Category: Podcast

Today, we talk about polishing those listening skills, and how we can use them better with our clients. If we polish this skill and become better active listeners, we will have better trials because we’ll be able to listen better to what the jury is telling us during jury selection. We will have better cross-exams because we’re going to listen actively to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Your direct exam is going to go so much smoother. People get up there and get nervous and half the battle of the direct exam is being able to listen and craft that next question if you’ve got to go back in for the second time. So listen in and learn some of the best ways and some tips on how to get better at active listening and how to prepare your client for depositions.

In this episode, you will hear:

• What is active listening
• Why repeat what they’re saying, not summarize
• Why you should be actively listening
• Building trust through listening
• Getting people ready for deposition
• Examples of bad listening
• Active listening on Zoom

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Today we’re going to talk about silence and using silence in our jobs to yield some solid gold. So how can we polish that skill or maybe how can we start it today? Tune in.

Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants? Ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively. Then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success. Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world, understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process. Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. 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 and welcome. This is Elizabeth Larrick and you’re listening to another episode of Trial Lawyer [00:01:00] Prep. This podcast is designed and created for trial lawyers working with difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial.

The goal is to help connect you with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. In today’s episode, we are going to talk about silence and why silence is golden. I had a recent run in with some wonderful silence, and that’d be some amazing active listening. And I thought, you know, it’s a really good time to talk about polishing this skill up because it helps us in so many ways by closing our mouths, opening our ears, and all the wonderful things that can happen when we do that.

And one of the things that always I’m reminded of is, uh, Ernie, the attorney, Ernie Stevenson has a wonderful podcast. I was a guest on his podcast a couple of weeks back, but he calls attorneys, knowledge workers. And I love that phrase, knowledge [00:02:00] workers. And how do we get our knowledge? Well, we listen. So let’s talk a little bit today about polishing those skills and how we can use them better with our clients.

How do we practice this to get better? How can we use this in focus groups? Because really, if we polish this. So, um, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the direct exam. is going to go. So much smoother because people get up there and get nervous and I think half the battle of direct exam is being able to listen and craft that next question if you got to go back in for the second time, right?

So you ask a question on direct and they don’t get the whole answer out there. You need the rest of it, right? So how do you ask it again without saying hello? You missed it. And that helps with [00:03:00] active listening and also helps outside the courtroom when we’re taking depositions or talking to witnesses.

And sometimes I hear from lawyers, they’re using the silence to basically practice what they’re going to say, right? So they’re really not listening at all. So I’m encouraging not to do that. But that reminds me of a recent conversation I had with a lawyer talking about a client getting ready for a four day trial.

And this is a trial, there’s lots of details, you know, all trials have details. Some have more than others. And it just reminded me that We can all get so lost in the details, and I’ve been speaking with this client and helping them, and just lots and lots of details, so many details. And in my conversation with a lawyer, he pointed out that sometimes his client will go off on all these details, and so he just cuts her off, you know, just right in there, interrupts her.

And so I could understand why when I spoke with her and we did some work together, she had good report about the time we spent [00:04:00] together. Because even though we get lost in those details, it’s important always to stick with the silence, try not to interrupt people. And why would I want to do that? Right?

So people get, bogged down with lots of details. Our clients do too. And sometimes those details just don’t even matter. But they don’t know, right? They don’t play the game we play every day. They don’t, they’re not knowledge workers. They don’t know how this system works. And so you got to step back, realize that, and then also just keep listening and knowing that, hey, my job is to get them to the other side.

And sometimes it’s also to educate them with my knowledge about what is important, what’s not important, right? Help them keep that focus on the ball. And so today talking about silence and we’re really going to talk a lot about our clients, right? They’re the people we deal with most learning some of the best ways and some tips on how to active listen better, and then also for a client depositions and how to prepare them, right?

If we don’t listen to what they’re saying, they could say something pretty [00:05:00] detrimental to the case in their depositions. So, let’s just take a step back and what is active listening? There’s all kinds of stuff on the interwebs about active listening. And so these are some of the things that I have done collectively.

And some things that they suggest that I don’t necessarily always do, but there’s nothing wrong with some of this stuff. For me, active listening has a pretty big physical component. Straightening your body and squaring up to the person who’s speaking, keeping your eyes and your head in their direction.

You don’t stare at the person, but making good eye contact. All right. Making sure that they know that your eyes are on them. Keeping those hands still, right? We’re always attracted to grab a pen and paper and take down notes. Sometimes you just got to put it down. You just got to actively listen to what’s saying instead of taking those notes.

So keeping your hands still. Still keeping those feet still. And like I said, not writing, right? Resist the urge to take notes. A lot of times I’ll speak with lawyers about [00:06:00] how to improve their skills in deposition prep and always tell them, don’t take notes. And they normally say, how do you do all that?

How do you remember all that? I said, well, I had a couple of years practice, right? Active listing and writing everything down is not always the good thing because you’re not listening. But also the client wants to know what you’re writing down. What are you writing down over there? You know? So. Yeah. I think you’re kind of distracted.

So if you have to have notes, which I encourage, record the thing, right? We have Zoom right now, which is fantastic to record things super easy. Set up a video camera. You need to bring in an assistant to basically take notes. Do that, but your job would be actively listening. Ask some follow up questions.

Ask some clarifying questions if you need them to clarify, right? Show you’re paying attention and that maybe you want to know more. That’s a great follow up question. Just tell me more about that. Don’t respond in judgment or that doesn’t matter. That’s not what’s important. A lot of times, again, they don’t know.

They don’t live in our world, they don’t know what’s important, what’s not important. It’s hard for them to sort the details out. They [00:07:00] don’t have a system to sort, then they just think it’s all important. It is important not to be judgmental, not to immediately come out of the gate with a response. That’s not important.

Don’t focus on that. Follow up question, clarify question if you need to. Figure out where these thoughts and details are coming from. It’s always helpful. Nodding along. It’s a good way to actively listen. Very important to wait for the person to stop speaking before you start speaking. Now, having moderated several hundred focus groups, you learn how to get someone to stop talking, right?

So make that like, open your mouth like you’re gonna talk. Those are good ways to get people to stop speaking, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re not talking about focus group moderating. We’re talking about active listening with our clients. So don’t do that. We know how to make people to stop talking, right?

So don’t do that. Just wait for that person to stop speaking. Keep that blank face, right? Keep that active face facing towards them, but not making a face like you’re about to talk. Repeat things back to them. Good way to keep the conversation going to [00:08:00] make sure that they know that you’re listening.

Summarizing. I try to hesitate not to summarize. Right? Because I don’t want to craft their feelings. I don’t want to say something the wrong way. Just repeat back if you can or just ask follow up questions. So those are some of the main key points for me when I am trying to actively listen and sit down with somebody or sitting in a focus group.

So what does that do when we actively listen? One of the most basic things is showing a sign of importance. What they’re saying is important. Physically, I’m squaring up. I’m listening. What you’re saying is important. It’s a big sign of respect that you’re taking what they’re saying seriously. Shows you’ve got some patience.

You’re not interrupting. And most of the time, becomes a reciprocal agreement, right? I’m going to give you space to talk, and I’m going to listen, and then I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen, right? So we’re kind of making this silent reciprocal agreement about listening. Now some people may be [00:09:00] thinking, all right, you clearly not ever met my client who doesn’t listen and cuts me off.

Well, think back. How did that first interaction with you go, right? Did you listen to them? Did you let them finish everything they’re going to say? Did you interrupt them at all? Some people just have a habit of interrupting. And you got to notice that, right? And again, that helps us with our active listening.

Gosh, they’re going to interrupt me. They’re probably going to interrupt the whole time. I don’t know if this is a good client to work with for me, right? It helps you pay attention to their habits as well. But starting off on the right foot is very helpful. Now, maybe you have a habit of interrupting.

That’s okay. We all have habits. I have a habit of doing that as well. I always have to work on not interrupting people. And when I go back to start actively listening and knowing, oh shoot, I’ve interrupted. Generally, I always apologize. Because I don’t want to interrupt somebody and I’ll reassure them that I’m going to actively listen, right?

I’m here to listen. Okay. But also if you got to start over, you start over. What’s the big deal here that shows that you’re [00:10:00] at least paying attention. And if we do all these things, we bring this into our client relationships, it builds trust always does. And I talk about trust over and over again because I think it’s so vital in the system that we work in.

Because it’s a foreign land for a lot of people, and they’re already in a terrible place, and they’re gonna have to reach out to you, somebody they don’t even know, maybe there’s a referral, and trust you with something huge, right, that’s out of their control. Also sets really good expectations, right, if you treat them that way.

That’s how you want to be treated as well. This all kind of forms and comes around and helps especially when we’re doing deposition prep because we’re really spending a lot more one on one time. Most of the time clients come in, they sit down, Hey, just tell me what to say, right? You tell me what to say.

And this is, to me, is one of the best times to flip the script and to listen. To learn so much more. [00:11:00] And that all comes into this context because of this pressure to get prepared. This deposition. We have a deadline. It’s not just ongoing conversation from intake. As the case goes on, I mean, there’s, there’s a pressure cooker here.

It’s vital to talk about this stuff. You got to get it out of there. They know that they’re going to be asked all kinds of questions. So this deposition pressure really helps create this place where we got to sit down and talk and listen. And in the times that I’ve done that, I’ve learned. So much more.

I’ve learned new stories, new feelings, family history, disputes. secrets, all kinds of stuff that people have kind of hidden up in there. And a lot of times, the feedback after I sit down with a client, they say, that’s the best therapy I’ve ever had. I’ve never talked to somebody that long about what happened to me or about My injuries, or I put this stuff far, far away.

I packed it away. I didn’t want to get it back out and talk about it, [00:12:00] but I’m so glad that I did because my feelings around it, my understanding around it is so much better. I have such more clarity about it. And that makes. I love that. That’s why I love getting people ready for deposition. It is one of my favorite things.

I saw that as my passion many, many years ago and have done everything I can to keep doing it. I really love it. And to me, and I’ve probably talked about it before and I’ll always talk about it again is the listening part of it. I think it’s one of the skills that has made this. Such a passion for me and made it easy for me.

This is something I love to do and it’s easy. I could do it all day. Focus groups, the same thing, right? Listen, I have that really, really trained diet and make sure that I’m active listening. And also along the way, ultimately I am genuinely interested. You know, I genuinely want to help and I want to be curious about it.

But when I think about where [00:13:00] does this come from, it’s always back to when I walk into, we walk into these people’s lives, we’re strangers. They don’t know us. It’s a legal relationship. And so to sit down and have really an intimate discussion because They’re going to have a deposition and a stranger is going to ask them questions and it’s not going to be active listening.

It’s a very, very weird proposition that we have with depositions. Question answer, question answer. How do we set the tone then? Right? We’re complete strangers. Well, that’s what I’ve done. It’s just really intently actively listen. I mean, people can come in very hostile, very defensive. They don’t want to do it.

They don’t want to be there. What’s the point of this? It’s going to be fine. And I’m going to be fine. And that all melts away when they realize, Oh, well, she’s listening. Wait a minute, she’s not taking any notes? She’s not telling me what to do? She’s not interrupting me? She’s not judging what I’m saying?

She was asking follow up questions? Wow. It really makes such a [00:14:00] big difference. Now, I’m also growing, right? I’m learning more. I’m helping the case. So that’s my urge, right? That’s my purpose of having today’s episode about silence. It’s like, ah, it’s gonna be so much better for you. And then, Once you’re practicing on your clients and that gets better and you get better referrals, that’s all just going to pour into everything else that you do, depositions, trial, jury selection, focus groups.

One of the good examples of bad listening would be I was helping a lawyer, called me up. I got a client, he says, who won’t listen to what he says. who is terrible at expressing his empathy and expressing what’s happened to him and his injuries and what’s going on in his life. He just, I don’t think people are gonna like him.

Can you come in and help? Sure, sure, sure. Happy to do it. So, go to the office, meet the gentleman, client, he’s very nice. He is very talkative, totally talkative. He’s just talking my ear off. [00:15:00] But when he’s talking, I’m learning so much. He’s got this amazing backstory and about how he came to America and he’s working and trying to support family and wants to start a family.

And the lawyer comes in and wants to sit in, hang out, listen. Sure, sure. Lawyer comes in, opens up a laptop and starts just working on something else. It’s not listening at all, totally can tell. And then all of a sudden we’ll stop while the client and I are having a conversation and interrupt and say, Nope, that’s not important.

Don’t worry about that. Don’t say it like that. That lawyer is going to blah, blah. I’m just like, Oh my gosh, whoa, whoa, what’s happening here? Not only are you, you’re the opposite of active listening and you’re disparaging spouting out these questions. It got to a point where we actually had to stop what was doing.

Gently ask the lawyer to come out in the hallway and just, again, I’m going to start active listening and figure out where’s this coming [00:16:00] from. What’s happening? And learning very quickly, there was no self awareness. He’s not aware at all what he was doing. I thought there was a problem or that that might be not very encouraging to the client.

And ultimately, I said, Hey, I’ll just finish the session and I’ll catch you up whenever we finish. So there is a good way to destroy a client relationship. And there’s a good way for the clients to stop listening to what you’re saying. If you don’t ever give them space and you don’t listen to what they’re saying.

So it can terribly injure the relationship you have with your client. If you don’t pay attention, do some active listening. Be respectful. Just be respectful to people and what they’re going through. And a lot of times, if I have a client that really, they’re pretty talkative, you know, I always say, hey, let’s, let’s have an agreement.

I really want to listen and listen to what you guys say, but can we make an agreement? I’ll 100 percent do that. And then when it’s my turn, you’ll 100 percent do it. All right, great. Let’s go. It’s okay to point it out if you need to. And [00:17:00] so what I want to do is challenge you to start some active listening, to work on your listening skills.

The easiest way to do that and how I learned to do it best was getting the physical part of it down, physically just training my body to do it. And then eventually my mind would follow even if there’s a new place, there’s a new courtroom, new people had the same routine, right? get my body squared up.

Whatever chair I’m going to sit in, but my feet firmly on the ground, not crossing the ankles, got my hands in my lap, got my eyes forward or my eyes on the person, and just a nice blank face. No, no judgy, uh, wrinkles going on over here. And as I If it did that, I saw positive responses, which is just going to reinforce me, which it did.

Then my mind followed. Right? So I had to get the physical side down before my mind would cooperate and follow along. What happened was, as [00:18:00] I’m doing that I’m getting pretty good positive responses was just reinforcing me. Right? So I just keep doing it. But the openness, the not judging clients really open up.

That’s what I would encourage you to do. Work on that physical part of it. Right? even if it’s for five minutes in a deposition or 10 minutes listening to the client. And you can still do this on Zoom, right? We can still see each other, make sure nothing’s distracting. Maybe for your next deposition prep is working on, maybe you’re not, didn’t start out well with this client, or maybe that’s your worry is the client won’t listen to you, right?

Start out like that, ask a question. Get all lined up and see what happens and then just keep practicing. It’s always helpful to remove all distractions, right? Get your phone out of there, ask them to remove all the distractions as well, right? That quid pro quo will significantly help. And just to reinforce this practice of active listening and why it’s so important to do it at initial client interviews.

And [00:19:00] even if that maybe didn’t go so smoothly, you can still do it for deposition prep. Start over on that new page in focus groups. So it’s totally a group of strangers, right? And people can say some crazy stuff in focus groups. Totally true. But what I have found is if you interrupt that one person. If you stop that person from talking, it really creates a discouraged environment.

And maybe not everybody’s discouraged from volunteering, but if you’re going to discourage a couple people, it’s really hard to recover that environment. If you have stopped somebody from sharing, or you’ve interrupted somebody, or you are maybe a little judgy, even if it’s, even if it’s positive, Oh, that’s a great comment.

Oh, I love that. Somebody else may be discouraged. Because you’ve judged the comment, right? You’ve judged whatever it may be. And again, we’re talking about focus groups here, which is where we want everyone to share, but it’s a group of [00:20:00] strangers. A piece of feedback that I get very often with my focus groups is you do a good job because You ask everyone to contribute, you make sure everybody is engaged, and it’s welcome.

Everybody is welcome. And you do that by making sure everybody has a chance to talk. You don’t let people talk over each other. You don’t let people interrupt each other. And that’s work. You know, that’s, that’s really hard. But I always start my focus groups by making sure everybody understands this is our environment.

And I will start off by not saying anything. I will give respect first, and hopefully everybody will follow. Occasionally, we have people who don’t. Most of the time, I try to give ample space and time before we do have to step up and ask people, Hey, don’t interrupt people, you know, let’s, everybody’s welcome.

