Category: Podcast

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to selecting a jury. Through the voir dire process, lawyers are able to choose a fair and impartial jury.  

In this episode, Deborah Hensley Loewe, an amazing mentor and friend, talks about why jury selection is one of her favorite parts of the trial. She also shares some tips in jury selection as well as how using focus groups is also a great way to prepare for a voir dire.

The voir dire process can be composed of a 30-60 person panel, although Deborah has experienced having 100 people on the panel. 

Every case is different. You may have to move your voir dire around and put certain questions in, that may or may not be in one of your other trials, because you have to take little issues that you want to get there before the defense gets there. But at the end of the day, you have to tailor it to your case and your person.

Another tip she mentions when it comes to preparing for a voir dire is to make it your own. It has to be something you can pull off and where your authenticity should come through, otherwise, they’re not going to buy your case.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Speaking out your voir dire vs. just reading it
• It’s okay to use your notes!
• Questions on pre-existing conditions
• Tips in styling your own voir dire
• Changing the way you talk to sound authentic
• The benefits of using focus groups to practice your voir dire
• In-person vs. virtual focus groups
• Types of questions for jury selection
• The power of practice

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. 

We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

Deborah Hensley Loewe

Attorney at Law

Hensley Law Firm

706 W. Ben White Blvd.

Bldg. B, Ste. 235

Austin, Texas 78704

(512) 476-9988

If you’d like to learn more about Deborah and her practice https://hensleylawfirm.com/deborah-hensley-loewe/

If you’d like to connect with Deborah, she can be reached at: deborahhensley@henselylawfirm.com 

Do you have a question? Suggestion for an episode? Please email me: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript

I am excited for this episode because we are going to interview my good friend, Deborah Hensley Lowe. She and I have been very good friends since I moved to Austin, and she has been an amazing mentor [00:01:00] and friend when it comes to Getting ready for trials or just anything litigation related. So I’m excited to have her on and talk to everybody a little bit about jury selection.

So hi, Deborah, and welcome to the show.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Hi, Elizabeth. Thank you for that introduction.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, I’m excited because I’ve come and watch you do jury selection. I’ve seen you do lots of in person and virtual jury selection, but before we totally jumped to that topic, I just want to pick your brain about for you.

What is the funnest part of trial? tried over 20 cases. You know, you told me in your all years of practice that kind of averages out to about one a year now given the pandemic has made everybody have a little bit of a shortage here on doing a trial last two years. But for you, what’s the funnest part?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: The funnest part really is talking to the jury. And so that would be during the board, our jury selection. And so that’s the most fun with me. I like to talk to people and you’re kind of interviewing the jury. So it’s [00:02:00] fun. So I like that part.

Elizabeth Larrick: Jury selection. Sometimes it’s a panel of 30 random people.

Sometimes it’s bigger than that, maybe 40 or 60. How do you relax and talk to that many people?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Oh, sometimes even 100. I’ve had 100 panel in a little town called Hillsboro. Really the relaxing part. So I work out a lot to release that nervous energy. And when I go into the courthouse, you’re still a little nervous, but once you start talking to the jury about, you know, what’s their passion, what’s their passion, What do they like to do?

And you get them talking with the question like that. When they talk, it relaxes me. So when they start telling about their good feelings and things they love to do, that helps me relax. And so I soak that In their feelings of peace and relaxation, when they talk about themselves, people like to tell you a little bit about themselves.

And so, especially about happy things, what makes them feel good [00:03:00] about themselves. And so that relaxes me at the beginning of the voir dire, I’m more nervous, but then when I start that intro and getting who they are and what they love to do and how they spend their time, that sets me where I’m good. I’m relaxed for the rest of the voir dire.

Elizabeth Larrick: So is there anything that you do in preparation that kind of gives you a little bit of confidence going in that people are actually going to interact with you?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Sure. So I talk to everybody and anybody who comes across with that could meet at the grocery store. I was on a plane, uh, one time on a flight and I talked to this guy about before I did focus groups, I talked to this guy about my case and he gave me a perspective that I was pretty shocked about.

And it really. Change where I went with that case. So I really try to talk to anyone, anywhere. My kids swim for years. So I talked to the parents, I talked to friends, family. My mom is in her seventies and if she don’t get it, nobody’s gonna, because she’s [00:04:00] grown up with my dad’s an attorney too. And so I try to talk to those.

Sometimes my kids, I grew up with my dad saying, Hey kids, what do y’all think about this? And so I do a lot of that. So it’s really. Little parts of your word, I are separating it out and talking to somebody about anything you think is going to be weird or odd or just try it out. I talked to myself, I sit out in my backyard and I go through my word out loud.

It’s very different reading it than speaking it. So if you just practice your board iron, you’re looking down and you’re reading all the time, that doesn’t do it. You got to train your brain to speak those words. So when I first started and I didn’t do focus groups, I did that a lot. And I would call one of my lawyer friends.

I go, Hey, can you just, you know, hang on the phone. And so I would speak out loud a lot. And I. I remember going to a party for one of my friend’s kids and I would be speaking my word. I are on the way driving to a kid’s party. I guess [00:05:00] that’s what I do.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I, I mean, the joke is, you know, you can talk to yourself as long as you don’t answer.

So are you, are you your buddy or

Deborah Hensley Lowe: no, I don’t, I don’t do role play with myself.

Elizabeth Larrick: No, I’m, I’m just teasing, but, um, no, it makes, it makes a lot of sense. So it sounds to me like you’re memorizing it. Are you, is that kind of what you’re doing?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: not, not necessarily. I do memorize. I mean, most I’ve done a lot of it so many times and I do memorize it.

But I also have notes because and I asked permission for the jury. I’ve done focus groups where I have not done it and they’ve given feedback. But if you ask permission, like, hey, I have an outline and it’s real important and I don’t want to forget anything. Is it okay if I use my notes? And you get, Oh yeah, you know, they like, you’re a human being now.

You’re not just this fancy lawyer talking down to them. So I think that gives you a little credibility, but it also gives you permission to use your notes. I don’t, I do not have my whole Verdi memorized, although some of the questions I do because I’m just, I use them every single [00:06:00] trial and every single focus group almost, but I don’t have all my Verdi memorized.

No, I use like an outline.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And as far as having a set list. If you have a, do you have a set list for different types of cases or is it more like you’ve got a couple of questions that are always going to go into your jury selection, no matter what type of case it is.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Yeah. So always preexisting condition question, because Maybe you can say I’ve had a case without pre existing conditions, but most of them have it or have the potential for the jury to think they have it.

And so either way, I like to get that question talking to the jury about what they may have had in the past and how they feel about the system, whether they should be compensated to an aggravation to a pre existing condition. And so I like to use that Not necessarily for the answers that I get, but just to talk to the jury about that before somebody else gets a chance to.

So to condition them that [00:07:00] it’s okay. And then that gets them to talk about themselves more too. And so that’s a question I always ask. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a trial where I did not ask that question because I think it’s just a good question. That’s probably the one I always use. But yeah, so every case is different.

You have to move your Vortire around and put certain questions in that may or may not be in one of your other trials, because you have to, you have to take little issues that you want to get there before the defense gets there and you get to talk first. So it’s real important to categorize whatever that issue is and the way you want it to come out and not let them do it.

when they get up. And so that may be different in every case. So I can’t just take Joe’s board. I are and do it for myself because a wouldn’t be me. So maybe not, it’s not maybe a fit, right? Each lawyer has a different style, different questions. Some of them would like, I [00:08:00] could give somebody my preexisting condition.

They could probably do that, but you really have to tailor it to your case and your person. Can you say it with a straight face? Cause if it comes out cheesy, it’s no, no good.

Elizabeth Larrick: So you just kind of backtrack on what you said. You, when you said, Joe, you can’t go to another lawyer and say, Hey, can you just give me your jury section?

Your, what are your questions? And just run those because you’re, it’s, you need to make it individualized style your own. So that doesn’t sound awkward.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Yeah. Or, or unauthentic. So that’s the worst of the jury thinks you’re full of it. They are not going with you. And so if that question is like, I can’t use those words, that sounds stupid.

Well then you better not say them. If you really feel that way, you better make it your own. And I’ve done that. I’ve gotten really good questions from other people and I’m like, I can’t use that word because I mean, I don’t talk that way. I just can’t, I can’t pull that [00:09:00] off. And so I have to change it and make it something that I can pull off and that I do sound authentic because if they see you and they don’t think you’re authentic, they’re not going to buy your case.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Is that, as far as talking about language and style, do you ever particularly Maybe take in other questions or maybe we hear all kinds of CLEs about, Hey, ask this question, whatever. Do you ever take those questions and then try to make the questions like really simple or into something that you know will have a point of view of a juror when it comes to language?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Sure. Absolutely. Attorneys share nothing. Nobody ever really creates something. the first time. Yeah, nothing original. That’s a word. Yeah. So maybe somebody did at some point create something originally. But I think no matter what trial school you go to or trial college or whatever, it came from somewhere and then everybody added to it like a big salad.

And, and so you have to like more fit into [00:10:00] what you want and what fits in your case. And yeah, you got to take from everywhere. I read some of the books and so it’s, you just got to take from everywhere and figure out, Hey, this works for my case and figure out what works for you. But yeah, you got to keep learning and you got to keep going to these CLEs and figuring out, but just because you hear it in a CLE doesn’t mean it’s true.

I saw a trial consultant talk one time. I totally disagree with everything she said, but you know, she was legit and she helped a lot of people, but for my style and how I present a case, it wasn’t good for me. So you have to know that.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I mean, I think also. From my perspective, practicing a few less years, when you go to CLEs or you pick up a new book, sometimes the tone of it is just not going to match my tone, feminine way versus masculine, or even in it’s difficult for me to say that, for example, like you have this awesome preexisting conversation that you have and [00:11:00] you use your, your injuries from Karani.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so it’s awesome because, Oh man, because you, you love, Obviously that, and you light up and, and they know, because you’re really talking about something that is true to you versus if I try to talk about that and I’m bringing in like, maybe this is something, it just not going to sound as authentic.

And I’m, I may struggle with it. Like, I’m actually going to get it out. Yeah. And then they’re going to like struggle giving me something back. So, right.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Yeah. I’ve had a lot of preexisting conditions, but my feet, you know, I taught myself how to do a front handspring. When I was a teenager in my yard, I didn’t have anybody showing me.

And then I did karate. I run. And so all of those things, I think that the one you’ve heard is get out of bed and I have to roll my ankles around and I have to find my flip flops. Because I don’t want to step on the ground without any shoes on, but you know, give me about 15 minutes and I’m fine. So that’s actually what I use.

That was one of the intros I think you’ve seen, but yeah.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Oh [00:12:00] legit. Right. And I think sometimes the other thing that, and I’ll, I’ll be honest. Pick on my husband because he corrects me pretty often and sometimes with how I say things. Well, you need to say it in a different way. And I said, actually, I really want to talk like everybody else talks.

I don’t need to talk more formal. Actually. It’s not good. You need to talk as simple as possible because then you’re going to communicate with more people. And it’s not something like you’re talking down to them or you’re not like, what’s your take on all that?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: So my take on that is my dad always used to tell me he’s an attorney and he’s in his seventies and he used to always tell me like, you don’t talk like a lawyer.

And I was like, okay. But then I, I don’t know, I was at a TTLA seminar, David Ball talked and he’s real big on just talk like a regular person. You know, you talk like a lawyer and I was like, yay, that’s awesome. I can do that. And so it gave me permission to just talk. Like I talk, you

Elizabeth Larrick: know, Some things as simple as, is [00:13:00] it a motor vehicle versus, is it a car?

It’s like,

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Yeah, right. Motor vehicle. We learn that because you’re looking at statutes and how it’s. written and stuff. That’s not what people say. Hey, I was in my motor vehicle and I had a car or a motor, another motor vehicle of a larger size and weight. Nobody talks like that. I had a car crash. The other car ran into me.

This car ran the red light. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think we’re conditioned as lawyers to try to talk it up, but really doesn’t sound that authentic when we do.

Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And I understand sometimes when we’re talking to each other. We’re immersed in our profession. So we talk the way that we are reading it versus talking to, to jurors.

So I want to kind of move and ask you about, you know, using focus groups to practice. So tell me a little bit about that.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: No, I love that. I mean, I’ve done them and you’re wonderful. And you helped me set them up. And I really appreciate all that. Before I did them with you, I’m a member [00:14:00] of. a networking group, like, um, other businesses around town.

There’s like 20 of us. And so I would use my 10 minute speech to do a real quick Vortire ish on one topic where it didn’t really matter if I was a lawyer or not. It’s just like, how do you feel? What’s your, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see this? Here’s a picture or here’s a phrase or what have you.

And so it just gives you a practice. You get up there, you stand up, you have to talk to people. You have to get answers from people and you have to learn one of the lawyers was, there’s another lawyer in my group and he played the difficult juror and you know, you practice how to handle that, right? He was kind of doing a role play with me, which was hilarious, but he really liked my answers.

He’s like in his eighties, but anyway, so that was pretty fun. And then it just helps you identify like problems because all, all lawyers kind of think alike on a certain level. And we may miss that issue that the regular, not the normal folks that [00:15:00] aren’t lawyers. are going to pick up on fast and focus groups help you do that.

Because why do you try five cases to figure it out? Why don’t you just do five focus groups, especially with some of the larger cases, because you want to know just an example. I had a case where it was an odd type of case. And we needed a visual, but I didn’t know that until we ran a focus group. And I said, well, what kind of injuries would you expect?

And they said, Oh, maybe an elbow injury. And my guy had two back surgeries. So I was like, Whoa, wait a minute. They needed a visual. And because I did the first focus group, then I was able to set up. A visual of what happened, like walking through little mannequins and models and all this. And then they got it immediately.

And so the adjuster got it immediately. And so that’s just an example of how valuable it is, because if they’re not getting it, nobody’s going to get it. And you didn’t, and I didn’t know why they weren’t getting it. I just knew they didn’t get it because they had a. 25, 000 offer. And then we settled it for [00:16:00] high six figures.

