Category: Podcast

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

To get more details about the sequence of virtual focus groups, check out the blog: https://larricklawfirm.com/case-study-how-virtual-focus-groups-flipped-disputed-liability/ 

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

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

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

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

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

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

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elizabeth Larrick: I’m really curious.

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

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

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

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

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

Uh, yeah, 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Certainly. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So 

Elizabeth Larrick: yeah, because I’m not just 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rian Butler: Thanks for having me on. 

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

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Episode Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

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

Want to work with Annie?

Email her directly: anniegcmi@gmail.com 

Website: www.injuryillustrated.com 

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

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

Website: www.larricklawfirm.com

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So whenever you want to queue up that PowerPoint, 

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

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

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

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

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

Annie Gough: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annie Gough: lines up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annie Gough: ACD 

Elizabeth Larrick: replacement with hardware cage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So 

Annie Gough: well, 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

to show like a voluminous set treatment. 

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

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

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

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

So walk, walk us 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, we’re back 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just destroy 

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

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

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh my gosh.

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

Elizabeth Larrick: Wow. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annie Gough: Mm hmm. 

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

Annie Gough: Mm hmm. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annie Gough: right? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annie Gough: Yes. Thank you for having 

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

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

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

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

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

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this episode, you will hear:

• Learning the ropes of plaintiffs’ depositions
• Building confidence and validating client experiences
• The emotional toll of legal work
• Building trust in client depositions
• Connecting with clients and juries

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

To learn more about Amanda and connect with her go here. 

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

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello there. It’s Elizabeth. I wanted to pop in really quickly before we begin this episode to talk a little bit about my guest, Amanda.

She is. She’s going to come to us from Washington, however, by way of New Mexico. What I loved about our interview was her perspective as [00:01:00] a new lawyer on deposition preparation. She’s got some wonderful insights. We had a great time recording this episode and I hope that you enjoy it. If you want to reach Amanda for anything in Washington or depo prep related, her contact information will be in the show notes.

Enjoy. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast trial lawyer prep with me, your host, Elizabeth Larrick. I am excited to kick off 2024 with a bunch of really wonderful interviews with amazing, powerful trial lawyer women. And today I have one of those. Amanda is joining the podcast. Hello, Amanda. Hi Elizabeth.

Amanda’s coming all the way from Seattle, Washington. And I met Amanda. She reached out to me about depo prep. And we had this amazing conversation and it was like, she was reading my mind. And so I said, Hey, come on and let’s talk. Let’s come on the podcast because that’s what this [00:02:00] podcast is about.

Helping people prepare cases better with a fine tune, looking at using focus groups, deposition prep of clients and of yourself. And so Amanda, just start us off. Tell us a little bit about your journey and then what made that depo prep part of your passion. 

Amanda Carmody: Thank you so much for inviting me to be on the podcast.

I’m super excited. It’s my first time ever being on any podcast ever. I don’t mean to go so far back in time, but I discovered that I wanted to be a plaintiff’s attorney when I was a paralegal working in a plaintiff’s firm and saw the impact that getting a settlement had on one of our clients who was catastrophically injured.

It really connected dots for me. It’s not just about making claims against insurance companies. It’s about people and helping them improve their lives and seeing the change that this person went through when somebody finally took responsibility. Set something off in my brain and I was like, Oh my gosh, I need to [00:03:00] do this.

I need to be the person running the show. And got to law school and just have worked towards that ever since. It’s been my second job out of law school. I worked for an amazing attorney named Molly McGraw in Las Cruces, New Mexico. And she is who really planted the seeds of plaintiff’s depositions are not awful.

We never even talked about it. Like we just went in to prep our clients and she showed me the ropes and I learned so much and it just has been a journey about getting to know people and figuring out how to help them tell their story. Absolutely. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And so, again, this is why we were talking and I was like, yep, hello, she’s my person here.

We’re going to have so much fun on this podcast. But what I also love is your perspective. And I think a lot of people who listen to the podcast, a lot of people that I work with, we’re not at the place where you are, which is like you’re fresh out and you had this total challenge of beginning [00:04:00] your kind of quote unquote legal career.

In the middle of a pandemic where you basically have only zoomed court. And so that’s a whole other challenge of learning the ropes. Learning to connect with people, but you just started off in zoom, right? You just started off doing everything over the phone or video. And it’s hard for us to be like, so what’s that like, what’s that perspective?

Cause you’re like, I don’t know the other side because I didn’t start that way. How has that been thinking about people who still struggle with using zoom to help people prepare or talk to people or really coach them through getting ready for mediation, like. Give us a little bit of that perspective of how, for you, using Zoom is second nature.

Amanda Carmody: Sure. So definitely there is a benefit of being in real life with people. There’s physical touch, you can take physical cues. I like Zoom, which is, you’re right, how I started, because you are in the person’s face. And I appreciate we’re a podcast, but I have my hands like horse blinders. They have to look at you.

They [00:05:00] can’t look anywhere else. And if you, Position your camera so that you are looking into the camera when you are talking to the person you’re talking to. Like, they’ll look at you. We all look at ourselves, I think, a little bit on Zoom. You want to make sure. Like, I have a huge pimple today. And I want to make sure that it’s not showing.

But if you can make it so your little image is right under your camera, no one will ever know. And if you have that dialed in, blinders on, connection, it’s a lot easier to talk to your client and get them to trust the process and trust you. I also take as much time as I need to. Thank you. If I have a client who is older, they are not comfortable with Zoom.

And sometimes I will actually go help them get set up the first time and make sure we can do that process together. But you’re right, it’s hard to think of it because I’ve never been into a courtroom for a hearing. But no, I think there are definite benefits of being on Zoom that you don’t get in real life.[00:06:00] 

Elizabeth Larrick: And I think you nailed it. It’s time one on one with people that really ends up being the most like, of course, it’s great to be in person and it is, but I think it’s that one on one time. And like you said, you are face to face and you normally wouldn’t be that, you wouldn’t be that close to somebody sitting, even if they’re a client that you have a really strong connection with, or you’re super friendly, or you just really jived really well.

You still wouldn’t sit that close. 

Amanda Carmody: That is 

Elizabeth Larrick: zoom. Zoom. 

Amanda Carmody: And it goes both ways. I know we’re talking about plaintiffs, but deposing a defendant, you can get right up in the camera looking at them and be like, can you see me? I’m looking into your soul, sir. And so it’s fun. 

Elizabeth Larrick: See, this is how I know you’re supposed to be a plaintiff’s attorney because that’s exactly right.

I didn’t even think about that, like getting right up super close when you’re deposing an expert or whoever, maybe somebody on the other side. Let’s talk about thinking through client deposition and you’re [00:07:00] talking about helping them tell their stories. Walk us through your perspective on what is a struggle for clients and what kind of battles they may be having that a more timely, more structured depo prep helps with.

Amanda Carmody: Yeah. I, I always start at zero with my clients. I pretend that I am hearing about their case for the first time. I tell them. to start talking to me. Like I don’t know anything about what has happened to them. And I try to structure my sessions, depends on how big the case is or how complex the events are that you’re talking about, but typically.

I have one prep session to go over the facts of the case and the event. I have another session to go over what I would call general damages and the impact it’s had on the person’s life. And after that, I decide if we need a third session, which is usually short, to tie anything up or to get them ready for their actual [00:08:00] deposition.

But in that first session, we started just zero. What were you doing before X happened? Whether it’s Slip and fall, car crash, sexual harassment, just get us started. And we really break it down bit by bit. And I found that it’s really intimate. Nobody prepares you in law school for this type of exposure you get into somebody’s life.

They’re oftentimes telling you about the worst thing that has ever happened to them. Something really traumatic. And that is, I think, an honor and a privilege. They don’t share that with very many people. Usually. Usually it’s none. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Usually 

Amanda Carmody: you’re 

Elizabeth Larrick: the only 

Amanda Carmody: one who they’re talking to. Exactly. Especially if you catch them early and you say, don’t talk to anybody about this.

You and I have attorney client privilege. You can’t talk to anybody. Sometimes people have therapists, a lot of times they don’t, but you as their attorney have to, while you are not their therapist, treat them with the [00:09:00] gentleness and kindness that a therapist would while you walk them through this event.

Elizabeth Larrick: And I think even most people who have therapists don’t talk about it in the way that clients that come in the door, we have to dive into both sides, the facts and the logic and the emotion and the impact, they are totally gnarled up together. I love starting from ground zero because Do you take nothing for granted?

And they don’t either. That really helps because that’s how the defense is gonna come in, or opposing counsel’s gonna come in, is at ground zero, and sometimes that tension and frustration alone for a client can really throw them off because they think you already have discovery. Well, you already have all this information.

Like, why are you asking me again? That emotion can derail our thinking brain because we’re just. Frustrated trying to figure that out versus just like, okay, let’s just be in the moment. I have that expectation of going through it bit by bit. Lawyers, especially in larger firms, like cases are, I’m not going to say pass along, but that’s just the chain of custody.

It’s like it comes in and then [00:10:00] it goes to one team and it goes to the next team. Sometimes you have the same lawyer. Once you sit down for that one on one depo prep, you really are getting way more one on one time than you would have at any other point up to 

Amanda Carmody: that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy DevoPrep so much because I really like bonding with people, and that’s what it is.

And that’s why I think I’ve seen people be successful in their own depositions, is you’re giving them the confidence to sit there and tell their story. And when you have that connection and the trust in this person, you’re holding their hand through this, right? You can’t tell the story for them, but you can figuratively help them walk through it, and it’s just so nice.

To not only have that feeling myself, but to see somebody really own in to their own story and start believing themselves. I think that’s one of the most shocking things to me in prepping people is people doubt themselves so much and it’s not because what they’re saying isn’t [00:11:00] true. It’s because they’re in a system that is constantly telling them they’re wrong and that they aren’t that hurt and that what happened to them isn’t that bad.

I If you have that floating around in your head, even a little bit, you start to feel a little hopeless. Oh, yeah, 

Elizabeth Larrick: absolutely. And I think a lot of that that helps that is saying it out loud. You know, that’s a very big part of making it true is saying out loud and they live in their heads. You know, without you want to talk to about it.