And occasionally, it doesn’t happen every time, but it’s definitely happened. If you’ve had that experience, moderating a focus group can be a little bit uncomfortable. But, it’s also kind of your job as a [00:21:00] moderator to make sure everybody has that open sharing environment. So awesome. Well, I hope that you found this episode.

full of some knowledge and something that you can take back to your job, but it’s also great to use at home. Although sometimes I find that my lawyer ears turn off when I leave the building, but I promise I will keep working on my active listening as well. So if you found this episode helpful, please rate it, share it with somebody else.

And if you have any comments or questions, please don’t hesitate to email me and I will put my email in the show notes. So Thanks again. And until next time, thank you.

What do you get from jury research focus groups? Maybe you haven’t had a chance to use focus groups yet yourself. Or maybe you have run a mock trial on a case, but maybe haven’t looked at other ways to use focus groups. In this episode, we dive into some other ways you can use focus groups and why. I’m also sharing a couple of tips on ways to “double-dip” and how you can take and use all the data for an extra squeeze of information.

One of the most common things you get from using focus groups is to learn the result of the case – who wins and who loses? But it’s not just results-oriented because you can learn so much more. There’s witness credibility, evaluating the evidence, looking at case theory, looking at the knowledge base, testing out the defense theory, and just honing your skills as a trial lawyer. You can get a lot more than just trying to have this one target of determining the case value. 

Now, if you don’t have a lot of experience doing focus groups, moderating, looking at it, analyzing the data, I just want to caution you that there are so many other great ways to use it. Whether you spend six hours, three hours, an hour, or even just 30 minutes, the amount of time you want to spend depends on the depth with which you are willing to go into the material and the depth of the feedback.

 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Mock trial vs. qualitative study
• Evaluating the evidence
• Testing your case theory and the credibility of people
• Using focus groups to file or not file
• Testing the knowledge base
• The double-dipping phase: how you can make the most of the data you get

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] One of the biggest questions that I always get about focus groups is what do you get? You spend a lot of time, spend a lot of effort, a lot of money, but really what do you get from a jury research focus group? Stay tuned and we’ll talk about it. 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, and welcome to another episode of Trial Lawyer [00:01:00] Prep with me your host, Elizabeth Larrick.

This is a podcast designed and creative for trial lawyers working with difficult cases. Problematic clients and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial. The goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. In today’s episode, we are going to look at focus groups and answer one of the biggest questions that I get.

What do you get from a focus group? You more likely than not heard people talk about using focus groups in different CLEs that you’ve gone to. More likely than not, you’ve definitely read about it. If you’ve read any kind of trial book or case approach or case strategy book, and maybe you haven’t had a chance to use focus groups yet yourself.

Or possibly, maybe you fall in a category of somebody who has run a mock trial on a case, but maybe hasn’t looked at other ways to use focus groups. And so we want to tackle in this episode, what have we heard about [00:02:00] focus groups? And what are other ways to use focus groups? And why on earth would we do that?

Finally, a couple of tips on ways to double dip, use that data that you get for an extra squeeze of information, and then plant the seed for future episodes on how to, how are we going to do this? Because this is a podcast where I want to give you the how to, I want to show you, let’s talk about it, but then let’s give you the opportunity to do it for yourself.

Because that’s where I started. Focus groups. I had done a fellowship and I learned. Um, so I’m going to talk a little bit about how to use focus groups, how to use them. I did a ton of focus groups. We went to trial on the cases where we’d done the focus groups, and then I came home and had my own law firm and thought, I want to do focus groups.

How do I do it? So we did, I started and here we are now, but I started off in the same place. I had done maybe a few focus groups, not very many before I [00:03:00] jumped into a fellowship and we did tons of focus groups. So I started off doing focus groups in a kind of a piecemeal fashion. Instead of this large mock trial fashion, nothing wrong with that, but that’s kind of a starting place about what have we heard?

We’ve heard about these really large mock trial situations where there’s a really large production. We’re going to hire a judge to come play or have somebody come play a judge. We’ll have lawyers playing opposite sides and then basically put on a mock trial for a set of jurors, right? Mock jurors. A lot of times people set this up in a pretty large hotel where you can have two to three groups going at the same time, everything’s recorded, we’re watching, and we’re learning the ultimate result, right?

Who wins and who loses. And that’s what you get. Another form of focus group is a qualitative study where you have a [00:04:00] scenario in you, a fact scenario that you run by thousands of people online. So you would just gather this giant bank of data again on the results. Who wins? Who loses? What are the, what are the statistics?

How many times is Susie going to lose this case? Those are really what you get when we talk about doing a mock trial or a qualitative study. Now, I don’t want to limit qualitative studies. There’s lots of other things you can do with those, but you get the idea. It’s qualitative. You want thousands of results on that.

So let’s talk a little bit about Excel. So we talked first about results. We can figure out the ultimate question, who wins and who loses, plaintiff or defendant. But we can also look at pieces of the case. So we break our case down to people. Right? We can look at the people in our case and test their credibility.

Super easy one where [00:05:00] we just record people and put it up there and see what they say. But a lot of times we just want to learn, is our witness believable on a scale of one to 10? How credible are they? But you can also test other people in the case, right? Defense witnesses, experts, eyewitnesses. Um, and I think it’s really, really helpful when we’ve got a dispute about how events happen, right?

Dispute on liability. I recently conducted a focus group on a car wreck case where two extremely different stories, right? One story is, The truck’s going straight and somebody pulls out in front or the truck comes from the side and then runs into somebody. So it has to be A or B. There’s no gray area here.

And naturally, there’s lots of witnesses, but maybe they’re hard to find. We had to, took some years to get all these people. So gathered all this up and just showed videos of [00:06:00] these folks describing what happened and then just. Ask the focus group, are these people credible? And then actually like, what happened here?

Right, so this is everybody’s he said, she said, what really happened here? A great way to test our people in our case. Another thing to look at is just evaluating the evidence. Look at what you have. So most of the time in our case, we’ve got lots of deposition transcript, right? So we just talked about that, testing those people.

Maybe we’ve got a bunch of documents, a bunch of medical records. A lot of times people think, Oh, we got this hot doc. This is the one document that’s going to win the whole case. Well, put it in front of them. See if they reach the same conclusion. But another way to evaluate the evidence is throwing together a timeline.

Include key documents to see if that’s reinforcing your timeline. Do you have enough on your timeline? Maybe it’s super confusing. Maybe it needs to be visually a little more appealing. It’s a great test. Looking at photographs and videos. Nowadays, there’s a camera everywhere. And so. [00:07:00] Most things get caught on camera somehow, car wrecks or stores and everywhere else.

So that’s a really great way of just playing that video to see what they say. And again, is it clear? I mean, that’s one of the biggest reasons why I talk about putting it in front of a focus group is if it’s just fuzzy, if it’s just blurry, if it’s just confusing, it may not be this winning piece of evidence that you believe it to be.

or conversely that the defense believes it to be. So super helpful on those elements and with photographs. Sometimes people come to me, Hey, these are the photographs I want to use. And I’m just like, ah, I kind of have a visceral reaction to some of these photographs because I don’t think people are going to like that.

They look like maybe you’re looking for sympathy or maybe they’re Just too grotesque. I don’t know. Let’s not take my opinion for it. Let’s just see what the focus group says. So testing our, evaluating our pieces of evidence, right? Timelines, demonstratives, photographs, records, if we’ve got those, good [00:08:00] way to test those out.

Another way is just, you know, Testing your case theory. Is it good? Is it bad? And I hate to use those words good and bad, but it’s more in the sense of, do they follow it? Does it make sense? Is it too far of a stretch? Is it not a stretch enough? You know, they will help you with that. Also, I like to look at using focus groups to file or not file, right?

So we looked at, okay, so we got results. We got pieces of the case, but ultimately. File or not file. A lot of times people will say, well, I think this is a good case, but it’s a really unusual claim or it’s a really unusual set of facts. And I just want to see what people think about it. Like, should I file this case or not?

And I do quite a few of those. And I think that that’s one. a really good use of information, right? Half of our job as lawyers is to provide evaluations. What’s my case value? And do you think that they’re going to settle or will this have to go to a trial? And do you feel like this is strong enough? We are constantly evaluating and [00:09:00] that’s what people ask us for.

And if you’re having to make a decision about filing or not filing, maybe it’s an unusual case or premises liability cases, a lot of times when they come in my door, I always run it through a focus group to see, should I invest? The question is, is there a way we can invest in this case? I believe it a hundred percent, but we could invest in this case and just realize like, wow, there’s just, the jury’s just never going to go with us.

I kind of want to know that on the outside. And I would think that a client does too. And most of the time when I work with clients and I run through focus group and I just let him know, like the law is really, really thin it’s really, really hard. And also a focus group just was not favorable. Let me tell you things that they pointed out and it’s helpful for me in to explain it to them, but also say, Hey, I want to go the extra mile.

I, you know, I want to make sure and check all the boxes before I tell you, gosh, I just, I just don’t think there’s a case here. So super helpful there. Another place where you can, you know, what do you get would be kind of a knowledge base [00:10:00] asking, what do you know? Maybe finding out the experience level that people have.

Maybe it’s common sense and you don’t need to explain something, or maybe it’s really professional grade and you’re going to have to spend some time explaining things. And that could be medically. Maybe you’ve got some unusual medical situations or unusual, I would say, situations. Maybe there’s scientifically or technically things get kind of complicated.

How much do they know? What’s their blink reaction to some of these things? And that really helps to know how much do you need to have your, Experts explain. How much should you explain an opening? A really good how to on a focus group like this is we ran a focus group recently where there was a lawyer disagreeing a little bit with the client.

Client disagreed with the lawyer about, of course, the facts of the case. And it was an employment case and it all came down to employee, So if you type in oh, let’s, let’s test people on independent contractor. What do you think about it? [00:11:00] So let’s test people on independent contractor. What do you think about it?

So we just, let’s test people on independent contractor. We just selected, selected independent contractor. And then we showed up on the board and people just rattled off. What do you think? And we had people write it down. We talked about it out loud just to get kind of their blink reaction to it and what they thought and ultimately what their experience was.

Had anybody worked as independent contractors? Anybody worked as an employee? And what does that mean? And what do you expect? But we ultimately also put the jury charge, the jury instructions, if you will, in front of them. And ask them, does this make sense? Is this what you thought? Was there anything that surprised you?

What would be confusing or need to be explained? And I love doing that with lots of other jury charges, just to make sure you’re covering all those bases. Because you don’t want to put all effort into every other piece of it, and they get down to that jury charge, and they just get confused. Because they’re confused, they go the wrong way.

And focus group net will tell you what they’re confused [00:12:00] about. Another good way to use a focus group is to hone your skills, to practice, right? To get your craft down and talking about doing jury selection to groups of people or practicing doing opening statement with your demonstratives at the same time.

It’s a really good place to. Practice your inflection, your speaking, your clarity, and also a jury section, like, what are people going to say? What are their responses? Is that question falling flat? Okay, if it does, how do you, how do you backpedal? How do you get out of that place? You know, maybe you get a response that you don’t want or a response that goes off, you

I can tell you from my personal experience, using focus groups has significantly helped me be a better speaker, be a better communicator, and definitely been a better listener. And listening, such a key skill [00:13:00] that we use as a lawyer. And it’s one of the best skills, I think if you want to try to improve anything, Improve your listening skill.

It’s going to help you not only being a lawyer, but being a person as well. But we have to listen so keenly in a deposition, right? We have to listen so keenly when it comes to jury selection and what they’re saying and when to talk and we not to talk, how to process all that information. So listening super helpful folks groups, what do you get Better listening skills for sure.

All right, let me just take a small pause to give a note of caution. One of the biggest things people come to me and ask, I want a focus group, Elizabeth, to find out the case value. I want them to tell me what my verdict is going to be. And I always throw up a really big red flag and I’m trying to tell them like, that’s, that’s really difficult.

It’s not something I would rely on and it’s just going to give [00:14:00] you a very broad brush at it because again, this is a focus group. These people know that they’re not the jury. They know that they’re there for three hours and they’re going to leave after I use the PayPal and pay them. They’re going to leave, forget all about this.

There’s no pressure or oath that they take. So at the end of the day, that money thing can be just like Monopoly money. I try to persuade people away from that and more into kind of things we just talked about. Witness credibility, evaluating the evidence, looking at case theory, looking at the knowledge base, testing out defense theory.

That may get you a lot more than just trying to have this one target of give me the case value. So, big note of caution there. Really lots of other great ways to use focus groups. I would put that way down the bottom and I would caution if you don’t have a lot of experience doing focus groups, moderating, looking at it, analyzing the data, I just caution you just against it.

There’s so many other great ways to use it. Just. Come back [00:15:00] over here. Come over here. And we can talk about later on in a different episode kind of this caution and where this comes from and what my experience is and what I would suggest you do if you are absolutely set on finding out some numbers. We can talk about that.

So let’s just take a moment to recap a little bit about what do you get. We talked about getting results, the yes or the no, who wins, who loses, getting information on witness credibility, testing case theory, getting some clarity on witnesses, getting clarity on pieces of evidence, timelines, photographs, learning whether we should file or not file.

Is this a case? Is this not a case? And then also practicing, honing those skills and becoming much more clear on what the case is about, because that’s one of the biggest things in any of these. that I’ve talked about other than I think knowledge based might be a little bit harder, but you’re gonna get [00:16:00] summaries.

They’re just going to regurgitate information back to you. It may be like, oh man, that’s a lot clearer way of saying things. That would be one thing that you get. And that’s kind of where that moves me into my double dipping phase. This is where you can really work. nerd out on the information. That’s what I like to do.

I think that’s what you should do. If you’re going to run a focus group, great. In that moment, you’re going to get all kinds of feedback, but your brain can’t process all of it at the same time. So get it transcribed. Transcribe that video. and read that transcript again. You would be so amazed at all the things that maybe you didn’t catch because, again, you’re trying to focus on what one person is saying, or maybe you’re just trying to gather on yes no’s, or high points, and just writing things down that you hear.

You will learn so much more if you take that, transcribe it, and read it. And really helpful tip, use an online transcriber. Upload that video. They’ll [00:17:00] transcribe it. Don’t burden somebody in your office with it. Please don’t burden yourself with that. They’ll get it done fast, quickly, efficient, and cost effective as well.

So reading it, you’re going to get a whole other level of analysis. You’re also going to look at it and reading and seeing the language they use. One of the things I mentioned earlier, which was summaries. How are they summarizing this? you. What are they saying? What are they not saying? And a lot of times we get in there, we listened to it live and we don’t hear something at all.

Or we completely mishear it. You know, in our little ears, we hear something like, Oh, and then you read the transcript and like, oh, that’s not what they said. I totally missed that point. So it can also help correct some of your excitement if you hear something wrong. Another way to double dip is to kind of take all this information.

So let’s say you run. It’s a lot of data information. Let’s gather all that into one place. And I’m talking about the people information, that demographics, their age, [00:18:00] education, married, not married, kids, no kids. Are you seeing any patterns or any trends? Are people who are for you, people who are against you, people who are neutral, right?

Can you see anything? If you see anything at all, how come? Like, was there something specific about that focus group? Was there something specific about a piece of evidence that they got there? Right, this is just kind of getting into those weeds and is there anything else I can see here one more time if I’m looking at the demographics?

That’s going to help you if you’ve got to go pick a jury. It’s going to be kind of an outlier. I don’t want you to think like, Oh, let’s be saying like, this is it. I can perfectly craft this. Well, no, but it’s definitely going to help you along. If you’ve got six or seven or 13 focus groups and you can look at all the demographics and also keeping in mind focus group styles and all that, you’re going to be able to see some trends and patterns.

And that’s going to really help you when you get into doing jury selection, right? Versus going cold and blank and not even knowing at [00:19:00] all, What? So, we can use this information, this feedback to the full extent by getting it transcribed, reading it, then also gathering it all up and putting it in front of you to see if there are any trends or any patterns.

If you see something, dig again. Like, what’s the cause there? Was it something that this personally, this person, like experienced, uh, that made them super hot to try, like totally your best juror ever? Okay. Great. But maybe that was that person’s personal experience. Nothing that you said would have convinced them of that.

And that’s kind of where it’s like, okay, if we see a trend, let’s dig a little deeper and make sure like where maybe it have come from on a deep level. Let’s circle back to our original topic, which is focus groups. What do I get? We talked about results. ways to clarify, remove confusion from pieces of evidence, witness credibility, confidence, right?

[00:20:00] Practicing those skills, gaining that comfort, that speaking, listening, receiving responses. How do we manage that when we’re up in front of people? Do I file? Do I not file? Is this anything? Is this a lawsuit? And ultimately, what do they know? What’s this knowledge base on this topic, this subject, maybe this process?

Basically, you can get a lot from focus groups, and that’s what I would totally encourage you to wrap your mind around. It’s not just results oriented. You can learn so much more. You can spend three hours, you can spend one hour, you can spend 30 minutes, you can spend six hours. All of it is going to be about the depth with which you are willing to go into the material and the depth of the feedback.