So that was the power of the focus group and getting the feedback because you want to kind of lose your first focus group, right? Or you want them to think, oh, that’s terrible. Well, what would you want to see? Oh, well, we want to see this, this, and this, and this. Okay. Well, what else would you want to see to prove something like this?

And so that was just so valuable too. That’s just one specific case. But you know, it also tells you how much do they care about your issues? Do they care a little bit? They’re like, eh, or they care like, oh, wow, we really care about that. And so you get a gauge of how serious your case is and how far you should go with it.

Or maybe if you should even take it at all. I know I’ve done a focus group with you where I wasn’t sure I was going to take the case. Until after the focus group, because it was, there was a lot of facts that could go either way. And so before you spend a lot of money investing in time, those focus groups will help you narrow that down.

Should I spend all my money and energy in this case or not? [00:17:00]

Elizabeth Larrick: And I, I think you, one of the things that makes it really efficient as well is like the ones that you are specifically talking about, we’re getting all that work done in an hour. Right. You know, I mean, you are being really, really efficient with the time that you have, being cost efficient and gathering information.

And I think. One of the things too, that we gather when we talk to focus groups, even no matter what style we’re doing, maybe we’re practicing during selection, maybe we’re just talking about neutral narrative, clarity of speech. Like I’m not understanding, like, what’s the question? You know, like, Oh, that question is completely unclear.

Right. And I had one of those really helpful to know, like, and what are you really asking me? And they’ll get to the heart of the issue much quicker.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Yeah, because I had one with you and I don’t remember the question or the subject matter, but I remember the question was a total flop and I had never done it in a jury before because it was a different kind of case and I was adding to it, but it was a big old belly flop.

[00:18:00] And so I scratched that out and that won’t be part of my board iron. But had I done that in the board iron, that would have been like this awkward silent moment that’s harder to recover from when you have this nice flow going on. So that was a big, that was a big help. So, yeah.

Elizabeth Larrick: And, and think about the difference between actual jury selection and focus group is like the focus group people will probably actually tell you, that’s a bad question.

You know, the jury selection can stare at

Deborah Hensley Lowe: you. Yeah. And this focus group just stared at me, actually. They didn’t say that’s a bad question, but I asked, do y’all understand that? And they were like, uh, so, you know, I figured it out. I did, I did get the stare. So yes, the blank stare, like

Elizabeth Larrick: I’m

Deborah Hensley Lowe: the blank stare and I’m like, okay, that’s a really bad question.

Elizabeth Larrick: And I think some of the ones like we’re talking about are virtual. So as far as in person versus virtual, you feel like getting the same feedback or there are major differences between those two different methods of doing

Deborah Hensley Lowe: them. I don’t know about in every case, but I had a [00:19:00] very serious injury case that you did two focus groups with me that we did them and one was live and the other Before COVID, I think it was right before COVID and we had 10 people, at least maybe 11, 12, and then we went through that in certain subjects and a PowerPoint.

That was really, I wanted to see how my PowerPoint would affect them. And was I conveying the information good enough in that PowerPoint? And then the next one we did virtually and. Really, the result was the same. So I think in certain cases, it doesn’t matter whether it’s virtual or in person. Now, I like to practice more.

If I’m going to a live trial, I want to get up and stand up and have to move around because I tend to just stop. Stay in one place. And so I have to really tell myself, well, move around and move your arms and don’t just stand there like a statue. And so I guess that would be the one thing that I prefer is [00:20:00] because it makes you practice standing up and going to the wall or going to this.

And so it’s more of a precursor to the real trial, like a dress rehearsal, I guess.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And, and have you seen, cause you’ve again, post pandemic now you’ve done virtual before you’ve done. Have you seen any major shifts? And people’s opinions or attitudes? Oof.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: I haven’t tried a case since the pandemic, but I’ve done a lot of focus groups.

Hmm. I’ve watched a lot of, of virtual trials and I don’t know that it really has. I think that if they think you need to win, you’re going to win. So maybe they’re a little nicer that way. I know I watched a trial with the plaintiff though, was a witness, the person that was injured and it was terrible. I felt really sorry for her.

She was not prepped adequately and it came across very Jerry Springer ish. and was terrible, but they still won [00:21:00] because the jury didn’t want to let this company off when their person was texting and driving an armored truck. And so I don’t really know, but I think, you know, I think juries are like, Hey, if you did it, that’s up to it.

And maybe even more so now.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I was going to say the, you know, having done quite a few since pandemic and quite a bit before, I would say the thing that as far as what I have seen shifting in people is one, this kind of collective experience we all had, we all lost the world that we grew. And a lot of times we’ll be talking to, you know, focus groups about a very common issue for many, people, which is a gap in treatment.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: I was, I

Elizabeth Larrick: wrote that down. Yeah. And, and. And we won’t, and this, not necessarily, I’ve had other business cases where we’ve done virtual and they will pipe up and say, don’t forget the pandemic. People didn’t, I couldn’t go in for my heart checkup or my, my dentist. And we all had to like, [00:22:00] couldn’t go see anybody.

Okay. So it’s that experience is still fresh on their minds. Like what they couldn’t do and what they couldn’t experience. And they get it because they couldn’t do any of that stuff either. That’s one thing I feel like everybody has still very fresh on their minds is that experience and you can translate that I’ve heard people do closing arguments like translating kind of that collective experience into understanding a little bit more when you have a client who maybe has lost mobility and they have isolation or they’ve lost family members and the grief and so I’ve seen people translate it but that’s definitely one of the things that I’ve seen overall is a little bit more collective experience, which gives you just a little more empathy.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Yeah, I think that’s a great point. And that’s something that before maybe not as many people had experienced that gap in treatment and why I did have like an eight month gap in one of my clients cases. And so that was a specific question I asked, Hey, does anybody knew they kind of needed to go to the [00:23:00] doctor, but they put it off.

And they waited, and then there was a ton of people, and then why? And so I think it would really come into the why, because even when doctor’s offices open, some people were afraid to go, because you’re exposed to all these people. I know I didn’t take my kids to the pediatrician, because I’m like, why would I want to take a healthy kid into a place with a lot of sick kids?

they can wait. And so I think it definitely will. People will have a more of an understanding of why somebody could wait because of fear of getting sick or whatever, whatever else it was because they couldn’t have access to medical care. But at least you’re right. It’s like a shared experience now. So if my client has a gap in treatment, These days.

I’m not as concerned about that. So absolutely. That’s a great point.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I want to ask you just a couple of questions that are always feel like they’re hanging out and everyone kind of has a different opinion on it. And one of them is preponderance of the evidence. Do you feel like you need to always ask that question or where do you land on asking [00:24:00] that question to the jury?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: I didn’t do that in one trial. It didn’t go well. I swear to God. Cause I talked about it in the closing and somebody gave me a stare, like, what are you talking about? You’re crazy. And I was like, Oh, wow. So because of my own experience and I’m going to ask it, Now, I might not ask it to everybody and I may put it in there after I figure out who my favorable jurors are, because I think I actually got rid of a guy who had a problem with the preponderance, but would have been a good juror for me.

So I shouldn’t have pressed it as hard with that particular juror because he’s an engineer and they’re all like, what do you mean preponderance of the evidence or, you know, greater weight or more likely than not, or what have you, but it. I will always put that in there now just because of my experience.

I don’t want the jury to be surprised when I start talking about that in closing. And so it’s better to, I think it’s always better for the plaintiff to say it first. And if you let [00:25:00] the defense explain that with their football, horrible analogy, well, it’s like the goal line. No, that’s a hundred percent.

It’s a terrible analogy, but I had somebody use it and he was close enough with the wording where I don’t think the court would have scolded him. Maybe the other lawyer didn’t object. I would have been like screaming up and down, but because that gets a 50 yard line, a 51 yard line, not the goal, but the way he said it.

I think it was very confusing, and so I will always have that in there in some form or fashion. Yes, that’s where I land on that because of that shocked look from a juror at the end of one of my cases. I’m not going to get that again.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. One of the other questions is talking about money.

How do you feel about talking to the juror in jury selection, right? They’re just a panel at that point. They’re not jurors yet. How do you feel about talking to them about money?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: I think it’s okay because in a death case, can they award a lot of money or are they never going to award a lot of money? Hey, this [00:26:00] is all we got.

So you got to form some kind of questions to however you’re going to say it. Definitely. In all the cases, pain and suffering, mental anguish, you got to ask them if they’ll allow an amount of money for that blank, because some people won’t. And you’ve got to know that. So that’s where I talk about money in every case is that, will you allow an amount of money?

Not how much, not asking you for how much, but will you consider an amount of money for this, you know, or that, or whatever’s in your jury slot? Because some of them won’t, some are like, nope, medical bills and loss of earnings, that’s it. Well, you got to kick those people off. Well, how many feel like Mr.

Smith and you felt that way a long way, right? Yeah. So anyway, you got to get those people out of your jury. So you have to do that. And I know I have talked about that in the, my a hundred panel one awarding money for a loss of life. Can some people do it? Can. Was it going to be like 10, 000 or can you work some real money?

So [00:27:00] that’s, I, and I’ve read some books on that and that’s always a quandary. I think that’s, you know, what you have to decide. One thing I don’t talk about in the opening after some of my training, I thought you had to give your, how much money I want in the opening and you don’t. And so I don’t because at that point, they don’t know you, they don’t know your client.

If you ask for a ton of money at the beginning, I think sometimes that skews you like, Oh, there it is. Lotto justice. And for me, I like to see how the case goes, see how the trial goes, see how the jurors are. And then I want to ask for my money because in one case, I asked for the beginning. And I didn’t ask for a lot, enough money.

And the juror told me that at the end, and I was like, Oh, I don’t ever want that to happen. But because I’d asked for it the beginning and the case went wonderful. He testified phenomenally. He still had tons of mental anguish and man, he, the jurors like you didn’t ask for enough money. Cause you know, we had to negotiate it and yeah.

So

Elizabeth Larrick: how much [00:28:00] time do you think you in a typical jury selection, what’s, how much time do you want to be able to accomplish what you need? 30 minutes,

Deborah Hensley Lowe: 45 minutes. No, I don’t know why everybody says 45 minutes. I want an hour and a half if I can possibly get it. I’ll deal with an hour, but I’m rushed. I’m rushed through some questions.

I don’t know. I’ll deal with whatever I get. But like I remember I asked the local judge, Hey, I need an hour and a half. And he looked at me like I was loco. And I was like, look, you can cut me off if I’m wasting the jurors time. Nobody’s talking. You can cut me off. Just give me the time. I need it. There’s a lot of issues to go through.

And he gave me that courtesy and he did not cut me off. And the jurors kept talking. There were still issues. I wasn’t floundering around with my notes and not asking the right questions. So I’m very like particular. I go through a subject, go through the next subject, go through the next subject. So if I was just floundering around, I probably would have cut me off.

But I think that’s the preparedness is really important.

Elizabeth Larrick: Gotcha. And that kind of, I was going to say, do you have a [00:29:00] particular sequence that you like to follow or do you feel like some things need to go in the front, some things got to go in the back? Yeah.

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Oh, definitely a sequence. I love the passion question.

I know some people use it. Some people don’t. You got to get them to start talking about themselves and then I’m going to talk to you for the rest of it. I know I’ve heard a couple lawyers share that question in some of our CLEs. What are they passionate about? Cause then they go, Oh, passion. Oh, well, I like this and I like this.

It makes them feel good. And you’re asking about them, which makes them say, Hey, this guy’s not this girl or guy or whatever, is not such a jerk. And I just going to shove a bunch of information down my throat. So that’s really helpful. Can I answer your question?

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, no, you didn’t know. Absolutely. Is there, so we kind of run through lots of different topics.

Is there anything else you would add? This. Overall, the podcast is to help folks who are in the trenches and out there. And a lot of people are going back to trial right now. And is there anything you would add or any tips or tricks or things that you [00:30:00] could tell our audience?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Sure. Have your outline, be real specific.

You can’t wing it. Just don’t. And don’t think you have to memorize it. Have your outline. Ask for permission. If you ask that jury for permission, the board are, they’re going to like you more better. And then they’re not going to criticize you for using your notes. So definitely don’t be afraid to use your notes.

I know that I’ve heard other people say, Oh, you can’t use your notes. And, but. I don’t care. Everybody uses notes, except for what a lawyers or actors on the screen or on the plays. But normal people look at their notes in a meeting. You see people running down their notes because they don’t want to forget something important.

And that’s maybe that may be some of the biggest advice. Even in the opening. I’ll use my notes sometimes. Well, most times really. And closing if I need to, I mean, I don’t feel bad about it. Maybe I’ll try one without doing that, but I like to make sure I’m not missing anything. So some people can memorize really easily.

Great. Don’t feel bad about it’s better to be organized and [00:31:00] prepared than to try to memorize it and not be that. So you got to weigh, what are you losing by memorizing it? If you are anything, if you’re great and you can memorize it, go for it. That and then just practice, even if you can’t afford a focus group or doing one of your friends or join a network, go to your kids things and start talking to people.

I think it’s really interesting. Hey, I have this case or hey, this issue came up in one of my friends cases, blame it on your friend. So they’ll be more honest if you’re trying to see if there’s any criticism about it, but just do something. So you practice. Somehow, get up and practice,

Elizabeth Larrick: but I’m going to say, I think one of the things probably is easiest to do is literally just stand and say it out loud, video yourself,

Deborah Hensley Lowe: put your little camera on a tripod and walk around and pretend you’re doing that.

I hate watching video of myself, but I’ve learned [00:32:00] so much by doing it. It’s just, you’re always like, Oh my God, because you’re yourself’s worst critic. I think. Even if you don’t have money to do focus groups or whatever, do your own or do it with your family, friends, or video yourself and watch it yourself or send it to a few of your friends.

Maybe they’re not in town.

Eliabeth Larrick: I would say one, one, one thing I would caution people on is Don’t use social media as a place to practice jury selection. You really want to have, if you’re really going to practice with live people, make it live. Even if like us getting on zoom today, everybody knows how to use zoom now, you can get somebody on zoom easily just to have, just say a couple of questions out loud, role play it that way.

