law before is very different than the way we practice now. And that’s a result of a lot of things that are out of our control. How lawyers are viewed, how cases are viewed, how going to the courthouse is now a pain.
And it was always a pain, but Paul, it’s just a different way of practicing law. And. It’s unfortunate. And one of the common assembly blocks that I just heard from a mediator actually last week was, we’re still not getting people prepared to be present on zoom. Clients are working or they’re in their car and he’s just, they give such a terrible adjusters look at that.
And they say, they’re not serious about the file. So why would I be serious about this file? So I
Christopher Russo: don’t know. I hate to admit it. We had one, it wasn’t my client, but this man is still our firm, where a person was on, and they, so many miles, surreptitious, took a picture to send it to me. Oh my [00:29:00] god, I forgot to tell him, there he is on the Zoom smoking a cigarette.
Really? Did I have to tell you not to wear your baseball hat and smoke a cigarette during a deposition? Okay, but yeah, you’re right. That’s part of the prep that people aren’t forgetting that are, they are forgetting, I’m still trying to get people to attorneys agree to do it in person, but it’s so comfortable and lazy that they don’t want to, and it’s really hard because I actually had to fight that one about a year or so ago.
where they were trying to force my client to come to their office where, but that was, she, Zoom was made for her because she was an elderly client who they had to transport her by wheelchair in a truck. And it’s like, come on. And he actually made me file a motion to prevent it. He was not giving up. I’m like, okay, I do think that is part of it.
I still ask for him personally. I think that’s better. I don’t know yet whether or not the clients, you know, And all [00:30:00] the good feel for this. Maybe you have a comment on it. Does a zoom give them a level of Protection. It’s not as real as if in person, do they feel more intimidated in person versus zoom? I don’t know.
Elizabeth Larrick: I think it’s more, it’s that plus the formalities, right? You’re going to a foreign place. You’re going so that it’s not just, I’m sitting across, it’s also the whole formality of every, and that’s why one of the reasons why judges want all of us to come back in person, a personal hearings because they’re like, this is it.
We’re over you guys. Not showing up on time, like being super casual about this. And you guys are the lawyers. We’re going back in person hearing so that next time somebody asks and it’s no, we’re not going to make, we’ll make an exception for clients or a witness to be on zoom, but there is zero exception for a lawyer unless it’s like extreme circumstances.
Christopher Russo: Because the formality
Elizabeth Larrick: coming out of the courthouse
Christopher Russo: and lawyers are getting out of the habit of it. Let’s [00:31:00] face it. There’s courtroom etiquette that a lot of lawyers have to dust off their, the dust there to get back into the formality of it. Look, I couldn’t even speak out the word. See?
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Well, and that’s why I think like having the role player, people come into your office for the prep, or even if.
You’re going to do zoom and have them come into your office still to create like just a little bit of formality for them, but also there’s not going to be a zoom hiccup that’s going to make an extra panic for them, especially if they don’t, they’re not used to it. And I have some clients that are totally fine.
They’ve been using zoom for work for. Months and months and they, it’s not a big deal for them. I’m talking about just some people, it’s just easier for them. And like you said, the formality and come in for the preparation just to make sure. But I, hands down, I think having zoom to role play with different lawyers is just.
Christopher Russo: Yeah, it’s so
Elizabeth Larrick: easy now,
Christopher Russo: right? No, think about think about it. You and I are able to work together. [00:32:00] You’re in texas I’m in rhode island without zoom that ain’t happening.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and that’s why I was like, okay I need someone to who’s gonna Like role play with the client who is a tough nugget. And I need a, I need another tough nugget.
Who’s going to maybe have a little spin Northern spin for me. So then I called Christopher. I was like, okay, I it’s a different kind of case. It’s a business situation, but I still need somebody who’s going to come in and be a fresh face for him. Because again, him role playing with me was. He was going to face a male attorney.
So there’s, there was role playing.
Christopher Russo: Oh, let me ask you, I’m curious about that case. Obviously I enjoyed helping you. Would you say the actual deposition was easier or about the same level or harder?
Elizabeth Larrick: Something happened that was I would say unusual is a different person than it was anticipated. Took the deposition being a female.
So there was, yeah. So there was a little bit of different, like, Oh, cause that [00:33:00] then created a very different tone. Yeah. Overall, I think it went really well. I just think sometimes there’s things that are hard to prepare for when it’s going to be, it’s a six hour. Depot for personal injury. That’s really unusual to have one of those.
So to prepare somebody physically and mentally for basically a six hour interrogation is hard. And he had done a lot of prep just. Sitting in the chair, just going through all the stuff. So I think it went really well. And I think that I had done something a little different. You had done some role play with them.
And one of the things that I’m doing now more because we have zoomed up. Oh, so easy. I take old depositions from the lawyers and I take them and I cut them up so that we can practice with the actual questions, with the actual voice of the, and we just basically play a video. And they don’t listen to anybody else.