So coming into depo prep with a very focused purpose, like you’re saying, it’s very structured and there’s a purpose behind it all versus just going in and just being like, all right, they’re going to ask some questions and here’s your discovery answers. I want to make a little note because you mentioned bonding.

Um, there’s a lot of stuff on bonding and I’m going to guess, but I think you’ll correct me. You’re not talking about, Hey, how are your kids? Let’s talk about going to the softball game. You’re talking about the intimate bond. Of a relationship of trust. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, definitely. I know my [00:12:00] clients in a very bubbled but detailed way.

A lot of them, I know their kids names and things like that. I have no idea what they’re doing that afternoon. Or something like a friend would know. But you start to know the deepest insecurities. that your clients have, that’s something they probably don’t talk about with anybody. And so that is the bond I’m talking about.

It’s a caring type of relationship. And I think making your clients feel like it’s a two way road is also really important. They depend on you in a certain way. You do not depend on them in that same way. But when you show enthusiasm for their case and show compassion, They can see when that affects you.

They can see it in your face. If you’re just sitting there checking the box, they’ll know that you’re not tuned in and you will not get them to open up in the same way you will as if you’re present and truly invested in what they have going on. [00:13:00] 

Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. And I think you’ve nailed it. It’s not the same two way road, but it is in the sense of attention and questions.

And. Thoughts, one of the things that I think people always glaringly miss in deposition prep is we are building confidence, but you have to tell them what you are saying is 100 percent true. 

Amanda Carmody: Yes, I didn’t appreciate this. One of the first clients that I helped prep was a young woman who was a sexual assault survivor, who was assaulted when she was a high schooler, and part of her claim was that all of the students were didn’t believe her.

This teacher got removed from the school, and she was called a liar, she was called much worse. Her own parents didn’t believe her. And we did our normal depo prep. That was just an element of it. And in her deposition, when opposing counsel was saying, what do you mean people didn’t believe you? Our client sat there and said, the first time I felt like somebody believed me [00:14:00] when I was talking was when I was talking to my attorneys.

And I didn’t realize it until that moment, and it was just like, my stomach, my heart just seized up. And I was like, oh my gosh, this young woman has walked around for years carrying this. Feeling like she wasn’t believed until we talked to her, like that isn’t right. But again, it goes into that privilege of you aren’t necessarily aware of the impact you’re having on your client’s life.

And so you have to be so careful and so gentle in the way you interact with them. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. And like you said, you got to encourage them out loud. You may be the only person who is saying this is real, what you’re feeling is real, this is real pain, you know, because a lot of times they’re walking around with a lot of doubt because the system has basically said you’re a liar, a cheat, and a fraud.

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, I took a mediation course in law school. That was not the mediation most of us are used to. I was expecting it’s going to be mediation how you sit in separate rooms and how you have tactics [00:15:00] negotiating with the mediator on the other side, not that. It was like touchy feely going into alternative dispute resolution, sitting, finding out what the parties really want, because sometimes it’s not always money.

It was that type of mediation. And in the moment, I was like, nope, don’t care. It’s always about money. It’s about. Reaching that ultimate goal. I have come back to what I learned in that class so much because it’s about validation of concerns and wants and then being able to reflect and reframe and so Sitting and listening to your client and telling them things like oh my gosh I can’t believe you’ve been through that that’s so hard or that is such a real thing that you are experiencing that Encourages them to open up more but it also helps them Hold on to it and own it and when they’re sitting in their deposition if they have the confidence to believe what happened to them is Real and true.

They will do so much better than if they think they’re trying to convince you [00:16:00] Somebody. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think you nailed it with the reflection, which is why you want to have multiple meetings because then you allow them the opportunity to reflect. One of the things I always hear back from clients after our first session is I was exhausted.

I was so tired and we did a lot of just emotional heavy stuff. They did all the talking, you know, and they said I was so exhausted, but then I felt so good because I just never gotten to talk that much about it. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, I try to let my clients know it’s going to be exhausting because that’s another thing people don’t appreciate about asking your client to sit for their deposition.

It is so emotionally and mentally hard to sit and talk through that stuff. And so I use the word gentle a lot. I tell my clients to be gentle with themselves because a lot of times they say, I don’t know why I can’t get over this. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to talk about this. I don’t know why I was so tired after a meeting.

And that’s another great opportunity to be like, Because what you’re [00:17:00] talking about is awful and hard to talk about. So be gentle with yourself. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And you’re bombarded with pictures and images everywhere else that say, you should be done. This is over. I always tell people it’s going to take much longer than this, but standing up for yourself, speaking the story in your own words and how you want to say it uninterrupted, will significantly help you in this journey.

This is a battle. This is a journey. This is not the final end all be all. It’s just going to take more time and nobody talks about that. And I always get really frustrated too, because I always ask people, especially depending on what kind of their injuries are like, what has the doctor told you about how long this is going to be?

Well, they just said, it just takes time and I’m just like, Oh my gosh, like please let people know. I see X patients with the exact same situation. Here’s generally how long it takes. Up to two years, because people think, Oh, six weeks, I’ll be fine. You know, it’s just like, you have to sometimes be that extra voice of, listen, this is what I do for a living.

And I’m [00:18:00] letting you know, it’s going to take longer. So be gentle with yourself. That’s a great way of putting it. Be gentle with yourself. It’s going to take longer. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, it’s always surprising to me how much pressure, not only our clients, but we put on ourselves to get over things. And another thing people don’t really talk much about is how it affects you, the attorney, to hear about these horrible things that happen to your clients every day.

Those details are swimming in your head, whether you’re consciously thinking of them or not. And hearing about traumatic events. It’s going to affect you too, so it’s just a, like, big bundle of be so soft and gentle and kind when you’re in this process because it will affect you too. It will be exhausting for you too.

I could sit and talk with some of my clients for four hours, but I try really hard to keep it to an hour and a half or two hours when we talk because I [00:19:00] know that it is going to be mentally and emotionally draining for both of us. And usually. Both you and your client have work you have to do afterwards, right?

Like you can’t just sit and curl up even if you feel like it. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Exactly. And I think Because being a plaintiff’s personal injury attorney for a lawyer for a period of time, like it wears on you and we don’t give ourselves enough rest when it comes to that. That’s why we have 30 minute prep meetings because it’s difficult.

It’s really hard. There are definitely times where I talk with lawyers and they just say, I feel so horrible knowing what they’ve gone through or feeling like in a similar situation, like my kid was the same age and it was just a really difficult time. Having a longer one on one conversation because it’s going to hit me so emotionally.

I want to be professional. I don’t want to get upset and to cry. And so it definitely, I think, comes into a shortened prep session because they think they’ll be fine. They can tell their story. Opposing counsel will be fine. We’ll do our [00:20:00] normal prep stuff because I do find the more horrendous Tragic injuries cases assume that they’re going to get a light touch when it comes to opposing counsel, but that’s missing 50 percent of the whole thing.

The other 50 percent is them showing up and the emotional burden just for them to show up and talk. 

Amanda Carmody: Exactly, and you’re asking them to relive something awful, and I’ll be a little, like, sidetracked squirrel for a minute. The amount of people that I went to law school with that sat there and said, It’s supposed to be Law is supposed to be logical.

Where is the answer? Where is the reason? Juries should be removed from emotions, and judges should be removed from emotions, and make decisions based on just the black letter law and the facts in front of them. And, yeah, that would be a really interesting way to practice, but [00:21:00] it misses emotional pain and suffering.

It misses the human experience of what somebody has gone through, and you will never get those damages accounted for if you are not comfortable sitting with them. Your client, in their emotions, in those horrible places. And if you don’t have the capacity to sit, like you’re saying, attorneys who sit for 30 minutes and can’t handle it because it makes them feel awful, that’s okay.

Identifying that you do not have the capacity to sit through that is really smart, but then you have to do something to make up for that, whether Calling in a person like you to come in and help them handle that, or even changing their practice to do a pellet work. It doesn’t have to be drastic, it can be manageable.

But if you can’t handle sitting with emotions with somebody, then yeah, their deposition is not going to go the way you want it to. And you’re going to really expose your client to being super vulnerable when they [00:22:00] already are so exposed. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Or just know that they’re not going to be vulnerable. They’re going to keep it all inside.

And then the next thing that I always hear is we’re just going to save it for trial. And I’m always like, gosh, 98 percent of stuff doesn’t go to trial. So you’re really missing the whole mark. A lot of people still have that mantra in their minds, like my day in court. And you watch it in TV or whatever, like such a different game working with a client.

And she was really wanting to get like, Big picture. Give me some big picture. Give me 30, 000 foot view. It’s depo. But normally I do that in trial to help them kind of get the big picture. But we literally drew a diagram of the courtroom and the big picture of, okay, it can come down to two questions. And she just was like, I never knew.

I’m like, yeah, you would never know like that. And here’s where you fit. Here’s your part. And it’s so important because you speak directly to the jury. They don’t want to hear lawyers. They want to hear [00:23:00] you, your experience, because emotion is the human experience. We decide everything on emotion. So in my focus group, people say, well, I just need to know the law.

We need to see the past. Where’s the law in the past? 

Amanda Carmody: Oh, it’s so cute. Yeah, it’s the part I really enjoy about what we do and it’s what makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. I always tell my clients I’m on the right side of the V because I want to make their best argument. I don’t want to tear them down.

I don’t have any. I don’t mean to get on a rant about insurance defense attorneys, but it would make me so sad to think about, okay, my job instead of building a person up is tearing them down. And I get that’s a very biased perspective. But when you’re sitting with a person, a human being who’s trying to Who’s hurt.

It breaks my heart to think that there’s anybody out there who would make them question what they’re going through is valid and real. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I think that’s the [00:24:00] terrifying part that most clients are absolutely positively just terrified because now it’s like the interrogation room. Like, that’s where the emotional warfare comes in.