Yes. The other huge tip I think that sometimes we all get so busy and forget is, you know, It is so helpful to have a second pair of eyes and jury selection. [00:33:00] Not do it alone. And I love coming to watch you do jury selection and helping and watching, but it’s like you you’re up there doing your thing.

You’re trying to follow the tech, follow the outline and follow up where you can. I, we have a great group here in Austin where if anyone’s going as far as a list of trial lawyers, if somebody wants a pair of eyes, you just say, Hey, I’m going, can you come up and just be a second set of eyes for me?

Deborah Hensley Lowe: Like, absolutely.

And I’ve done that for people and they’ve done it for me. You bring your staff or maybe an old client. Even I’ve even thought of that. I have an old client who was like, yeah, I’ll do that for you anytime. And so you need somebody to take notes because you literally don’t have time. Oh, miss Jones. What did you say?

She’s writing notes. What did you say? So I’m, I’m like pretending I’m writing notes. You don’t have time to do that. You have time to put an X or check by their name maybe. And that’s it. And like maybe a C for lawyer talk for cause. And that’s about it. And then you don’t have time to remember what [00:34:00] cause it was.

So you gotta have some, you gotta have one lawyer at least taking down the notes for cause. And then you can have, I like to have two other people who are just regular people, just non lawyers. So they can catch the non lawyer stuff. And so that’s what I have, at least three people, lawyer, one lawyer, you got to have one other lawyer, right?

And your cause strikes down. And then maybe two other people who are non lawyers, staff, friends, family, whatever, because they got to watch the body language. Because I put one guy on a jury that I would have normally taken off. He’d been a defendant. He’d been sued. But he was a pretty young 20 something.

And I had a 20 something and she was, have your client watch and take notes. She was watching him and she goes, no, he was smiling at me. And he ended up, we needed one guy on the juror to talk about property damage and speed and all this stuff. And we left him on and he was really helpful, but I would have taken him off because of the other questions, but she was watching the body language.

So it’s really important [00:35:00] to have some people that are there to watch body language. for cause. And if you’re other people will help yo feel embarrassed, but get embarrassed. I’m not gonna job in my first trial. So been there, right? So don

mentor or colleague come and help you just because you’re sort of embarrassed how that might go. We all sort of feel that way, but you know, you just got to get past that. That’s the first thing you got to get past. Other people are going to see you. Maybe you’re better than, maybe you’re worse than them.

Go watch some trials. I love to watch trials because You think, well, God, I can do that if they did that, I can do better than that. And so you’d be surprised you’re not going to be that bad if you’re worried about being that bad.

Elizabeth Larrick: And that’s why we encourage practicing. It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been a lawyer, how many trials you’ve [00:36:00] done.

I worked with Mr. Keenan and we had a whole team always watching. Every jury selection and taking notes for all, you know, to help with that. Ultimately the selection or deselection part of it. So everybody needs to have at least one other set of eyes. And the other thing that I love to do when I help somebody or watch for somebody is I like to write down.

Key phrases that I know you’re going to want to use in your closing, or that you’re going to want to ask all of your, all your witnesses, because then it really shows like you were paying attention during,

Deborah Hensley Lowe: during, that’s true. Because if you remember what they said, well, just like your number, whatever said in Fort ire, this is whatever.

So you tie it into your closing and that’s great.

Eliabeth Larrick: Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, they just, if they know that you’re listening, which is super important. So I, especially if

Deborah Hensley Lowe: they made it to your jury and they said something in voir dire, that’s a check plus leave that in without pandering, right? [00:37:00] Without pandering and making it corny.

Yeah. Don’t go to the corny thing or don’t say the cheesy thing. Right. Yeah. Don’t go to the cheesy thing.

Eliabeth Larrick: Awesome. Well, Debra, thank you so much for joining us for this episode. And hopefully what we can have you back to do some talk about some other virtual. Folks groups or other stuff. So thank you so much.

Anybody wants to get ahold of Debra, we’re going to put her email and contact information in the show notes. Otherwise, everybody, thank you so much for listening. Please rate, review the show. And also, if you think this would be helpful, share it with other travelers that you know. All right.

If you’ve conducted any kind of focus group or have been in a courtroom, you’ve probably noticed how some people are really easily swayed. And it can be frustrating to be in a focus group where it’s time to have a discussion. They’ve seen all this information, you want to get their feedback. Then everyone just tries to parrot what the person before them was talking about when you really want to get all of their individual thoughts. 

In this episode, I’m sharing the benefits of using the chat feature inside the virtual focus group as well as three super helpful ways to use this powerful tool. Whether you use Zoom or Teams or the Google Meet platform to conduct virtual focus groups, each of those has a chat feature you can use to maximize the discussion. If you haven’t been using it or you have just been using it a little bit, I am encouraging you to make that a part of your focus group planning and your presentation. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Gathering individual responses
• Being able to follow up and ask for explanations
• Using Zoom polls
• How the chat feature saves you time
• Processing the data after the meeting
• Sample questions you can put in the chat
• When to use the chat feature

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. 

We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

Episode 019: DIY Virtual Focus Groups Pt 1

https://larricklawfirm.com/019-diy-virtual-focus-groups-pt-1/

Episode 020: DIY Virtual Focus Groups Pt 2

https://larricklawfirm.com/020-diy-virtual-focus-groups-pt-2/

Thank you for tuning in! If you have a question or episode request please let me know: Elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

 

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome to another episode of Trial Lawyer Prep with me, your host, Elizabeth Larrick.

And this is a podcast designed for trial lawyers to better prepare their cases themselves, their clients, in order to connect with jurors in court. [00:01:00] the courtroom. Many episodes I have talked about virtual focus groups and had several how tos because I think virtual focus groups are a fantastic, inexpensive way for trial lawyers to learn so much more about their cases.

And we talked a little bit about why That is so important. And, uh, episode few episodes back because we can totally get buried in the sand and forget what’s behind us and get so immersed that we can get some blind spots. All right. So love virtual focus groups. If you have questions or you’re like, how do I even set that up?

We’ve got a whole episode on that as well. I will put that in the show notes where you can find that, but I want to pause and say, to talk about a powerful tool that is in your virtual focus groups. Whether you use Zoom or Teams or Google Meet platform to conduct virtual focus groups, each of those has a chat [00:02:00] feature.

If you haven’t been using it or just using it a little bit, I’m really going to encourage you to make that a part of your focus group planning and your presentation. on the face value. It’s going to allow you to get responses and preserve them. Great. But why can that be important? Well, from the outset, we know if you’ve conducted any kind of focus groups or been in a courtroom or any group of people doing anything, you can see people are really easily swayed.

One person says, I want to go to I want to go to Chili’s. Yeah, let’s just do that. You know? Okay, great. Go along to get along. And that can be really frustrating because you could be in a focus group. This happens to me in person, happens to me virtual, where it’s time to have a discussion. They’ve seen all this information.

You want to get their feedback. And so you give that big open ended question. Hi, Barbara, please tell me what is your feedback with what we just saw? What’s your takeaways? [00:03:00] And Barbara goes on and gone and on and on and she has all this great stuff. Okay, great. Then you go to the next person. Hi, Steve. Same question.

What is your feedback and takeaway from what we just saw? And Steve says, yeah, I just really agree with what Barbara said. Okay. All right. Well, let me just dig a little deeper here. What was your, any individual thoughts that you had while you’re watching it? And then Steve goes on to basically parrot exactly what Barbara said.

And, uh, that can be so frustrating because you really want to get people’s individual thoughts and If you’ve noticed this at all, it’s not just Steve, it will happen three or four other, five other people. You could have a whole half a panel basically says, yeah, what Barbara said. And okay, well, Barbara’s probably a really brilliant, amazing, intelligent person, but you want people’s individual feedback.

What stuck out to them? And you may be thinking, well, Elizabeth, maybe you asked a bad question. Totally true. That can [00:04:00] happen. But, you can always do that follow up to gently come back and ask him again. But pretty much after that, they’re off the hook. You know, you can’t keep digging in on somebody. Hey, you’re not understanding my question here.

So, it can get really frustrating. The chat can really solve these problems. Chat to the rescue is what I say, because Everyone gets the same question. You can obviously vet your question very well before you get there. Everyone must answer. One of the things that I’m doing while we’re doing. Virtual focus groups and watching the chat is I count to make sure I have everybody’s response before I move to the next question.

So it’s one question at a time, make sure I get everybody’s answer. And you can even do it where they have to send you the chat privately, so they can’t see each other’s messages. And when you do that. virtual focus groups, or even in person. You always got to give really clear instructions. Hey, I’m going to put a question in the chat.

We’re going to be [00:05:00] using the chat, answer the question at your leisure. But what the question is getting is your individual response. Now we’re going to have time for discussion. You’re welcome to change your opinion later on. We just really want to gather what you’re thinking at this moment. So now they know, okay, cause I’ve had people.

So, I’m waiting on their response. And I say, Hey, Barbara, we’re waiting on, I’ve given them plenty of time. Hey, we need to move question number two. You know, Barbara, do you need more time? And she’s like, well, I’m just reading all the responses, not what I want you to do. So I wasn’t clear. Let me let you know.

And it’s also intended to save a little bit of time. We’ll talk about that too. Super important to gather everyone’s answers individually, and hopefully you get that feedback, but another really important thing. Important feature of the chat is we can forget as moderators. We can forget to follow up or forget to ask for explanation.

So here’s another great example. You’re in discussion and maybe you ask that question. Hey, by show of hands, who [00:06:00] believes the contractor failed to build a safe deck? Okay. So you get all the hands. All right. And then you start to go through and ask. Okay. What, what about that? What about that? And somebody may give you this, Oh, Hey, well also this other thing I’m thinking about, you’re like, okay, we’ll come back to that.

You could completely lose that, right? Because you’re going on to four other people that you may then just move on to your next question instead of following up. So chat to the rescue. It can really help you put their responses in there and then you can just scroll up and down to say, Hey, all right, James, it looks like you wrote yes to the question, this, this, this.

What did you use to make that decision? Okay, then here we go. Or a lot of times what I do is I’ll ask a yes, no question in the chat. And then my second question is, what are the top two, one or two or three things that brought you to that decision? They’re going to put their stuff in there and then you can go back through and individually ask it.

So it really helps when it [00:07:00] comes to keeping your memory straight and being able to follow up. So helpful. Another really important part of having the chat is you can just run out of time. In a focus group, it happens all the time, but when in virtual focus groups, I mean, we could have tech issues that put us off our schedule.

We could be having a great discussion, which means we miss some other questions. We could be having a really bad discussion. You can’t get people off a topic to come back. We got other questions. Or it could just get off track or people don’t come back from breaks. A lot of unknowns that can happen that can bump you off your schedule and the chat is a great place to say, Hey, We have got like several more questions.

I’m going to put them in the chat to gather up your responses before we end. You can make up the questions spontaneously. You can have them already there, but it’s really helpful. So you can quickly gather those responses because sometimes at the end [00:08:00] People go on and on and on and on and on and verbal.

It just takes way too long. You’d never be able to get to all nine or eight people or six people. So that’s why I say, Hey, we’re putting it in the chat. We don’t have time to take everybody’s individual responses. So it is super helpful when you are running out of time. I just want to pause here in the episode to talk about zoom polls.

Now. Teams or Google Meet or your other platform may not have polls, or it may. I just want to talk really quickly though about Zoom polls, because they can be really useful. You can set them up ahead and you can launch the poll during the middle of the meeting. But here are some of the hang ups that I’ve run into, so I don’t use them as often.

Which is, the first one is only the host can see the results. And I know that you can get the, the poll reports Live during the actual meeting, but if you’re hosting the meeting and you’re having maybe your assistant, or maybe you’re [00:09:00] having another lawyer watch, they can’t see the results. So that kind of doesn’t help if they want to have a follow up request, or so that can be a little bit inconvenient.

It’s harder, if not impossible, to do open ended questions. You can use advanced polls in Zoom, but that requires you to host the virtual focus group in a webinar, which means you’re not going to see people’s faces. And it also requires all the participants to register before the meeting, which is a whole probably feat in and of itself.

I’ve never done an advanced poll, which just would add time to you or your staff and getting, you’re already getting our participants to sign confidentiality, give us their PayPal, have Zoom or things like that. So adding this may not be helpful. Also, you lose some spontaneity. So to me, one of the biggest features or the helpful parts about chat is saving time, gathering those.

Responses up really quickly, or [00:10:00] maybe have something spontaneous, or what I also like to do is let’s say you’ve had a great discussion, but you’re not really clear where everybody is landing. You can just re answer that questions. Hey, we’ve talked about for long, but I want to get make sure I’m abundantly clear where everybody stands, but in the question chat, please respond.

So, Zoom polls are great. I have a couple hangups with them, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use them for yes, no questions. Gather people’s experience, which is a great, hey, you or somebody in your family ever hired a contractor to repair or remodel? Right, that’s a good yes or no question. Just if you want to gather people’s experience.

quickly. They can answer those questions quickly. So just to recap again, our chat, which would be three super helpful ways to use it inside the virtual focus group. First one we talked about, which is everyone has to respond and give their [00:11:00] individual thoughts and feedback. Super important so you don’t have that sway that people can do during focus groups.

Number two, it helps you remember, right? It’s a memory holder for you to know when to go back and follow up. If you’re not able to keep or track all those notes at the time, which that’s what the chat is for, to help you scroll up and down and follow up on people’s answers. And number three, to save you time.

You may have a bunch of questions that are just yes or no, or maybe scaling questions just to gauge people where they’re at on their responses. It helps you really save time if you’re at the end and you want to gather up some things before you leave. One additional major benefit, I think, is it is so easy to process that data after the meeting.

You get a chat, it comes in a text form, but it’s so easy to copy and paste that into another document, a Word, and to analyze it. I personally like to put it in a Word document and then [00:12:00] basically, Make a little chart with their names and their responses, and that way you can see everything aligned, but also you can take those charts and then compare them if you ask them the same question in the same group.

So, for example, let’s say you give a neutral snapshot focus group where you’re just trying to understand, hey, what’s their initial impressions, you know, what else they need to know. Maybe it’s just who’s responsible here. You may ask that on the front end and then have your discussion and then ask it again on the back end to see, now what are the differences?