They have to answer it themselves, not listen to the other person. [00:34:00] So they had a lot of ways that we were all played, but also just kind of made like, okay, we have the actual voice. And we have really similar questions. Let’s give you the real version.
Christopher Russo: Yeah. Hey, can I share another thought? It was a random thought as you were talking.
Something else I’ve learned through our trials and errors, right? Like we all learn, it’s deposition breaks. I used to always rely on the client. And I’m thinking of this case. They had, she was a sweet lady. It was a trip and fall case. And so there were two lawyers cross examining her and she kept going.
And I’m like, she’s not asking for a break and she’s going in. She’s not asking her break. She’s going and she’s going. And all of a sudden, after about an hour and a half, going two hours into it, again, I’ll ask her for breaks. Now she’s wearing down, not answering, not answering good. Oh, she’s losing it.
She’s losing it. And. I ended up salvaging the case, but I walked away from that saying I am no longer [00:35:00] relying on my client to take a break. Every case, whether it be a half hour, 45 minutes, I want a break. I don’t care if you think I got a tiny, teeny little bladder. I don’t care what it is. I need a break.
I want to like a boxer, bring them back into the corner, throw some water at him, how you feel, take a break. I think that’s super, super important because I think the clients forget, even though I try and empower them, they forget that they can ask for a break and they don’t, they can’t appreciate that they’re losing it.
So I think that’s something that I remember. And another war story that I wanted to share with you that I so important, I didn’t know this back then the whole, the promise and the promises that you tell the client, look, for those who haven’t heard of it, you empower them that I don’t care if you wake up the morning of, if you are not ready for this deposition, let me know, I will cancel it.
And yes, and I’ve learned this cause I’m a real follower and I always used to be afraid of. Oh [00:36:00] my God, I don’t want a court order against me. And then I realized, who gives a shit? If the client deposition gets canceled four or five times, and what if a judge gives me a conditional order of default unless I dismiss it, unless I show up?
The jury’s never going to hear any of that. Because I remember years ago, I had this case and a guy was injured in construction and it was whether or not he ended up getting electrocuted and fell off the ladder. And we go to the deposition, and he was an old Italian guy, could have been my godfather, and his wife shows up, and she’s behind him, and he’s starting to answer questions, and she’s in behind him going, oh, oh, and the answers were horrible.
In fact, it was so bad that when the deposition was over, the defense attorney looked at me and said, I offered you too much money. You better get approval to accept it. So we go back to the And I am animatedly recreating the scene and saying how I wanted to kill [00:37:00] him. Somebody pointed to me, he was standing behind me and he sees me, walks out.
So partner says, get out there and talk to him. So I did, I said, I’m so sorry. You had to see me do that, but Oh my God, what happened? And he shook his head and said, my daughter told me she’s getting a divorce last night. It threw me for a loop. I wasn’t myself. And I’m like, Oh my God, why didn’t you tell me?
So when I first heard the promise, that person immediately came to my mind. I’m like, I should have known about the promise back then, but that requires them to, to be vulnerable and be willing to do that, whereas maybe there’s somebody like me, a rule follower, and so definitely afraid, but it’s our job to make them not afraid because all those little things like he didn’t know.
You know, that his daughter is telling him she’s going to get a divorce. Who’s going to throw him for a loop. And he was going to admit to killing Harry Carey and everyone else. Yeah.
Elizabeth Larrick: [00:38:00] You mentioned breaks and what the way that I explained to people about breaks, and this is all supported by research is like that room becomes encapsulated with the heavy energy of.
The deposition and you have to mentally take a break. Even if you think physically, I feel fine. I don’t need to use the restroom mentally. You have to take that mental break and you have to physically get up and get out of the room because you’ve got to start circulating blood. You’ve got to start breathing some regular, because again, when we get.
Little bit stress. We, we start breathing just a little bit less, just a little less. And so that’s why it’s okay. When I take a break, this is what we mean. You’ve got to physically get out of the room, even if you don’t just walk to my office and just stand up and take a cup and go back in. We’re not going to have pow wow.
It’s not, it’s just, you’ve got to mentally refresh that brain and keep going. Cause we [00:39:00] need you to be a hundred percent. here physically. Yeah. If you’ve got neck or back problems, you need to stand up. That’s another thing. And that’s what I tell people too, is we’re claiming that you have a back problem, like you don’t need to sit here until you were absolutely positively.
So miserable. You need to do what you would regularly because they think. Oh, it’s formal. We’re doing this. And that’s why Zoom kind of helps because then they’re like, Oh, okay. When I take a break, I’ll go into the kitchen. I’m like, that’s right. Get up, go to the kitchen, come back and, or go outside and pet the dog.
Christopher Russo: That is a great example. I’m glad you brought that up because I’ve had that happen before where a defense attorney will say, okay, can the record please reflect? We have been here for an hour and 45 minutes and the plaintiff has not gotten out of the seat once. Would you agree? What are you going to do?
Yeah, that’s true.