They know they’re going to get grilled. What I always say is, Most lawyers say you’ll be fine. Just tell the truth. It’s just so silly. It’s telling a little kid who’s learning to tie his shoes. Just use your laces. It’s obvious we tell the truth. It’s obvious you use, but how do I tell the truth? And that’s where that prep comes in to help them know what the how is.

You’ve already got it. Let’s just. Tell me about it. Let’s just organize it. Where are you at and how can we help manage those expectations and get everything in order for you to feel confident? 

Amanda Carmody: One thing that I tell everybody to do that I learned from Molly is notice your own client’s deposition. Which is a really weird thing, but send the email to defense counsel, say, Hey, I want to [00:25:00] schedule plaintiff’s deposition.

Can you give me dates? And that gives you the ability to start their deposition. And you know, the right questions to ask, you know, how to get them to open up. Not only that, it shows your client that you believe in them and you’re confident in them, but it also sets them up for success when you pass them.

And it’s the defense attorney’s turn. Getting to go first and ask your client questions first is unbelievable. And it’s what you do in trial. I don’t know why we don’t do it in deposition more, but when you pass them and the defense attorney starts asking them questions, they get to say, I already talked about this.

They already know where the questions go because they’ve talked about it and sitting and learning what they’re going to say and learning what questions you need to ask to help them open up and then doing it and asking those questions. It all comes together beautifully. And you have a client who, yeah, when they get their day in court and you go to [00:26:00] trial, trust the process and know that you’re going to take care of them.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. I think one of the biggest things that when I talk to folks about doing a structured witness prep and depo prep, they just said, wow, they felt so good about what they did. And then it was like, we went to mediation. And they were like, Nope. They still had that same confidence. And when we got to trial, they were confident to know, okay, I know that you guys are going to make the right decision.

So there’s so much more trust and I see a huge shift when there’s not trust and there’s a lot of infighting and struggle when it comes to even little things with the client. And I always just say, you’re worried about the jury liking. The client, but do you, because the jury is going to pick that up in a heartbeat.

And I can tell you there’s people who say, I want to make them likable. I’m like, well, if you don’t 

Amanda Carmody: like them, how are you going to convince people [00:27:00] to like somebody that you don’t like? That’s right. No, and it all is like, all these words are tied in so many ways into what we do. I do tell my clients, your job is not to convince anybody.

Let that go. Set that free. That person across the table from you is going to tear down every argument we make. They are going to look for the weak spots. They are going to judge you. And that’s scary, but just telling them right up front, don’t try to change that. Do not try to overcome that. I’m on your side.

I am with you. I believe you, and as long as we’re sitting there together, you’re going to do well. As long as you get that we are a team, we’re going to do just fine. It’s when your client thinks that they’ll convince the other team to help them score a touchdown, that they get in their head and wrapped up and trying so hard to show something.

No, we’re going to work on it ourselves. We are the offensive. We are pushing forward. We [00:28:00] will make our own touchdowns. Ignore them. Set it free. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, exactly. And I was just telling them, they’re just a mechanism. They’re asking questions. They’re just giving you opportunities. This is what this is about.

Literally opportunities. The minute you try to think of it as convincing or getting defensive, you’re working your brain in the wrong direction. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah. I love that. I love telling them it’s an opportunity. It’s not a question. It’s an opportunity. I really love that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I was like, you have the opportunity also to disagree.

And I was like, what do you mean? I’m like. How easy is it just to say, I disagree, that’s easy. And I’m like, is it true? It’s true. Like, okay. Did we just solve a really huge problem? Yes, because I want to disagree with him. Great. Does that mean you have to argue or be defensive or, and I was like, absolutely not.

Literally the simplest thing is just to say, I disagree. 

Amanda Carmody: I disagree. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And then like, they think they have to convince and do all this. And I’m like, no. And that’s why we always try to take it back to the most simplest form of what are we doing here? [00:29:00] And sometimes I literally get like a visual aid out to help them show like, okay, here are all the things that go into this case.

But here’s this little perfect puzzle piece that only you can fill. So we really need to hone in on what is it that you can fill and because we can get doctors to come talk, we can get the police officer to come talk or we can go get, so you got to give what your perspective is, the facts that you know, right?

But there’s going to be something in here that you can just let go of because like you don’t have to do that heavy lifting job. We’ve got other people to do that for you. And that’s it, 

Amanda Carmody: right? Yeah, I love the analogy of the puzzle piece, because another thing I’ve noticed is people feel super helpless through the whole process.

They feel helpless in the event that brought them to litigation, and then they feel helpless throughout litigation because it is something they don’t know anything about. Most people don’t know how to even deal with property damage when they’ve been in a crash, and so they feel [00:30:00] super helpless. And giving them that purpose of the book, we have the whole picture, except this missing piece, and that’s you, is such a remarkable thing to give your client that power, because they had probably felt powerless through years of living through this.

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, yeah. Just going through the beginning stages of getting it started, like, before they hire lawyers so frustrating, like even just a simple car wreck becomes, Oh my gosh, I have spent every day calling these people and it feels so disempowering. And then it’s, Oh, we’ll take care of everything. Lawyers will file the lawsuit.

There’s only just two or three things that you have to do. And that’s where I’m like, I say, okay, this is the thing we talked about. This is the place. Are you ready to rumble? We got to get you ready. That’s why we take so much time to get ready because it’s one of those things. And I added something to my list of things I always tell people, which is you got the right to understand the question, you need to take a break.

But then I haven’t yet gotten good wording on it, but it’s like. [00:31:00] The coolest thing and I do think it’s the coolest thing about deposition is you can’t be interrupted. Like how cool is that? A lawyer does not get to interrupt you. Like how cool is that? Of course, I’m a lawyer so I think that is cool because we get interrupted constantly by each other.

It’s just oh, it’s so frustrating, but literally they have to listen to you. That’s the opposite of it. It’s in black and white and it never goes away. Okay, that’s what people think. What’s the big deal about transcript? I’m like, oh, let me tell you because it. We don’t like as lawyers, we, Oh, it’s client deposition.

No big deal. But we like poor over deposit, I mean, of transcripts, like experts and like how we make our cross, like whatever else, why wouldn’t we really take that to the next level of explaining it and like how cool that is. Employer cool. But, wow, here’s another place that you’ve got some power. Alright, let’s take it, let’s do this.

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, it is really cool. I have a question for you. In between prep sessions, what do you do for your client to help them be able to [00:32:00] step away and give themselves a little break, but hold on to what you’ve talked about and not be starting fresh every time you leave? 

Elizabeth Larrick: I’m a huge fan of doing something visual and then you have to write something.

And a lot of times we use these giant notepads, right? So we’re organizing around what happened. We’re organizing around like maybe a piece of the damages. Or maybe we just do a timeline. I have them take a picture with their phones because generally we are creating it together. Make sure we walk through that, but that gives them something if they need to refresh, they can just take a quick look at it.

The other thing I like to do is I really like to give homework, but it’s just thinking homework. That’s why I tell people, okay, I’m going to give you some homework. I don’t want you to write anything down. I just want you to think about it and give it to your brain and your brain will start working on it for you.

The only thing sometimes I’m like, okay, we’re going to. Dig deeper on the impact and what’s going on. So it’s sometimes it’s helpful to go like whoever you’ve been living with, right? Maybe it’s parents, maybe it’s friends, maybe it’s [00:33:00] spouses and just say, Hey, do you remember, itty refresh my memory on some of that stuff.

Right. And then say, Oh yeah, like that’s generally the hardest part is just refreshing that memory of like. With so much time that’s passed. So that’s what I really like to do. Not give them anything super heavy, but just back of the brain thinking stuff or talk to somebody or take a picture and just take a look at it.

Amanda Carmody: Yeah. I think the visual aids is a very good idea because it keeps it simple, but it’ll trigger that memory of sitting there. I give my clients homework. I give them a sheet of homework that is, like you said, we make it clear. This is our communication. This is something we’re working on together. But I try to keep it light until a week before their deposition.

And actually have it be some of the heavy stuff because I want them to practice thinking through these things we talked about because it helps them when a defense attorney asks a question that maybe we haven’t practiced verbatim, [00:34:00] they know what to respond with because they’ve just sat with what they’ve said.

So I make the homework based off of our conversations. Which is another opportunity to show your client. I am listening. I care about what you’re saying. These are important things, but from practice or a prep session to prep session, it can be a little tricky I think because you finish the first one and your client wants you to shake it off get over it get moving and then you Come back and it’s okay.

We got to get heavy again 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, I’ve started to do like a mini meeting, like just to give them the guideposts, like here’s where we’re going and what’s going to happen. And then I remind them of that constantly. Here’s where we’re going next. So they’re like, okay. So that it’s always, we’re going to keep moving through.

And there are times where I’ve definitely worked with people and I put it pretty close to the deposition because I know literally our brains forget like an instant, like we, we are literally, so 10 [00:35:00] days goes by, we got nothing left and I’ve had it to where we do a piece of work and then I noodle on it.

And then I come back to him and I’m like, we got to do that again. Like it did not feel like it was right for you. And they’re like, I’m so glad that you said that because it just didn’t feel like me either. And I was like, great. Look at this. Let’s go back. And sometimes it happens that we, it really depends on the person, but you may not know that until you get in there and you start working through and you can, working with enough people and talking with enough people, you get a little bit of a spidey sense of, Oh, Oh, that’s a sensitive area.

Let me make a little mental note. Like we’ll get back to that. Maybe this session, maybe another session. And what I also love about the approach of literally asking questions and just listening and going through is so many lawyers have trepidation about I’m going to have to confront them about a B or C.

And I’m like, If you literally just sit down and [00:36:00] start talking to someone, she’s nodding her head. Yes, it will come out naturally. And if it doesn’t, you’ve spent all that time talking and listening, you can still say and bring up, I have this concern, or what about this thing? There’s no quote unquote confrontation.

Amanda Carmody: I am a big Ted Lasso fan. And there’s the whole line of be curious, not judgmental. And that is just the nail on the head to me. If you approach your client’s step prep as Okay, we need to figure out what problems we have so that we can fix them. That’s not a right way to talk to somebody about something that They went through, that’s horrible.