You always want to make sure that you’re following up at the beginning and at the end. What are the top one or two things that brought you to that decision, right? To see what points, what things are behind that, but that processing or seeing that information really helps you then interpret it, soak it in, do you really see what they said?

And then take that to another level. Go to the transcript, right? So you [00:13:00] have what they wrote down, but what were they actually saying? Sometimes you can spot somebody who’s not being a hundred percent truthful with their feedback. Maybe they’re just saying what everybody else says just to move through the focus group and get paid.

And that’s okay. That happens. But reading the chat. In live and moderating, sometimes you don’t catch that. You can catch maybe a little bit of a gut feeling, but when you really have it in black and white in front of you, you can compare, hey, this is what they wrote, this is what they said, super helpful as well.

Some of my examples of when I use the chat, we talked at first about liability questions, who here, if anyone is responsible, then follow that up with what are the top one or two things that brought you to that decision. Those are two easy ones. If you’re running out of time, this is one I like to put in the chat as well.

What questions, if any, do you still have? If any, and if none, just write none. So just gather those up. Damages questions are great [00:14:00] to put in the chat, especially because we generally, I always get that pushback, well, I don’t know how to do this, and is there a guideline? Well, just go with your blink. And then scaling questions, we talked about how strongly do you feel about this red car ran the red light on a scale of 1 to 10.

Those are super helpful. And then how come, right? That follow up. So if you’ve got a big open ended question, or a yes no, make sure you’re gathering that follow up. Or on a scale of 1 to 10, if it’s a 5, if there’s something missing for you, tell me a little bit about that 5. So those are great examples of ways to use the chat or questions, when to use the chat.

I use it a lot. So I love to do my first question of the discussion in the chat. You don’t always have to do that, but I always think it’s super helpful. You give a big presentation and you get them to put some feedback in the chat before everything. It gets let out of the bag during the discussion.

Let’s say you’ve got, you [00:15:00] need to recenter the group back on what you’re talking about. Take them back to the poll, right? Get them refocused on what we’re talking about. Or if you need to switch topics. It’s a good way to refocus their attention and change the topic and at the end, right? Gather up last minute thoughts, last minute questions, always very helpful.

And like I talked about a little bit earlier, you may have gone through the whole discussion and maybe you had a question that it’s a little uncertain where everybody is. You can just throw that back in the chat and say, Hey, we’ve talked about this, but I just really want to make sure I’m clear on where each person stands and then just have them put their answers in the chat.

I encourage you to use the chat if you are just starting out, right? Then think about, hey, this is how I’m going to end it. I’m going to ask what, if anything, you still have questions about, please put it in the chat. Boom, right? And they’ll help you get used to using it, or use it right after your presentation, [00:16:00] right?

After you give them all the information, have them put something in the chat. That way you’ll get used to using it. One of the side benefits is if other people are in the focus group with you, that are monitoring or maybe their co counsel, they’ll be able to see the chat as well. They can then say, Hey, follow up on this question, or I want to know this about that person.

That also helps if you’re having somebody else run the folks group with you. All right. Well, I hope that this episode was helpful. I encourage you to use that chat, take some load off of you and get better feedback so that it is solidified and you could analyze it better. If you enjoyed this podcast and this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast platform.

If you have a question, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via email. I will put it in the show notes. All right. Thank [00:17:00] you.

Have you ever experienced getting disconnected from your client, where after several attempts to email and call them, poof! – they’re just gone? They can’t be reached or maybe they’re there, but they just completely ghosted you out.

Failure to communicate is the number one bar complaint against lawyers. Hence, we need to do a better job of meeting people where they are, especially since things aren’t exactly the way they were before the pandemic. 

Today, we talk about how you can do a better job at staying connected with your clients. This is much a function of communication. Email is great, but it misses a personal touch aside from the fact that it can get quickly misinterpreted. Plus, you could be getting a ton of emails that it’s so easy for emails to get lost or disregarded. Phone calls are great as well. However, scheduling those things can take so much energy and time. Sure, you can offload that to your staff but that’s not a good use of their time either. 

And so, I’m sharing with you an alternative to communication, which is something you may already be using today but maybe you haven’t thought about using this for clients as well. At the end of the day, it’s all about building that connection when it’s time for them to share their stories.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Great uses of a voice message
• The power of videos
• Decreasing your client’s fear through a personal connection with your voice
• How to do a better job at sending voice messages
• Sending forms and documents
• Text message gets a higher open rate than email does

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. 

We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

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

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

Here is a quick article that walks you through how to send voice messages using iOS or Android phones.

Here are some apps you can use on your cell phone or table to send a voice message via text: Speak-n-Send

I also mentioned using Loom to record short videos (less than 5 minutes) and create an instant link to share. 

If you have a question or a request for an episode, please let me know: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript

In our previous episodes, we’ve been sharing some how-to’s when it comes to doing focus groups. But it’s also important to take a pause and think about why we are doing focus groups, to begin with.

There are various reasons we might be holding ourselves back from doing focus groups. Maybe, there’s some confusion around why we have to do it. At times, too, we could already be too deep in case preparation that we get lost and no longer see what’s coming behind us. It’s so easy to lose those points of view, and that includes the jury’s point of view. When that happens, we start discounting the weaknesses of the case and the points the opposing counsel is trying to make. 

Hopefully, this episode will help give you a new perspective around focus groups by recognizing not just the exterior barriers to doing focus groups which we have discussed previously (cost, lack of skills, lack of time, etc.), but also some internal barriers that we need to think about.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Figuring out the facts that fuel the weaknesses of the case
• Testing the emotional buttons that people are deciding the case on
• Finding the big picture
• The importance of writing out first impressions

Episode Transcript

Hello and welcome to another episode of Trial Lawyer Prep with me, Elizabeth Larrick, your host. This podcast was designed and thought up as a way to provide how to tips and tricks and other things and interviews to help trial [00:01:00] lawyers prepare better for their courtroom appearances and also to prepare their clients.

Today, we’re using this episode to step a lot of what the other episodes have been about when it comes to focus groups are really focusing on how to, I know there’ve been how to episodes about setting up focus groups, even down to logistics of the Craigslist ad, the Google form. Emailing, confidentiality, and also questions, moderating, setting up presentations.

A lot of that is very much point, click, and execute. I think it’s also really important to stop and answer a very important question, which is why are we doing this? We’ve talked another episode about what we get, but a lot of folks out there are not conducting focus groups. And for [00:02:00] whatever reason, I think there’s a lot of confusion.

it’s not really clear about why you do these. We hear again, people at CLEs or in talking about verdicts, we use focus groups to find how participants describe brain injury or what the word that they use. And that does really tell you what you get, but at times I think that we get lost and we create other barriers to.

doing focus groups, including exterior barriers of it’s costly. This case is not big enough, or I don’t have the time to do that in my schedule, like just to do the focus group. And also I don’t have the skill. I’d have to get my, assistant to take time out? Or am I apparently able to take time out to figure out how to do it?

It’s just an unknown set of skills. The learning curve is too high. I want to use this episode to talk about that internal barrier we have, which may be [00:03:00] holding us back to stepping into doing focus groups to help prepare cases. And that internal barrier was just kind of like, huh, why would I do this? I’m busy.

I know about my case. And. Most of us do know really intimately about our cases, up to the point where it’s almost like we’re buried in the sand all the way up to our necks in cases. In a specific case, we know the details, we know the facts, we’ve got deposition testimony swirling in there, our experts, their experts.

We’ve got motions piling in there as well, motions to compel. That’s all we’ve got. Maybe disputes with the opposing counsel. We’ve got motions for summary judgment. All of these things build up and we end up getting so far deep in case preparation that we’re up to our neck, which means we probably can’t see all the way around us.

And it makes it really hard because we then [00:04:00] lose other points of view, including the point of view of the jury. And we can also start to discount our case weaknesses and the opposing counsel’s points that they’re making because we’re just, we’re full of details. We have all these facts. We have all these things that, well, we got this, we got that.

One of the two main things I want to talk about why we do focus groups, and that would be the first one, is we do focus groups to hear the bad stuff. To hear the weaknesses in our case, because we can forget those, or we can just totally discount that. And the part of learning about our weaknesses is learning what facts are fueling that weakness.

What beliefs, what assumptions are people making that then fuel that weakness for them? That emphasize that, that is what [00:05:00] I’m hanging my hat on. We want to know that. We want to know our case, but we want to know the other case as well. And we may know their facts, we may know their experts, but knowing the jurors from that point of view is also really important because we can get lost and can’t see it.

If we can see it, we can analyze it, we can figure out a way around it, we can figure out, Hey, I know that this is there, this is something I need to be aware of, but also maybe I need to talk about it, right, figure out how we’re going to combat this point of view, these belief systems, assumptions, these facts that are out there.

Stepping back, focus groups are research. At the core, this is research. This is why we, I take so much painstaking time to remove my bias from presentations. [00:06:00] I work really hard with my lawyers to make sure that if we are doing a narrative, we are being neutral. We are presenting truth. Both facts from both sides and we’re making it very balanced because we want to see how it shakes out.

We want to see how it plays out. And that’s what we got to do. So remove our influence when we do these focus groups. And that again is going to get us to hear the bad stuff. One of the biggest key points about this, and I talk about it when I start my focus groups with my participants is who am I like, I’m your moderator, but where do I come from?

And what am I doing here? And am I invested in this? Because you got to remove that investment. As far as presentations and moderator, because they’re going to be influenced. They know I’m paying them to be there. I’m paying for their opinion, but am I influencing it by putting my hand on the scale? If I do [00:07:00] that, am I going to pull some jurors my way?

And maybe I don’t get the full opinions. Like they don’t want to hurt feelings, that kind of stuff. So that’s why we always take a step back and be like, okay, this is research. I need to find out those weaknesses, those bad parts. Another really big why we do focus groups, and that’s to get the big picture.

We talked about being buried in the sand. When you’re buried in the sand, you’re missing the whole picture. You’re neck deep in all the sand, the tiny little details. You’re missing the full beach, all the waves, right? The whole thing. And that’s really where we can lose focus. The emotional points, the big waves in the whole picture.

And that’s really how decisions are made when it comes to jurors, when it comes to claims adjusters, when it comes to companies looking at this and making a financial decision, there are still big emotional pulls. There have been [00:08:00] many lawyers that I’ve talked to where it’s like the person making decision about this case and settlement just doesn’t like My client doesn’t want them to have settlement is going to roll the dice.

based on credibility and personality of a witness or of a client. That’s all emotional. And we get so buried in logic that we can lose that emotional part of our cases. So that’s what we want to take a step back and see that big picture. What are these emotional buttons that people are ultimately decided in the case on?

And a lot of times people say, well, that’s just not fair. But that’s just kind of how people work. It’s not necessarily that things should always be fair. They’re not always going to be. But that emotional pull and tug is always there. And let’s make sure that we know what it is. Don’t ignore it. Maybe you think you know what it is.

Test that out, right? You think that people are gonna be so upset about this particular [00:09:00] fact? Well, let’s just see and then we can ask and see if that’s gonna help that big picture. So we run focus groups to prepare ourselves and prepare our cases better. Well, how come? Because when we do that, we’re improving value and we’re reducing the risk of losing.

So important. So how do focus groups do that? They find those weaknesses, right? They give it back. Here’s the bad parts of what I heard. And they’re just giving it back to us. They’re not saying that it’s bad or it’s good. They just tell us, this is what I see. This is how it shakes out for me. And obviously for us, it’s negative for us, but we have to, okay, there it is.

And then also finding. that big picture. Finding it, or what I would say, sometimes we just got to get back to it. We can pick up a case and then two years later, it’s worn on us, right? Again, we’re back up to our, our neck in [00:10:00] details and also just the function of the system, meaning we’ve got to get back to it.

Motion’s done. We’ve got to get preach already. And we can lose that big picture and then focus on all those details. And George just wants, what’s the big picture here, right? And we got to remind ourselves and that’s okay. We need to do that. And we got to remind ourselves that this is research. We can become blind.

to weaknesses. We got to make sure that we are covering that. And the focus group is that way to reduce the risk of losing. It could be the risk of losing trial, could be losing value. It’s a tool. And that’s why I stress so much that it really provides so many things to us on top of this. But at the end of the day, This is a little bit of our flaw is getting those blinders on.

And this is a reminder for me as well. Don’t get me wrong. I can finish a focus group and just be sitting and [00:11:00] swirling with all of the comments thinking like, Oh my gosh, this is terrible. I have a terrible case. What are we doing here? I’ve just spent all this time and effort and money and nobody likes my case.

And it’s really, it sinks, but I always just, okay, just write down first Um, and then I go back in and I look at my first impressions, write it out. First impressions. Okay. Even if it’s a bullet point list, I write out my first impressions and then I leave it. I come back to it the next day. But look at the chat, look at those paper votes and then I rewatch the video and then I step back because I need to make sure I’m getting that research, which is what we learn.

Okay. We heard all these like super negative comments, But where was that coming from? Was there an emotional?

And then you’re able to basically condense it down to a few takeaways that come back to you. Okay. Did we learn about [00:12:00] weaknesses? Did we learn about big picture? Instead of thinking, oh my gosh, I heard six negative comments and I heard 20 questions about more things that they need to hear. Ah, it’s overwhelming.

Oh no. Again, we’re thinking about those details. Just got to pull it back. I like to think of it. It’s like when we are, when you’re making roux. roux, it’s a wonderful brown liquid gold that you use a lot for different kinds of soups and stews, but it’s flavor intensive, right? So you got to stir constantly, right?

It’s just boiling, boiling, boiling, boiling, thicken, thicken, thicken. And I mean, we’re talking minutes here where you’re just stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring, and you want to get off the excess, right? You want to get it down to that brown liquid gold. And that’s what you want to do. It’s get it down to that brown liquid gold and not, not get so overwhelmed with some of the negative things that you heard and come back to that.