Elizabeth Larrick: But
Christopher Russo: then they could try and backtrack. I’ve been in pain for the last 45 minutes, but I haven’t said anything, but
Elizabeth Larrick: yeah.
Christopher Russo: It gets out of the bag.
Elizabeth Larrick: And that’s, and the thing about being prepared and being ready is there’s [00:40:00] a goal for deposition prep, hard stop. And. Everybody needs to know what the start point is and what the end point is and what our goal is.
And like, sometimes people just, Hey, we’re going to sit down and we’re going to talk for 30 minutes and, or 40 minutes. And I’m going to tell you what to expect. And then we’re good to go. But if you talk the whole time, you have no idea what’s in their brain, which is going to come all out of the deposition.
So having that, are you ready? I think you’re ready. Okay. You’re ready. Let’s do this. And it’s, and some people think it has to be, Oh, they look at the witness prep. Oh, I don’t, I can’t have all that time or I can’t do all those things. And again, I just look at having studied this for so many years and looked at all the brain science and all that kind of in the psychology, all of it is you can make so much.
Improvement in teaching and learning with people. If you just understand how the human brain works and just having a 30 minute planting some seeds, like quick zoom. And before you [00:41:00] have the heavy duty content, it’s going to do so much. Cause your brain will just keep working on the questions and all the things that you’ve planted.
And maybe they’ll go talk to somebody and be like, Oh, I can call up that person. Are you going to ask my spouse what they remember? And then it’s, that’s what I’m, that’s what I’m talking about.
Christopher Russo: And I, in one of the, obviously I’m still learning, I’m enjoying, but still learning that one of the hardest things I think for most lawyers is shutting their mouths.
It really is hard because they in, because I also look at it as practice for us, because of that powerful tool of silence. That people will fill in the air. Would you like to use that ourselves or in depositions? Is it people think, well, he’s not talking, so I got to keep talking and talking. So I use that one because we do want to hear, get our clients to talk more, but I also want to see how does this person respond to the silence?
So they’re going to be that cat get, Oh, let me fill in with all this extra stuff. Let me just keep dumping. But I do think that’s hard, hard thing for them to do.
Elizabeth Larrick: It is. And having that tie it all back together, having that role play [00:42:00] and having them experience somebody else do that to them. I’m just like, ask that question and look down and just give some silence to see.
And some of those people don’t even know they do it. And again, that’s that role play where it’s, I don’t think you even realize, but you got this thing you’re doing or you are talking when there’s silence. It’s just, so it’s, it’s just. They have to learn the rules of the game, but then practicing the level of understanding just exponentially increases.
Our learning curve goes up exponentially when we have the experience of something just beyond hearing about it. Christopher, you have been a wonderful guest. Is there anything else you want to share with the audience about witness prep or role play?
Christopher Russo: Hey! Anything else, hire Elizabeth, if you need to do
Elizabeth Larrick: it.
Or just call me. Christopher and I, we roundtable cases all the time where it’s like, Hey, I’ve got this. Maybe she’s difficult. Maybe she’s not. Or like, I remember that sweet little [00:43:00] old lady that you were like, I’m going to make a video. Let’s we watch it and see where we’re at. Yeah. I love all that stuff because then it gives us a chance to roundtable and say, Hey, Have Think about asking it this way, or you know what, Christopher, she’s fine.
She’s great for a 90 year old lady. Right. Yes. So awesome. Thank you again so much for coming on. It was a pleasure. Awesome. Thank you everybody for listening here today. If you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app. If you follow on Apple podcasts, just hit that big plus button at the top.
So we will follow and download automatically onto your phone. All right. Thank you so much until next time.
In this episode, we’re joined by Jason Erlich, an employment lawyer out in California, and we talk about a book we both read called “Influence is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen.” The author, Zoe Chance, put a lot of her research into this book about influence and the psychology of influence. As trial lawyers, this is a useful and thoughtful book on motivation and persuasion. Many of the concepts transition easily into courtroom and the running of a law practice.
Most people feel very uncomfortable trying to influence others. Zoe Chance provides examples and research that influence comes down to brain science and how we are wired as humans. Her book gives us an understanding of how our brains work and how we can apply some of her ideas, as trial lawyers, in talking to jurors, opposing counsel, mediators, or whoever else. It’s also interesting how this could be applied in your personal life.
It’s always coming from a frame of good influence. She talks a lot about her class and what she has her class do, including a couple of experiments that they do. So it’s a very fun, light read where you will also find some interesting and applicable concepts.
In this episode, you will hear:
The gator brain vs the judge brain
How to deal with a juror who disagrees with you
How to deal with a juror who is bad for you
The importance of focus groups in detecting a liar
How to deal with disagreement in focus groups
How we say things and ask people
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Episode Credits:
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Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hi there, Elizabeth here. I wanted to pop in real fast before our episode starts to introduce our guest who you’ve heard me speak with before, Jason Erlich, who is an employment lawyer out in California. If you have any questions for Jason or if you have an employment matter in [00:01:00] California, his contact will be in the show notes as it was before.