So, we’ve gathered all this up, now we’re going to talk about in future episodes how, how to get it using focus groups, and we’ll probably break that down into different segments so that we can make it into [00:21:00] bite size information and also with some forms and some templates to help you guys along the way.

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love if you could share it with somebody you know. Also, you can subscribe, follow on your favorite podcast app, review, rate it, share it with a friend. And until next time, thanks so much.

Have you ever wondered whether there’s something you could do to prepare before you meet with your client for deposition prep? You bet there is! Tune in as we talk about how to look at the file for a deeper analysis and answer three really important questions.

We’re going to talk about helping you scope a plan to prepare you before that client testimony preparation meeting. In my experience and most people’s experiences, trial happens, but it’s pretty few and far between. Most of our legwork and our day-to-day stuff is dealing with depositions.

Hopefully, this will help you create a plan for having a deeper analysis of your client’s case, and the testimony they need to provide in your case. That way, you can have smoother preparation meetings and your clients will be impressed and appreciative that you took the time to go back through and get the events down. Ultimately, this creates a lot of trust between you and the client whenever you can repeat events back to them or refresh their own memory. It also helps uncover damages when you’re working through that part of the preparation meeting.  

In this episode, you will hear:

• Reasons to prepare for client deposition
• When to start your review
• What to review and 3 questions to keep in mind
  • What is the target? 
  • What areas can be improved and what are things that are maybe a weakness in the case? 
  • What’s missing? 
• How to gather up depositions
• Doing a double background check

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Have you ever wondered, man, is there something I could do to prepare before I meet with my client for deposition prep? You bet there is. Tune in as we talk about how to look at the file for a deeper analysis and answer three really important questions.

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 and welcome back to another episode of [00:01:00] Trial Lawyer Prep with me, Elizabeth Larrick. Today in this episode, we are going to continue our mini series on planning and preparation.

We’ve had kind of a three episode series. The first one talked about year end review and how to look forward and prepare for the next year. Our last episode talked about focus groups and designing a plan, either a big overall plan for your office. We’re going to focus group three times for every case, or maybe you’ve got one really big case in your office and you want to scheme out how best to plan, or maybe you’ve got a case that’s going to trial.

It’s going and you got to get ready for trial. So we talked about that. If you missed it, go ahead and catch that last episode. And then today’s episode, we’re going to talk about helping you plan. Scope a plan to prepare you before that client testimony preparation meeting. The focus of today’s episode is really going to be about depositions.

In my [00:02:00] experience, and in most people’s experience, trial happens, but it’s pretty few and far between. So most of our legwork, most of our day to day stuff is dealing in deposition. So today we’re going to talk about deposition preparation, but there’s nothing to say you couldn’t apply this for trial. And I promise we will do a trial one as well.

To walk through how to get you ready to prepare your client for trial. But today let’s take a step back and focus on deposition. I kind of want to break this into three main parts and that is what I suggest you review for yourself when I suggest doing that and why. Let’s start with the why because this is something that’s going to add more time.

You’re going to have to take some time to do this. And my experience. When I first started to do it, it did take a lot of time, but as I started to do it over and over again, things got quicker, it doesn’t take me as long, I know what I’m looking [00:03:00] for, and bigger cases, it’s just going to take longer, shorter cases, shorter time.

Let’s jump into why take extra time. What is that prep? How to make that plan? First why it would be anticipating deposition targets, right? We know that our client is target number one. They’re walking around with that bullseye on their back because it’s easy. And so we know that this deposition is basically Open season, right?

They’re going to be able to ask any question. So want to make sure we can anticipate that and be able to prepare our client. The other thing is you want to really have a clear memory on events because you are going to have to refresh your client on those events. A lot of times deposition takes a little bit of time to get there.

Maybe it’s a year, maybe it’s two years. Sometimes it’s even three years. Clients have packed away those painful memories and put it up in a closet and And now you’re going to ask them to drag it right back out, and I guarantee you they’re not going to drag it out until you ask them to do that. So it’s [00:04:00] helpful for you to have a really good, clear idea on the events and what you’re going to ask them about.

And doing this review is going to help you refresh your memory so you can help refresh the client’s memory. The other why would be seeing areas the client needs help. We spend so much time with our clients that sometimes we become a little bit blind to their weaknesses or maybe some things that would be problematic for testimony.

These are not bad people. They’re our clients. But that doesn’t mean that they may be perfect at giving testimony. Rarely find people who are perfect at testimony. So having that analysis, time, helps you, right? You’d be able to spot those areas where maybe they need help. And what I mean by is describing injuries.

Maybe there’s some background issues that you need to talk to them about. And it’s so helpful when you talk to them about it and you have all those details. They really appreciate and it makes them feel so important because you’ve taken that time to go back in and refresh yourself and see those areas that they may need help with at the time.

Another [00:05:00] big why is doing all this work really makes your preparation meetings run so much smoother. You have much more effective use of time and it really helps because instead of having to stop and go look for something, right? So let’s say, oh, we need to remember the date of that injection or the date of that surgery.

You don’t have to stop in the middle and go look for it because that stops your mo, you know, you want to keep. The Moe. And it also makes it look like, hey, you’re the one who’s been dealing with my case for two years and you don’t even know this date. It makes things just go smoother. And ultimately, the client will be much better prepared for the deposition.

Right? You’re going to be in a better place. That’s going to put them in a better place. So those are a couple of big whys, why you’d want to go ahead and spend some extra time doing this. So let’s talk about when. When am I talking about starting some of this review? I like to start three, five, seven days before the deposition prep meetings.

Sometimes it’s flexible based on kind of what’s going on in my schedule, [00:06:00] but the nice thing is when I’m going through and doing this review, I create a memo. So let’s say I have to start it out a week ahead of time. I’m going to make a bunch of notes in there because I know a lot of things are going to happen before I get to pick back up doing my review.

It also gives me time to gather more facts. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I need a medical record. Maybe I need to email colleagues and ask them questions. Maybe I need to find extra depositions. It’s going to give me extra time if I start earlier. I also really like to marinate on things and kind of turn it over and make sure I’m catching all the point of views.

Am I catching the defense lawyer’s point of view, the jury’s point of view, the judge’s point of view? And also use this information and kind of refresh the day before and maybe sometimes even the morning before just to look at it again just to make sure I’m going to be super sharp on those details with the client.

Okay, let’s get to the nitty gritty. What am I talking about? What am I suggesting that you review? Let’s start with the thing that you got, which would be your file. We’re talking about [00:07:00] getting some clarity, you know, walking down memory lane here. I like to even go back to the start. Let’s look at our intake notes.

Let’s look at those emails exchanged with the client. Of course, I’m going to also be looking at pleadings. I’m going to be looking at medical records, maybe looking at even call notes that I’ve had with the adjuster, emails with the opposing counsel, refresh on focus group memos, and I really want to pull any questions that maybe are in the focus group memos that the participants had about the case the client needs to answer.

And that’s super helpful. Any other documents that may be in the file? Investigative documents? Photographs? Maybe we’re missing photographs? I always like to make a note. What am I missing? As I’m going through the file and I’m thinking about it and I’m walking through stuff, I always want to keep three questions in my mind.

What is the target? What is the target of the opposing counsel for this deposition? What I mean by that is maybe there’s a [00:08:00] gap in treatment. Well, you know it’s going to be a target. Maybe it’s that they didn’t go to the emergency room right away. Well, that’s going to be a target. Maybe they didn’t tell their doctor about their symptoms, right?

That’s going to be a target. And I like to kind of write those out. But I always want to keep that question, okay, what is the target? I always want to also question where are areas that can be improved and what are things that are maybe a weakness in the case? Just want to write it out. Even if the client’s going to take care of it or not, meaning they’re going to be asked questions about it or not.

I want to make sure that I’m keeping an eye towards, hey, what am I running across and whereas this need to be improved. And then ultimately, like I mentioned earlier, what’s missing. Am I missing pictures? Am I missing medical records? I’m missing information. Or maybe it’s, Stuff about the client. These may be questions that I need to answer before I get to the client preparation meeting.

And maybe there are questions I just ask the client when we get in there. Either way, I always want to keep those three things in my mind as I’m going through the file. One of the things I like to do as well is research the deposition [00:09:00] style of the opposing counsel. And actually reading those depositions, trying to figure out style, tone, and questions.

I find it really helpful to be able to pull actual questions and use those in role play with the client. How do I gather up those depositions? Well, a lot of what I do is with the same players. So I have a lot of those depositions built up in my own personal bank. But I also use lawyer listservs locally and in my jurisdiction to ask, Hey!

Anybody have a deposition taken by this opposing counsel? I’ve got a plaintiff lawyer. I mean, I’ve got a plaintiff deposition coming up. And most people are 100 percent willing to share when it comes to that because it’s just deposition of their client. And that really helps as far as getting your mind set and again, thinking about what is the target?

What do they see as weaknesses? The other thing I like to do is do a double check on background, and that means doing a Google search, doing a social media search of my client, even going so far as doing family members, spouses. I have definitely had [00:10:00] that experience where I’m sitting in a deposition and the defense pulls out pictures from social media that supposed to be private and all of a sudden it’s not.

And turns out they found a loophole. They went through a family member and got into the client’s social media through a family member. So yeah, I hate that surprise. I know the client did too. So let me help you by avoiding that surprise and the pain of that, having that happen to you as well. So do all that extra search.

And that’s an easy thing. If you want to assign that task to administrative person or paralegal, I found sometimes they’re fantastic at that work, finding all the loopholes and stuff like that when it comes to social media and Google searching. So. That’s a good task to give someone, you know, ultimately want to make sure you’re gathering up the full timeline when things happen, the event that happened all the way up to where you are now.

So you want to make sure that you’re not missing anything in your document analysis. It’s your background search to gather all that information up. And so I say that because I like to create a little timeline. [00:11:00] Maybe it’s medical timeline that really helps me get through medical records quickly. And I always want to again, make sure when I’m going through these medical records, is there anything in there that is going to be a target missing information or check the wrong box or sign the consent form.

All those things. And I even like to pull out documents that I know this is going to be a big one. So I pull those documents out already having them ready for when I’m going to role play with the client later on in the prep meeting. That really helps as well, because you don’t have to go back and find that later.

So, we’ve talked about when to start doing it, we’ve talked about why we need to do this, we’ve talked about what to do, and creating this memo, these notes, in order for you to be able to answer those three questions. What is the target here? What is the point of view of the opposing counsel? Where is there room for improvement?

Any weaknesses? And what’s missing? Thank you. Are there holes missing that we need to fill information or things that I need to find out? I hope that this will help you create a [00:12:00] plan for having a deeper analysis of your client’s case and the testimony they need to provide in your case. That way you can have smooth preparation meetings.

Your client will be impressed, but also just appreciative that you took the time to go back through that you’ve got the events down creates a lot of trust between you and the client whenever you can repeat events back to them or refresh their own memory. That also really helps to uncover damages when you’re working through that part of the preparation meeting.

So if you have any questions, please feel free to post them. I’m going to post the three questions in the show notes. And again, thanks for listening. If you found this helpful, please subscribe this podcast on your favorite podcast app, share it, rate it, review it. And I appreciate it. Thanks so [00:13:00] much.

Are you planning on running some focus groups in 2022? Are you wondering how to navigate the planning process? Or maybe you’ve been doing focus groups, and you’re thinking about how to do a bigger blueprint for a series of cases or get ready for trial? If you already have a case in mind, and you think it’s a great case for a focus group to figure out this problem or this issue, one of the biggest questions is when to do a focus group. In this episode, we are going to dive right in to answer these questions.

Whether you’re doing just one case or you’re planning on building a series of focus groups, it’s helpful to set out a blueprint for focus groups. 

Having a blueprint helps you get things systematized so your process gets easier over time. You also get to compare data from different groups. The more data you have, the more information you have to analyze the trial. A trial can be tricky since you don’t always get to go to trial as much as you want. And so, doing focus groups will help you prepare, and ultimately, build better cases. You’re not only preparing your clients better, but you’re also preparing yourself better for depositions and crafting better questions.

 

In this episode, you will hear:

• When to do a focus group
• The benefits of focus groups
• How to create a focus group blueprint
• The power of doing multiple focus groups for one case
• Creating a blueprint for types of cases
• Building a series of three focus groups

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

You can learn more about when to have a focus group in this blog post: https://larricklawfirm.com/focus-group-faq-at-what-point-in-my-case-do-i-run-a-focus-group-larrick-law-firm/

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Are you going to do some focus groups in 2022? Are you wondering how to navigate planning those out? Or maybe you’ve been doing focus groups and you want to think about how to do a bigger blueprint for a series of cases or getting ready for trial. This episode, we are going to dive right in to answer those questions.

So stay tuned. 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. [00:01:00] Now, here’s Elizabeth. Hello and welcome. This is your host, Elizabeth Laird, and you’re listening to another episode of Trial Lawyer Prep.

This is a podcast designed and created for trial lawyers working with difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial. Our goal here is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. I am excited to welcome you into 2022.

We had a fantastic episode in my opinion, of course, about planning for the year. And we’re just going to continue that with this next two episodes with planning for focus groups and then planning for witness prep. So I’m excited to lay out a focus group blueprint today to talk about really looking at how do we create a focus group plan, right?

So maybe we’re going to start doing focus groups this year in your law office and you decide, Hey, we’re going to run three. Maybe you’re starting [00:02:00] out and you want to get a little more information about how do we plan this out? Think about it. Well, maybe we’re talking about one case. Maybe we’re talking about a series of cases that you have, or maybe you’ve been doing focus groups for a while in your office, and you’re wondering, huh, I wonder if, can we systemize this?

Can we make an approach so that we can just keep repeating this for maybe our bigger cases, or maybe a case that’s got some difficult facts for liability? Or maybe it’s just challenging all around. So that’s what we want to tackle today is thinking about how to set out a blueprint for your focus group.

And what I like to do is we’re going to kind of break this down into, okay, if we’re approaching this with just one case, and then also if we’re going to approach this with a type of case, like maybe the type being car wreck cases or the type being. The case that is going to trial, if there’s no chance of settlement.

So we’re going to take that in two parts. And again, we’re going to look at this in two ways. Let’s scheme out how to schedule this. When do it? What types of focus groups we’re talking about? And [00:03:00] maybe doing a series of those. So let’s talk about if you have one case. And maybe you’re starting out or maybe you already have a case in mind like, Oh man, this would be a great case to focus group and figure out this problem or this issue.

And one of the biggest questions I get asked is when, when should I do a focus group? And what I always like to ask people as well, we kind of look at what is it that you want to accomplish? But also sometimes you may be in the middle of a case and decide to do a focus group. Maybe you are about to file and you’ve wanted to run a focus group.

So there’s lots of different timing. It really kind of depends on your focus group purpose. So I’m going to kind of take two different approaches and the first one would be maybe you’ve never run a focus group and you have a case in your office that you’re thinking about doing it and let’s say it’s already filed in litigation.

What I always like to ask is, okay, so the case is in litigation. What I always kind of look at now is in the scheduling, do you have a trial? Have you already had mediation? Oh, do you still have ongoing discovery? [00:04:00] If you’re really just going to run this one focus group, it’s always good to make sure you have all of your facts in order.

Maybe there’s some outstanding discovery requests. Maybe there’s a deposition that’s outstanding. So you might want to get all that information in. before you run this one focus group to figure out more information about the case that you have. Other times, if you just got this one focus group that you’re going to run, you’re really looking at, okay, I really want to run it right for mediation.

It’s a great time to look at how you’re laying out the case, you know, show it to a group of people and figure out, are they going to adopt what you got? Are they going to give you something different back? So that’s always when looking at scheduling, like when, like, well, what is happening in the case? And really, what is it that we’re, what’s our purpose here?

If you’ve just got this one case and it’s in litigation, there’s really all kinds of focus group types that you can run, right? So you can run opening, maybe you’re not done with discovery, but maybe you want to figure out what is missing. So focus group can help you decide what discovery you want to [00:05:00] continue to do.

Witness credibility also is a great one where let’s say you’ve just got a bunch of people and you have all the depositions done, you’ve got the videos, just make some clips and put the story together through the witnesses and see what happens with the focus group. You can just do jury selection and practice and get ready.

And again, that’s kind of if you’re getting ready for a trial or if you’re just need to practice. Focus groups are a great case laboratory. I mean, you can learn a lot from them. But it’s also just a really great place to practice your skills presenting, talking with people. I mean, I can’t tell you my experience has been so helpful in speaking to people and patience and listening and having active listening skills.