Why did I do this? [00:13:00] Okay. It’s research. Okay. Condense it down. And I have, again, I have to remind myself of this because sure, I get invested in focus groups and in cases and in a hundred percent, but that’s why we want to call it down and come back to our why. Occasionally. Why are we doing this? How is this helping me prepare?

So just wanted to put this all into an episode for you because, you know, I had a couple focus groups lately where this came up where it’s just like, wow, this stinks. Why are we doing this? And also hoping that people who maybe are on the cusp of thinking about doing focus groups and maybe there’s an internal barrier, hopefully that will help.

Give you a new perspective, if not give you that friendly reminder here today in this episode. So, uh, appreciate your time. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate review us on your favorite platform. If you have a question or you would like a particular topic covered in an episode, please scroll down to the show notes.

My email is in there. Please shoot me an email. I, I will respond [00:14:00] and I’ll see you next time. Thank you.

Have you ever instructed your client to say “I don’t know” when it came to facts or anything that may have been detrimental to your case? Or maybe you’ve been on the other side of that where you were taking a deposition of someone and they just kept on saying they don’t know, just like a broken record.

In this episode, let’s focus on connecting with your client as well as some of those little shortcuts that we take along the way with our clients that could end in a bad result, otherwise known as woodshedding.

Ultimately, woodshedding is disrespectful to your client’s experience and feelings. It can lead to the client losing overall trust in you, as their lawyer, and they may just start lying to you too. So it’s not a very good road to go down. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Where the term “woodshedding” comes from
• Examples of woodshedding
• Why woodshedding is bad
• How to avoid falling into this trap
• Spending time to refresh your client’s memory

[wd_hustle id=”3″ type=”embedded”/]

Episode Transcript

Hello, and welcome to another new episode of Trial Lawyer Prep with me your host, Elizabeth Larrick.

Thank you so much for joining us. We are going to be talking about wood shedding. This is a podcast designed to assist trial lawyers. [00:01:00] To connect better with their clients and juries in the courtroom. And today we are going to focus on connecting with your client, but also about some of those little shortcuts that we take along the way with our clients that can end in a bad result.

And I am talking about woodshedding. If you’re. Unsure about what wood shedding is. It’s this really old term. It’s also sometimes called horse shedding. Not really sure why that term came up, but it comes from the term Good old days where you’d take somebody out to the woodshed and inflict some punishment on them until they did what you said.

Inflict your will on them. Obviously, I don’t think most attorneys are taking their clients literally out to a woodshed, but the expression is stuck because occasionally we have this behavior. We may run out of time. We may not have the effort or the energy. And so we basically end up [00:02:00] instructing our clients on what to say and also the words to use.

So two of the best examples that I have of woodshedding are instructing a client to say, I don’t know when it comes to questions about facts or liability or something that may be detrimental to your case. We are talking about deposition and even trial. Having your clients basically give testimony that I don’t know to different kind of questions.

And you may have experienced this when you are taking a deposition of someone and basically they’re kind of like a broken record. I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t know. I don’t know. And occasionally it’ll be even paired, coupled with an objection from the opposing counsel, which then is a trigger for the client to say, I don’t know.

Very frustrating if you’re on the other side of that, but also let’s not have our clients do [00:03:00] that either. Another good example of woodshedding would be feeding your client the words or the specific answers that you want them to give. For favorable fact questions. And again, we can be talking about liability or damages.

An example that clients involved in a car wreck may not remember, right? The distance from the car in front of them or the exact location of where they are stopped at a red light. But we go ahead and instruct them, Hey, you need to go ahead and answer all the lines of, well, I was stopped where I could see the tires of the car in front of me, or I was stopped behind the white line.

And again, we’re talking about. feeding the answer, right? These are people who have told us, I don’t remember. There are definitely times where people maybe just need to, if there’s a picture, they need to look at a picture or refresh their memory. But we’re talking about really where you are feeding those answers to people.

And again, like we talked about, when does this happen? Well, when we don’t spend enough [00:04:00] time, we don’t take the time. Or, We’re just that worried about the case that we basically end up woodshedding and getting our client to say specific things. So why would this be bad? Obviously we are really bending some ethical rules here.

If we’re instructing our clients with specific answers or to say I don’t know, ultimately it can lead your client to withhold the truth about a situation. Not necessarily meaning if you’re the lawyer, you’re their leader in this legal situation, you’re Asking them to say, I don’t know, or say specific words or responses.

They were probably going to withhold the truth about other stuff too, right? You said it was okay, so they can do it. That’s not really, it’s going to help anybody in the system. It can lead to skewed results. And that’s because sometimes we can obviously see when you’re woodshedding somebody, and then the evaluation that goes back, the way the jury gets the impression, right?

You’re going to lead [00:05:00] to skewed results. It can also just lead to a full disregard of your client’s testimony altogether, right? On all points. That’s not what you want either. Ultimately, it’s really disrespectful to your client’s experience and their feelings, and it can lead to the client losing overall trust in you as their lawyer, and they may just start lying to you too.

So it’s not a very good road to go down. Overall, I think we always want our clients to have a good experience with us as their lawyer, because one, That helps everybody in the legal system. They have a better impression of plaintiff’s lawyers, but also it’s a referral source, but we really don’t want to be bending these rules of ethics just generally.

So how can we try to prevent falling into this trap? We are all very busy people and I’m not trying to say that you are not, but let’s just, first of all, let’s take some [00:06:00] time. Like, set aside some time and listen to the client. Where are there places where there are trouble in the testimony? And are there facts other places?

Are there other people, other witnesses? Are there pictures, right? Is there any way? If there are things written down, can we refresh someone’s memory, right? If it was there one year and two years later it’s gone, but is it written down, right? Go back to your intake forms, go back to those first emails that you got from them when they’re reaching out to your office because generally they put a ton of information in there, right?

So let’s learn what they have, learn their experience, what their testimony is, figure out the troubled spots. Is there a workaround, a way to refresh? Also, Embrace your client’s story, right? Every client narrative is unique and you really want to keep that intact because there could be a juror that that story resonates with.

But if we’re crafting things down to make it sound [00:07:00] identical, everybody knows. It looks like a canned answer. I can tell you from focus groups, they’re like, that’s a canned answer. Like, that’s not the truth. Jurors can spot it. They’re really good at that, right? Spotting the fake. And ultimately, you want to educate your client on how to use the truth, right?

There may be things that your client doesn’t know, will never know, but there’s probably a lot of truth in there that they need to get out. And it’s your job to help them Organize it and know when to use it and deploy it. Nobody’s memory has to be perfect, but we definitely don’t want to be stepping over the line and having them testify to something that’s not true or not to their personal knowledge or something that can’t be refreshed.

You just don’t want to fall into that bad habit. And sometimes that can happen. And you’re thinking, well, Lisbeth, how do I create time in my schedule? Again, we’ve got lots of really good tools in this podcast and [00:08:00] several episodes that can help you with that. But again, Thank you. I, I literally believe that if you spend 30 minutes in the week leading up to your client’s deposition and then you spend another 30 minutes, maybe an hour, you will gain so much more information, right?

We’ve got to pull things out. Most of the time our depositions happen a year, two years after the actual event and you got to refresh the memory and they do too. And they want to do it. So anyhow, it’s spacing it out. Spend some time refreshing it. If you’re going to sit down and get somebody ready for deposition the day before their depo, you’re not giving any time for the memory to be refreshed or for you to go back and look, right, at things that may be available in the file to help with their memory.

Ultimately, we want to avoid this behavior altogether. Embrace what you’ve got, give space and time to listen to them, and if you can, find other things in the file to help them refresh their memory. [00:09:00] But try not to fall into this trap of woodshedding. Use a couple extra meetings even if it’s a 30 minute zoom meeting to plant the seeds and getting back together with them with a couple of days in between will really significantly help refresh their memory.

You’ll have a chance to have looked at the file as well instead of trying to rush through get somebody ready in 30 minutes and the next site they’ve got to then go to deposition when you’re going to learn all kinds of things you’ve never heard before because They thought about all these things in the evening, overnight, and the chemical deposition.

They just dump all this new information. So just a very short, sweet episode here about woodshedding and like, what is it? Why is it bad? And how can we avoid this? Even if we feel like we are super pressured and we don’t have a lot of time. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. I also do some, uh, live broadcasts on my LinkedIn page.

So would [00:10:00] love to connect with you on either one of those platforms. The LinkedIn is Elizabeth J. Larrick. So for more information on tips, I’m doing a ton of stuff this year, particular on virtual focus groups, because I just feel like It’s such a great place thing that we all can be using and can learn how to do it.

And that’s really what I’ve been talking about these past few months. And you can watch all those past videos as well. So if you enjoyed this episode or this podcast, please give us a rating on your favorite platform or share this podcast with another lawyer if you think it’d be helpful. All right.

Thanks so much.

Have you ever experienced having a client who emotionally fell apart in a deposition or trial? You’ve already had a preparation plan, walked them through it, and organized everything, then all of a sudden, the plan goes out of the window. And when they’re testifying to things that you’ve never heard before, it’s certainly not a good feeling.

At times, there are clients that are challenging to prepare and there are different reasons for this. In today’s episode, how to spot some red flags before clients get into the deposition or go into trial to give testimony and how to deal with those.

As a lawyer, you need to figure out ways to do this better. Many times, we can spot some of these red flags, even before we’re going to sit down and do deposition prep or trial prep. These are things such as when clients show a lack of interest in the case or they’re providing inconsistent stories. Maybe their effort has waned over time, or they just don’t follow directions, or they’re simply refusing to answer any questions. And even sometimes, too, there are people who just refuse to even show up for preparation.

Therefore, you need to dig a little deeper to understand and reveal some of the reasons these people are having these kinds of behavior. As lawyers, we want to make sure we have clients that are going to not only put effort into the case but also effort into themselves.

In this episode, you will hear:

Moving from Plan A to Plan B  Step 1: Educating Step 2: Testing Step 3: Deciding The importance of spotting red flags early on Getting somebody else to roleplay with your client Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet.

We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

Have a question? What topic do you want us to cover in an episode? Email me: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com.

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript

Welcome to a new episode of Trial Lawyer Prep. I’m Elizabeth Larrick, your host, and we’ve designed this podcast to craft how to and tips to help you connect with your clients and jurors.

And today’s episode, we are going to [00:01:00] tackle what I would call a difficult subject, facing clients that are challenging to prepare and really trying to help Understand and spot some red flags before our clients get into the deposition or go into trial to give testimony. I think we’ve all had the experience of having a client who fell apart in a deposition or trial.

And when I say fell apart, it could be somebody who basically just falls apart emotionally or just falls apart in the sense of, Hey, we had a preparation plan. We walked through this, we organized everything. And then all of a sudden the plan goes out the window and they’re Testifying to things that you have never heard before.

It is not a good feeling. And as always, you know, lawyers, we always try to figure out ways. How do we do this better? What did I do wrong? And so this is an episode really dedicated to, how do we spot some of these red flags in our preparation? And. Many times we can [00:02:00] spot some of these red flags even before we’re going to sit down and do deposition prep or trial prep.

And red flags are things like the client has a lack of interest in the case or they’re providing inconsistent stories. Maybe their effort has waned over time. Maybe they just don’t follow directions. Could be possibly they’re just refusing to answer any questions. And sometimes we have people who just refuse to even show up for preparation.

And we want to be able to dig a little deeper to understand and reveal some of the reasons why these folks are having this behavior. And sometimes it’s that there is just a lack of trust. Sometimes there’s just a lack of understanding about what’s going on. Sometimes they just have a desire to settle, but they just couldn’t tell you.

And sometimes it just is a case that just needs to be settled. And so my story about this is I actually went to assist an attorney for trial. They had a client that was [00:03:00] getting ready to go testify. There weren’t a lot of witnesses in the trial, so this particular client’s testimony was going to be really important about not only just how the injury happened, how the event happened, but also, you know, the extent of the injuries and the harms.

The event had happened Five, even six years ago. So a lot of time had passed. And again, this is post pandemic. So, you know, we’re all facing this extra delay that we didn’t ask for, but that’s something here and there. So we start to prepare and I see some of these red flags popping up. And I, as always try to have a plan a and a plan B and.

You know, work through my planning, trying to understand a little more about what’s happening with the client, what’s been going on, what maybe they’ve been facing challenges in their personal life. And that really didn’t seem to strike [00:04:00] any differences. So I tried plan B and we got a little more direct about.

Some of the answers, inconsistent answers, they were giving me some of the, a lot of what I would call maybe attitude, maybe, you know, big red flags as far as lack of trust and inconsistent stories. When I tried to have a very direct approach about certain things and had medical records to show, Hey, here’s what happened.

Do you mind just explain it to me again, always being open to a different explanation. And ultimately. The situation or the preparation just ended because he absolutely did not want to move forward. He actually had an outburst. I’ve never had this happen. I mean, it just got to the point where he basically had an outburst and came after me and said that basically all these things were my fault.

And I was very accusatory, which at the time was just like, okay, we need to leave the [00:05:00] room. You know, we need to, you know, remove this energy from the room. And also we’re, can’t really, I don’t really have anything else to say at this point. You’re very upset. And when people are that upset about something, let’s just diffuse the situation, remove ourselves from the room, whatever I can do.

You know, never intended to make somebody so upset the way that he was, but add that experience really made me sit back and understand, okay, this is not me. I understand that he’s directing his anger at me, but what is it that’s really going on? And ultimately in working with the lawyer who knew this person much, much longer than I did like to say, Hey, you actually have to make a decision here.

This is the person that you’re going to put on the sand. They’re probably not going to cooperate very much with answering questions, and we’re not really sure what answers he’s going to give. So you need to decide what do you think the jury is going to do with testimony like this? And is this something you want to move forward with?

Or is it [00:06:00] something that you’ve thought about? Maybe you should settle. I can’t make that decision for you. I’m just looking at the couple of days or a couple of hours we just spent with this person. And my job is to try to help understand, Hey, what’s really going on here. This isn’t personal. This is something else that’s going on.

And you have to make a decision about trial. I mean, it’s a tactical decision. You have talked to the client about it. We tried to talk in two different fashions, plan a and plan B and neither one of them worked. But having that experience really made me sit down and think, okay, we may not experience this level of someone having an outburst status and that kind of, you may not experience that, but there were definitely little bitty cues along the way that kind of made my spidey sense go up.