And it’s super confrontational, and they’re already in a confrontational system. If you approach it with, just start talking to me, let’s just work through this. And really try to learn where that person’s coming from. With curiosity and not sitting there thinking like, oh my gosh, this is a huge problem, we gotta fix it.

It just goes so much smoother for me. Everybody, for you, for your [00:37:00] client, like, you don’t have to make the process so exhausting. You can just take the easy road, which is, 

Elizabeth Larrick: And you’ll hear something, it’s like you talked about that mediation course, and there’s a book that I read, Never Split the Difference, and if you just sit and listen, it will solve your problems.

I’m like, it’s so true, like mediation, like if you will just listen, you will find something that will solve the problem versus you having to come up with the solution. And again, we as lawyers, we’re problem solvers, we want to have solutions, we really want to help people. And this is a place where I’m just like, Other places, yes, you’ve got to go find that solution.

You need to put your thinking cap on. You need to do that. This place with your client, though, like listening will solve so 

Amanda Carmody: many problems. I had a client who would say things like, 100 percent absolutely all the time, things that you tell your clients, stay out of those extreme areas. Never and always. It was killing me.

And [00:38:00] I could not figure out how to get this person to stop saying that. I said, if you say that, this is what they will interpret it to me and tried to explain it and then just let him keep talking. And it turned out he worked in restaurants for a really long time. And that’s the lingo. Think about going through the drive thru.

Okay. Chick fil a. And they say, absolutely, my pleasure. And you just are trying to be accommodating. And so by learning he worked in a restaurant, learning that was the vernacular he had picked up, we could start breaking that apart. You are not in a restaurant. You do not need to be accommodating with this person.

You are not here to please them and say, yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Let that go. And it was just a real aha moment that his experience in a restaurant was totally irrelevant. It was. Decades ago, it just was a habitual thing he had picked up. 

Elizabeth Larrick: What I always find when you point something out like that, you’ve listened long enough to say, Hey, if you notice that you didn’t, they’re like, no, they don’t even know.

It’s totally subconscious. And it becomes like that thing. [00:39:00] I want to fix that problem. But I always say like, you just wait a little bit, give a little space, ask some questions. Again, you’re still going to listen in and find, oh, That’s where it’s from. Now I know the route to go because sometimes we give that explanation of when you say X defense says things Y, or they’re going to ask now all these cross exam questions because they’ve never been in that situation.

That’s not scary to them. That’s the, there’s still no, it’s a complete disconnect. And so that’s why it’s. Just like you said, get back in there a little bit, get a little more in there. And then, Oh, like it’s a people pleasing thing. And how can we get out of that mode and have a little bit of presence about, Oh yeah, I don’t need to be a people pleaser when it comes to this deposition or really ever, but that’s a whole other podcast we could, 

Amanda Carmody: there’s so many tangents we could run with for like a whole series of podcasts.

Yes. 

Elizabeth Larrick: So I want to bring us back before we started recording. I was [00:40:00] talking to Amanda about being passionate about helping clients prepare for deposition, being passionate about client testimony. It’s not that it’s rare, but it is a little bit rare and trying to talk to people sometimes about this amazing thing happened or the helping part of it.

Going on a total tangent about like people, lawyers totally blaze over, they’re so gay. And so I was trying to come up with an analogy because we all get taught like how to prepare somebody for deposition. Just depends on what point in your career, normally early on. Sometimes you maybe you don’t do litigation, then you do and you just basically follow somebody else’s outline or you watch somebody like, okay, I guess that’s it.

We meet, we do discovery responses and good luck and send them all through the deposition and Good day. Amanda, tell me we had a good analogy. So we’ll talk through our analogy about what depo prep can sometimes look like. 

Amanda Carmody: Yeah, I’ve been watching a lot of Great British Bake Off. And so I immediately thought of cakes and just starting with all of the ingredients for a cake and dumping them into a [00:41:00] bowl and then expecting it to come out as a cake is not going to work very well.

Most of us just. using the analogy, are past the point of dumping all of the ingredients into a bowl and pulling out a cake. We can get to a point where you mix them in the right order and then you bake it, but that cake is probably not going to be super great. It might be from a box. It might even be the kind you take out of the freezer and thaw for 30 minutes before company comes over.

But the more You read your cookbooks, and the more you talk to other people who are baking cakes, and the more you The more you bake, though! The more that you bake, the more depositions you take and defend, the more you see what works. To the point where you’re getting to a place where you have something you can be proud of can be your showstopper.

But even when you get to the point of having like your beautiful cake that everybody agrees looks beautiful, tastes beautiful, there’s still a better cake out there for you to bake [00:42:00] and you can still get there. And so have your cake, eat it. I don’t know how far we can push this down. Yeah. As lost. Yeah,

Elizabeth Larrick: Because I think a lot of times, because it is something we do in every case, generally there’s some kind of, oh, this is how somebody else did it. And that’s why I said it’s like Duncan Hinz like, oh, it’s client deposition. All right. Here, let just do the same thing. I’ve always done egg oil go. That’s good enough.

Because yeah, it’s a client deposition. What differences does it really make? Once you really start to dive into like human emotion, human psychology, you don’t need a degree. I don’t have a degree in that. I just started listening and watching and paying attention to, Oh, if we order it this way, people There’s so much more that people grasp.

They’re so much better that they do. And that’s the same way with baking a cake. Okay. There’s a difference between baking soda and baking powder. Big learning moment. That’s right. And you get better [00:43:00] tools. And so you can help so many different people. And I think. You nailed it very early on, which is type of prep, the amount of time is very much fashioned around the person and the case.

You get so much better at doing that when you have built up your tools and your toolbox and know what it takes when you have resistance from somebody. Oh, I’ve got somebody who talks way too much, or, oh, I’ve got somebody who’s really defensive. You have this experience of like, okay, but what I always know and can always go back to is listening questions one on one time.

That’s always going to be a part of it. And same thing with baking a cake. There’s always going to be specific ingredients, a specific order. It changes up a little bit, but there’s such a huge difference between that cake you pull out of the freezer and the cake that you bake yourself. I mean, we were trying to think of an analogy.

Like 

Amanda Carmody: it’s such a good one. I’m sitting here thinking of more ways. It’s like cake. Some people don’t like vanilla cake. Some people are [00:44:00] allergic to gluten. It still is the same general idea. You’re making something that looks like a cake, but there’s certain. Frostings you wouldn’t put on certain cakes and certain cakes can’t handle weight.

Heavy things and heavy toppings. You have to be delicate and that’s just how people are too. And as long as you’re like, you’re saying to try to wrap this up nicely, as long as you’re approaching it with kindness and curiosity and just openness, you’ll be able to figure out what type of cake you’re baking and how to make your client.

feel like they did something good that they can be proud of. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And if you do it, if you just try a different one, one time, you will see phenomenally the difference. It may not feel like it. You may think, oh, it’s still the same, but that connection that you have with that client has completely changed. And final thought on our analogy here is a huge difference between a Martha’s story.

Stuart cake and Duncan Hines. And once you’ve had one, you don’t ever want to go back. Yeah. You don’t want the box [00:45:00] cake anymore. That’s right. That’s because you’ve seen, like, you see the change. You sometimes you actually feel the change and you may say, but Elizabeth, Amanda, it didn’t get the case a little quicker and we still had to keep doing all these things.

Think about the client. Like how much more happy were they to deal with you? How much more happy were they to get you whatever you want and turn down that low ball offer and not be. Emotionally tied up personally and thinking I’m not worthy because I got this low ball offer because that is a total thing.

You nailed it. Like people feel hopeless and worthless because that’s what they’ve been told the whole time. So 

Amanda Carmody: yeah, no, I think that’s 

Elizabeth Larrick: exactly it. Elizabeth. Oh my gosh, we have tackled so many things, but I’m really mostly proud of our cake analogy. 

Amanda Carmody: It might have gone a little too far in time, but I think I’m going to go get cake.

I don’t know that I’m going to bake it. I have a holiday party to go to, and I really hope there’s cake. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, Amanda, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I really enjoyed having [00:46:00] you. so much, Elizabeth. I appreciate you. Awesome. Hey, if anybody has questions for Amanda or you’re up in her area, I know she would probably love to grab a zoom with you or an actual real live person, coffee and talk about depo prep.

All of her contacts will be in the show notes. If you want to reach out to her, thank you all so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review on your favorite podcast platform. And if we are not connected on LinkedIn, please go and follow and connect with me so that we can continue this conversation.

All right. Until next time. Thank [00:47:00] you.

Have you ever witnessed the courtroom magic that a well-prepared lawyer can weave? Imagine the edge a legal team could have by understanding a jury’s mind before even stepping into the courtroom. That’s exactly what Florida attorney Brooke Grogan and I peel back the layers of in our insightful conversation. Brooke brings to the table her experiences with focus groups, revealing how these mock juries can drastically alter the trajectory of a trial. From honing opening statements to fine-tuning courtroom tactics, this episode is a masterclass for any trial lawyer eager to absorb the tactical know-how of leveraging focus groups for legal victories. 

Picture this: a tool so powerful it could swing a $3 million verdict in your favor. That’s the story Brooke recounts as we delve into how early focus group feedback reshaped her case strategy. We also tackle the virtual evolution of focus groups, discussing the conveniences and complexities of platforms like Zoom. Whether you’re a seasoned attorney or just legally curious, our exchange is packed with practical insights that underscore the transformative effects of blending technology with trial preparation. Join us to unearth the art of legal strategy through the lens of focus groups – a truly eye-opening dialogue for the courtroom tactician in all of us.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Brooke’s first focus group experience
• Focus group evaluation
• Importance of focus groups in evaluation
• Value of focus groups and input
• Adjustments and progress in focus groups 

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

To learn more about Brooke Grogan & her practice: https://www.injurylawyers.com/attorney-brooke-grogan/

 To follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-larrick-942447101/

 If you have a question or suggestion for the podcast, please email Elizabeth: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

 

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

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

Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. Her goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. Now, here’s Elizabeth. Hi there. It’s Elizabeth. I want to stop really quickly before we get into this episode and tell you about my guest today.