And also kind of knowing like when almost. to stop talking with a person. That helps really with jury selection, but listening and nodding, it’s helped me tremendously. So I totally believe that focus groups are really helpful, just helping generally with speaking and trial practice and presenting. [00:06:00] So I want to talk a little bit about a case that we had here with one focus group, a friend of mine came to me and she had some pretty solid facts that were constructing a oil change.

building, right? So the building was still going up. It was pretty much well done. And there was a crew that was in there working and the woman was working and fell into the pit. And so, and it will change location. You have these pits, giant underground, 10 feet deep, persons underneath there draining the oil and everything.

So she falls in there and severely severe injury. I mean, paralyzed. And so they’re wondering, okay, well, who all would be responsible here? And the purpose for them was to figure out, do we file this case or do we not? Pretty heavy decision because, you know, you’re thinking about your resources, your time, your energy, case expenses, and yeah.

Okay. So maybe legally you can get through the hoops, but ultimately, if you get to a jury, would you [00:07:00] make it? You know, would they file it? find the person you need to be held responsible. So that’s why she came to me. So we put together this one focus group before filing litigation and found that there wasn’t going to be enough responsibility on the party with the insurance.

Yes, it’s disappointing, but also good to know and learn that don’t waste your time and energy. Because it’s just something that the jury just can’t get over. They’re not going to place enough responsibility on this other party that had the insurance policy. And so one case, one shot at it. Why just do one focus group?

And again, that might be a budget issue. Maybe you just want to do one and try it out. Maybe you’re learning to do focus groups. So it’s very low risk to do one of those things. Also kind of like we just talked about, maybe you are trying to decide whether to file a case or not. Maybe there’s some tenuous facts on fact issues or even legal issues.

You want to make sure you can get there before you file a case and put a lot of time and energy in it. So that’s always super helpful as [00:08:00] well. You can just run one and learn a ton of information if you’re getting ready for a trial, mediation, witness credibility. So let’s walk back through. If we just have one case.

Right? We want to get the most bang for our buck with this focus group. Really want to figure out one, what’s our purpose? Are we just going to issue spot? Are we going to get ready for mediation? Are we going to get ready for trial? Are we trying to do some discovery work? We’re trying to do some theme work, some trial theme work.

Once you kind of tackle that down. Then that really helps you work backwards. When do I need to do this? Do I have enough information right now? And then ultimately, knowing what my purpose is, that’s going to help me scope what kind of type of focus group that I want. If you’re running one, you can easily do a one hour.

Right? Just a one hour. One hour you can do three hours. Right? That also depends on the depth of information you want to get into. Case spotting or some really in depth themes and you want to get some good feedback based on a full three hours they’re going to [00:09:00] go through, which is helpful. In thinking about one case instead of just one focus group, let’s talk about just having one case and you maybe want to run it through and you want to make this blueprint and you’re thinking, okay, Elizabeth, I want to run this case.

Let’s blueprint this out if we had a perfect focus group blueprint in my mind and what I have done for my cases here is I always do a pre lit just a really quick issue spotting. What do they see? What are they going to give back to me on this fact pattern? Right? Snapshot really quick one. I always like to do discovery.

a little bit, but I always like to also do a discovery focus group to make sure what else would they want to know? What am I missing? If I’m going after a commercial vehicle, truck, and a company, what is it they want to know about the company? Do I have all that discovery done? And that also helps too, because most of the time I’ve done Some initial deposition.

So we know what actors are going to say. So you put that in front of them too. And then ask what their discovery to do. I’m always like to run [00:10:00] a focus group before mediation and before mediation. I’m really kind of talking about 60 days, 30 days before mediation, because I want to get a good idea in my mind about the presentation that I want.

I want to give that, put that together for them. But really leave some time to tweak it so that I can tweak my presentation for mediation and maybe if I found some good clips I can clip some things and put that also in my mediation presentation. And then if we’re taking this one case all the way through, we’re going to do an opening statement and maybe run that opening once, twice, maybe three times.

And again, when I talk about running opening statement, I’m generally just talking about doing just that opening statement, getting that feedback and getting out of there, right? Nothing else further about that case. So those are kind of a little bit smaller chunks. And then if we roll into trial, opening, jury selection, opening versus opening, mini planets opening versus defense opening, that would be a full blueprint.

Right? And that is [00:11:00] going to give you maybe six, seven focus groups. Some of these are one hour, some of these are three hours, maybe some are even six hours if we’re doing a full adversarial focus group, but we have all this data. I mean, I love having more than one focus group because we really can sit down and look at the data that we have, like how people were leaning and what worked and what didn’t work.

And it’s so helpful. The one focus group is helpful. Don’t get me wrong. It’s going to really help. Even just a little. Sometimes I hear from lawyers and I’m a true believer in this as well. If you just learn one thing, sometime that one thing can really save your case. For example, I’ve got a good friend out in Houston, his name is Nick, and they had a focus group that they put together before trial.

You know, they did kind of a full presentation, almost a mock trial set up and everything was coming along. Themes are good, but they learned that they needed to put in this one particular fact. So it was an explosion case that they had. There was some [00:12:00] gas leak in the house. I mean, the focus group was really, really honed in on, were they smokers?

Were the people who live in that house smokers? Were they smoking? And they weren’t, but that fact wasn’t in there. And so this one really, really small thing was super important to them. And it changed the case. I mean, they went to trial, of course, put that in there and it had a very good result, but I mean, they felt very, very strongly that focus group gave them that data.

And that one very, very crucial fact they needed to put in there and new focus groups will do that and you’ll see those patterns as well. Like alright cases, we always talk about making sure people wear their seat belts and other things that those are just crucial facts. Like they just need to know, for our lawyer brains, it may seem like, well of course it’s a soon, but sometimes it’s that one crucial fact that we get out of that one focus group that really can turn things around.

And those are really helpful. Um, for you. examples of doing that one case and really fine tuning on the analysis and the data. But if you have multiple focus groups for this one [00:13:00] case, man, such good data comparison, right? You can put all those people together and which way were they leaning and like, look at all that stuff.

And that’s really going to help you with jury selection, having all that data comparison as well. So let’s turn our focus now and look at creating a blueprint for types of cases. And what I mean by that is, let’s say you’ve got a docket where maybe 50 percent of what you do is car wrecks and nothing wrong with that.

Maybe 50 percent of what you do is commercial carrier cases or employment, and you want to set up a system, right? A blueprint for all of your cases to run through. Maybe you’re going to do three focus groups for every case on this docket, right? So I know that not every case maybe needs a focus group, but in this kind of, you know, Series or blueprint in my mind, I’m thinking, okay, 50 percent of my docket, I’m doing these three focus groups.

Maybe they progressively get longer. Maybe it’s, I do a one hour, then it’s two hours, then it’s [00:14:00] three hours, right? And you’re working that schedule in along the way. So again, let’s go back to our car wreck example. And you’re just going to run three focus groups for every car wreck case. So, let’s look at that.

Let’s do a pre lit. Before you file, let’s run it through. Make sure we’re getting any issues, any case holes that we’re not seeing right. Do that pre lit. Maybe for the next one we’re going to do, after discovery is all done, we’re going to run a focus group that’s much more detailed, giving a lot more information, a presentation.

Maybe we’re gearing up for mediation. Having that presentation for that and then our last focus group being before trial, right? So you’re going to scheme it out. You’re going to have those three focus groups and maybe you don’t ever make it to trial because It does end up settling. Well, okay. Then you’re not going to use that last one.

Just kind of having that system already set, like, okay, we’re going to do this before we file and then get our discovery in. And did we match up with all the problems that they [00:15:00] spotted in that one? Okay. Did they or did they not? Did it work? I don’t know. Well, let’s run a focus group, right? Let’s take all that information and run a focus group again.

See how we’re doing on that. If it doesn’t settle, then you’ve got that last focus group for trial where it’s jury selection. It’s opening. It’s. Witness credibility, just make sure everything is honing in and you’re getting ready for trial. The other way to look at it is if you know the case is going to trial.

You can set up kind of a trial focus group system, Blueprint. And one of the ones we’ve done recently was virtually we did three focus groups, all opening statements. So plaintiff opening versus defense opening and the way that they structured it is, again, this is a case that folks that came to me, they knew we’re going to trial.

This is not settling, not a chance and strong conviction in it, which is great because ultimately what they did is we had a focus group. All the focus groups were about six months. Maybe three months apart. And again, that’s because they had a [00:16:00] trial date, but you know, things got continued. They had some discovery pending, but they had a pretty good grasp on it.

And each time they ran the opening, they just tweaked things as they learned them, right? So we had first one. Okay, great. We need to find information about this. We need to tweak this in the opening. We need to create a visual aid. Great. So we came back in six months. They did all those things and okay, great, we’re hitting all the good stuff.

We’re still missing some stuff and we need to work on that visual aid. And then that last opening, right? Really close to trial where they know this is going to work and here’s our visual aid and testing all that. And they had all these three, they had this data comparison, right? So they had a really good rich pool of people to compare the data to say, what are jurors that just did not lean our way?

They just didn’t lean our way. And was it personal experience? Was it experiences that they had? Can we craft questions around that? And, Maybe just these are red flags. We just need to make red flag and talk to [00:17:00] those people in jury selection. And with the information they had and having worked so hard on that opening statement, I mean, they nailed it.

They ended up going to trial and had a fantastic result. Called me up, said, oh my gosh, yeah, this is the way to go because we were able to really Keep testing our theme. Were we hitting this theme and did we have the evidence to back it up? So they had a really good result. I’m a big proponent of doing those opening statements early because that makes you get in gear and start fashioning things and making sure you have the evidence to say at an opening and also knowing what’s not going to come in at opening but do you need to come in later?

So that’s also a super helpful blueprint is just three opening statements spread out six months in between. Another way to do it is first for jury selection that I’ve definitely done it before is three even to five focus groups at about an hour a piece, sometimes a little bit less where you’re just doing jury selection.

And you’re testing questions, [00:18:00] you’re learning the responses from people, you’re practicing that pivot. When you’re finished talking to somebody, you need to pivot to another case, you need to pivot to another question, and then also really practicing to that skill of getting people up for cause, building in those questions to make sure it feels so natural.

When you hear somebody who. Can go out for a cause and you can nail it down. Right? You got those questions. It’s not a belief that you’ve had for a while. You walked in the courthouse with that belief and you’re going to walk out of the courthouse with that same belief. Oh yeah. I mean, that’s an experience that was ingrained with you.

Oh yeah, for sure. Right? So those questions that you know, you’ve got to do them in order to secure that. Practicing those questions with focus group is very helpful, super helpful. And like I said, Dune 3. To five of those, and again, accumulating that data. I mean, one, you’re going to practice. You’re going to be so ready for the responses that you get.

You’re going to feel very comfortable. They’re going to know you’re comfortable with it. [00:19:00] It’s just going to flow more naturally when you have practice with those questions and those responses. And knowing that there’s probably that response out there, how do I get it? The response that you want to hear.

So that’s a really good one too, when you know that case is going to trial and you feel strongly that picking a jury is really going to hone in and be crucial for you. Another kind of blueprint for trial would be another three focus groups set up. Maybe just that first focus group is going to be about the jury charge.

A lot of times we have difficult jury charges. And when I say jury charge, I will call them jury questions, right? What are the questions the jury is going to answer? Put that up, put that in front of them to figure out like, what’s their initial reaction to that. Does that match up with your facts? And how do you build your case around their thoughts and expectations about those words on that page?

We did this pretty recently for an independent contractor case, an employment case, and learned all kinds of wonderful things about what people think and know about independent contractors. And even put the [00:20:00] test, you know, there’s a test in one of the jury charges that they looked at to see. Does the test make sense?

What’s confusing about this, you know, and that was so helpful for the lawyers to be like, oh, okay. So, maybe I can’t change those words on the page, maybe you go up with the judge and they’re not changing anything. That’s okay, because you still have that time in closing argument to speak to them in the way that makes sense, right?

You’ve heard it in a focus group, now you can go speak to them in your closing argument. And then follow that focus group up with, maybe it’s an opening. statement with those jury questions, right? So let’s test out your opening. Let’s test those jury questions. And then again, leading into that last focus group being an opening versus an opening with those jury questions, right?

Who’s doing better on those opening statements? As you can tell, I’m a huge proponent of doing an opening statement focus group. I just think it does so much for us. So let’s talk about why would we have Kind of these blueprints for a series of [00:21:00] cases, whether it’s that, those trial cases, maybe it’s that docket that you’ve got a car wreck cases that you just, you’ve got them sitting there.

Okay, so why are we doing a blueprint? Why are we doing more than one? And again, one things we’ve already talked about, which is data. We want to be able to compare data, different groups, more data, more information for you to analyze. A trial, You know, trial is tricky and we don’t always get to go to trial as much as we want and so doing focus groups will help you prepare.

Maybe ultimately you just want to build better cases, right? So let’s talk about, you’re going to do these series on your car wreck cases. You just want to build better cases. You want to be able to be prepared for what you know that they’re going to say. Prepare your clients better, right? Prepare yourself better for depositions and craft better questions.

That building better cases is going to get your cases more value. All right. So we’ve talked about having that one case. And [00:22:00] running through six or seven focus groups, we’ve talked about having that one focus group. And what do you want to do to get the most bang for the buck? We’ve talked about types of cases and building a series, right?

Building a series of three focus groups. Whether it be for, okay, is my car at cases? They’re going to go through this. Three focus group phase, maybe it’s for trial. Maybe you’re looking at developing a trial skill, jury selection, and those questions. Maybe you’re looking at, all right, we just got to get this case ready.

We’re just going to do a bunch of openings, make sure we’re hitting it all cylinders or doing a combination of all those things. And ultimately knowing, okay, this is what I want to do. I want to have this blueprint for these focus groups. When do I need to set that up? You know, what is the structure for that?

Is it six months apart? Is it just going to be at a triggering date when discovery ends? Or is it just, hey, this is where this case is and I just want to learn what I can [00:23:00] learn right now. And you can totally do all those things. But this episode is much more about planning that blueprint. Looking out at the landscape of what you got and deciding, okay, once we finish Discovery, we’ll want to do that.

Or, okay, once we, once we don’t make it through Medi we don’t settle the case in Mediation, Let’s move into that three focus groups for trial, or maybe it’s, Hey, I want to try this out. Let’s test it out. Let’s pick one case and do one focus group. How do we do that for the most bang for our buck? Awesome.

Well, I hope that this helped in looking at creating a focus group for trial. I do want you to know that we are definitely going to tackle how to plan for a focus group if we’re looking at, okay, Elizabeth, I’ve got my one case. How do I plan this thing? How do I presentation wise, question wise, we are totally going to do that in this podcast.

But again, we’re just starting [00:24:00] 2022. So I want to take this at like our big 30, 000 foot view. And when we come back next episode, we are going to look at planning for you for witness prep. What does the lawyer do to prepare? Right? So before we jump into working with our client, how do we get in the best mindset, best place to be able to help them do our research to make that prep go easier tune in next week for that on that episode.

But in the meantime, I would love it And I appreciate it so much if you would share this podcast with a friend, rate it, review it on your favorite podcast app, and tune in next week where we’re going to talk about planning for witness preparation. Thanks so much.

Ready to hit that refresh button for 2022? In this episode, we talk about improving yourself as a trial lawyer by doing this year-end review to refresh and get better for 2022. Planning can be super exciting because it serves as a fresh start. You get to have a whole new fresh calendar and fill it up with fun things, make plans, and set intentions. 

 

As you’re preparing for the new year, use this time to look at the trial schedule and case projections. Look at where cases will be in 2022 – how many will be ready for mediation and how many are ready for filing. Calculate the estimated expenses and schedule out those expenses. 

 

Even if you took just a few minutes to look at what happened in 2021, this would still put you in a better position to get ready for 2022 to hit that refresh button. Go through your calendar, your memory bank, and your photographs to get more details as you’re setting new intentions for 2022. One fun thing about 2022 is that, in Chinese astrology, it’s the Year of the Tiger  – and so, you either go big or go home.

 

In this episode, you will hear:

• The benefits of year-end review and planning
• A guide to doing your own year-end review
• Strategies for setting intentions and goals for 2022
• How to develop the not-so-easy habits

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

If you want to download a free habit tracker you can go here: https://jensincero.com/downloads/

Jen Sincero has a book on creating habits called Badass Habits – I highly recommend it! 

https://www.amazon.com/Badass-Habits-Cultivate-Awareness-Boundaries/dp/B085VD2JKD

If you want to learn more about Lexlee Overton check out her website: www.MindOverLaw.co

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] As we are about to jump into 2022, I want to take a quick departure from our usual content to talk about a great internal review you can do before starting a brand new year. So let’s look at it and get started.

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

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

Hello, hello and welcome. This is Elizabeth Larrick and you’re listening [00:01:00] to an episode of Trial Lawyer Prep. This podcast is designed and created to help trial lawyers. And today we are going to depart from our usual content of connecting with juries and clients. To talk about improving you as a trial lawyer in our businesses and as people.