I wonder How long this behavior has been going on. And sometimes this behavior happens very early. And as lawyers, especially in the line of work [00:07:00] that we do, we want to make sure that we have clients that are going to put effort into the case, but also effort into themselves that are going to go to doctor’s appointments and they want to get better.

And, you know, they’re not just going to skip appointments and not return phone calls. And a lot of that time, we can see that very early on and make the decision about moving forward with the case. However, at times, that behavior may not crop up until later. And again, we’re all facing this dilemma of having cases that are going much longer than ever anticipated because of the backlog of courts.

However, let’s So let’s talk about some of these red flags that you may be seeing. Let’s talk about how to dig a little deeper, not just automatically putting somebody in a box and labeling them. I know some folks are challenging to prepare on lots of different levels. But. This particular episode is really looking at people who maybe [00:08:00] have a lack of trust.

They’ve got a lack of confidence in their case. They’re very worried about being rejected by the court. jury, folks that are just upset about not being more involved and people who just have a general lack of education and just fearful. And then there are folks that just like, they don’t want to go to trial.

I mean, there are lots of people in this world that just don’t want to go to trial. It’s, it is a terrifying experience or thought that they would be up sitting on the stand and having Basically 12 people judge them, not what they want to do, spend their time and that’s okay. I think people have a hard time expressing that and that’s where we want to dig a little deeper and have that plan A and plan B and give people that opportunity and that safe place to express themselves without feeling like they’re being cornered into going to trial.

I know we as lawyers get really excited about going and sometimes when we get excited and we’ve got a really great liability [00:09:00] case, sometimes we kind of get lost. lose the clients in the shuffle. And so for this particular instance I would say when you’re trying to spot a red flag, you’re looking at clients who, and again, we’re talking about at this point, you’re preparing for deposition and you’re sitting down with them to start talking to them about what’s going to happen, what they can expect, start maybe asking some questions and getting feedback on where they’re at now, start to organize some of their thoughts and expressions.

And what you may find is that you have a client who keeps repeating the same phrase or the same things to questions. A good example of that is, tell me how your, how’s your injury doing? Maybe it’s your back or your foot or it’s just, it’s a pain. All right. Well, help me understand that. Tell me, you know, how does that translate into regular day?

Can [00:10:00] you put a shoe on? Can you walk on it? Do you have to put it up? And it’s that you’re just digging in and you may just get, A client that just repeats the same phrase over and over again. And what I found is we’ll talk about a plan A and a plan B. Right now we’re talking about how to spot it. What are some things that like, Oh, your spotty sense should be going up?

Well, I’m on a client that repeats that same phrase over and over again. When you’re asking a question, they have a failure to follow directions. Sometimes. It can be something simple, like not showing up on time. Sometimes there’s traffic. Don’t get me wrong, but think about this when all these things accumulate.

And this is what happened to me in my situation where she’s like, Oh, look at all these little things that. If I had looked at them individually, I’d say, Oh, you’re just being overly critical, but lining them all out, like, Oh, we should have seen this a little earlier, which is okay. [00:11:00] We always want to give people the benefit of the doubt.

You have a client that is just going to blame the doctor. Or blame the hospital, or blame lawyers, or blame their spouse for not getting better, for not being able to do something different. Or you have a client who treats people in your office differently than they treat you. For example, when I went in to assist this other lawyer to prepare a client for trial, I had very different treatment compared to the lawyer.

And that automatically got my Spidey sense up and just looking and watching that dynamic and being like, okay, well, I’m going to put a little pin in that. And maybe this is normal. Maybe it’s not. We’ll revisit it later. What about our clients that sometimes just refuse to respond to questions? People that just really shut down and they just don’t want to talk.

Clients that can’t give really any facts or even possibly refuse to give facts when it’s on either liability or damages. Clients who like to [00:12:00] blame things on life or excuses for not giving attention to preparing or for doing their homework. Clients who really can’t answer questions about do they want to settle or do they not want to settle.

Obviously, we’re talking about somebody who’s really closed off and they could have just a lack of interest in the case. It kind of comes down to, they have a lack of interest, like maybe they’re just over it, they’re done, they’re not expressing to you they want to settle, they don’t really have a desire to move forward, like they’re done, lack of trust in the lawyer, right, they just don’t, ultimately don’t trust the lawyer, it may not be anything personal, it may just be something that happened later, or just lawyers in general, and like we talked about earlier, a complete lack of confidence in the case.

So all these little things all add up to different kind of red flags and sometimes it’s just a, like I said, a lack of education. Well, that’s easy. You know, you just help them and educate them. Maybe sometimes that solves the problem and the light turns on. Sometimes [00:13:00] it’s a little more. So what I like to do is have a plan A, which plan A is just what we would normally do with deposition preparation or trial preparation, right?

Just start asking questions, talk about what they can expect. And it’s when some of these red flags start to add up that then I have, Oh, okay, we might need to move into plan B, which is like a much more direct question, but most of them, I always just want to, when I have an accumulation of those red flags, I just.

Just take step and except to ask a little extra questions, right? General, open ended questions. They can take it wherever they want to take it. And if I want to be more direct, right? There’s plan B just be more direct about it. And when I say being direct, that just means ask a much more pointed question about it.

Meaning for example, the client who likes to repeat the same thing over and over again about like their damages, well I’m just in pain. Okay. Can you just [00:14:00] describe it for me? Well, I just told you, I’m in pain. Okay. Well, let’s take it on a scale of one to 10, right? How would you, if we’re sitting here right now, one to 10.

And so you give them a couple of extra chances to describe it for you. Sometimes it doesn’t work. So then we take our backup, which is education. Maybe they just have a lack of education. Why would I be asking you these questions about your back and being in pain? Well, the jury actually has to answer questions about pain.

There’s really a question here that says physical pain. And so that information for that blank actually comes directly from you. Yes, there’s mention in the medical records. However, we’re going to ask you questions on the stand about that particularly. Or in your deposition, it’s the same thing. Your testimony needs to help answer these questions.

Sometimes that helps. Like, oh, okay, you’re not just digging in on me. You’re just trying to, yeah, okay, here we go. Education, great. Now we’re on our way. If it doesn’t help, Doesn’t look like education, right? You’ve got somebody with just lack of [00:15:00] trust or lack of interest. Generally, I moved to step number two, which is testing it.

And that is where we do our role play and where I’ll, I play the defense and we ask some questions just to see, okay, we’ve tried to address it in soft way, in a direct way. And then now we’re going to look and see if we can test it. See, okay. Maybe if we test it, we role play it, make it a little bit more serious.

Maybe the, if he, he or she understands the actual questions that they’re going to get, maybe that will help the light come on. Like, Oh, okay. What we’re doing here is to help you, or just trying to get you prepared. And then you basically go to step number three, is after you finished role playing, then you got to decide, okay, well, is this, workable to a jury or is it not workable?

And you know that, you know, you’ve been around jurors enough and if you haven’t, then you’ve been around enough focus groups. Then if you haven’t, let’s run some focus groups. [00:16:00] And sometimes that’s what you have to do is just take a step back. You need to get a little extra time before trial, before deposition and run some focus groups, run some of these answers, take a zoom video.

of your client answering very basic questions and see what they say. I think in most cases jurors have a hard time understanding somebody else’s physical ailments if they have a real limited answer in pain. I can’t do things. It doesn’t help anyone. I can’t get a visual on that. I don’t know. That’s really indescript for me.

So I always just try to think of, well, juror has to decide and put something in a blank. They may not put anything in a blank, but again, that’s that step three of deciding and you can make a decision. You can get extra time, go to a focus group. You can ask other lawyers. We’ve had it. But the hope is that if [00:17:00] you’re able to spot the red flags early enough, you can have the discussion.

early with the client and not necessarily right on the doorstep of trial or right on the doorstep of deposition. And if you can fix it, like I said, lack of education. Some people are just fearful. Some people have a lack of trust. You may or may not be able to ever get over that. And it’s like with most things in life, it’s not normally personal.

Sometimes there’s something that was there long before you had this person as a client, you’ve done your best, but sometimes it’s just. And that’s something you can’t overcome. Sometimes it’s just a lack of involvement. They want to be more involved, but they’re not really sure how. And again, that’s an education piece as well.

And then also that kind of lack of confidence in the case. And sometimes that is just again, educating them on their case. And if they’re that fearful, it’s just this lack of, this fear 12 people deciding the case. [00:18:00] And, um, Ultimately, these red flags are to help you maybe before you get to deposition, before you’ve got somebody who you’re about, maybe you’re about to file and you’re looking at these things.

And it’s okay to ask clients ahead of time before we start filing it, before you take on the case, you know, let’s just set expectations and talk about these things. And a lot of times, like I said, it just happens over time and it’s not anything that you could have seen happen. It becomes very apparent when you sit down in front of them and start talking to them.

And that’s why I wanted to share my experience with you guys to say, Hey, there are ways to spot the red flags and role playing can’t stress that enough. Getting somebody else to role play with your client will significantly help you be able to see this because we get so deep in our cases that we don’t even see it.

We don’t even, doesn’t even, [00:19:00] Oh, there it is. It takes sometimes another person coming in and doing the role play and you just watching and listening and saying, Whoa, hold on. Wow. We have a problem here. And with the lawyer that asked me to come help, the reason for this whole episode, he knew there was a struggle to express himself.

He knew that there was a trouble there. He just didn’t believe or didn’t know. Like, where that actually was stemming from, and we learned in talking with them and sitting with them and seeing all these things and like adding all these things up, like, okay, this person just does not want to go to trial.

Like they don’t like they’re, they absolutely possibly don’t. Please don’t make them go. And if you do, please test it before you go so you can make sure and understand. What’s going to happen. All right. So just a really quick recap. We all have challenging [00:20:00] clients at times to prepare. There’s lots of different reasons why people may be challenged to set aside time to prepare for deposition.

This particular episode is about clients that. have lost interest in the case. They’ve lost basically lots of inconsistent stories, lost lack of just effort all overall. Not necessarily like fearful of it, but just won’t give you any information and shut down. A lot of the red flags are rushing down. How do we, if you see a couple of the red flags, how do we deal with it?

Well, let’s just dig a little deeper, right? Plan A, Have a soft approach, ask questions, if that doesn’t work, plan B, follow up with more direct questions. Next step, test it. Use another lawyer to come in and role play with the client, actual questions they’re going to face. And then ultimately three, you have to decide.

And you, in that decision making, you know, gather, phone a friend, [00:21:00] talk to other lawyers, and worst case scenario, use a focus group and use some Zoom footage of your client to see how is a jury going to react to this. All right. I hope that this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or follow up, please don’t hesitate to email me.

My email is elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com. If you found it helpful, please leave me a review or do the five star thing on your favorite podcast app. And until next time. Thank you.

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

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

Episode Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, John Griffith who has a personal injury practice joins us from Tennessee. John talks to us about the five trials he has had since the pandemic started. Find out why he thinks trial lawyers have now become better than they were pre-pandemic and some of the notable differences he had seen in trials. 

John specifically touches on some of the work he did during the shutdown in March of 2020, and how he used his time to improve not only his practice but also the other lawyers who were practicing with him as well. Not to mention, he was juggling being president of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association from 2020 to 2021. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Procedural changes being judge-preference driven
• How the safety protocols look like post-pandemic
• The power of visuals in your trials
• The 13 books John requires his lawyers to read
• The challenge to keep the jury engaged
• The impact of focus groups on John’s practice
• How COVID has redirected people’s focus on the value of relationships

Here is the list of 13 books John mentioned in the episode:

1. 30 B 6 – Mark Kosieradski
2. Voir Dire and Opening – by Nicholas Rowley
3. Damages – David Ball
4. Reptile  – Keenan/Ball
5. Rules of the Road – Rick Friedman
6. Polarizing the Case – Rick Friedman
7. The Fearless Cross Examiner – Patrick Malone
8. Don’t Eat The Bruises – Keith Mitnik
9. Premises Liability – Michael Neff
10. Moe Levine on Advocacy 
11. Luvera on Advocacy
12. The Domino Theory – Ed Capozzi
13. The Way of the Trial Lawyer – Rick Friedman

Episode Transcript

In this episode, we have a special guest, John Griffith, who is joining us from Tennessee.

John has a personal injury practice, and he is going to talk to us about several trials he has had since the pandemic started, actually five [00:01:00] trials, and some of the differences in things that he has seen. He’s also going to touch on some of the Some of the work that he did during the shutdown in March of 2020, and how he used his time to improve not only his practice, but the other lawyers practicing with him.

Not to mention he was juggling being president of the Tennessee Trial Lawyer Association from 2020 into 2021. This interview is a treat and so I’m excited to have John join the podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of Trial Lawyer Prep. With your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and today we are gonna connect in with a trial lawyer, John Griffith, who is from Tennessee, and I’m excited to have him join us because he has had several trials since the pandemic started.

I will say Tennessee has really gotten themselves back on track. Much faster than many other states. So I’m excited to have [00:02:00] him here today to talk about what it has been like, what are those trials have been like, and so we’re going to delve into that. So John, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much.

I’m honored that you would ask little old me from Tennessee to be on your podcast. Come on now, you’ve got fantastic trial experience. John has an amazing way of working with clients and connecting with them. So I was super excited to have you come share your experience with us. So tell us how many trials have you had since March of 2020?

I’ve had five jury trials since March. I had four last summer. I had one last week and they’ve been, everyone’s been a little bit different the way they’ve, as far as procedurally, how they’ve gone. And I, I have no idea what Texas is like right now, but I can tell you, Tennessee, there doesn’t seem to be a streamlined individual [00:03:00] process.

For the most part it is, but it’s very judge driven. Judge preference driven is what we’ve had. Yeah. And I think that’s definitely what we have here. And that’s, I feel like is pretty well across the U S it’s very much up to each judge. So have you generally had the same judge or a different judge? Tell us a little bit about some of those procedural changes.