He was on in February to talk about direct exam for clients. So we’re going to use this episode to talk about a book we both read about influences your superpower. Hope you enjoy. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I’m excited to have Jason join us again from California. Hello, Jason.
Jason Erlich: Hi, Elizabeth.
Thanks for having me back.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. We wanted to bring Jason back because I want to do a book review today. So the book we’re going to review today is influence is your superpower by Zoe chance. I was turned on to this book by one of my business coaches, Ernie Svensson, Ernie, the attorney. I talked about him quite a bit, but.
He was turned on to it by a review by Robert Cialdini, who wrote Influence. And Zoe Chance has just built a little more on that concept. She teaches at the Yale School of Business. She’s got a doctorate in marketing. She’s worked at Mattel. She’s worked for Google, lots of big companies. And she’s basically [00:02:00] kind of put a lot of her research into this book.
About influence and psychology of influence. And I think it’s going to be really helpful for everybody out there listening because we’re all trial lawyers. We’ve got to deal with jurors. We’ve got clients. We’ve influence adjusters. This was a great book for me. But before I get into it, Jason, I’m going to ask you, what were your thoughts about the book?
Jason Erlich: What I found most engaging with the book was This idea that first when I read it, she was coming from a marketing perspective. And I thought I’m a little wary of marketing and that kind of world. But then as I started to dive into it, she really says, look, nobody likes to be influenced and nobody likes to feel manipulated or taken advantage of.
And so we have this sort of automatic bias against being influenced and also that. We feel very uncomfortable or most people feel very uncomfortable trying to influence others. [00:03:00] And so when I really started to then, of course, kept reading it and was intrigued by her approach and her ideas is that she’s saying, look, this is brain science.
This isn’t anything. That is new. People have been studying this type of how our brains work for the last 30 and 40 years. And once you started to quote from books that I’ve read, mostly the thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman, which was a fantastic book over 10 years ago now, I started to give her a chance and I said, okay, I think she has some interesting things to say.
And a lot of what came out of my reading of the book was. This makes sense. This is how our brains work. And this is how we can apply some of her thoughts to both work as a trial lawyer in talking to jurors, talking to opposing counsel, even talking to mediators or whoever else were coming and even our clients as well as okay.
Interesting. How this could be applied in your personal life. That’s my first.
Elizabeth Larrick: And she’s got, [00:04:00] what I always appreciate is she’s got some pretty broad concepts, but she’s got all kinds of other research that’s packed in there. And it always is coming from a frame of good influence. And she talks a little about the dark arts and like the ways that people have used in the past that have then created our weariness.
Like you said, like you immediately thought it was a marketing book and like, Wait a second. I’m not hold on here. I’m not going to be influenced by you. I love to a couple of the frames because she talks a lot about her class and what she has her class do and a couple of experiments that they do. So it’s a very fun, light read.
It’s not super heady, which I mean, respectfully thinking fast and slow can be a little bit, can be a little bit thick and a little bit heady. This is very light. And I thought she was a great teacher of a lot of concepts she had in there.
Jason Erlich: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, you’re right. She does have that example of how do you trade up so that she gives her students a project and I don’t [00:05:00] remember exactly what they start with, but they start with some trinket, and then they trade up and then ultimately somebody ends up with a car or some sort of Cadillac or something like that so yeah it’s an interesting thought experiment that she gives her students of like how can you go from a small trinket Up to a car or a large item.
Elizabeth Larrick: And I think everybody starts in the class with something like you said, like a paperclip or a pen. And then their job is to go out and then literally take that object and trade it up with somebody else. And it’s like, how do you get somebody to do that? Just perceive value exchange. And she talks about in one particular class, they had some very ambitious individuals who.
Wentz got this long line of dry cleaner to this, to painting, to ultimately getting a car, which they then donated to a woman who didn’t have a car. And so it was just like this amazing experiment, but she was like, that’s. How our brains [00:06:00] work like that. And it’s just a simple game. It was just really, she’s got some cool examples like that for sure.
Jason Erlich: Absolutely. Yes.
Elizabeth Larrick: But what I really wanted us to focus on today is she has a great conversation in the beginning of her book, talking about kind of the two sides of the brain or the gator brain and the judge brain. And Jason and I are disciples of the edge trial strategy. Was before reptile. So I was going to get your kind of feedback on her thoughts and how she approached that gator brain judge brain.
Jason Erlich: Yeah, I think what she’s trying to make it simple and she’s building on a long history of science and experiments led by behavioral economists and psychologists. And so she really simplifies it as the gator brain is the lower conscious. And it’s always monitoring our environment for threats and opportunities.
And it’s part of our brain that really is based in emotion [00:07:00] and based in quick judgments, pattern recognition, because it kept us safe. And so she uses the idea and she gives this example of a gator, literally an alligator, if you thought tossed a piece of meat. Or to the alligator that’s outside of his or her bite zone.