So why the departure? Well, this episode is going to drop right before 2022 and I love year end planning. I mean, I really enjoy it. So I just thought, let’s do a little episode really quickly to pass along some of the things that I do as a year end review to refresh and get better for 2022. So here in planning for me, super exciting because it’s like a fresh start.

We get to have a whole new fresh calendar and fill it up with fun things, make plans, set intentions, looking at the trial schedule, what it’s going to be for trial, looking at case projections, where will cases be in 2022? How many will be ready for mediation? How [00:02:00] many will be ready to be filed?

Calculating, okay, well how much are those estimated expenses? And Looking at, all right, well, when will these things settle? All those things are really, really helpful for year end review and beginning planning so that you can look at those things and schedule out those expenses. But before we jump to making those amazing plans for 2022, we need to stop and do a year end review.

Now, this is not my idea. I was taught this idea by a mastermind that I was in with Lexlee Overton. Shout out to her. And it’s great. It’s fantastic. And so what we do is just look at, Hey, what happened in the past 12 months? So I take out my calendar, look through my phone and scroll through pictures, look through social media just to see, hey, what happened in the past 12 months?

And was it good? Was it positive? Was it bad? Was it negative? How did I handle it? Um, and I’m going to talk a little bit about what could be improved. What do we need to do? Just a big high five and a big party [00:03:00] about, because things turned out really, really well. One of those things that was a negative, but really not under anyone’s control was the snowmageddon that we had here in central Texas in February.

Truly a astronomical event. Never experienced anything like that here in central Texas. And definitely for me personally going a week without water or power and just thinking about for this coming week. Winter season, how can I prepare better for that for business wise? How do we operate if we don’t have any power and how do we put things in place to get ready if that happens, but also personally, how do you plan better?

Have water, have power, do those small things just to make sure you have a little bit of comfort while you’re surviving those things. Fantastic way to look at your struggles from this past year. And that’s something you need to work on. Or is it something you keep repeating? Sometimes we have struggles, or we have difficult moments, and they don’t repeat.

They’re [00:04:00] just one offs. Maybe you can look at, with the comfort of time, no, that’s an event that happened, it was really kind of stinky, but this is how I handled it, is that going to come up again for me? Or is that something that, okay, that’s just a one off, we can just move on? Or does it keep repeating and maybe I need to look at that and figure out how to improve handling that situation or working through it or whatever the issue may be.

For example, for me, bookkeeping, this is definitely going to be an intention for me for 2022, which is finding someone to help me with this piece of my business. It’s been something that’s been on my mind. It’s been on my plate. I’ve handled it, set time aside for it. And kind of did it along the way, but I really want to find someone who I can trust to do that for me and sit down and they can teach me more about what’s happening because I feel like if I have more information, I can make better decisions about case planning and case expenses.

Also, part of the year end review would be where was their success? [00:05:00] How can we get that to repeat? Maybe you had a lot of cases come in the door and maybe you’ve got a really great referral source that you need to high five and send them a gift. Or maybe you need to look at, was there a trial success and a verdict?

And how can you repeat that in your next trial setting? For me personally, it was doing trial work this past year with a couple of folks up in Tennessee and having a fun time, it being challenging and using all of my brain. How can I repeat that? Another area to look at for your review, which would be the general categories, finance, thinking about business wise, how can you do better?

What did you spend your money on? Really, not questions that we always look at as trial lawyers, but even if you don’t have your own business and you’re still associated or working up to your partner, it’s still really important to have that conscious thought about how much money is being spent on cases and how to do a [00:06:00] better job or how to save a little bit of money here and there.

It’s really important just to have that consciousness, to know what’s going on in the budget, to keep tracking. And there’s always ways that we can do things better without spending more money. Okay. Or, what I like to think of too is, okay, how can we rearrange things and spend money on stuff that would really help us improve?

And like I said, for example, mine is bookkeeping. I’m going to find someone to help me. I’ve got to make sure that I’ve got all that availability in my budget. Another area is just looking overall at the business. How did your business do? Did it grow? And maybe if you didn’t grow, but did you improve on something?

How your office executed something? Maybe it was customer service was Much better. Maybe you guys were able to draw more detail to the client journey and how they’re gonna travel through a case maybe you worked on getting reviews. All those things that you can look at to see how do we do and how we can set goals for next year.

The other categories that I like to look at are just personal. [00:07:00] Were there any personal changes? And then health. How was health overall? I know that being through a pandemic, health has come so much into the forefront of our conversations about how we view things because it is so fragile. And even though we are here, it’s December 2021, there’s still so much unknown and uncertainty, and we have to take it careful.

And if, if we don’t, People still have to quarantine and take time away and do testing. So that has really become something that I’m super grateful for. And also much more aware of, especially as we move into 2022. And again, if you don’t have practices or policies about what to do. For working remotely, highly suggest that you do that.

There are tons of resources online if you’re not really sure or hit up your local trial lawyers association, because I know there are people who have created processes and policies for how to help lawyers get through that time. Meaning if you have an employee that’s sick, or if you get sick and you have to work remotely for a period of time.[00:08:00]

All right. So after you’ve done your fantastic year in review, and again, you could spend 10 minutes doing this, just going through your calendar. You could spend an hour doing this, going through your calendar and your memory bank and your photographs. The more detail that you get into it, the better you may be for setting your new intentions for 2022, but that’s totally up to you.

I just encourage, even if you took just a few minutes to look at what happened in 2021, you’re still going to be in a. better position to get ready for 2022 to hit that refresh button. So let’s turn then for setting some intentions, setting maybe some goals and working backwards. If you’re here in December of 2021, how can we um, plan now backwards to get to where we want to be for 2022 December.

For me, one of my biggest intentions is going to be this podcast. Making sure that I give y’all the best content that I can to focus [00:09:00] on bringing in fantastic people for interviews and figuring out how to improve how to get the podcast out to more people, how to grow an email list, just really making sure that I’m doing the right thing.

The best job I can with this podcast, one fun thing about 2022, it is the year of the tiger in Chinese astrology. And so the year of the tiger is really go big or go home. And I love that. I always love having a little bit of a theme. And I think that’s so helpful because if you felt like maybe 2021, wasn’t really getting started and we had setbacks health wise and Delta variant that maybe 2022 is the time now is when it’s going to happen.

Well, Chinese astrology is here to support you. Might as well go big or go home. So whatever you decide to do, I always find that tracking helps us hit our intentions to hit our goals. You can use a weekly journal. Even if it’s a paper journal, there’s tons of apps that really help [00:10:00] you set reminders. I would also say that making your goal link to a habit that you already do.

For example, one of the things that I wanted to start doing a few years ago was, uh, I It’s a gratitude journal. So one of the things I was doing in the mornings was meditating. So now you know what, I’ll just meditate and then boom, gratitude journal right after that just already set the side, the time and good to go.

And it obviously has helped and worked because I’ve been doing it for several years now and don’t really have to think about it. It’s already second nature. Now, what about some other habits that are not so easy, like for me, bookkeeping. I have to set that on the calendar. I have to really make sure that I block time, uh, set time, set day, and I will sit down at Outlook and program the whole year.

Make sure that no matter what happens, that time is blocked out on my week and I’m definitely going to take care of that task. Because again, that’s not something that’s supernatural for me. I have to do it, otherwise I will ignore it. So I do encourage using Outlook or Calendar [00:11:00] Reminders, I should say, whatever calendar app that you use.

And one of the things too, with setting up extra time for depo prep, deposition prep could be when you’re preparing your client or when you are preparing to take a deposition. Every time I set a deposition, I make sure that when I put that on the calendar, I also set aside however much time I think I may need to get ready for that, even if it’s setting a time prep for the client, but also my prep time in there.

It’s an automatic. When I set my calendar up, I do that. When my assistant sets it up, it’s also the same thing. If you set this calendar, then you got to set another calendar date for preparation for that time. And that’s really going to help just get everybody in the process of spending a little more time to do our jobs a little bit better.

How can we improve on that time? Another great thing as far as looking at 2022 and business wise, talked a little earlier about looking at that trial schedule, looking at case projections, how many cases are going to be filed, how many are going to roll into needing a [00:12:00] mediation, and Going to the calendar and setting a deadline to do a focus group for opening, setting a deadline to focus group for jury selection to practice, or for those mediations, setting a deadline to do a focus group for the mediation presentation.

All those things that can be kind of set on the calendar to remind you to do it. Because once we get started with 2022, all the best laid plans, things can kind of shuffle out of order. And as long as it’s marked on the calendar for me, that means nothing else will go in that spot. So I’m a huge proponent of blocking time to make sure that I have time to do things.

Hopefully you have. Set some great intentions for 2022. I know that that’s what I’ll be doing during this week as we March into January 1st. I hope that you enjoyed it. Thank you again for listening. If you found this helpful, please share with a friend. Be sure to subscribe. Subscribe on your podcast app.

And when we be back in 2022, we’ll be jumping into some content to help you start off with the best [00:13:00] foot. We’ll be looking at what you should do as a trial lawyer to prepare for deposition preparation. And then also setting up a focus group plan, meaning, all right, if you’ve got a pretty large case, how do we set up two, three, maybe four focus groups and setting goals, but also what type should you do?

What are we leading up to? Maybe it’s trial, maybe it’s mediation, but tackling those two topics right off the bat in January, and then moving into some awesome interviews as well. So take care and happy new year.

In this episode, I’m sharing an interview with my good friend Jim Lyons in which we talk about his recent post-COVID trial and the things that he did to connect his client to the jury. We talked about several different ways to do that.

For the past 20 years, Jim’s practice has been in the litigation arena, concentrating on personal injury cases. He also does business litigation and just about any other type of litigation of significant size. 

As lawyers, one of the biggest things we forget is that, while our clients hire us, we really should be thanking them for opening up. Therefore, it’s essential to gain their trust so they also gain confidence in us. 

 

When people hire a lawyer, they’re most likely going through a life-changing event, especially in a significant injury or death case. These types of events are extremely tough on them. You have to trust them to be able to tell their stories and tell them well. 

 

Jim highlights the importance of understanding how people express love in a relationship, especially in wrongful death cases where we’re talking to juries. You have to trust that your clients are going to get there and be themselves. Even if the way they get to be themselves isn’t perfect, as long as people are being authentic, jurors will respect them. 

 

In this episode, you will hear:

• An overview of Jim’s case
• How to facilitate a relationship with your clients
• Changes and challenges in the courtroom after the pandemic
• How Jim prepared his client (a deceased husband’s wife) for trial
• How to do witness prep
• What Jim brought out of his client’s testimony and used for his closing
• The results of the case and what Jim could have done differently

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

Hello, my fellow podcast listeners. I’m excited to share this interview with my very good friend, Jim Lyons, where we talk about his recent trial post COVID and the things that he did to connect his client to the jury. We talk about several different ways to do that. So let’s jump right in.

All right. Well, I am very excited to introduce everyone to my dear friend and fabulous attorney, Mr. Jim Lyons. Jim practices up in Arkansas and it’s been doing that for a little while. I’d say I made a little bit 40 years or more. So Jim, if you wouldn’t mind, just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you practice.

Sure. I practice primarily in the litigation arena, concentrating on personal injury cases, but I also do business litigation, just about any type of [00:01:00] litigation of significant size I do. I have been doing that primarily for the past 15, 20 years. I used to do more transactional work in business, but I’ve gotten away from that.

I’ve got a partner that handles most of that now. Primarily personal injury, but I still do a good bit of business litigation because we handle a lot of business litigation So awesome, and you know you and I met probably Been about five or six years ago through doing some continuing legal education classes together with At the time it was called the reptile now.

It’s the keen and edge I think did we was it a I want to say it was a seminar maybe we met at for the first time. I think that that’s correct, but I wouldn’t swear to that. Might have been, might have been a course, but I think it was probably a seminar. Sure. A lot of things we’ve done together along the road, so I’m really excited to have you join us here today because you have.

Absolutely. You have gotten [00:02:00] to actually go back into the courtroom after COVID. And I know a lot of us are super curious about your experience and you know, maybe things that you did a little differently or maybe the courtroom was positioned differently. So I’d like to us to talk a little about that, but I also want us to know, get everybody, you know, what we’re going to talk about also today is really the.

direct exam that you did of your client and the things that you used to have her and her story connect with the jury. But before we jump into that, let’s talk a little bit about, give us a quick synopsis of the case that went to jury so we can follow along with the story. Okay. Well, I’ve had two cases, but the PI case that I had, it was a case involving a trucking company where a trucking company ran Through a railroad crossing.

And it was in a railroad yard, [00:03:00] so they were shoving cars backwards. And my client was riding on the back of the train, and caused, the truck caused the car to derail, and it fell on top of him. And literally landed on his head. Alright, and you have, I mean, this is a case, I remember when we kind of talked about it before, you’ve had this case for a while.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We started, it occurred in 2017. We started the litigation late 17, early 18. Uh, got postponed for over a year because of COVID. And just recently in Arkansas, they’ve started jury trials. My first one was in May, and then this one was in October. Okay. And, uh, you know, as far as, kind of, You know, introducing who your client was, tell us a little bit about who your client was in this particular case.

My client was a [00:04:00] personal representative of the estate. Her name is Marla Melton. She and her husband had been married for over 40 years and, uh, salt of the earth people. Just a wonderful, wonderful family. And that made the case that much more enjoyable. Awesome. And I know, uh, along the way you guys became fairly, uh, uh, tight knit, good relationship.

What are some of the things that you did to help facilitate that relationship with your client? Well, the main thing that you have to do in order to do that is do two things. One, you have to spend a lot of time with your client and I don’t mean like a few hours. I mean, hours and hours and hours, and you have to spend it on their turf, not coming into your office and just sitting.

I’ve been to their home, I’ve been to their kids home, I’ve [00:05:00] met them at places to go out to eat. They’re from near Little Rock, and I’m in Jonesboro, which is about an hour and a half away. And so, there’s no telling how many times I drove down there and met with them. But a lot of times, and spend a lot of time with them.

And that’s essential to gaining their trust and them gaining confidence in you. And that’s what you gotta have, to try a case and try it well. Gotcha. And when this case came in the door, did you kind of already know when you’re meeting with them, when you’re learning about this, this is going to be a case that’s, that’s going to trial?

Or did you think that there was a possibility of settlement? No, I really thought that there was a possibility of settlement. But they did have a decent defense to the case because my client was partially at fault. And so that’s what they were banking on. They thought they could prove that he was equally or [00:06:00] more at fault.

And therefore, it was a case that Originally, I didn’t think was going to trial, but the more I learned about their defense, the more I understood why that they thought it should go to trial and why we had to go to trial. So there was, uh, no offer case until just a week or two before trial. And then during trial, trial did not go as well for them as they wanted.

And so they made one significant move, but it wasn’t nearly enough. And so my clients, main point was to prove that he was not the one who was primarily at fault. And so that’s what we accomplished. Gotcha. Okay. And just to kind of unravel the story just a little bit so that our fellow podcasters listening understand you had in this case, the, the truck driver, the truck driver company, and also the employer, the railroad [00:07:00] company of the deceased husband, right?

Right. They were all defendants. There were actually two trucking companies involved. Then the Little Rock Port Authority and the driver were the four defendants in the case. Okay. So you’re juggling kind of a lot of preparation on top of kind of weaving the story and liability all at the same time. Yes.

Yes. And the Little Rock Port Authority was not a primary defendant because that’s a FILA claim for those of you who are familiar with that and your damages are severely limited in under FILA and so from the outset we knew that and our intent was to put as much fault as possible on the trucking company and the driver as possible and to minimize the fault of the uh, Little Rock Port Authority.

Okay. And at the same time, you said the [00:08:00] defendants had a really good kind of hold on liability or kind of a defense, which would be blaming the deceased husband, right? Yes. My client was riding on the back of the train, which he, where he was supposed to be riding, but he also, he was the foreman of the railroad crew.

And under the Federal Railroad Administration rules and regulations, as well as under the rules of the Little Rock Port Authority, the crossing was supposed to be covered, as they call it. And there was no traffic for a while, and so the crossing was not covered, because they didn’t see any traffic until the last few seconds, but there’s no excuse for that under the Federal Railroad Administration regulations.

Okay, so you got four defendants in the case. They’re all blaming your deceased husband and you got your, your client is the, the widow. [00:09:00] Let’s talk a little bit about before we jump into kind of her and, and helping her get ready and what actually happened at trial. Tell me a little bit about, you know, going into this courtroom, like you said, it’s your second trial after the pandemic, you know, Were there any modifications to the courtroom, to, you know, masks, and I know a lot of people are super curious about your experience in going back in the courtroom after the pandemic.