Nashville is in Davidson County and most of the Davidson County judges. Last week, for example, I had a trial before Judge Brothers last year. I had a trial set before him and just to let you know how much he’s changed. He would not allow jurors last year into his courtroom who had not been vaccinated.

Wow. And he made a statement. He said, well, just let you know, I’m not, this was last August. He said, I’m not going to allow jurors in here that have not been vaccinated. And I was [00:04:00] thinking very quickly, I’m like, this was at the pretrial conference the week before trial. I’m thinking that’s a problem. That’s a big problem.

He said, unless one of you objects, he said, then you can just have another judge and he’s a more conservative judge and I was getting ready to object and the defense lawyer thankfully did it for me and we got transferred to a very more plaintiff neutral judge or plaintiff friendly judge, I should say.

I don’t want to show favoritism. No names are, no names are necessary here. No, no names. So tell me what was that thought that was in your brain that was like, uh, oh, this is a problem. Well, you know, Tennessee and Texas are kind of sister states. We’re kind of very conservative branded states. And the initial thought was, I know, you know, the mask to me [00:05:00] is the liberals MAGA hat.

You know, , A lot of people I’ve heard that said, and I don’t know that to be true, and I’m not trying to make a political statement here, but unfortunately it’s become political. That’s just a reality that we face. And in Tennessee it’s very strong here, very conservative, and so. I was thinking that if those jurors are excluded, the ones who are wearing masks, I just thought it would change the jury pools.

So and anyway, I didn’t know how that would play out. But anyway, we went to a different courtroom. That was not an issue. And at that time last year, procedurally, there was plexiglass between the jurors. We all had to wear masks. I detest wearing a mask when I’m talking to the jury. I cannot stand it.

Witnesses had to wear masks and, you know, he had trouble speaking, hearing them, understanding them speak [00:06:00] up. And finally, midway through the trial, the judge got so flustered. He said, you know, witnesses, you can take off your mask this year. The same judge last year would only allow jurors to be jurors if they had been vaccinated and boosted this year.

Just last week, it was as if covid has never been here. There was no mask requirements at all. It wasn’t really even discussed and the jurors sat right beside each other. And no one judge told the jurors and jury selection said, I want you to remove your mask during jury selection. If you’re selected as jury, you can put it back on.

So I’m like, ooh, somebody’s not gonna like that. These people are not. So anyway, I feel like I’m going around the circle, but it’s everybody’s been different. And it’s relaxed greatly over the last year, with the exception of a couple of judges in Davison County, it’s as if there is no, the covid is [00:07:00] not, doesn’t exist.

Yeah. Yeah. And so the, as far as the plexiglass and that all that, has that come down or is that still up? In some courtrooms it has, and others it remains. There is no general standard. It’s got spirits, but it’s more so now away from the place to get glass. It’s taken down. There’s less mask wearing. I don’t see hardly anyone wearing masks in the courtroom other than the jurors.

And there’s a couple of judges, older judges who have some probable valid health concerns still are. But for the most part, it’s, it’s gotten back slowly, but now pretty much business as usual from my standpoint. Gotcha. Okay. So in thinking of the earlier trials that you had last year, did you prepare any differently knowing these would be jurors that had gone through a pandemic?

Well, one thing I did differently is I got in touch with the most amazing witness coach that I’ve ever had in my life, Danny Ellis [00:08:00] pandering will get you everywhere. Okay. Danny Ellis introduced me and said, you need to call as the play. I called her and the Brandy Miller trial or first trial that I had post pandemic.

And I was nervous. I can understand why some of your listeners would be nervous. I was rusty. I mean, it had been a year and a half since I’d tried a case and Man, I was a little bit more inward focused to be honest with you. I’m like, gosh, John, are you gonna remember, do you remember how to do this thing?

And not to pander, but you really took a load off of me and you did a great job with Brandy and her significant other. I probably shouldn’t name names, but we had a good result in that trial and everybody was really Happy and I was ecstatic with you and you were fantastic, and I’ve, I need to get you back on some more.

I’ve emulated some of the stuff. I, I, I would sit there like a sponge and watch you what you did with her, and I’m like, ah, okay. I, I’m gonna have to [00:09:00] do this on some of my. Not so large cases, but it was, it was worth every bit and I was thankful for that. Well, I appreciate that. And it was great working with you.

And, and I remember talking to you because you know, anytime I go into to talk with people or helping with trial, it’s like, okay, well, what’s the order of witnesses and what’s, you know, what’s going on. And then also we had to have a conversation about like, Is there plexiglass? Like, how are we going to help your client manage this whole big giving testimony, but also this like, Oh, by the way, you may not be able to see anyone because of all the glare on a plexiglass.

So it was definitely a new place. But then I think, and you remind me if I’m correct, like there were still a lot of stuff. You guys just didn’t even know how the judge was going to handle because it was so new. Yeah. So we had to do jury selection in the jury assembly room. And it’s about a 2, 500 square foot room is a huge room.

And they had everybody spaced out six feet apart and they had these [00:10:00] huge columns, support columns in the bottom. It was in the basement of the courthouse and you couldn’t see some jurors. They were depending where you stood, you couldn’t see behind these huge square column. It was just so frustrating.

You had to scream. We had a microphone, you had to wait and everybody had to get a microphone to answer the questions. It was extremely clunky and it was frustrating and it wasn’t the normal room where you had a desk. You had to stand up in the middle, which is I’m great with that. I love that. But it was just uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.

And since, since Brandy’s trial, you said everything is kind of like slowly gone back to jury selection in the courtroom. Obviously people sitting right next to each other. Yes. And I haven’t sensed a great deal of discomfort with that. Most people that show up in Tennessee currently, 95 percent [00:11:00] are without masks.

Probably 5 percent are. I’ve tried five cases, but I selected a jury for a friend of mine in a medical negligence case a month ago, and that was in Murfreesboro. Well, 30 miles east of Nashville and there was out of a panel of 65, there was one person wearing a mask. Just one. So I don’t know. You know, we’re not very covid fearful around.

I’ll just tell you, I haven’t been for a long time. Well, and I think it’s everybody. It’s kind of one of those things that when we normally talk about, well, Do we need to really get geographically specific about some of our questions and those kinds of things? And most of the time it’s like, well, no, everybody drives a car and there’s rules of the road everywhere.

But how do you feel like this whole issue post pandemic? Do you feel like this is a much more geographic specific issue? Many people in Houston, Texas, or versus, you know, [00:12:00] Nashville, Tennessee are going to view it differently. I was always struck by Don Keenan when he would write about his. focus groups.

And he said to generalize that the focus groups were not different from city to city, coast to coast. I would be willing to bet my feeling, my gut feeling is that’s not true with COVID. I think there’s some vast geopolitical differences from area to area. Like if you were in, I don’t know, San Francisco versus Nashville, I think there’s going to be a huge difference.

So, Because of that, and we’ve talked about that in our EDGE meetings and other trial lawyer group meetings and CLEs, you know, how do you, do you broach the subject in jury selection? And if so, how do you do it? My feeling is that it’s, I mean, just if you [00:13:00] look at Facebook and other social media, it’s a hot button issue for people, whether you like that or not.

I think it’s just a fact that it is. So I chose to, I don’t say ignore it, but I haven’t, I’m afraid. I’m maybe I’m not skilled enough to ask it in a non divisive way or, or was it that important to me? Was it an overriding concern? The general feeling from a lot of trial lawyers is cove. It has been a good time for plaintiff lawyers because of the safety issues and the safety systemic failures that can lead to harm.

And I kind of believe that. I mean, I think the verdicts. I don’t have any data to confirm this, but I think the verdicts are getting better and better. Yeah. And that was actually one of my questions was there’s a lot of talk in many, many circles. Do you ask about the mask [00:14:00] or do you not? And so you told me you did not ask about wearing the mask or vaccines or anything like that.

I just haven’t been convinced that I could make it relevant in a non offensive way to the jurors. And I’m always One of the things that I’ve changed Post Covid is, well, I’m a, I’m a big Mark Lanier fan. Uh, you’ll see me in Houston every year. I, I love that man. . I admire him greatly. And, you know, I try to learn a new skill every year, and I was, I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know PowerPoint two years ago.

And I wasn’t as visual. I was visual, but not as visual as I am now. And I think that’s made a huge difference in, in our trials. You’re hitting on all my questions. Which one of the things, one of the things that you’ve changed, you know, since coming back from Covid and was it Covid related or was it, like you [00:15:00] said, you just realized like, Hey, as a trial lawyer, I need to be more visual and, and help the jury along with some visuals.

Yes, that that is incredible, went out and bought me an how to use that. I’ve try mediums and trials, stole from mark. Another, you got all these trial law university and all these free CLEs that were awesome and watching Brian Panish in his negative cross exam. I mean, I, I’ve stolen that stuff and gotten immediate results with that.

I love that. Another big change that I sense. And again, this is just a gut feeling and somebody could prove me wrong easily, but I think jurors are a little bit less patient perhaps. Okay. Tell us about that. Well, I mean, I, I steal everything I do from you. Other great [00:16:00] lawyers, Rachel Montez. I love, I love Texas lady lawyers.

Y’all rock. And I, I, I admire y’all greatly. And one local guy in Atlanta, Joe Freed, I really like him a lot too. And I’ve seen his ceiling on his podcast and things on the speed trial and man trying to three week long trucking case in three days. I just think that’s amazing. So maybe it’s because of that, that I’m just paranoid that I can’t, I’m trying to get my cases, you know, shorter.

And I mean, this last trial I had, I just felt like the jury was, the defense was In my opinion, very repetitive. Although it didn’t hurt ’em that much. and I, I could just see a lot of rolling of the eyes and, you know, a lot of scoffs and just let’s get on with it. And, you know, they’re not idiots. They get it, they get it the first time [00:17:00] usually.

And I think we, I always try to give ’em proper due credit that they’re due. So I am. very focused on kind of drilling down into the essence of the argument as we all try to do. And we should be anyway. One of the things about power point is I think it helps you do that. It helps you drill down to the essence.

You you want to get down to the most important elements of the case and show them in a chronological and easy to digest way. And that’s what I love about power pointed. It forces me to do that. It forces me to lay out the trial like I think it should go. And then you test it in focus groups and you rearrange it and you just repeat the process.

So, this is, I don’t know, this is because of COVID, but I just think, you know, for me as a trial lawyer growing, I’ve become extremely visual now. I mean, we work on our process. You’re talking about process. I mean, every medical deposition must have at least [00:18:00] three graphics or video or something, you know, it’s just a requirement for all my lawyers.

You must have this. You can have five or six, but you’ve got to have at least three. And before depositions, I’ll just quiz them. I’m like, what’s, what’s your plan? What, what do you got? You know, we’re use MetaVisual, some other companies out there and sometimes have the doctor just draw it or, you know, edit YouTube videos to less than two and a half minutes.

It makes a difference. We’re even doing PowerPoints on all of our motions. And my lawyers will swear to you and I will, that it turns the judges in a lot of cases. I had an example last week where judge already made a decision before the plaintiff before we had a chance to argue after we saw the power point turning gave us what we needed.

So It sounds to me like obviously, I mean, well, it sounds like you use the time really wisely that we had where we were just sitting, you know, like you said, [00:19:00] a lot of ceilings were coming in a lot of really quality information and you took that time to. Fresh up, right? Get better, learn new things. And then you had the opportunity to almost immediately start applying it with four trials back to back last summer.

We were very fortunate in Covid because we had some cases settle for what we thought were top dollar during Covid time, and I was. shocked that the insurance companies wanted to settle because if I were them, if knowing them like we all know, insurance companies motivated by one thing and that’s greed is, you know, there’s no hammer, what are we going to do?

We have no threat anymore. The seventh amendment is temporarily dead right now and we have no means of enforcing this. So one of the things we did is, you know, we, we, I told my office like get everything ready for trial, everything. Okay. And so that’s why we were able to try more [00:20:00] cases than anybody in Tennessee, which is only four, you know, it’s not a lot, but you know, it’s, it’s, it’s more than most, but we had probably 13 cases set for trial and, you know, some of them settle and we had fortunately had good success with the ones we tried and I’m just very thankful for that.

And we learned something every time. And so a matter of fact, in February we put on a C. L. E. With some other lawyers who tried some cases, nine trials in nine months. What we’ve learned through the covid era and in 2021. And the main thing was just general trial practice. How do we get better prepared for trial and how do we take medical, better medical proof?

You know, I’ve got four associates and some of them are younger lawyers. And I found out when I’m getting ready for trial a month before trial, I’m just telling on myself here and exposing my transparency. But [00:21:00] there, there were some depositions. I’m like, this is crap. This is crap. I can’t believe that I haven’t trained my lawyers better than this.

And it caused a lot of consternation, a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of man, do we need to, uh, take a non suit on this case and just a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress. So one of the things I did immediately as I put together a learning power point from office like this is how we take excellent killer doctor depositions and I am a depositions and that’s just something that I’m it’s part of our, you know, in Tennessee, doctors are immune from subpoena to trial.

I don’t know how Texas is, but you don’t have doctors unless they’re a paid expert sitting there and outside the courtroom. And so we do it all by video, which is in kind of way is, is helpful because you’ve got that in the can when the [00:22:00] trial goes. And so you don’t have to, it’s part of trial. You don’t have to worry with as much cause you’ve already dealt with and worried about it.

Yeah. No scheduling concerns, but we. I think we came out of Covid being better, being much better than we were. And we did that in part from stealing from good lawyers like you and from Mark Lanier, and from Joe Free and, uh, you know, Nick Row and all, all those people. And Courtney Rally, you know, I’ve, gosh, I, I, I love.

learning. And uh, you know, my lawyers today are at such an advantage. They’ve got all the Rick Friedman books and the Don Kena books and all those. I’ve got a list of 13 books that I require my lawyers to read. Mark Kozlowski. I read 30 B six two years ago and I’m like, I suck as a lawyer. I have been committing malpractice on my [00:23:00] 30 B six depositions for years.