It just ignores it. It like doesn’t have the energy. It doesn’t care. It won’t go for the meat and that that sort of brain is evolved with us over the millennia today. And then on the other side is this sort of judge brain that is sort of the conscious and rational brain that requires concentration. We don’t want to use it because.
We have limited resources, limited mental resources. So we take our, we don’t want to use that part of our brain and that’s calculating and strategizing and interpreting and making really hard decisions. So it’s a really simple explanation that she gives that for a kind of fairly complex part of our brains.
Elizabeth Larrick: And I like the way, one of the examples that she gives too is, [00:08:00] I’m going to make up the percentages here. 90 percent of the time we’re using our gator brain. These are fast, automatic, habit, done it before, automatic decisions. And the judge is about, gets to make about 10 percent of decisions. And she talks about going to the grocery store.
Like you don’t analyze every single purchase that you, or every single thing you put in your cart, you’d be there all day doing grocery. You’re using your gator to get, Oh, Hey, that’s on sale. That’s on sale. Oh, Hey, do that. And she said, that’s what we do most of the time. And when we go to actually use our conscious brain, use our judge.
Even then it’s information that’s filtered through the gator. So it’s very, still this very kind of emotional information. And a lot of it is confirmation bias. So it’s already based on a belief that we have, and even though we’re deliberating, trying to take both sides and be very logical about it, it’s still filtered through our gator emotional brains.
Jason Erlich: Yeah, it’s absolutely fascinating because if that’s the case, if 90 percent of our [00:09:00] decisions and actions and behaviors aren’t even at the conscious level, but we are so confident that it is at the conscious level that we are rational. Our will is taking, we are making conscious rational decisions and it’s our sense of our act of will.
And we’re very confident. That’s the judge part that sort of plays in that sort of overlays and makes us believe that this is a. Intentional act that I’m making a decision about when in reality, it’s not, it’s unconscious, it’s the gator brain that’s driving your decisions.
Elizabeth Larrick: And
Jason Erlich: it’s challenging as a person, because even if I know that, I don’t have a sense that I can control that.
So it’s a fascinating process of even as you’re going through your life, that you think you’re making conscious, rational decisions, but we’re not.
Elizabeth Larrick: And I think that forming a habit, there’s all these books and not forming of habit takes 21 days, 30 days. And when I think about like, there’s no way trying to reprogram this brain to do [00:10:00] maybe a habit that you already had, and you’re trying to make a healthy habit.
And they have all kinds of tips and tricks to make it easy and stuff, but it’s truly just kind of like how many decisions. And then it goes back to who’s influencing my gator brain. And one of the things. I hear a lot about, and especially when it comes to our profession as lawyers, we have a lot of already built in emotions when it comes to what a lawyer is supposed to be and our mindsets and changing those things is difficult and hard.
And let me just give an example with witness prep. That concept of preparing a client for testimony Has come into a box and that’s what we all, Oh, that’s what we learned. We, and so changing that is a threat to people taking their time, everything else. And so introducing a new concept is definitely something where it’s like, okay, we know what we’re up against here.
And that’s half the battle is just knowing what’s in the Gator brain or space. And we were talking about getting ready or talking about this episode. What does this mean as a trial [00:11:00] lawyer? Jury selection is a great example of this because everybody walks in and they’re in full gator mode. Right? They do not want to be there.
We’re a threat. Everybody’s a threat. We’ve taken their time. We can make them stay longer. And I think there are people who just, they never get out of that. Then those are people you just don’t want on the jury. What are your thoughts on that?
Jason Erlich: Yeah, no, I think she has some really interesting ideas that apply to jury selection in the process.
Absolutely. If everyone is coming in and they don’t want to be there, they’re going to feel under threat because it’s a room full of lawyers and a judge who are there to cross examine them, make them look silly or stupid, put words in their mouth. And so absolutely that they’re on high alert to. Be it the threat, like I’m looking around this room.
I don’t know these other people. These are strangers to me. And so how do I protect myself? I stay closed in. I don’t talk to anybody. I read my book, all of the things that we see when jurors first [00:12:00] come into a room for that day of jury selection. But one thing that did jump out to me is she talks a little bit about influence as Influence is not going to change people’s minds.
You’re not going to convince somebody who already has a view to change their mind. Instead, what I found most engaging was this idea of gathering enthusiastic allies to find, empower, and motivate them will get you much further along to overcome any sort of resistance. So that really resonated with me of like, when we’re doing jury selection, It’s finding those enthusiastic allies, which is who are those people that you can talk to who will be your allies and hopefully in the end of the day be that ally in the jury room when they’re making the decision.
Elizabeth Larrick: I think that is a an extremely strong point let’s emphasize it one more time. I see so many times when lawyers go into jury selection, and they’ll ask a question and they’ll [00:13:00] get the opposite answer they want, and instead of. Absorbing or thank you or tell me more like they dig in. What if you had this back?