Brooke Grogan is joining us today. She’s an attorney at the West Palm Beach office of Stanger Green and Finer. She is a native of Florida and she enjoys using her platform as [00:01:00] an attorney to help others, especially those without a voice or Without sufficient monetary means or knowledge of the legal system.

I met Brooke through my very good friend, Neil Anthony, who also works at the same firm. And they actually teamed up recently and went to trial and secured a 3 million verdict. So way to go, Brooke and Neil. Anyhow, let’s jump into this episode because I think you’re really going to find it interesting what Brooke has to say about her first focus group experience.

Hello and welcome to the trial lawyer prep. Podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and we are here to talk all things case preparation. This is a podcast that’s really been set up for lawyers who are litigating cases in employment law and personal injury and work injury and business litigation as well.

Sometimes we talk about other stuff too, but mainly those are our main focus. And we talk about all other kinds of things that help people get ready for cases [00:02:00] and really how to’s. Today’s episode, I have brought on a wonderful guest who is going to talk about her experience doing her first focus group.

Brooke comes to us all the way from Florida. So welcome to the podcast, Brooke. Thank you. I’m excited to have Brooke because they came to me to do some focus groups. And after we did them, Brooke had some wonderful feedback for me. And I thought, you know what? This is what a lot of people out there are thinking and feeling about doing a focus group and what may be something that’s holding them back.

So I loved, and I always appreciate people giving me feedback, but Brooke also agreed to come on the podcast, which is the second hurdle. So Brooke. Let’s walk through this. Tell me what you were thinking. You guys are gearing up this case and that always helps people too. Like I know what I need to talk about.

Like we don’t really even talk about the facts actually, but just tell us like where you guys were in the case. Cause a lot of people have questions and we talk a lot about when to run a [00:03:00] focus group, like what point in a case and what case really would need one. So talk me through, tell us all about that kind of thought process when you guys were approaching doing a focus group for this case.

Brooke Grogan: All right. So thank you for having me. And I should just say first and foremost, I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong, but we brought you on early on in the case. We knew early on, we had a case with big damages and we were high valuation of the case. So I brought you on early on. And I think that really benefited the case in the long run.

Cause we got the feedback early on throughout those sessions. So there was a lot of really positive things that came from your involvement early on in the case. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Good. And I think, and you tell me, you guys approached once you guys got the trial date, but the trial date was still six to eight months away.

Is that sound about right? 

Brooke Grogan: Yes. So we decided we were going to do three sessions. focus group sessions. And that kind of put me at ease because in my mind, [00:04:00] having never done one before, I always envisioned a focus group, like a mediation where it’s like you go in and you present everything from A to Z and everything in between.

And the only difference between mediation and a focus group is you’re getting feedback at the end of it from complete strangers. That was What I was expecting and I was kind of a daunting thought thinking I’m going to have to really tackle an entire case throughout maybe a couple hours of a session.

So I was really happy when on our first call, you explained to me, we’re actually going to dissect the case. So we decided we were just going to tackle the opening in the first session. We were just going to tackle the liability and damages in the second session. And then the third session we decided we would use for one deer.

And that really put me at ease and knowing that I was going to have an opportunity to really focus on each really critical. Piece of the case, but over time, not all at once. So my case had a lot of moving [00:05:00] parts and I feel like the focus group your timeline. Our first session was, I think, 5 months before calendar call even and.

It forced me to prepare. It forced me to write my opening statement and deliver it five months before I was even supposed to be in court. So in the moment, I was thinking this is going to be a big commitment. But looking back, I’m so glad I prepared. I’m so glad I banged out my opening statement because I had so much time to make adjustments.

After that, and it really helped me frame the case as well. As far as file management, time management, the focus group really kept me accountable on making sure I was preparing the case in segments. So I really appreciated that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Awesome. And that’s a lot of times people just, you know, that same thing, the trepidation is there’s going to be so much work that’s required to do the focus group.

And it’s really not, especially like the format that we decided on, which was virtual. One of the things that. I always encourage [00:06:00] people to listen. We don’t really want to do a super long virtual focus group. Like people will lose interest. Here’s the sweet spot. Two hours, three hours, get a lot done still in one hour, but that makes you then choose.

We really have to hone in on these particular things. We can’t do everything. So I appreciate you pointing that out. What I want to ask. So let’s go back. Let’s take it back. Okay. Approaching this as you’ve never done a focus group before. What was in your mind? What were your worries? And you talked about one, the amount of work that would be acquired, like thinking, Oh my gosh, it’s going to be so much work I got to do.

What were some other things, concerns that you had about running a focus group? 

Brooke Grogan: So I think initially, the concern was the cost, and when I say cost, to make sure that the file justified the cost, but also that the client was okay with it, because ultimately it comes out of the case. And I realized pretty early on in speaking with the client, they were happy, they were excited, they were so supportive of us focus grouping the case, and I think it actually helped us build [00:07:00] trust, because They realized I was willing to do whatever was necessary to understand the hard issues in the case, the complexity of the case.

And I was really trying to understand it. And I don’t know for sure, but I would guess just based on my experience in this, that most clients, if their attorneys call them and say, Hey, we’re going to be focus grouping your case. They would all have a positive reaction because number one, the attorney seeing the value in the case and number two, the case is important.

So when the attorney is taking the case and making it an important case, I think that really builds trust with the client and it means something. I think they appreciate it. So in my case, I’m sure. Probably many other attorneys may say this, but the client was so supportive of it. And so cost really, it became a non issue pretty early on.

I realized, wow, the client wants to do this just as bad as I do. He’s just as interested as I am in the feedback. So that was a surprise for me that it was received so [00:08:00] well. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, you didn’t have to work hard to convince him he was no. Yeah, 

Brooke Grogan: not at all. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And that’s been my experience too. When I ran litigation cases, and I told people, this is what I did.

They’re like, wow, that’s really cool. What a great idea. Instead of just trying to rely on your own thoughts, your own experience, you can go ask other people. Absolutely. And I think cost is important. It’s always a concern when you’re running and you’re handling costs as a law firm or as a solo. Like you’re handling those costs.

I do think it’s always super important to talk to your clients and let them know and get that approval. But thinking it’s going to be a ton of work is one of the holdout thinking it’s going to be a huge expense. And then sometimes what I also hear from people is this worry that like. They don’t really know what they’re going to get.

What really are we going to learn from the focus group that I can actually use? Was that ever a worry from you? And I know you had another podcast friend chirping in your ear, Neil Anthony, who’s been on the podcast before. And so he was probably chirping in your ear a little bit, but was that a concern at all?

Brooke Grogan: So I don’t think I was [00:09:00] so sure about what the feedback would be, but being in it, I can tell you what it ended up being. And I think. Looking back, I’m like, Oh my gosh, it was invaluable. It helped me get my case resolved. But when you’re in it, maybe you don’t really know necessarily if it’s your first time.

I appreciate it now, but my focus on the second session we had was really a game changer for me because I went in concerned about my damages and my valuation. And that’s what I thought I was going to hear everybody talking about was the valuation was too high or the injuries were problematic or what have you.

Every question that the focus groupers kept bringing up to you, I believe, and the conversation kept going right back to a liability issue that I really wasn’t expecting leaving the second focus group even I felt like I had refocused on, okay, like I had more confidence in my valuation of the case. I knew I was on the right track there, but I really needed to focus on my [00:10:00] liability, and that’s where I did focus for the next.

A couple months, I ended up getting the case resolved because of that. That was the missing piece that ended up getting the case resolved as we didn’t even make it to the third focus group. We had the three kind of staggered and just, I have to say, understanding in the focus group, they would bring up defenses and things they were thinking about in words that made them think of other things.

And it just, it helped me refine my opening, which helped me frame the case. And then, I Refocus on to back to liability. I thought I was over liability and on to valuation and I realized I had to take a step back as far as what you can get from it. I think that every case is different. There is 100%. I wish I could focus group every case because there’s 100% Something to be gotten from the focus group.

Something someone says or thinks about that you didn’t think about. There are so many perspectives. It’s not just yours. It’s so nice to check your perspective. So [00:11:00] doing it, be open minded. You will learn something. You will learn about the difficulties of the case and to have a strength in your case, I truly feel like you have to understand those difficulties and hurdles to get over them.

So it’s helpful to that for sure. 

Elizabeth Larrick: That’s what my, my questions was. I know sometimes, and this is the feedback I get from other people’s watching it, it’s just like sometimes a total gut punch because they are just saying all these things that you didn’t even think about and it’s just, Whoa, wow, I missed that.

But sometimes. Again, we’re got our own point of view on things. It’s difficult to hear, but it’s always going to make you a little bit better versus not ever knowing about it. And then just going in blind with people for sure. For sure. 

Brooke Grogan: Absolutely. Yep. 

Elizabeth Larrick: So tell me a little bit about what was your, let’s go back to that first focus group.

You’re sitting there listening. And I think we, it was pretty, pretty general, I think on the facts and stuff. How were you feeling during that focus group? And after walk us through that, going 

Brooke Grogan: into that focus [00:12:00] group, like I said, it was, we focused on the opening statement. So I had probably my opening statement, 90 percent done.

Five months out from trial, which was I think pretty early. And I sat back and just listened and I just, that’s really all I did. I feel like in that focus group was I had an opportunity to present what I would be presenting in the near future. And I just listened and I was making notes to my opening as we were going, changing certain words, like I said, were maybe not hitting home.

Like I wanted them to, or maybe I missed a few things. So it was invaluable feedback for me to. Make the changes I needed to make over the next coming months. And it was the next couple of months were like a breeze because I’d already done all the hard work early on. And I didn’t really want to do it so early on, but you were so great cause you kept me accountable.

You’d be following up like, Hey, we’re going to be presenting in a week. Do you have any questions? And I was like, okay, we got to do this. I worked with Neil, my trial partner, and we just, we spent a [00:13:00] lot of time on it early on, but then it freed up. So much of our time getting closer to trial, we were able to focus on so many other things.