And uh, man, I’m, I’m motions to compel left a didn’t think I’d ever do altruistic lawyer. I’m g never found much for most an idiot. These guys are your clients over and you because of this. So now I sanctions against other l

Yeah. Yeah. Have you, I mean, in, in the trials that you face, did you guys have any of that kind of squirrely behavior where you haven’t, you know, take people or did you have any difficulties with opposing counsel during those, those trials? Yes, yes, not for the most part. We’ve got a pretty good collegial bar here, but there’s some in house lawyers that won’t be named that are very difficult, will not agree.

Not only do they not agree, that’s okay, but they will look for every [00:24:00] way to accuse you of cutting corners and being outright dishonest and we all react the same way to that. You know, you can tell me I’m a bad lawyer and I should have done something differently, but you assault the core value of my soul, my integrity.

Man, that’s, uh, you know, I think, um, as I’ve gotten older, I’m better in control of my emotions because I’m very competitive. I get very frustrated when somebody is trying to thwart justice. You know, the whole reason I went to law school is because I was a claims adjuster and I screwed people for a living and thought I was going to hell for that.

And now I get to take revenge, you know, one claim at a time. But I just I’m so fortunate to do this job to help people and I just, I love my job. I love the people I work with. I love my clients. You know, what other profession, how [00:25:00] many do you have where at the end of the day you’re making a change in their lives and they look upon you like, I guess like they would look upon a doctor sometimes like, Oh man, you did such.

an event to help change my life and I’m so grateful. And by the way, can I send you business? Can I send you other people to come that you can have? Like, sure, that would be great. Right, right. Yeah. But I mean, it’s true. It’s a, you know, the system that we work in is one that it’s foreign. I mean, the civil justice system, the criminal justice system, you have to have a guide, you know, and that’s what lawyers do.

So it’s an honor and privilege to represent people in some of the toughest times of their lives. And help them navigate this system. And because again, you know, we’re, we’re kind of the underdogs, right? We don’t have unlimited resources. We don’t have unlimited time and, and staff. And that sometimes that’s what we face on the other side.

So you’ve given some great, I, you know, as far as visuals, I [00:26:00] think in a timeline is so important and critical for trial. And even like you said, just organization for deposition to make sure that you’re, things that a jury want t engaging with the visual. an organization. Oh my go I’m undiagnosed A. D. D. I have people around me i me out.

But that’s one of better trial lawyer seminar in February was the organization process we go through and the preparation for that. All the checklist titles, the pre trial checklist that we have and that has changed dramatically for us and for the better and made it supposedly less stressful. All this less last trial.

I was very stressed for different reasons, but I’m trying to do a better job of taking care of myself pre trial and and during trial, but [00:27:00] I’m still failing at that and I want to do a better job. Uh, my family suffers what I suffer, you know, and I, I hope to goodness, my, my clients don’t suffer. That’s the first and foremost concern, but you know, I can’t keep staying up till two o’clock and getting up at five o’clock.

Yeah, no, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s so we, you know, we talk about like trial and getting ready. We really want to prepare as much as we can, but I think sometimes we forget, like, we have to at some point, like stop the scurrying and the, and the prep, just to know that like, you know, one, you’ve done everything you can, but also there’s so much energy that we expound and you got to recharge your battery.

You know, even if it’s just having a good night’s rest or getting a workout in during trial. I mean, it really, It’s, it’s hard to convince trial lawyers of that, but it does such wonders for you when you be able to walk in that courtroom and feel even just a little bit refreshed and recharged. [00:28:00] And it’s tough because in this last trial I had, we had a pretrial conference just on the Wednesday before the Monday trial.

And there were some unresolved issues and I learned Friday night that 80 percent of my closing, my PowerPoint was gone. Just just been removed because well, the defense didn’t agree to it. And that was the standard defense got agreed to everything. I’ve never had this before. And and anyway, it was very frustrating.

But then that kind of got me a little bit off my balance a little bit. And I had to recover from that. And it’s difficult when you’re used to giving very visual openings to go to non visual again. Yeah. And so I just shortened it up and did what I could, did the best I could with that. It’s like a log roll.

It just changes. [00:29:00] Yeah. Yeah. And that’s kind of one of the things that is so unusual about our profession is that you can prepare, prepare, prepare. But it’s not just you, there’s a whole other pieces to the puzzle that can change the game very quickly. And you know, how, how do you turn on a dime? You know, how do you be like, okay, well, here’s plan B and here’s plan C and you know, that kind of stuff.

So it’s definitely a challenge and you know, my hat is off to you to take that challenge during COVID for sure. And, and do five trials. I mean, I still consider that right now, you know, we’re still, you know, in the throes of COVID because there’s a new surge coming and there’s a, you know, got to get your fourth booster or whatever it may be.

And I think that how each judge is handling it, you know, makes it makes a difference. I appreciate you sharing all these extra ideas and things, but I love that you have used your time during COVID to basically, um, [00:30:00] Learn how to make yourself better, you know, instead of like, Hey, how do we, you know, focus in?

And also, I think one of the most important things is how is what I’m asking the jury, what I’m showing the jury relevant to them, like keeping it always about how do we keep them engaged? How do we make things shorter? You know, how do we take a good doctor’s deposition on the front end? So that I know a trial.

I’m not worried. Like you said, picking up that transcript and being like, Oh my gosh, how are we going to keep the jury engaged? Like we don’t have what we need here. The testimony is just not there. So have you guys, I know you before the pandemic, y’all were using focus groups. Did you guys keep using those during the pandemic?

Tell me a little bit about your focus groups for getting ready for trial. Yes, I am a huge believer of focus groups for many reasons. So before the pandemic, we were doing in person focus groups. We would meet off site at a neutral place. We would provide lunch. It would be an all day event. Half my office would be out, you know, supporting the [00:31:00] group.

But couldn’t do that COVID. So we were forced to do zoom and I wasn’t excited about that at first, but now I love it. For so many reasons. Number one, it’s much easier to do. We do two a month. We do it every two weeks regardless. It’s on, it’s every Wednesday at 9:00 AM we do one. You can see everybody’s reactions in their face and, and you can record it.

Of course, you can show your client, you can record it before, but really the way we were spread out, you have to have a wide angle lens. So that was. Just not as convenient and we get to practice our jury selection more and all the opening statement, the different methods of focus grouping that we do. My younger lawyers are running these focus groups by themselves.

Most of the time. I’m not even involved unless I wanna be, and it has been such. and an incredible factor for us. It is increased. The value of our cases [00:32:00] is given us confidence going into cases. It had an impact on our trials that we had last summer. Huge impact. So, man, I cannot give enough blessing to if you’re not doing Zoom focus groups now you are missing out.

And we can do three focus groups for about $1,400 less than that. And so we’ll do focus groups for other people. It’s a good way to market to other people, Hey, you got this case, I’ll focus group it for you for free. You know, and they love it. And I’ve gotten business out of it too. So yeah. Anything else you wanna know about that?

I’m, I’m not the master on it, but I’m, I’m knocking at its door. I’m trying to be, we love it. No, that’s super helpful. It’s I talk about virtual being a huge blessing to people for especially solo to small firms. If you’re just starting out like it is a great way to start learning to focus group and low cost.

Convenience is amazing. You just click and [00:33:00] go, you know, and people, people love it. I mean, everybody knows how to do it now. Like, because their kids had to zoom on school. You had to see your doctor on zoom, your financial advisor. You know, we all did zoom and had to learn it or that’s how we got in touch with our family.

So. The learning curve, the technology was taking care of for us. And we think as lawyers, we know so much and the more focus groups I do, like, we just don’t have a clue. The things in the trial you helped me with, I learned some extremely valuable information through the focus groups that, that to me, Turn the tide in that case.

So, yeah, I, I would feel naked and afraid if I went into, uh, a trial without focus group. Again, , I’m gonna use that naked and afraid. All right, . So I got one last question and it’s about your closing argument. Did you use anything in your closing arguments that had to deal with the experience that we all have had going through the pandemic?

I did not. I did not. I’d [00:34:00] love to sit here and tell you I’ve had some great tidbit of that. I’ve heard some suggestions on that and I just, I’m not adverse to them at all. I just haven’t, I haven’t used any of that. So. That’s okay. No, I’m just, I’m curious. I think it’s like you said. There’s a lot of conversation in our circles of, Hey, what are you trying?

And what are you doing? What are you talking about? And you have to use what is comfortable to you. Well, I will tell you that I’ve used, I’ve broached that subject in focus groups and I ask them, what is the one thing you’ve learned about yourself during the pandemic? And. It varies widely, but a lot of people, an overarching theme was relationships.

I missed the relationships with people. I missed the interaction. I missed the humanity of, of interacting with people. One person said, I miss just opening doors for [00:35:00] people, you know, and just being nice because when you give away a gift of love or grace, you know, you get something in return. And I think a lot of people have just missed out on that.

I mean, I’m really not doing anything differently, but I always focus on the relationships. You know, some of the hardest trials I’ve had to show harms are the ones I remember I had a trial about three years ago, this lady, she worked at a Home Depot. She was 68 years old or thereabouts, and she had no relationships with anybody.

She didn’t have a husband. She had no children. She was an introvert. She just st

but I had no before and after witnesses. The only one that I could bring was a coworker. And she said, uh, yeah, she’s kind of a grumpy old soul. And, uh, and, but, and I would have brought her for that. Just say, Hey, that’s, you know, this is who she [00:36:00] is. And she still has value or tried to find a way to make that palatable.

But she said, uh, yeah, she’s. Fall. There were some other issues, some prior injury issues. I’m like, oh, she’s gonna hurt us, not help us. You know, she’s fallen down many times at work, . So, so, but it was just hard because there was no relationship with anyone. There was no, no community. There was no, she, I don’t wanna say didn’t contribute.

That’s harsh, but it was just hard to show that. So. Point is, we always focus on the value relationships, but I think what COVID has done, I think there’s opportunities to really inject those with a lot of passion now, because I think it means more to people. Absolutely. Yeah, that was, that’s a, that’s a great question to ask people in focus groups just to learn.

In general, what people are saying, and then like you said, give it back to them. You don’t have to even ask them in jury selection, just talking about it. People are going to know that [00:37:00] experience of like not being able to connect with somebody. And some people learn that they don’t necessarily need it as much, right.

Or they were, you know, doing too much and not recharging their own battery or taking care of themselves. And all those things still help, you know, but focus groups help us learn. what’s in their heads, like the conversation pieces without us having necessarily always have that conversation with them in jury selection.

Yeah. And I think a way that will help, I think a beneficiary of COVID too, and these relationship issues are your elderly clients. And cause I’ve got a trial coming up June 20th that has an elderly client and You know, I’m reminded of Keith Mitnick’s all time is not equal argument that, you know, sometimes they’re more precious when they’re fewer.

If you know someone’s on their deathbed and they don’t have that life expectancy, but their their time is more valuable. And that time a lot of people and and this came out in jury selection [00:38:00] and the medical negligence case, some parents had died. through covid and they wish that I had more time to go back and spend time with him or they wish they’d have known that was the last time they were going to see their parents like if I had known like what is that worth?

What would you pay for that? I just blogged on that. It’s like, you know, I didn’t know my dad was going to die January 19th of 2019. I mean, what would I pay for one more day with my father? you know, and it wasn’t COVID related, but I think, I think that’s the overriding thing. I think people are just re in tune with the power of relationships and hopefully that will stick with us for a while.

Hopefully this coming out of the covid era will not, it won’t be faint very quickly. Sure, sure, sure. And I think one of the things you pointed out as well in our conversation was time is so precious to them. They’re very impatient. They want you to get to the point to hurry up because their time means something more to [00:39:00] them because they lost it.

You know, we all lost sometimes a year for some people, you know? So I think that that’s also a really good conversation piece. So. Yeah. Well, as we wrap up, I want to ask you one final question, which is what advice would you have to lawyers who are finally returning back to the courthouse for their first trial post covid in 2022?

That is a tough question and I don’t know why it’s tough, but I will tell you that wrapping up these trials and going into my sixth one and about a month and a half, I finally feel like I’ve Kind of got the rust shaken off. I felt like that last summer, but, um, I would just focus on being extremely prepared, extremely organized.

I feel silly saying that because you would do that anyway. But I was nervous. I was nervous. And it’s a struggle for [00:40:00] lawyers to be at times when you’re nervous to be outwardly focused. And I would Just try to get rid of those butterflies and get rid of that voice inside your head. I mean, I don’t know who said it, but you can only listen to one voice inside your head at a time, and I deal with a lot of younger lawyers and I try to train them to quit worrying about what.

Your next question is focus outwardly continually and practice that I know you can get better with that over time and practicing. So we can’t control those issues. And as a lawyer, things change midstream and it’s like military. It’s like man down. What are your options? We don’t have time to cry and and and have a pity party session.

It’s like what? Who’s next? Next man up. We gotta go. And What are your options? So I would just say that I would [00:41:00] say be outwardly focused. Don’t listen to that voice of doubt inside your mind and be confident that, you know, you don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be 100%. Sometimes. I mean, the jury always gives you a pass on that.

Just be organized and just have a plan. and everything will work out. And just remember you’re on the side of justice and you’re doing, I think we’re doing God’s work and I’m very proud to do this and do it with a passion and do it with humility and positivity. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I think that that is Helpful because, you know, if you haven’t been in the courtroom, you got a lot and you got a lot of voices, a lot of people talking to you up in here, uh, up in your brain.

So I think that that is so helpful. And you mentioned having an awareness, that being one of the most important things. You walk in a trial and, you know, focus groups really help you with that because they take away some of that unknown [00:42:00] because you practiced. You know what some people’s reactions are. So like you said, doesn’t have to be perfect, but you’ve practiced it and you can kind of calm down some of those voices and just make sure you’re being present and being aware and jury or not.

Everybody knows when you’re thinking about something else. Think about having a conversation with somebody and then all of a sudden you’re like, Oh my gosh, I got to go fold the clothes. Like they know that you have gone somewhere else. And so I think that that is great advice for people because we have a tendency to do that.

You know, we’re got to think of the next thing, the next thing. And I think that’s great advice. So thank you, John, so much for joining us on this episode.

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. 

We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

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

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

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

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

Subscribe and Review

Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. 

We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources

Larrick Law Firm

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

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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