What if you had this thing? And it’s, Hey, you’re not going to change their mind. You’ve got, like you said, go find those enthusiastic allies.
Jason Erlich: Yeah. I don’t mean to jump on you, Elizabeth to cut you off, but because their gator brain is kicking in. The lawyer’s gator brain is kicking in, right? That person is a threat.
That person is going to turn and pour that case out. So I need to convince that person to change their mind because my case is at jeopardy. My, my win is at threat. And if this person is badger or who’s antagonistic to your case or your ideas is speaking out the unspoken, my gosh, we have to stop that person.
Let me shut them down. Let me ignore them, whatever it might be to make that threat go away.
Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. And I would suggest one alternative. And I was talking to a lawyer [00:14:00] this week. She was practicing jury selection in a focus group. And I said, you get somebody that’s got an opposite view or somebody who you think you’d be able to get, excuse off the jury.
Here’s what you would practice, right? Oh, you came in with that belief. Oh, you calm down your gator and channel that into like securing them either to get off or getting any of the other people who may agree with them. And how do you calm your gator? So you can keep going confidently around the room and jury selection, because You don’t want to get thrown off or spend all your time trying to convince this one person, then how are you influencing everybody else on the panel?
At this point, they’re going to be like, hold on a second. Is that how I’m going to be treated? If I give my opinion and what if I don’t agree with you?
Jason Erlich: That’s what that’s right.
Elizabeth Larrick: And it really
Jason Erlich: comes to the idea that we as lawyers are there to exaggerate manipulate lie perhaps on them [00:15:00] into something. And so, if we’ve already got that knowledge and that is how we are perceived.
By many, not all, but many, then how do we change that view, or at least present ourselves in a way that doesn’t cause that, and it’s not going to be the first person you talk to, it’s going to take some time, of course, but lay, laying out the facts, being a teacher, not exaggerating in the way that then, okay, this threat detection of this lawyer who’s going to try to, I know they’re up to something, is going to calm down and they’re going to be able to listen to the case and hear the evidence.
Elizabeth Larrick: Because otherwise, if you even lean just a little bit towards what they’re expecting of this greedy, Oh, confirmation bias right there. Oh, nope. Told you couldn’t be trusted. You know, it’s just like, ah, and you may not ever get back through to get them to open up and listen. So I appreciate the way she framed and talked about it and thinking about the trial [00:16:00] strategy and one of the things that I’ve learned.
I think keeps going through trial is if you had somebody who didn’t 100 percent agree with you and they end up on the panel, like, how can you keep continuing to try to, you know, when I say influence me, but you’ve got to keep talking to that person and keep talking to their. Particular brain to kind of, like you said, ease down and that way you have your allies in there who are going to come back in because again, you frame the case in a way that you know what your allies want to hear and what the evidence kind of supports in their brain.
Jason Erlich: Yeah, I think, yeah, and that’s, that is a challenge when talking about this book because that word influence almost seems like a four letter word that it’s a manipulative process. It’s a. On it’s a, and what you really throw home for me, the idea is that influence is what we do all the time. We have learned it because as babies, as small children, we needed to influence mom and dad to [00:17:00] protect us and to care for us.
Without some sort of influence, we would not have survived. We wouldn’t have made it to adulthood. So the idea that we’re influencing is like more in my idea that it’s just. I’m teaching. I’m not trying to manipulate you or I’m not trying to make you think something different or use the dark arts. It’s more, let’s teach.
And so to your question, or your example of like, how do you deal with a juror that might be bad for you and might be saying, expressing views that are, you’re concerned about, but you’re, you have to live with that person. Yeah. I think one of the best ways is to present the case facts that show that your case isn’t what they believe to be the case.
An employment law case where they have, let’s say a positive view of HR, or they think that the HR persons are there to help everyone. And when you start to then show that [00:18:00] in this case, the human resources, people didn’t help the client didn’t help the plaintiff and let that person twist in the wind and let them out to dry when they came for help, and then you start to show that.
Okay, yes, this juror has a positive view of human resources, but they can still keep that positive view. But in this case, and in this situation, HR failed the plaintiff’s employee.
Elizabeth Larrick: I think that kind of also goes back a little bit with edge reptile teaching about when people have expectations. And it’s okay if they’re good or they’re bad, but nailing to know what it is, like you said, you got to aim for it to know which way to influence them.
So to speak, I do appreciate, like you said, he’s trying to ease down off of this persuasion, right? Into more of like influence. And she talks a lot about one of the things that we, Are really bad at as humans is spotting lies. She totally debunks that [00:19:00] there’ve been thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of studies on hundreds of thousands of people that say, basically, no, we can’t do it.
Like we’re 5 percent better than random chance, which is, that’s right.
Jason Erlich: The worst part of, or not the worst incredibly challenging part is we think we’re really good at it. We are extremely confident in our assessment that somebody is a liar, yet, as you said, like, that it’s a no better than a flip of a coin.