I really loved having an early timeline in hindsight. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Was there anything that surprised you from the focus groups? Not that I can think of. Okay. Okay. So I know that we did the two focus groups and then you went on to do quite a bit more in the case, meaning there were some depositions, there were some more conversations.

So how did the focus group work impact The rest of the things that you did in the case. I 

Brooke Grogan: think that having done so much work on this case early on, when it was coming time to crunch time with these expert depositions and tough conversations with opposing counsels on what they perceive to be problems in the case, I just felt like I had a layer of confidence.

The conversation in my mind wasn’t me wondering what, how a jury would perceive stuff. I think [00:14:00] they would see it this way, or I think that this fact would be received in this way. I felt confident that I maybe understood even how they would understand it because I had focus grouped it twice. And I think we had 10 people, complete strangers in the first focus group, about 10 and 10.

So I had already talked to 20 people that didn’t know me, didn’t know the case. It really gave me a pulse on what the strengths of the case. And that really flowed through. I think in my conversations, I was able, I just had a layer of confidence in my conversations with the client. Changed as well because the client would always ask questions about what do you think about this?

What do you think about that? And it would always be my perspective. Well, I think this but I don’t know how a jury will receive the information and the conversation was really taken out of that context to more. This is how a jury will probably perceive this information. So it was just a different level of confidence and knowing this isn’t just my perspective, but probably this is how [00:15:00] a strangers are going to see this case as well.

So it flowed into all aspects of the case. So it made me feel more confident, my depositions, my conversations, even with my client. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And that’s awesome. That’s, that’s sometimes having that feeling helps just to, and you guys got it resolved, which is. Pretty awesome. Cause when you guys came to me, the, or you guys were like, I’m pretty sure this is going to go like, we’re really, we’re 90 percent sure that we’re going to go to a trial.

So I was shocked when I got that email. 

Brooke Grogan: Right. And then we got to use the last session on a totally different case. And I got to practice a voir dire cause I had never done one of those 

Elizabeth Larrick: before either. So it 

Brooke Grogan: was really fun. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, exactly. Then we got to do some other stuff. Let me ask real specifically, cause I know you had to take some expert Was there anything from the focus groups that really gave you either some ideas or some confidence about particular pieces that you knew the expert was?

Either not going to agree with or didn’t even [00:16:00] consider. 

Brooke Grogan: I knew from, like I said, that second focus group, which I said was a game changer. I knew what piece was missing and what the case needed. I knew what the people were looking for. The question was the same question. I kept coming back to the same question.

So in, and that deposition Came after the appropriate expert to actually fill that gap and came after that focus group and I hammered it home. I hammered it home. I probably asked the relevant question five times sideways to make sure it was like a concretized answer, but I made sure that it was like a stone, like a really strong response to that because I knew that’s what.

That’s where the interest was. So I probably spent more time on that missing link because of that second focus group. And I know I did because I changed completely changed my focus from, like I said, the valuation, which was fine to this missing link on more of the [00:17:00] liability side. So it allowed me to craft my questions more so around that missing link and spend more time on it.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And that’s one of the things I always tell people and it’s hard to kind of grasp without going through it is you’re going to hear what, where the education needs to be. You’re going to hear What it is that they need to hear from an expert because exactly truly some experts are totally they just get up there and they just go and you’re like, there’s something really specific.

I need you to talk to exactly. They don’t get it at all. And so I really love that piece came through for y’all. And when it did, because again, sometimes people time these things when they have all the expert depositions and then they go to a focus group and the focus group, like you said, you kept hearing it over and over again.

And you’re thinking, Oh, I didn’t get to have my expert fill in that piece. And I didn’t get to hammer defense expert on that piece. And so that definitely, I think really is one of the big, [00:18:00] significant things that people, We have in our minds, that focus group is really just like you said, it’s like a mock trial.

You threw everything at them and then you get feedback. If you do it early enough, you’re really coming and bringing all of that into everything else you’re going to do next. Depositions, experts, having those conversations with that opposing counsel and then having a lot more confidence in your number and your valuation that you might not have.

Brooke Grogan: Exactly. In my mind, I was not gonna gloss over that issue. I was like, I heard it, I heard it once. I heard it twice. We are gonna be focusing on that issue. Thank you. . But it was good. It it, I, I was very aware of it and that was like I said, really great, maybe unintended consequence or, I’m not sure of that se really second focus group.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that people. Like you, you’re, sometimes people are curious about what they’re going to get and they don’t, they feel like sometimes it’s going to be like looking for an [00:19:00] Easter egg thing. But I’m like, no, they will tell you straight out and you’ll hear it more than once. And that’s when you know, okay, they’re ringing that bell.

Like that is something that we need to answer that question. Or a lot of times we may run a focus group. And I know for sure we had conversations once we finished where it was like, okay, here’s what they want to hear. Do you have this? Is this something that’s already in the case? Or do you have this witness who can come in and explain this?

Or, and you guys did, there were things that we heard about damages that Gave you confidence. Okay, good. This is how I felt about it. They secured it and then it was like, okay, how can we hammer this home if, if you guys go? And it was like, okay, we’ve gotta get the manager he worked with. We’ve gotta get people he worked with.

We’ve gotta get the boss to come in to really understand the magnitude of the job that this person was handling. And then couldn’t anymore. Sometimes we have all the things in the case, just not know how amplified they need to be. And then sometimes, like you [00:20:00] said, you got to go to that expert and ask those questions and fill those holes.

Brooke Grogan: And I think too, being in it presenting the opening, it was so helpful to have you as a third party, hearing it and really observing everything. And after the focus groups, we talked every after every focus group on your feedback as a third party, kind of. Like seeing reactions and stuff. I got a lot of information from your responses as well.

I don’t know if we had ever really talked about that, but your feedback on reaffirming, Hey, I think they sounded like they were accepting this part of the case, but now it seems like this is the question. And You and Neil were really good, like sounding boards on that conversation and affirming me and like where I needed to go.

So. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And I think we appreciate you so much. Of course. And I think sometimes I know for sure, cause I can remember one person in your focus group. Occasionally we have, we have 10 people, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to have 10 solid [00:21:00] people. Occasionally there’ll be a one off and I’ll be like, listen, we heard everything that Susan said, but.

Let’s just put that in a little bubble. Okay. Because that may be that extreme juror who never gets on. And I want to say you probably, I don’t want to say you had somebody like that. 

Brooke Grogan: I did. And you gave me, I was like concerned and you were like, no, they’re not all going to be like that. So I really took to heart your feedback.

So I didn’t get too wrapped up in the, I’m going to say the negative comments or whatever it ended up being, but it was good having your perspective too on that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And sometimes that happens it’s, and, and trust me, you’re not alone. That’s why when I see it happening, I generally make a little note myself and then just say, Hey, listen, we’re this person in particular, let’s just put them in a bubble because sometimes what will happen is our brain will just hear that comment.

And then. What I hear from lawyers, everyone felt that way. And I’d have to be like, no, that was just Susan. And nobody jumped on [00:22:00] Susan’s bandwagon. So that’s one of those things of having that extra person. And I always even like having you and Neil listen, and you guys then having that immediate feedback right after the focus group.

And that, and I’m glad we’re talking about that because sometimes people just, you know, Okay, good. Got it. Gone. And so if you like talk it through and sound off each other, you’re going to get such like a more in depth understanding of kind of what happened, especially bouncing it off another lawyer who just saw it.

And then we always, I think that having that immediate, like, Feedback so that you don’t go chasing that rabbit, that one little person who mentions that one kind of crit. No, come back. We’ll let Susan do her thing. You’ll know how to spot a Susan, but the majority of people, like you said, that it’s gonna, if somebody says something you’re looking to see who else is going to pick up on that and if it’s going to come back.

That’s always I think helpful to go back and look like, okay, 

Brooke Grogan: I think to the [00:23:00] majority of people, if not all, maybe but one were very committed to the process. I felt like I was getting really organic, real responses. And that’s a credit to you, too, in finding these people that are committed to the process.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, I think it’s just a matter of making sure everybody understands what everyone’s role is, and I think it’s so critical that when you’re running, especially an opening statement, like, you don’t then do all the questioning, right? Then they’re like, your brain’s confused. Wait a second. You’re obviously not neutral.

You just gave me this very biased, you know, statement. And so I think having that extra neutral third party to come in and be like, okay, I’m just here to ask questions. And we try really hard to make our questions a very open ended, right? Like, how are you feeling? And how do you think? And put this in the chat and give me your thoughts.

And that way we’re really. Getting everybody. And I always tell people it’s so key. It’s just like a [00:24:00] classroom. Like everybody has to have that individual attention. And in zoom, that’s really the only way to manage people. Otherwise you literally don’t get what people are saying. Cause zoom cut somebody off.

That’s another. Reason why I really love like comparing in person versus zoom is in person. So many people, especially post pandemic, I don’t know what it is. Talk over each other constantly. And it’s as a moderator, it’s a constant, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Cause you’re missing it and having someone to go back, repeat it.

Like someone’s going to lose something in there. So I appreciate zoom in that sense of being able to gather everybody up individually. Me 

Brooke Grogan: too. And if you can present your case on zoom. You can present your case in person because zoom, I think when you’re standing up and you can actually move around, it’s more effective.

So if you can do it on zoom and you may have a better pool on zoom as well. A lot of people don’t want to go in person because of concerns, COVID concerns or masking situations. I think you get a better, a larger pool of people probably [00:25:00] doing it via zoom rather than not just like a narrow group of people that, you know, you know, Don’t want to be in person.

Elizabeth Larrick: Right, and that’s what I was going to say. Did you have any concerns about being virtual? Versus in person? 

Brooke Grogan: I didn’t. I actually prefer it because, especially when you’re presenting, it’s so much easier to present. You share your screen, it’s right in front of the people. They can all see it. There’s no issues.