Can you talk a little about that? Sure. In both of the cases that I’ve tried, it was done fairly similarly. In the first one I tried, we actually chose, uh, voir dire in a gymnasium. And so that was an experience. That was the first time I’d done that. And then, in this case, we, they didn’t have a place nearby.

And so we had to do them in groups. And we did groups of 18 in the courtroom. Everybody had to be masked. But, when you were speaking, [00:10:00] You did not have to be masked. And so we would have jurors stand up, take off their masks, and then answer questions. And same thing for me. When I was questioning, I could take off my mask.

When defense attorneys were questioning, they could take off their masks. And so the witnesses on the stand also, if they’re on the stand and answering questions, they could take them out. Okay. After Gwadir, when we got into the trial, the witnesses were allowed to take off their masks. And that was true in both of the cases that I’ve tried.

Did you have any kind of concerns about You know, missing any body language from the jurors after they were seated in the box? Oh, absolutely. Because all you can see is essentially from here up, because they were required to wear their masks throughout the trial. And so it’s much tougher to read them when you can’t see their entire face.

So that was one of the things that’s a challenge. in Arkansas right [00:11:00] now in regard to COVID. So, it’s something that, that you have to work at. Uh, but it’s hard, it’s something that becomes much harder because I’m used to been trying cases for 40 plus years and have read body language for a long time, have studied it, feel like I’m decent at it, I’m not great by any means, but it makes it much tougher to do that when you can’t see the person’s entire face.

And were they spread out six feet or were they still sitting in the box together? No, they were spread out. They actually had them, and we had, in this case, we had half of the jurors directly in front of you were, as, The podium was already set up and it was not one that you could move because it was a good size.

And but then I had half of the jurors sitting to my right and so I would have to turn to them [00:12:00] to talk to them for a while. Then I would have to turn back to the jurors who are in the box. And then we also had alternates who were sitting to My left and what would be the right side of the box if you’re sitting in the box.

So we had jurors on both sides of the box and you had to try and be sure you were addressing everybody. And so that’s a challenge. It’s fairly easy to make eye contact with people if they’re all right in front of you. It’s hard to do that when you’ve got to turn this way. And then you’ve got to turn this way and then you’ve got to turn this way.

So did you practice that at all? As far as knowing where they were going to be seated, did you, you know, if you’re practicing opening or questioning, did you kind of do that body movement to get used to it? No, because unfortunately, uh, we did not know we were going to trial in this case until the Friday before.

The judge was not as good as he should have been in my estimation [00:13:00] in regard to telling us whether we were going or not. And uh, We could not even get into the courtroom to know what the setup was going to be. And we didn’t know literally until we walked down that morning to see what the setup was in my other case, everybody was seated in front of me.

They just added a row in front of the box. And so I. I could face everybody straight on, which was much more normal. I was just farther away. But in this case, we had them spread essentially on three areas of the courtroom. And so it was tough for, in this case, to do it and to communicate with them and much tougher to talk to people over here and here and here, as opposed to just those in front of you.

Absolutely. And, you know, we talked about finding out late at, you know, it’s really kind of a common problem that we have with most people that are, [00:14:00] you know, judges aren’t letting people know until, you know, two or three days ahead. But I know from having talked to you about this case before you guys had done a lot of preparation, you know, as far as focus groups and having, you know, the pieces opening those kinds of things done in leading up to October.

So you guys had actually really tried to be prepared In the event of trial, right? Yeah, and unfortunately another thing that this judge did was to postpone the pretrial hearings until the very end. And so we were focus grouping it one way, and then we found out the judge was going to keep out.

Significant amount of evidence because he would not let us pursue a direct negligence claim against the trucking companies and we had 45 minutes of video clips and of those 45 minutes of video clips from one of the owners of one of the [00:15:00] trucking companies, I was only able to use 20 minutes and 22 seconds because he Prevented me from using the rest of that, which that, that was the thing that substantially reduced the value in the case because the personal responsibility of my client.

Became a non factor when you got in all the evidence against the trucking company because the trucking company was so bad but when you kept out the trucking company information trucking company evidence and trucking company admissions from the One of the owners of the trucking company then it became a much much closer case Because now you’re just comparing the driver To the guy who’s on the back of the train, and they both essentially had close to equal duties, although trains do have the right of way.

So that substantially changed the case, how we had to try [00:16:00] it, and the value of the case. Gotcha. Yeah, and I remember we, uh, when we did that focus group together, we definitely had in mind that those things would be able to come into the jury, and that made quite a bit of difference in our, in our adversarial focus group.

Right. Right. Gotcha. Gotcha. And that’s actually one of the things, you know, as far as in Texas, that’s one of the newest things that we have going for us as there’s a big change in the law, you know, no, we can’t have direct actions against a trucking company. So, you know, that’s something that we’re going to be facing here, you know, in the next few months, how to pursue those and waiting for one of those to go to trial, uh, to see what happens.

So, well, let’s talk a little bit about your client, Marla. Let’s talk a little bit about getting her ready, but really I’m curious about what were things that you saw in her story that connected her to, to jurors? Well, she, I mean, the people who are old enough to remember Ozzie and Harriet. [00:17:00] If you don’t, it was a story of raising kids, but it was a perfect marriage.

And You know, even though my parents were very much like that, I was very lucky. There’s wasn’t perfect, but it was near perfect. But I mean, this, if there was ever a perfect marriage, perfect marriage between Marla and Donald Melt, they’d been married, they were high school sweethearts, got married when she was 17 and he was 18, married for 40 plus years.

He’d worked two jobs in his entire life. He worked at, uh, General Electric until that plant closed and then worked, uh, went to work for the Little Rock Port Authority and worked for them for the rest of his life until he was killed. And so what were some things you wanted to bring out on direct exam for her to talk about?

Well, we brought out the [00:18:00] length of their marriage. They did literally everything together as a family, including their two adult children, uh, and grandkids. Donald was a huge hunter. Uh, his son went, grandkids went, The whole family went plus friends. That was something that was the highlight of his life separate from Marla.

That was really about the only thing that he ever did separate from her besides go to work. Uh, so, and the rest of the time they spent. everything together. Growing up in the Bible Belt, they were religious, and so they did everything at the church, essentially, that you could possibly do. And so, as a result of that, they literally I mean, she was absolutely, positively one of the best clients I’ve ever had as far as the [00:19:00] defense not being able to even touch her.

In fact, they did not even cross examine her at trial. They didn’t even cross examine any of the kids at trial. Because There was absolutely nothing that could be said about Marla Melton that was bad. Nothing that could be said about either of the children that were bad. So, that part made it extremely easy for me.

Okay, and that was actually one of my questions. Were you ever worried about cross exam questions when it came to Marla? I was never worried about that. Uh, we’d spend a good deal of time with him. Uh, knew she was fully prepared. I also knew the defense attorney for the Leroy Port Authority. And I were more or less on the same side, even though technically we weren’t, because I had told him from the very beginning, I’m not after your client, because Anything I get from y’all is going to be so substantially reduced [00:20:00] that I don’t want any fault on you And he saw enough that he believed me and he knew that I was going to be truthful about that and I wasn’t pulling the wool over his eyes and so He said after we met with them.

He said he and the other defense attorney talked and they were like, oh We can’t Touch these people and we’re not going to touch these people. So I knew that the likelihood of anything, unless there was some surprise at trial, uh, that they weren’t going to be able to do anything with them. So it made, it made it easy.

Usually you don’t have it that easy with, uh, Sure. Sure. What were some of the things I know, you know, wrongful death cases can present unique challenges when it comes to damages and having people talk about the damages because you’re kind of riding that line between, you know, sympathy and empathy. What were some of the things that you [00:21:00] had her either talk about or give examples or stories about when it came to, you know, the grief she experienced in the loss.

Yeah, the main thing we did to her so she didn’t come across as boo hoo, woe is me, because that generally doesn’t sit too well with jurors, uh, was to simply tell her, Story and their, I had them tell their story through a lot of pictures, and they took pictures at everything Donald attended every birth of every child and every grandchild and their family, and so it was very easy to do that.

Because they had taken pictures for years and years and years. I mean, back when all you had was a Polaroid camera. Uh, and so that made it very easy for us to tell their story. And [00:22:00] then we were able to tell his story through his work records, his commendations at work. He had joined the military just because he felt like he needed to.

And he joined when he was 34, and which was light. He was in the National Guard. He was not actually in active duty, although he was selected to be in active duty and was actually getting ready to go, uh, overseas to the Middle East. And a day or two before that happened, he ended up, they ended up canceling those orders and stuff.

But it was interesting because he competed against, uh, 18, 19, 20 year olds and everything and virtually every medal that you could possibly get he got it. Gotcha. So you guys really used photographs to [00:23:00] tell stories and then you know was there anything in that you used from after he was gone to help kind of contrast that?

Well, we used before and after witnesses. Uh, we used people who were witnesses who knew them beforehand and then knew them afterwards. They objected to a couple of them. The judge overruled them and allowed those witnesses to testify. But we didn’t call 20. We had about five or six of our best ones. And Uh, that worked well as far as I was concerned because they, they were not able to do much cross examination of, of, uh, before and after witnesses.

And they had some excellent before and after witnesses for us that, that Marla was able to get. So, that part made it easy too. Okay. And was there any particular stories that stick out to you that the before and afters could tell that maybe your family [00:24:00] clients couldn’t talk about? Yeah. I mean, it was the loss that we didn’t want Marla talking about and how it’s affected her.

And how she’s become depressed, and how she used to be always happy, always talkative to these people. And now she just kind of makes her way through. Now, certainly, she’s still trying to get on with her life, and we wanted to portray that as best as possible. But, with the, through the before and after witnesses, you could tell that there was a significant loss to her.

And when you lose a partner, and I mean truly a partner for 40 years, it’s a significant loss. Absolutely. And did you, um, we talked a little bit about demonstratives as far as using pictures. Were there any other demonstratives that you used with, you know, either Marla or the other family members? [00:25:00] Yeah, the two main things that were used with Marla besides pictures and Donald’s medals were.

We had his lunchbox and we had a chain. He was, uh, past retirement age, actually. But he had agreed to stay on at the railroad through the end of the month of June, and he was down to eight days, and somebody in their group had made a chain with a circle for every day, and they were connected. And when he would get home every day, he would cut.

One circle off. And so he was literally counting down the days until he was fully retired because I had plans for travel. We threw their financial planner, who also was in their church, were able to tell about their, their plans for travel. And we let him tell about [00:26:00] that. The other thing that we used that I thought was powerful, certainly hit home with Marla and hit home with several of the jurors was his lunchbox.

And when I say lunchbox, I mean, the true lunchbox that most of the kids had growing up. He took a lunchbox to school. It’s the true lunchbox. It was black lunchbox, had a thermostat, thermos in it. And she had packed that for him every single day that he went to work throughout their entire marriage, which was 40 plus years.

She knew that we had that. She didn’t know for sure we were going to use it. Don’t prepare them for that sort of thing because you want the true emotion coming out. And that was actually what a lot of times when I talk to lawyers and, you know, in, in, we’re teaching witness prep, we get excited. Sometimes as lawyers, we have this really cool, you know, [00:27:00] demonstrative.

And we want to just, you know, slap it out there to really have a shock factor and any of this emotional, you know, impact to the client while they’re on the stand. But I appreciate you kind of pointing out that the client knew that you had it, that she knew that it was a possibility, but that you guys kind of reserved whether or not to actually put it out there, but she had the knowledge that it was going to, that it could come.

Yeah, that was correct. And of course when she pulled it out, or when we pulled it out, then what happened was of course she immediately laughed and then just started crying. And there were several of the jurors who were crying too. And that, you know, that’s kind of the, it’s one of the things we always want to do is make sure it’s authentic.

And so did you really feel like you guys had gotten true authentic reaction to her instead of, you know, trying to pull heartstrings and being sympathetic? Oh, absolutely. I mean, she did an excellent job of [00:28:00] testifying strong testimony because there were parts of it that were lighthearted. where she would be laughing about things that she remembered, but then there were parts of it where she would be crying.

And so you try to balance that because you don’t want her sitting up there, live, just crying all of the time. Uh, I think that the juror thinks, Oh, well, they’re doing this for purposes of sympathy, and these are crocodile tears. With her, You could tell they were real. Is that something, you know, like you said, you’ve really studied body language and people, and I know we’ve talked a lot about, you know, psychology of all, you know, people and clients and that kind of thing.

Did you know pretty early on like, The Marla that you were talking to was, you know, the true Marla, you know, there wasn’t any putting on any airs and she was, she was just kind of a really authentic person. Yeah, I mean, it didn’t [00:29:00] take long to figure that out, you know, because first time I met him, I spent a long time with him and then try to spend a good length of time with him every time I’m with him.

You know, go out to eat, do things on their home turf where they’re comfortable, and then you get to know a person. If they’re coming in, sitting in your office, and that’s all they ever do, you don’t get to know them that way. And so you, you have to spend some time. You’ve done that for me in the Med Mal case, and spent two days with one of my clients.

And that’s actually learned on I knew that but I saw it through you and so it’s something that you do extremely well. Well, I appreciate you saying that that’s one of my one of my favorite times spending time with her was such a wonderful. Like eye opening experience. Um, so I appreciate you let me [00:30:00] spend some time with her and of course, you know one of the biggest things I think we forget is You know, they hire us But we should really thank them for opening up because it you know People are going through a life changing event when they have to hire a lawyer, you know Sure, and and especially when it’s a significant injury or death case So when you have that occur, that’s extremely tough on them And you have to gain their trust.

And then you have to trust them to be able to tell the story and to tell it well. Right. Absolutely. And that’s one of the things that I always try to convey to other lawyers is, you know, do you trust them? Do you trust they’re going to get there and be themselves? And just because maybe the way that they get to be themselves isn’t what you, it’s not perfect, you know, but as long as people are being authentic, juror will totally, you know, jurors will respect that a hundred percent.

Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. [00:31:00] So was there anything else that you, you know, we talked about the lunchbox, you know, were there any other things that you felt or stories that while Marla was on the stand, you could kind of see the jury connecting with her? Yeah. The, the, the one thing that, that I think I connected with was his entry into the military.

You know, because he felt a calling to do that and so he felt it was his obligation and so I think that that helped connect one of the things I’ve also done here is, you know, what did you choose and what did you kind of bring back to the jury from Marla’s testimony and using closing? Well, primarily it was about their relationship and.

You could tell that through a lot of the pictures, and you could also tell that I used the lunchbox. We kept the lunchbox after, uh, [00:32:00] we used it, it stayed on council table, so it was there for the jury to see every time they came in, and then I carried it with me to the podium and kept it on the floor, and then put it up on the podium.

When I got to that point in my closing where I wanted them to see it and to recall, because it did bring back so many memories to her because it epitomized 40 plus years. Right. You know, one of the things that I always talk about with, especially in, you know, wrongful death cases is when we’re talking to the juries, it’s really helpful for people to understand how.

You know, in a relationship, how people express love and so many times it comes down to service and making someone’s lunch every day for 40 years, you know, wow, 40 years and oh man, that’s love, you know, that’s service because there’s got to be days you don’t want to do that. Oh, absolutely. There’d be days where [00:33:00] I wouldn’t do it.

And I’d say, honey, you’re going to make your own lunch today. Sorry. Exactly, exactly. Well, awesome. Well, I really want you to tell everybody what ultimately what the results were with with the case. The results were that we had, there were four questions that jurors had to ask or answer. The first question was whether, and the trucking companies were not on there from the standpoint of the trucking company’s fault for failure to monitor, failure to train, failure to supervise, failure to qualify, et cetera, which we had a ton of information on, which.

Totally inflamed the jurors and made archives work for them. If that evidence had come in without that, then we’re left with simply showing, uh, what the trucker [00:34:00] did wrong, and we couldn’t explain that so much of this. He became the bad guy rather than the trucking company. And if you make the trucking company the bad guy, as well as the trucker, but it’s not the trucker’s fault, then they’re going to be a hell of a lot madder at the trucking company than they’re going to be at an elderly gentleman who’s driving a truck and still trying to make a living at his age.

And so that. reduced to from the focus groups and I went back and checked just to see in all the focus groups we did, and I probably did between 15 and 20 focus groups for this case, in all the focus groups we did, we averaged about 1. 7 percent fault on my client. Um, in this case, they answered 12 0. That it was the fault of the [00:35:00] truck driver.

Uh, then I answered 11 to 1 that Donald Milton had some fault in it. They then Answered out of order the damage question, and then they sent a question out to us in writing, as they’re allowed to do under Arkansas law, where the bailiff brings out a question that jury asks, and I said, they wanted to know what the effect of Posting fault or putting fault on Donald Melton would be on their verdict.