I think she even said that even experts are only do 10 percent better than a random flip of a coin. So yeah. And if we’re really bad at spotting liars, yet we think we’re really good at it and everyone’s quite confident that they are, how do we address that in trial? I had some thoughts. I don’t know if you had some, but I was just thinking about this.
It was that. Oh, okay. If I am focus grouping my case and I’m talking to jurors and I show them clips of a witness and the testimony and they come at me and they say this person’s a [00:20:00] liar. Why? What did you see? Because going back to those snap judgments, those, she called, she even talked about this thing called thin slices, thin slices of body language, tone of voice, faces, thin slices of body language, tone of voice, faces, Thank you.
They conveyed valuable information. That’s the gator brain that then what’s if that’s true, which I think it is, then that that says this person is a liar because there’s a moment in time, a very thin slice that the body at language or tone of voice. So then, okay, how do we then either use it to our advantage to undermine credibility, see this person’s a liar or to flip it and say, no, this person can be believable and make those small changes that we need to with our witnesses.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I think for me, when I was reading that was, and I get, when we do focus groups all the time, like quite a bit, people say, we’ve got this person and they’re a total liar. And I’m like, How good is it? Because you may think it’s really obvious and other people and focus groups are just like, they don’t get it.[00:21:00]
We talk about, you have got to get it. It has got to be crystal stinking clear. It can’t be a hunch because someone’s hunch could go the opposite way. So it means like you got to have it documented and it’s confirmed and then reconfirmed. And practicing it with focus groups, I think significantly helps you gain that.
Okay. We’ve got, it’s clear enough. We’re not going on a hunch and, or the opposite where it’s just, let’s say it’s your client and the focus group hunch is like, they’re lying. Are they’re creating a scheme or whatever kind of conspiracy to do all this medical care or deceive their employer. And then it’s just kind of like, okay, if that’s the hunch, like we got to go the other way.
Again, same thing, like be sure and make sure that person with Evidence outside of just the witness to confirm it. And even when, if we have some people like that, especially when I work with clients that way, who there’s been focus groups and that’s a perception is that, Oh, they’re not [00:22:00] really truthful or they’re hiding something.
Then it’s okay. When we talk about things, you need to pair it with your, I said this, and I followed up with an email kind of conversational, but that, because that needs to be in part of the language that they’re talking about Testament.
Jason Erlich: And because there’s, If they’re no good, the jurors are no good at detecting a liar, but they are very good at believing they know who a liar is.
And it’s okay, let’s find out why, what is it that you’re seeing? And if I think I used to think about this slightly differently, and I didn’t say, I’m no good at detecting a liar. Nobody else is. So I’m just going to let it slide because they’re not going to, nobody can really say who’s a liar and who’s not.
But once I started realizing that I tested things with focus groups and I got the feedback, then that people are not truthful, it’s why. And then you in trial, if you know that information, you can push those [00:23:00] themes, push those ideas that this person can’t be trusted. And here’s why. And that can be a valuable strategy, but you wouldn’t know that until you Tried it, tested it, and found out from a focus group what they think of this person.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and a lot of this book just really confirmed for me, like, you gotta figure out how things in your case are influencing people before you get there, so that you can be prepared for what you may hear in jury selection, and then be able to use your advantage. Or dispel and debunk along the way. But without doing focus groups, you’re really just guessing, you’re guessing at how people are going to talk to you or react in jury selection.
And you could have a great day at the courthouse with a great panel. And the next day you get stuck with the terrible stinky panel. It’s just not talking like, but you would have experienced that in focus group and also the disagreement. I think. We get so entrenched as lawyers and in our [00:24:00] cases. And that’s a good thing because that’s what makes us a zealous advocate for our clients.
But that can also make you super entrenched when somebody disagrees with you, like we talked about, like, you can’t let it go. You go after it versus if you practice and focus group, like letting that being okay with moving on to that next person, that is a skill. A hundred percent believe that is a skill of just being like.
All right. Cool. I’m going to go to this next person and keep talking to them and gather their information and staying very neutral facing.
Jason Erlich: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think it’s critical. And until I started doing it myself, I didn’t understand how important it was. I think I would in the past, I would have simply just, I heard a bad response.
From somebody and I just moved on. Like, I just wanted to avoid that problem. If I don’t talk to that person, I can just move on and that the problem is solved, but realizing that [00:25:00] there’s more, you can, there’s a lot more that you can gain and just having that ability to engage that person, even when they seem very hostile, because there’s going to be an outcome that is most likely good for you, which is one they’ll expose their bias, in which case they can get off for cause.
Or you can use that person as the counterpoint, point counterpoint, you know, that I, okay, who agrees with juror number three here on this issue. Oh, let’s see who else might be antagonistic to my case. And if you’re afraid of it, like I used to be, then you would just move on and not know that juror number 12 perfectly agrees with juror number three.