They can hear you, they can see it. I have no problems, uh, doing it via Zoom. And like I said, it’s probably you get a better pool of people. So I personally prefer it, but I don’t have any experience on the other side of doing it in person. So I don’t know, but I didn’t find that there were any issues for me.

I love that you posed your questions throughout the session. People, I could see their responses in the comments. It was what I was looking for. It, it, it achieved what I was looking for. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And again, we you’re in Florida, I’m in Texas. We couldn’t do it otherwise, [00:26:00] but that’s what I hear from so many people in doing the in person is they don’t even literally want to get in the car and drive somewhere.

We always try to have free parking wherever we go, or if we do reimburse it, but people even just, I don’t even, that’s what I hear. I don’t want to fight traffic. I don’t want to come down there and have some kind of crappy lunch and then sit through and. Maybe I’ll get sick or whatnot. So it’s, we definitely have a lot better response to recruiting for virtual versus in person.

Oh yeah. I would imagine. Yeah. And then I would just say the other thing thinking about cost wise to get some people to come in person, the cost is much higher because, Everything, renting a space, and then just paying people for their time, has really significantly changed since the pandemic. So that was definitely a helpful thing with virtual is we cut a lot of that stuff out.

Oh, it’s 

Brooke Grogan: good to know. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Brooke. Let me ask you to check in because we’ve got lots of people who are listening to the podcast and maybe they’re thinking about running their own focus [00:27:00] group or they’re on the cusp of like maybe pulling the trigger for a focus group. What would you, what would you tell them?

What would you, what would your advice be to them? 

Brooke Grogan: I kind of think if you have a case that has damages, like decent damages, regardless of the rest of it, invest in the case, the client will be appreciative of it, and once you do one, you’ll understand why you will want to do more. It helps you prepare early on, it helps you build confidence in your case, it helps build trust with your client, and like I said, if you have a case that warrants it with damages, I’m pretty confident you’ll get good feedback and have a good experience, like I did.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I would say just to that, that after that we, the first focus group, I think we did was just a one hour, just a one hour shot. We just did an overview. And I think that’s one of the ones where we really were like, Oh, we need to take, you guys need to take a step back. We need to really take this next one and look at.

Liability just to make [00:28:00] sure you guys are hitting it spot on. So I appreciate you saying that because sometimes you have to start a little small, just to alleviate some of those concerns and then be able to feel like, Oh, okay, now let’s move forward with a longer one, a bigger one, more preparation on you.

And then you’ll get more out of it. 

Brooke Grogan: Yeah, and I think along the way adjustments can be made. If you feel like you’ve really hammered home one aspect, you can always change the scope or the topic area of the next focus group, which is, I like that as well. We had our timeline and our subjects, but I think there was an understanding if we needed to refocus and We ended up doing that for the third one.

We made it into a voir dire. There was a lot of flexibility, but you were really helpful in, again, with the feedback on, Hey, maybe the next one, this is what we do. Your suggestions were really helpful. And I’m glad we implemented them because you’re more experienced in the focus group. I relied on you a lot for the feedback on how they should be run.

And it’s exactly where we should have been focused. And it was exactly what needed to be done to get the case resolved. In my case. It all really worked out. All came [00:29:00] together. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And you guys gave yourself a buffer. You gave yourself a month to almost 40 days between each one, just to buffer it and give yourself time.

And I think that’s a really smart move. Because when you jam it all in there and do two, one week apart or two week apart, you’re really having to buckle down to make those changes, those adjustments and go back and think and marinate and think, okay, do we need that question again? Or can we change it? So yeah, you guys really, I think, approached Having that space there, super thoughtful, like knowing yourself, knowing your caseload and other things that have to get done and not try to pile it on at the last minute.

Awesome. Brooke, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective about focus groups and your first time experience. Thank you so much for having me. Awesome. All right. All of Brooke’s contact information is going to be in the show notes. If you have questions for her about focus groups, I know she’d be happy to feel those.

And of course, if you have anything in [00:30:00] Florida, Florida is a big place. I’ve learned this. through working with people in Florida and knowing, Hey, do you do something in Tampa? Absolutely not. Here’s this other person. But I know that anyhow, we’ll have that contact information for you guys. If you have questions for Brooke, I know she’d be happy to connect and talk about that.

Or if you have a case in Florida, happy to put that too. Okay. Thank you all so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate and review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you haven’t done so, let’s connect on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn connection will be in the show notes. All right. Until next time.

Thank you.

In this episode, we reflect on a year of trial advocacy growth and gear up for an even more dynamic 2024. Listen in as I share insights from my tenure as president of the Capital Area Trial Lawyers Association, highlighting how organization and balance have become pillars of my practice. I also discuss the surprising dominance of virtual focus groups, with a staggering 44 sessions conducted online, illustrating their continued convenience and efficiency for our busy legal community. 

Plus, get a sneak peek at future episodes featuring fellow lawyers and experts who will shed light on innovative case development, witness preparation, and the powerful use of medical illustrations and animations in storytelling. 

As we wrap up 2023, I can’t help but share the profound impact certain books have had on my journey both professionally and personally. As I set my sights on devouring 40 business books in the coming year, I extend an invitation for your recommendations. Lastly, we’ll explore how experimenting with AI tools like ChatGPT might revolutionize the way we practice law.

In this episode, you will hear:

• The effectiveness of virtual focus groups (with 44 online sessions highlighted)
• Insights from impactful books for personal and professional growth. 
• Exploration of technology in legal practice, including the use of ChatGPT for brainstorming and content creation.

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

To learn more about grief listen to Episodes:

Ep 85: What is Grief?

Ep 86: Ways We have been Taught to Deal with Grief

Ep 87: How to Navigate and Assist Our Clients with Grief

Book Recommendations:

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks

Loving What is by Byron Katie 

Got a book recommendation? Podcast episode topic? Email Elizabeth: Elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com 

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

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

Today, we’re going to do a wrap up of 2023, as this will be our first episode in 2024. It’s always a great time at the end of the year to do some reflection. And I always like to do [00:01:00] that here on the podcast, because it’s a good time to take an inventory, look at what happened, what made an impact, and then also set some things forward for 2024.

Thinking about 2024 and just to get to those folks who are thinking, I don’t really want to listen to what Elizabeth did over in 2023. Totally fine. Let me just give you a little bit of a broadcast for the podcast coming up. We’re going to keep doing every other week episodes and continue to focus on having lawyers join a podcast to talk about things that are helping them develop their cases better.

Get clarity, get confidence, get certainty. How we’re going to have a lot of case studies, folks that are coming on to talk about, Hey, I use this, I use this style of focus group. I use this style of witness prep. I use this kind of organization to help me develop my mediation presentation. Really a lot of.

examples of how to’s where we can really kind of see the benefits. Also going to have some folks come back on our podcast to talk about things that they’re [00:02:00] doing in their Avenue, specifically in my mind, I’m thinking about Annie Goff. She’s going to come back and talk about medical illustrations versus animations.

I don’t know. We’re going to have a few other people come on as well, who are vendors that help lawyers tell their stories, whether it be a mediation or a trial. So let’s talk about this episode. I went back through my calendar as I live and breathe and die by my calendar and block things out, all that good stuff and looked at what really did I do in 2023.

Well half of 2023 was dedicated from, from January until June to the capital area trial lawyers association presidency. I really wanted to serve in that role to give back to the profession and here in Austin Capital Area Trial Lawyers Association provides monthly CLE lunches for members. Uh, we support each other with an email list serve and give back to the community through volunteer service.

I am proud to have served in that [00:03:00] organization as its president and will continue to support them on the executive committee. And I learned a lot about organization as balancing what I normally do with my work, plus also adding on the things to support that organization was just a good exercise and making sure that I balance things out, which is probably one of the biggest lessons that I have learned in 2023, but we’ll get to that just a little bit later.

Also looking back at. What did I do? 44 virtual focus groups and probably more considering inside some of those groups, we had two to three focus groups, right? So if you’ve listened at all to the podcast, you know, that my mantra is really about focus groups, small bites about case strategy, about issues, facts, instead of doing long, Okay.

So that’s why I say 44 focus groups, because we, we, I break it down. And then also [00:04:00] within that, we do even break it down, even smaller for focus groups did eight in person focus groups. I will tell you, this was a little bit of a shock for me. I had figured that the beginning of 2023, we would be doing a lot more in person focus groups only because I knew a lot more folks would be going to trial and be having a lot more action in our dockets.

And that really, for whatever reason, the virtual focus group still continued to dominate the space. My thought is that, one, it’s still so much more convenient to do these virtually. It’s convenient for us as lawyers, it’s convenient for people, it’s easy to put one together quickly. The other thing that we, I really saw in doing the in person focus groups was a huge new cost barrier to renting space, because typically when we’re doing the in person focus groups, the mock trials, we’re going to have a [00:05:00] lot of people.

So we need a lot more space. We joined them for longer and a lot of venues, especially the hotels that I dealt with were Much more difficult this year than last year, which I’d done some in 2022 and didn’t have the same difficulty. So I’m not really sure if there’s just an uptick or if there’s more competition or what’s happening in the space out there for, for in person venues, but that just, um, I was a little shocked we didn’t have more, but again, I just think, personally, the virtual ones are just so much easier for people who have a busy schedule, which those are lawyers who are listening to the podcast, right?

We’re in litigation, we’re going to trial, we’ve got mediations, we’ve got depositions, got a lot on our personal dockets that don’t allow sometimes for an entire day to be set aside just for attending, but not to mention the preparation that’s involved. So kind of a big takeaway is virtual is still the way to go, hands down, especially when it comes to time efficiency and money efficiency for [00:06:00] a lot of the same benefit.

And that’s one of the biggest questions that I get when talking with lawyers is, is virtual good? Like, is it good? Does it work? And hands down, yes, absolutely. I mean, just looking at these numbers, I mean, that’s 44 lawyers, right? Versus eight lawyers, right? And those are also not to say that people aren’t doing a combination of the two, but what I saw with our in person focus groups, those were folks who hands down, Um, we’re past the point of settlement.