Arkansas is one of those states, unfortunately, where you don’t get to tell them. I know in Florida, you get to tell them because it’s in the jury instructions and tell them exactly what happened. Uh, they had already determined the amount of damages that they wanted to award, which was 4 million. But then, because they didn’t get the answer to that question, [00:36:00] unfortunately, they put 40 percent of fault on Donald.

And so in Arkansas, that reduces it by 40%. And so we ended up with a verdict of 2. 4 million. And the defense attorneys knew that they had skated. In fact, one of the defense attorneys said, Well, I guess we’ll get to try this case again. Because he knew the judge was wrong, because there’s strong Arkansas law showing that it’s wrong, because he did allow punitive damages to go to the jury.

But he didn’t let me put any of that evidence in on punitives. And so, had that come in on punitives even, then we would have, got a large punitive award, I anticipate. But because he kept all those things out, it really hurt our case from a damages standpoint. And at one point in time, the defense attorney had actually opened the door to The training issue and so the first question that I got up after her [00:37:00] direct was I asked about training and the judge says counsel approach.

He had us approach the bench and he said I thought we weren’t getting into this and I said judge I agree. We weren’t supposed to but she’s the one who opened the door and She said I did not and he said ma’am you did I heard you and she turned to her Cohort and he said well, I don’t I didn’t hear her say that and he said young man I’m not talking to you.

You shut up. And so this was judge that did not put up with anything but he said I’m not gonna spend four or five more days now trying this on punitive damages and get all this evidence in. And so he said, we’re gonna finish this case and, but I’m going to tell you. Talking to the defense attorney, if you [00:38:00] mention another word that opens the door at all, it’s all coming in and we’ll stay here as long as it takes and she had enough sense to be extremely careful to not even go close to that.

And so that was something that really, really, really hurt us in this case, because I mean, there was just no fault placed on Donald Melton. I mean, I say none, I mean, less than 2 percent fault placed on Donald Melton, unless you just compared the truck driver with Donald Melton. But when you compare the trucking company and the truck driver to Donald Melton, then Donald Melton’s failure to cover the crossing paled in comparison because we had tons of admissions from the trucking company, one of the owners of the trucking company, and that just completely covered over Donald Melton’s.

personal responsibility or negligence in the [00:39:00] case essentially compared to all. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you kind of in wrapping up and I appreciate your your time and I just want to ask, you know, as far as looking at a post pandemic trial and wrongful death, a pretty big employer a little rockport authority And trekking company.

Was there anything different that you did in approaching? The trial knowing it was a post pandemic journey Yeah, I did. I mean one of the questions that I asked in wadir Was to ask about how COVID had affected them because I knew that many of them would say, I haven’t been able to see somebody in their family or somebody that they’re close to, but either because they’re susceptible to.

They have some sort of [00:40:00] complications that are going to cause them. They’ve had been treated for cancer. They have something that if they got COVID, it could really, it could very likely kill them. And so there were several jurors who said something to that effect. And I think that that’s a good thing. An excellent question to ask or something like that.

It doesn’t have to be worded just like that but has covid affected your family because There’s still a lot of people who are affected by it and my family’s affected by it because my sister Has had cancer and said treatment for it. And so she’s just super super super cautious, even though she’s vaccinated To assure that she’s not around people who might give it to her Gotcha.

Um, awesome. Well, is there anything you want to add as far as getting Marla prepared or her direct exam, you know, as far as helping other lawyers kind of preparing their clients for trial? Well, and [00:41:00] you haven’t asked me to say this, but, but, um, what are you going to say? I’m going to say that if you want to learn how to focus group something, use you.

You, one, I’ve seen you prepare witnesses, you do an excellent job at that. I’ve seen you conduct an adversarial focus group all day, you did an excellent job at that. I’d say, I’d be texting you, hey, what about this? And you say, well, we can’t ask that. And there’s always a tendency, even if you’re trained, and I am trained, not to do that.

But sometimes you just can’t help yourself. And that’s why it’s good to have somebody that’s removed at least one or two of your focus groups for a case to make sure you’re not putting your finger on the scale at all. Absolutely. And that’s [00:42:00] sometimes one of the hardest things when you, you know, it’s easy where you’ve got a real big vested interest in making sure that we win.

And sometimes it’s hard to take off our advocate hat and, and put on our researcher hat and ask research questions. So, right, right. Absolutely. I actually, that leads me to a kind of a different question. Did you focus group Marla or any of the family members or before and after witnesses at I really did not, you know, Certainly, if you’ve got, and I would strongly suggest it and recommend it, if you’ve got a client that you’ve got any questions about.

You’ve got questions that you’re going to ask them that you don’t, not really sure whether that answer connects, but I mean, this was one of those cases where you had, the family was so near perfect that. I knew that they were never going to ask [00:43:00] them a question. And the before and after witnesses, they did ask maybe one or two questions and did object and try and prevent us from using some of them, but the judge allowed those in.

And so they really didn’t lay a glove on anybody on that. So, uh, knowing that going in, because I was kind of befriended. And I was befriending to one of the defense attorneys. I learned a little bit about their side, and I knew that they weren’t going there. And, or if they were, they were going to make things a whole lot worse for themselves.

And they at least had enough sense. I don’t give defense lawyers a lot of credit, but they, they had enough sense to know. We’re making a big mistake if we’re trying to attack anybody who’s on the stand talking about this family. Gotcha. Absolutely. Well, awesome. Well, Jim, I really appreciate your time and [00:44:00] jumping on, uh, this podcast to talk about your trial and getting ready, you know, post COVID and then also talking a lot about getting Marla ready and how you helped her tell the story with demonstratives and connecting the jury to her.

Well, thanks. I appreciate you having me and I always enjoy it. Absolutely. Awesome. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Trial Lawyer Prep. We had a great interview with my dear friend, Jim Lyons. We talked about different ways that he used tangible demonstratives to connect his client to the jury. And also made, you know, having testimony be just a little bit more fun and interactive.

Talked about using the lunchbox, photographs, and even medals from the husband’s prior time in the army. I hope everybody enjoyed this episode. If you did, [00:45:00] please subscribe. Or hit a like on whichever podcast app that you’re choosing to listen to on Apple, Google, Stitcher, Spotify, whichever one is your favorite.

Also, if you like the episode, please leave us a great review or just share it with somebody who you feel like might enjoy it. Thanks a bunch.

Do you feel stuck in a case? Would you like a quick way to get moving? In this episode, I’m giving you two quick, efficient focus groups setups that will get you moving on your case today. 

One of the biggest questions that I get when talking to other lawyers about focus groups is what focus groups they should do right now. Now, there are lots of different ways to answer that question. 

But first, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve right now? And if it feels like you’ve got too many problems you’re trying to solve, that’s okay. Today, let’s jump into two great focus groups setups that you can use right now that can have a major impact on your case.

These are focus groups that are going to give you new ideas and a new perspective. You’re probably going to get some answers that you like and that you don’t like. But all in all, it’s going to give you some feedback. 

Then you can move the case forward, whether that’s in the form of getting some ideas and new avenues for discovery or some ideas for deposition questions, or maybe there’s a mediation coming up. 

Overall, these things are going to help you sleep better at night because you’re working on it and you’re preparing this case. You’re going to get many pieces of information that are really going to impact what you’re doing right now with the case.

In this episode, you will hear:

• What is a snapshot focus group setup
• How to put together a snapshot presentation and the best time to do it
• What is an opening statement focus group setup
• Gathering information from an opening statement setup
• The benefits of these two setup groups

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

Do you ever feel stuck in a case? Would you like a quick way to get moving? Well, great to hear because this is an episode to give you two quick, efficient focus group setups that will get you moving on your case today. So let’s get started. Hello and welcome. This is Elizabeth Larrick and you’re listening to an episode of Trial Lawyer Prep.

This podcast is designed and created for trial lawyers working with difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases seriously. to trial. The goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom.

Today’s episode, we’re going to move straight into two impactful focus groups you can use right now.

Now, as one of the biggest [00:01:00] questions that I get when talking to other lawyers about focus groups, it is what focus group should I do right now? And there’s lots of different ways to answer that question, but I like to look at, you know, one by one, what is the problem that you’re trying to solve right now?

And if it feels like you’ve got too many problems to try to solve, that’s okay. Um, And instead of trying to maybe prioritize it, I always like to jump into two great focus group setups that you can use right now that you will get major impact from. What do I mean by major impact? Well, I mean, these are focus groups that are going to give you new ideas.

It’s going to give you a new perspective. You’re probably going to get some answers that you’ll like. They’re going to get some answers that you don’t like, but all in all, it’s going to give you some feedback so you can move the case forward. Either, maybe you’re going to get [00:02:00] some ideas for new avenues for discovery, or some ideas for questions for a deposition you have coming up, maybe there’s a mediation coming up.

All in all, these are things that are going to help you sleep better at night. Because you’re working on it, you’re preparing it, meaning you’re preparing this case, but you’re going to get some good piece of information, many pieces of information that are really going to impact what you’re doing right now with the case.

So, let’s jump in and talk about these two impactful focus groups to do now. The first one is one I like to call a snapshot, which is really a very, very simple setup. And when I say snapshot, I just mean like a snapshot glimpse of the facts of the case because you know, as lawyers, we can get super wrapped up in all the details.

You know, we, we get a case in the door and we’ve got. Two [00:03:00] sentences, maybe. There’s a rear end collision and it happened, you know, November 6th. And, you know, somebody ran a red light. Okay. There we go from there. So then we investigate, we find all these extra details, we get what all the witnesses say, we talk to the police officer, we get, you know, maybe we have cameras, we can get pictures, and there’s so much detail that we get, which is so important, but in all of that, we can get kind of lost, and so Snapshot is really designed at just looking at Just the facts.

And really kind of even paring those facts down because you want to use your snapshot to find the holes. And, you know, maybe you know there are some glaring holes or some glaring problems in the case, and maybe there are some hidden ones that you haven’t seen. But this particular focus group setup will help you find those very quickly.

And, Generally, you’re going to find some solutions on how to fix it. So let’s talk about the presentation, [00:04:00] what you’re going to present to this focus group. It’s going to be very, very fact based. These are kind of like you’re thinking about putting together like a paragraph about the facts. You’re thinking if you give one side, give the other side.

And you really kind of want to give enough facts to eliminate some very basic questions that somebody might have, they asked you about the case. And again, you want to pare this down. And so you don’t want to give them every single detail, right? Just kind of give very, very clear shot about what’s going on in the case.

A good example for us to talk about is using a car wreck case. So say you have a car wreck case, you’ve got a rear end collision. And how do you put together this presentation? Well, you want to be thinking about, you know, pictures of the car. You want to be able to think about giving a picture of the intersection, talking about the day it happened, the time, the weather.

Did [00:05:00] the police show up? What is each driver saying happened? Are there any witnesses? Did the witnesses give any statements? And you’re really kind of confining all the information that you have to that day, unless something Another major fact happens after the crash that you would want to look at. And again, this kind of snapshot and, you know, the facts that we’re talking about here at CARAC, we’re really kind of looking at responsibility.

When we’re thinking about finding holes and in the responsibility, the liability part of the case. And so once you do this kind of, you know, snapshot presentation, and we’re talking about maybe 15 minutes max. And because, again, you really want to keep them engaged by showing them pictures of the cars, pictures of the location, you know, what each person is saying.

And just to get them up to speed, you know, please, if there are any tickets, typically I leave out tickets when it comes to this particular setup. And really the questions that you’re asking in debrief are [00:06:00] super simple. It’s just, once you give them all the information, you know, you just ask them what happened.

Very broad, open ended question. What do you think’s going on? And just listen. You know, one of the things that we can do really quickly in focus groups is if we hear one problem, We really hone in on that one problem, and we, we stick with that one person, and we ask them, you know, a bunch of questions about that one problem, and then we forget to turn to the rest of the group and gather up any other problems that they may see.

So what I like to do is just kind of give that real broad open ended question, and then as a moderator, make sure I’m checking in with each person to gather up. All the things that they’re seeing and then coming back, right, to ask somebody to go deeper on, on what it is that they said. And that’s pretty much what you do.

You maybe you hear a question about, somebody is saying, well, you know, rear end automatically, somebody gets [00:07:00] rear-ended. Then it’s, you know, the other person’s fault. Let’s dig a little deeper into that and maybe somebody has a different perspective on it, right? So I wanna take those people one at a time.

After I gathered everybody’s general impression and follow back up and dig a little deeper on that. And then after you finish digging deep, you can come back again to the group and just ask, you know, what would you advise these two people? You know, look like we got a situation here, right? There’s some property damage going on.

What would you advise for them to do? And you’re going to get, you know, some solutions or, you know, the other great question is to what other information If any, what do you want to get? What else would you want to understand about this situation if you had to make a decision? And again, these are super simple setup, super simple questions.

And in, as long as you remember in this particular setup, we are truly just gathering. We are gathering, gathering, gathering. We’re not advocating one way or the [00:08:00] other, but just truly spending a lot of time gathering information about what they see, what else. They would need to know or want to know if they had to make a decision.

And sometimes that’s so important with our questions. And, you know, later on in this podcast, we’re definitely going to spend some episodes on moderating and crafting questions and making sure that we’re using the best question we can, because questions are so important to get good answers. And that’s, you know, one of the questions that we’ve been talking about here is what other information, if any.

Don’t make an assumption that they need more information, they may not, you know, so I always like to make sure that I’m giving that out, if any, that option if they don’t need any more information. So we’ve talked a little bit about, okay, use this snapshot, we’ve learned about some real basic problems, maybe that they’re seeing and some ideas on how to fix it or what other information they would want to get.

Again, that’s a huge impact for a case and you can use a snapshot [00:09:00] picture, I mean a snapshot, you know, kind of focus group set up. really any time in the case. I love for people to do it before they file a lawsuit. You know, I love when people put it together and do it after they finish discovery. Those are great times because no matter what happens, you always want to make sure you’re tracking about any issues that you’re not seeing, right?

So issue spotting. So let’s talk about the second impactful focus group that you can do now. And that would be an opening statement. And you may be thinking, Elizabeth, whoa, whoa, like I’m not going to trial for another two years or another year, six months, and even then it’s going to be reset. Totally hear ya, but check it out.

If you sit down and write the opening statement, you are doing so much preparation work and kind of big picture work on your case, and it really is going to help you know, one, where are you at in this case? [00:10:00] What are you missing? If you’re going to put together the case in such a way, do you have all the evidence that you need?

And how does it need to come together? In order for you to get the verdict. So I love opening statement because it really forces you as a lawyer to pony up, spend some time, put it all together. And that’s fantastic. That’s really going to get you down the road. That’s a huge impact there. But once you give it to the focus group, that particular setup, super easy again, you’re just going to give the opening statement and again, ask a really broad question, you know, What’s going on here?

What’s happening? You know, you can ask them to do a vote if you want, who’s responsible. And typically opening statements at this particular time, meaning if you’re just putting it together before you have a trial setting near, is you could always just focus the opening on just the liability portion or put both liability and damages in there too.

You know, [00:11:00] I encourage you to do both because again, you want to get the most impact, then do the best preparation that you can. So put those opening statements together on both sides. But really you’re going to be Testing your theory. And again, these big, broad questions are going to give you great feedback.

You’re going to be able to ask, what was confusing? Is there a better way to say this? Is there a visual aid that would help? What is the one thing you remember from this entire opening statement? Like, that’s a huge question, you know, because that’s really going to What is it that you said that really made them listen?

That’s really what you want to know. And then of course you can ask questions about, Hey, is it believable? Is it, do you have everything that you would need to make a decision? And again, these are just kind of big, broad questions and you’re going to kind of do the same kind of moderation here, which is just scooping up all this information, just scoop it up.

Just because again, they’re just hearing one [00:12:00] side of it. So you really want to know what is the. The initial impact that they see. So you’re scooping all that stuff up. You don’t need to ask necessarily questions about the other side. Although I would encourage you, it would be great to ask them a question.

It’s like, what do you think the other side is going to get up and say, that’s a good way to get their perspective on the opposite side of the case, uh, and really test what their theory is. But either way, you know, you are going to get some great feedback on opening statement setups. And the really fantastic thing about both of these focus groups is they can be done in an hour.

That is super efficient. We’re talking about setting up a three hour or a four hour focus group and you can do a lot of heavy lifting in one hour. That’s fantastic. That’s super efficient. And both of these are going to give you information maybe you didn’t [00:13:00] know, hidden problems you didn’t see. Always you’re going to get a new perspective, which is what you want when you’re talking to folks in the community, getting a new perspective.

And then also some ideas on how to fix it, meaning what other information would help them. Make a better decision. Maybe it’s questions you need to be go finding answers to in discovery. Maybe it’s questions that you need to be asking about in depositions. And maybe it’s just information that’s out there.