And they’re just going to form a little alliance in the back room there that is going to dump your case.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, and how you handle that as well. Because again, they’re slicing you, right? Like you said, they already have that inclination about you. They already made their Gatorade. You’re threatening them.
And when you just even slightly do something that then confirms it, boom, judges decided, you know what? [00:26:00] Jason’s no good. We’re not going to trust him. This is not good. This is all fake. No matter what else happens. And it’s just, it’s always just, okay, how can we keep that cool, calm. And I always tell people focus groups and getting up in front of a group of strangers is one of the best things I’ve ever done in order just to be a better communicator, to be more understanding, because I learned I don’t always speak as clearly as I do in my mind.
And that’s. One of the things she talks about too in the more applicable, some of the chapters is how we say things, how we ask people, and she talks about one of the things that they know, as far as measuring something that is going to be how successful you will be in getting clients or anything is how easy was it.
I mean, her example was there was a traffic court in New York city that they studied that basically said they did. I can’t remember one reminder of a court date. Yeah. And just [00:27:00] one reminder, like two days before got 40 more percent people to show up versus no reminder. And it was just like, Hey, that one little reminder can significant because it made it easy.
Oh yeah. Okay. That’s the other thing too, is don’t make it hard for jurors to go along with you. Like when you complicate it, you make it difficult. When it gets difficult, they’re more likely to be like, no, I don’t think so. So we want to make it easy. That means we got to make it clear you some of the things she was talking about.
Jason Erlich: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think that was what stood out to me. She had this statement that the people tend to take the path of least resistance. People take the path of least resistance. And if the simple case and the simple story is the path of least resistance, then they will follow it. And so if we make our cases simple, uncomplicated, then the gator is leading it and it’s going along and the judge is asleep, which the judge isn’t really even, the judge thinks that he or she is in charge, but it really it’s the gator [00:28:00] that’s driving it.
So I think that simplicity part really. That did drive home for me about how to truly explain our cases in a way that will activate people’s in a way that will lead them to our side
Elizabeth Larrick: and make it pass an easy path right safety rules, a checklist, right, a visual aid that tells the whole thing so you don’t have to go in there and describe it.
That’s half the battle. I think sometimes with lawyers is we do want to complicate it and then just we just lose people. Any other closing thoughts or any other things from the book you want to talk about?
Jason Erlich: Yeah, I think she makes this a very accessible book. As she said, like, you don’t have to read it page one to the last page.
You can jump into chapters. I thought you had some really good chapters on, again, the dark arts and why the dark arts and how people have used it and to try to manipulate cults and get with Ponzi schemes and get rich quick schemes and all those things and how people have, [00:29:00] have used this gator brain in this.
So it’s a nice reminder of why you can just quickly see the wrong way to take the. This idea of her books and she, then she has a book about women and women’s challenges in dealing with influence. As she says, negotiating while female, because she talks a lot about negotiation and negotiation strategy.
So I thought that was fantastic because there are biases and gender disadvantages that you have to, and not as women have to overcome. So there’s little bits of the book that can just appeal to different people, different points.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I also thought you started out saying it too. There’s stuff that this could help in my personal life.
And one of the things she talks about is she did this, it worked with Google trying to make their campus, this giant campus to make it have healthier alternatives and have their employees be a little bit healthier. And they just talked about really simple things. Like one of them was like, They just changed like how the M& M’s were dispensed, [00:30:00] something so simple where it was like, at first they gave you a cup and they, everybody always filled their cup up.
And what she did was like, then she translated that to what would that mean for, so she said, if you do that, you know, basically that translated to a pound of fat a year. And then they changed it into these little pre packaged packages that had half of what a cuff. And then it was just like, yeah, everybody ate less.
So it’s just, it’s little things like that. She talks about where it’s just, this is not dark arts. This is about. We’re working with the brain you’ve got on positioning things. And remember, we’re trying to make it easy on ourselves and it’s little bitty things like that, where it’s okay. It’s not impossible.
I can work with this crazy gator brain in my personal life, but also, you know, knowing when we’re facing, even when we’re trying to have somebody sign up. What it is that they, what they need in the path of least resistance. And it’s, that’s why sometimes people who all they have to do is pick up a phone and somebody shows up at their house, [00:31:00] that’s really easy versus, Oh, I need you to come down to my office.
Now we have zoom as an alternative, but it’s just, it’s. So many little examples, like we’ll start popping up as you read the book, but either way, I totally would recommend the book. She also has on, she has a website. We’ll put show notes. We’ll have the link to the book and her website. And she has a lot of really great videos on YouTube as well, talking about the stuff and re explaining it.
And it’s helpful just to keep replugging through it because It’s a good reminder of, Oh, that’s right. You got to keep doing that. Awesome. Jason, thank you so much for joining us again and coming in and reviewing the book.
Jason Erlich: Thank you again, Elizabeth. It’s always a pleasure. Enjoy talking about these issues.
Elizabeth Larrick: Awesome. All right. Thank you all for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review on your favorite listening app. And until next time, thank [00:32:00] you.