You just need to go gather it that you can get on your own. And this would be two fantastic things you could do right now in your case. So we’re talking about really time efficient focus groups. You can do these virtually. You can do them in person. Super simple setup. with the information that you have right now.

You don’t necessarily need more information. You can do both of these right now and be able to move that case forward. So I hope that, uh, you found this podcast episode helpful. And if you try it out, please let me know. I’d love to get some feedback. If you have [00:14:00] any questions, also let me know. Again, thanks so much for listening here today.

As you know, we’ve got a bright new shiny podcast. So if you could subscribe to this podcast on your favorite app, whether it be Apple, Google, Stitcher, whichever you prefer, if you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five star rating or leave us a great review. And of course, share this episode with somebody, you know, that could use this help for focus groups to use today.

Thanks again.

The trial represents the end date, the final gauntlet. The case is coming to a close and, hopefully, everything will end well. However, it’s also a huge step for your client. In this episode, we discuss how to prepare your client for trial. 

As a trial lawyer, you want to help your clients prepare for their testimony where they’ll get up on the stand and speak to the jury. You want to prepare them for cross-examination and make sure they understand the heart of a trial: sitting while they are waiting to testify (or after testifying) and listening to the things said about them and to the presentation of evidence by the opposing counsel. 

Remember, the number one target of the opposing counsel is your client. You have to prepare your client for that. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• Getting the client ready for their role in the deposition
• Grasping the physical and mental aspects of trial
• How to prepare for direct examination
• Things to think about before trial prep and as you get closer to trial

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

Getting your client ready for trial, the final gauntlet. How do you do that and also keep your sanity? Well, let’s tune in to learn a little more about trial preparation for your client.

Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants? Ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively. Then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success. Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes an in depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world, understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process. Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. Her goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. Now, here’s Elizabeth. Hello and welcome. This is Elizabeth Larrick and you’re listening to an [00:01:00] episode of Trial Lawyer Prep. This podcast is designed and created for trial lawyers working with difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial.

The goal of this podcast is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom.

This episode we’ll be talking about how to prepare your client for trial. Trial represents the end date, the final gauntlet. It’s coming to a close and hopefully everything will end well, but it’s also a huge risk step for your client.

So how do we help them prepare for testimony? Getting up on the stand and talking to the jury and making sure they are able to speak to them, but also preparing them for a cross examination and what they will face when that happens. And also kind of the overall part of a trial where they’re waiting to testify or after they testify and they’re sitting having to listen to other [00:02:00] things that are being said about them and of course the opposing counsel’s presentation of evidence when it comes over to their side.

Now we always talk about in deposition preparation and in trial preparation that the number one target for the opposing counsel is always going to be your client. They’re kind of the easy target in the case and that’s generally the number one thing they do at trial and this is kind of amplified. But knowing that, how do we then prepare the client for that and then also more importantly looking at cross exam?

In our deposition preparation, we really look at taking three steps to correct the client’s mindset, getting them ready for their role in the deposition and in the case. We use different tools to refresh memory, organize things that they’re prepared for, the questions they’ll receive, and ultimately doing some role play to get them really to understand how everything will work and kind of given a dress rehearsal on that.

So we do all those things for trial as well, but we [00:03:00] also like to add in a few more steps to really grasp the physical and mental aspects of trial. The nerves and the idea of the risk. It’s all or nothing. Plus some of that. Going to the courthouse, sitting in the courtroom and having 12 people staring at you, judging you day in and day out, that’s a very taxing thing for a client.

It’s very unusual. Most people would run from that experience if given the choice. We also have the huge flip flop versus deposition where we as the lawyers get to go first and now there’s a lot more pressure on us and then naturally there’s a lot more pressure for those cross exam questions with the jury and the judge watching.

Trial preparation is a much heavier burden for you, the lawyer, than it would be deposition. Think about it. Deposition, we prepare our clients, we send them off into the world, and they do their thing, and we pretty much sit back. You know, there may be some [00:04:00] objections here and there, but really, it’s in a comforting conference room, there’s no judge there, there’s gonna be months more work to do, and other things that happen, so that’s kind of one piece of the puzzle at that time.

And then, of course, the converse of that in trial where you got to put your case on, you got to order of proof and opening and dealing with the judge, emotions and other things that are coming from the opposing counsel. And a big piece of trial prep for you and for the jury. For the client is getting that direct exam set up.

What are the things that the jury needs to hear from your client, and who are other witnesses that are coming and what are the things that they are gonna say that will echo what your client says? Or at least go along, or maybe they’ll be able to say things that your client can’t say. And of course, trial always comes with you.

orchestrating everything. You’ve got to think about all these balls in the air and how do you make sure that the client stays all in order while still handling all those things. And [00:05:00] we’ve got to also think about for trial preparation, exhibits and demonstratives and things that maybe the client has to do.

To talk about whether they like it or not. Maybe it’s medical records or maybe there’s some pictures or things that they need to talk about that nobody else can talk about. So there’s a lot more preparation for the lawyer involved before even sitting down with the client. One of the things that I like to do before leading up to deposition, but also I think it’s very important for leading up to trial, is.

Taking a piece of video from your client’s deposition and putting that video in front of the focus group. And really seeing what the focus group reaction is. Do they like this person? Is there credibility issues? What is it that they would need to hear from your client? And that’s really helpful, I believe, in giving you a lot of clarity as the lawyer.

As trial comes in, the pressure builds, and we have these sometimes unfounded worries that our client is rambling too much, or they won’t stay on question, and they’re just really [00:06:00] going to get destroyed on cross exam, and the jury’s just not going to like them, and in reality, that Maybe true, but maybe not.

Let’s use a focus group to really figure out are these fears real or not? Because at times, unfortunately, as travelers, we can waste a lot of energy on things that just aren’t true. You know, our perception can get kind of smeared because we live with the case for so long that our thoughts then become our reality.

And focus groups can sometimes bring us back to the truth, bring us back to what’s really going to happen at trial. What do we really need to be worried about now? Sometimes focus groups can confirm all those fears and then you might have a different problem on your hands. If you know that the focus groups telling you your client is not believable and has a huge credibility issue.

And so we look at trial preparation and the client, you have to get your direct exam topics ready. You’ve got to do a lot of preparation, fine tooth combing that [00:07:00] client deposition and cross examine topics, whether they’re in the deposition or maybe they’ve been telling you about the whole time the insurance gesture tells you what the problem is.

Generally, like I said, the problems are going to be And so, we want to take time to do our preparation, which is, like I said, much more heavy job for trial. And then the really nice thing, I think, about trial preparation with a client is that can actually happen at least a week, two weeks out before you have the trial.

Because, again, we want Client’s always available in there. As you get closer to trial, you’re really, bullets start flying. Maybe you get extra motions that you have to deal with, plus turning in deadlines, talking to experts and getting those people ready, coordinating other little smaller pieces. Maybe take a visit to the courthouse to make sure you got the technology correct.

Sometimes those fine tune last minute motions that happened in the last week and trying to squeeze in that client preparation can make it even more stressful. So kind of back it out. [00:08:00] The client is there. The information you need to get them ready can be done just a little bit earlier. And you know, we sit down with our client just like we do for deposition, but with a little bit different eye because again, They’re really going to be leaning on you for more information about what is it you’re going to ask and what are we going to do.

And when I do trial preparation with a client, I spend a lot of time going over what they should expect about the courtroom, what they should expect about the schedule. What they can expect will happen at least every day, day one, I can at least tell them what to expect and what the schedule is going to be like and when they’re going to be breaks and where they can expect the jury to be sitting at and where they’re going to be sitting because I know from my experience, trial changes so quickly.

so quickly and as the lawyer, I got to be on my toes. I got to be ready for anything to happen because I know there’s work that I have to do along the way and there’s tweaks that I have to make along the way at trial. I can’t necessarily be giving a lot of attention to managing kind of what my [00:09:00] client is going through, fears or concerns.

Maybe they’ve got all these questions now because they get to hear all the motions and all this stuff that the defense says, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to them because they’re not lawyers, which you know, I don’t. Think that they need to, but that’s why I spent so much time giving them a really good visual picture of at least some kind of certainty about their schedule and where they’re going to sit and what their job is.

And I always say everybody who walks into trial is on our team and everybody has a different role. And it’s so important that when we get in there and bolts are flying and things are changing and schedules messing up, we all still know where our role is and what our job is. And we can all rely on that.

And because, you know, you got to delegate things to make sure everything gets done and happens. One of those things that I think is super important is to give the client somebody who they can always go to and ask questions. I don’t suggest that be your lead lawyer. Sometimes even the second chair. But some of it, they can always go.

If they have questions, they go to [00:10:00] that person first and they know that that person is going to be able to answer those questions or find answers for them because they’re going to have questions. It just always happens. The other thing that we always do with client prep is their job is they’ve got to read back for the deposition, which I know it can be really, really painful.

And some people have like three volumes of things to get through. But what I remind them is this is really the best way for you to understand what you’re going to be asked on cross exam. Because people always think, Oh, this is so unknown and I don’t know what they’re going to ask me. And trust me, it’s already in the deposition.

They’ve already ferreted out the topics that they’re going to talk to you about. And maybe there’s a few new things that have popped up since then, or maybe things in your background they’re going to ask you about. All those things would be things that we would be able to point out as trial lawyers.

Hey, Here are these things they’re going to ask you about. Let’s practice some of these questions that we know they’re going to ask you. And so we really want to sit down and walk through what are the things that are going to be on the direct topic list? What are things going to be in the cross exam topic list?

Taking those one at a time to talk to [00:11:00] them about it, to listen, to ask questions, and using some of our tools to help organize our facts. You’ve done that job during deposition prep, you just get to bring that preparation right back out, right? Use those tools, get those same things back up there in front of the client and creating new ones, depending on how much time has passed between deposition and trial.

And again, if you’ve done the depo prep with the extensive time and asking questions and really understanding, they’re tracking with you. It’s just going to be a little bit different ball game. prepare for me to talk to you first? And how do you like to answer questions? And what are things that really make you nervous?

There’s gonna be 12 people staring at you. Here’s the piece of paper that you’re gonna have to look at and answer questions. And how do you do that? You know, and how do you not feel nervous about staring at a piece of paper and trying to find an answer? And movies and TV are really where clients get their ideas about trial.

And as we all know, Those are not really accurate. I mean, they’re way more exciting on TV than they are in reality at [00:12:00] times because the TV and movies doesn’t show you hours of cross exam or hours of direct testimony just going through medical records or going through some scientific journals to describe how the scientific thing and chemicals reacted.

And that’s important for trial. I mean, as trial lawyers, we know we can’t do that. Skip any steps. We got to get all A to B and be able to get those questions answered for the jury, but it’s sometimes just not as glamorous. And that’s also sometimes what you’ve got to tell the client too. You won’t be first, so you’ll be able to have the ability to watch everybody and watch how it works.

Your lawyer goes first. I go first. They go second. Asking questions and the judge is there to be the regulator. And. How does that really work and what does it look like? Well, don’t worry, you’ll have the ability to watch and observe before it’s your chance to get up there. We talked about the direct exam topic lists and exam, cross exam topics and using tools to help organize their deposition answers to make sure they’re [00:13:00] still queuing up with the same stuff and how that feels.

I always love to role play getting that deposition transcript down. If you say something different, how is that going to be used by the opposing party? counsel and how does that work with a deposition transcript and taking it out, reading it. Did you say this? And why are you saying something different now?

Having that feeling of, Whoa, you caught me like, Oh, I’m telling a lie. Maybe you’re not really telling a lie. You’re probably just using some different words, but that’s the one thing that is the ultimate cross exam is trying to catch somebody in a lie or changing their answers. That’s a really fearful thing that clients have, too, is that they’re going to somehow change their answers up.

That’s why we really try to study that deposition to make sure that they’re going to queue it up, those same answers they had before, and feeling comfortable in knowing that that’s still the truth. That’s really what’s going to protect them. The other part of trial prep is how do we keep the jury engaged?

At times it can feel pretty monotonous and just question and answer and are they paying attention? Sometimes [00:14:00] they fall asleep, it happens to all of us, so how do you be engaging? One thing I always like to encourage people when they’re putting together direct exam is can you make it like a conversation?

Does it have to be so wordy? Can you really remove yourself from the conversation? I think at times we get kind of off balance thinking that we need to have some super wordy questions or super long questions. And I just sometimes really just want to say, can you just make it a conversation? Cause it’s like an interview.

I mean, the jurors are getting to know your client and you’re basically interviewing them. And some of the best interviewees use really simple questions. Because you really want the client to be talking, you don’t want to be talking. You do a lot of talking in trial, let the client talk. And that’s what the jury really wants to hear, is them talking, not you talking.

And not you leading the client with questions. One of the things that in future episodes that we will probably talk about more in depth is to be engaging with your client. How do you craft direct exam [00:15:00] questions that reveal to the jury the client’s story and doing that in a way where it feels like a conversation versus feeling like a script.

Other episodes we’re going to talk about. What kind of demonstratives are great to use with clients on the stand? And can we work together to create some kind of demonstrative together on the stand? What is the purpose of the demonstrative? A lot of times I like to create a demonstrative with the client because it’s not going to be an exhibit, but it’s going to be something that we as a trial team can use later in closing or maybe we can use later with a defense witness.

So I always love to do something interactive with the clown on the stand. The other thing we’ll talk about is how do we role play for direct exam and how do we role play cross exam? In other episodes, we’ll also talk about what are some of the tips and tools to help the client get through trial. We talked about that [00:16:00] physical and mental drain that they’ll experience.

What are some things that we can really help assign their role and really have them feel a big part of the team, but also knowing what. It’ll feel like so that mentally they’ll be prepared to be able to sit there. Uh, have interviews with lawyers and talk about these specific topics and maybe how they like to craft their direct exam or how they like to look at their trial and set up when the client will I know that sometimes that’s the biggest question I always get from lawyers is when do I put my client on the stand?

And there’s a lot of factors that go into that. That’s kind of a 30, 000 foot question because you have to think about it from the jurors perspective at times. And I even like to back it up and just say, Hey, well, let’s look at your jury instructions. And what’s question number one? Because most of the time, question number one, May or may not involve the [00:17:00] client.

If it doesn’t involve the client, you probably ought to put some other people on in order for the jury to answer question number one the way you want it, and then put on your client so that they’ll have some information to answer question number two, which is generally the how much kind of question.

But we’ll talk about that. We’ll take an episode and I think that’s probably really helpful to hear from other lawyers about how they approach that question and how they prepare their clients and maybe there’s some tips or tricks that they can help us with as well. We will take a much more in depth look at trial preparation in future episodes, but just a very quick recap about for trial preparation of the client.

We really are looking more about trial preparation for the lawyer and for you and what are the steps that you should take before you get the client in there and what are the things you should look at. What are other witnesses looking at the deposition? How to walk through that deposition, uh, and spot those [00:18:00] cross exam topics and then creating some good role play for that client to feel that cross exam and know how that dress rehearsal is going to go.

Okay. You’re welcome. And we’ll talk about how to ease that burden. What are some things that you can do early on before trial preparation really gets going? And what are some key things to look at and think about as you’re getting ready for preparation? For example, one of the things I like to do very early is, and when I say early, I’m talking like 60 days out.

Pick out that client transcript and read through it. Think about it in the sense of, what are things in here that need to be included in a motion in Lemony? Because there may be some unique things that are in the deposition transcript that need to be limited by a motion in Lemony and just not even talked about.

They’re not even related. It’s prejudicial. And at times, we can get caught up on a lot of other things. Other issues when we think about motions in limine and not really fine tuning what it is, we need to put on the no list [00:19:00] as I like to say for our clients cross exam or even direct. And that’s just one of those things.

Smaller things you can do really early on. You can repair a really nice motion in Lemony and be ready versus scraping by at the last minute thinking, Oh gosh, we really shouldn’t be talking to the client about six Porsches or four Ferraris. That doesn’t really have anything to do with being injured in a car crash.

It doesn’t. And how do we craft that motion in Lemony? So we’ll look at some of those tactics and things for you to do to prepare better and then really how do we spend our quality time with our client and making sure that they feel prepared for the experience of trial and then also prepared to take the stand.

I’m super excited to delve into this topic later on and more depth and into really nitty gritty details. But as far as this episode goes, I really appreciate your time and attention. As you know, this show is new and shiny and any and all support is greatly appreciated. If you haven’t already done so, please subscribe on the Apple podcast, Google podcasts, and [00:20:00] Spotify or wherever you listen.

If you like it, please give us a five star rating and review. And of course, share with other trial lawyers who you know would appreciate more information about how to prepare. Thanks again.

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

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

 

Episode Credits:

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Episode Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

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 fill in your information below to download it.

Supporting Resources:

Larrick Law Firm

Episode Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Awesome. Thank you.