We’re going to trial. We’ve got to get this together and run through it a couple of times. And naturally the virtual focus groups are not in the same position, right? They’re building up, they’re getting discovery ready. They’re getting mediation ready. They’re trying to figure out what does this need to settle or does it need to go to trial?

And then of course we had some trial prep ones in there as well. So kind of a mixed bag, but just to kind of give you a little bit of a background on that. The other thing that I help folks with is testimony preparation, whether it be trial or deposition. A lot more folks going to [00:07:00] trials, but I did see a lot more folks that I was helping with trial.

That was about a 50 50 split on that. Doing a lot of that work virtually as well. Again, just a matter of convenience for lawyers and for people. You know, a lot of folks are working a lot more because that dollar does not go as far. And so a lot of clients that we’re helping just, there’s a convenience level, right.

To not having to take off work to working around things and using virtual. So lots of good folks that were helped this year. I really enjoyed us, of course, helping people with that. And that’s lawyers and clients involved. The other thing that I did was I spoke at five CLE programs. Always love getting on my feet to do that.

Almost every one of them was in person, so that’s, I really enjoy doing that. Podcasts of course. You’re here. So thank you so much, but we did 50 episodes. We did have just a few repeats, but the focus of this year was really about having guests on and, uh, I would say we definitely had a majority of the episodes that were with our [00:08:00] amazing guests and a big thanks to all those people who came out, uh, to do the podcast with me.

The other thing that I did is I worked with three amazingly strong women who helped me grow personally and in my business and I read about 30 ish books. I say ish because I did not track it very well. Uh, and I do. Repeat reading books, some of them every year, sometimes every other year. We’ll talk a little about the books in here a little bit, but I just love reading.

So I did a little more fiction this year than I normally do. All right. So in that full reflection, of course, I looked at really what was impactful for me, meaning what were things that helped me or things that didn’t help. One of the most important things for me is working with.

And that’s [00:09:00] really a dedication that I made to myself many, many years ago to always work with someone to help me see what I can’t see. And I’ve done masterminds, I’ve done, you know, business coaches, I’ve done therapists and psychologists and it has always helped me grow. And so of course continued that this year and have seen many helpful things.

So many things that would be difficult for me to talk about here on this podcast. But one of the things that I did spend some time, which was talking about grief. And the grief recovery method that I did and then the certification that I got. If you are curious about more in depth conversation about grief, there are three main episodes that were released about grief and I’ll put those in the show notes if you’re curious.

In addition, if you’d like to learn more about the grief recovery method, I’ll put a link to the show notes in that as well. I want to also jump to the books that I read this [00:10:00] year that really had an impact on me. And I read many books, but these were the ones that kind of stuck out to me in my journey this year.

I read the book, Never Splitting the Difference, uh, as a negotiation book by Chris Voss. It’s been around for a while, but there were so many helpful, applicable things. So if you’ve read the book. I totally suggest reading it again. If you’ve not read it, definitely as a lawyer, gotta read this book. I think it is so helpful to anyone who’s maybe just starting out in the PI world to have in their thinking in their mind.

See, when I went to law school, I didn’t take any classes on arbitration mediation because I want to be a trial lawyer who needs the rest of that stuff. Okay. Well, it would have been really helpful to have, but I didn’t. So this book is a very helpful fill in for a lot of the mindset, a lot of the thoughts.

Plus he’s a really good storyteller. So the book goes by really quickly. Another book that I just wrapped [00:11:00] up this year reading was Essentialism by Gary Q. And he also has a podcast, but. The book is very helpful in this mindset of, you know, just doing what is essential and not rushing around to do everything, which is a lot of what can happen when you are a solo, you rush around because you have to do everything.

Uh, that’s a lot of what I do. I’m trying not to do that. The other thing that he really talks about is rest and time to think as a way more important. Thing in our lives versus rushing around, doing that one extra task, reading that one extra book. And I really loved that. And I have painstakingly trying to put that into what I do on a regular schedule.

And this kind of came full circle for me because when I worked with Mr. Keenan, one of the things, and if you’ve spent any time with [00:12:00] him or heard anything, then you know, then he loves a very good cigar and he would always have. Stokey time where basically he would sit up outside and smoke a cigar and I understood.

He always explained like this. I’m just thinking like I’m going back through, I’m thinking back through this focus group or I’m thinking, or he would just have me read things like read the focus group transcript. But that was what he always told all the lawyers that we worked with is like, you have to take time to stop and just think.

I just think, think about your cases, think all the way through, think about how to tell the story, and really give time for your brain to do the amazing things that it does. So get a full circle here, you know, reading this again, but also just like, okay, we’ve got to build some time in to stop and think.

And then of course, time for rest. Cause then that makes our brains better. Another book that I read at the beginning of the year, which [00:13:00] was the big leap by Gay Hendricks. And I’ve talked a little bit about that on the podcast here and there great book. If you are looking to grow, it’s been out for a little while.

It’s not a newbie, but it’s really helpful in finding. Things that you may do that could be holding yourself back. And if you are all about trying to grow to the next level, whether it be business or, or professionally, that’s the same thing, by the way, whether it be personally or professionally. Great book.

It’s so small. It’s really simple. He’s a very wonderful storyteller as well. There’s all kinds. He’s got a couple of their books out as well, but I would say that’s a good one to start with. The other book that I reread was Loving What Is by Byron Katie. Very simple book. It’s the four step questions, but just always a helpful re reminder.

I’ve read that many, probably five plus years ago, and I always have it on my Kindle to reread, you know, whether it just be a piece of it. And that’s also why I like her book is because she’s jumped to the [00:14:00] section you need, right? You need to have that.

So if again, you may find yourself stuck in a thinking loop, which is a lot of my personality is thinking loops. And as, as lawyers, we have think all the time and thinking in loops that are not very helpful. That’s a great one too. And I’ll put links to all of these books as well in the show notes. If you’re curious, if you’re thinking about picking up some books, one of my big favorite Goals for 2024 is to read 40 business books.

So my, my push to y’all as my audience is if you have a great recommendation, please send it my way because I’m trying to set it up ahead of time. So I know all the books that I’m going to read and in what order, well, hopefully in what order, but to knock them down, but also, you know, take notes and be able to find the books that I need.

So if you have any suggestions, please. Let me know. You can email me my email up in the show notes, or if we’re connecting on LinkedIn, you can just send me a [00:15:00] message on LinkedIn as well. One of the things that I also played around with, I always try to do something technology wise, and I really try chat GPT and I use it for a lot of things, but I mainly used it for helping me start ideas for writing a blog or for.

thinking about a podcast topic or LinkedIn topic. It’s super fun just to ask it questions and see what the output is, especially as like from a lawyer’s mindset, right? Cause we have what we know people think about us. And so it’s, you know, that’s what’s filled in with chat GPT. So it’s super fun to get good prompts.

I don’t want to talk too much into this topic. There are many other lawyers have great Things to say and how lawyers should use it. I was approached by some folks who had an idea to have an AI generate deposition questions like during your deposition, which is a very fascinating, wow, what a great tool, but from a brain capacity, energy perspective, that would be so much.

I mean, you have [00:16:00] a lot of energy dedicated to. Your outline to what you want to accomplish, but then there’s energy from across, you know, the screen or across the room. Right? So there’s all sorts of stuff going on for our brains. You know, one of the biggest things I think good trial lawyers do smart trial lawyers do is use their energy efficiently.

Because we really don’t want to lose being present in that moment or being lost in emotion, which is very, very draining. So super interesting topic on how to use chat GPT. I know some lawyers have gotten in trouble for using it because chat GPT will make things up. So nothing is perfect. Uh, but I would say if you are Wanting to play around with it.

It’s, it is fun, like in the sense of having somebody don’t have anybody to bounce ideas off of, put it in a chat GPT, and it will definitely spit out some information for you. The other thing that I have always been looking for is a note keeping. [00:17:00] Uh, say a digital note keeping app or organization or website that would help me.

And I’ve tried a couple of different things. And so far notion, it has been what I have stuck with and it’s very easy to use. There are so many note taking apps that get really complicated. Notion has been super simple to learn. It doesn’t add too much in there, but if you want to get really deep with it, you absolutely can.

I’m sure that it. Syncs with other things and links up. I didn’t have any of that done. I just have it as a really simple place for me to keep ideas and thoughts for content, right? To think about how do I do this or how should we talk about X, Y, Z, like. I just put all those in there and go back in there and find them.

It’s a great way. And again, pretty easy organization wise. And there are other people who are using it. That basically it’s makes it very easy to copy and paste to me. It’s way easier to use than, than Google as well for our, for my Google lovers out there, the other thing I’ll [00:18:00] say that I just kept up doing that I’ve always done is just a real, you know, simple routine of exercise, meditation, and reading.

And I’ve read something today that I’m sure we’ve all heard a thousand times, which is like people with good discipline, like helps them when the motivation is all gone. And that’s totally what that routine is for me because there are definitely days where I wake up and I don’t want to exercise, which if I skip one step, generally the whole thing’s out the window.

So I always try to make sure I do step one and then three, four, five, uh, go right after that. But that has always helped keep stress down, keep my thoughts clear. That’s really why I enjoy exercise so much. And then meditation keeps it clear, reading, right? Spark ideas, but that’s something I’ve always kept up with every morning.

I’m not always perfect about it, but it has always stayed on board for, uh, I would say hopefully 80 percent of the time, but I did not look back and track that either. So looking back, reflecting, what are some of the biggest things [00:19:00] that came back to me whenever I was looking at 2023? And I would think the biggest thing was building space, building extra time to get things done.

It always takes you longer than you expect or plan. Building space for rest, building space for thinking, building space for growth. Because typically I just bump everything, it’s just one right after the other. And in that, having done that, I have a lot of Backups, meaning I’ve got written notes and digital notes everywhere, just so when I bump to the next thing, right, I don’t lose that thought versus following all the way through and finishing.

Right? So really want to teach myself, which lots of teaching moments this past year for building some space and I would encourage the same thing for you. When I talk to a lawyer who’s going to trial in two weeks and there is no availability for them or [00:20:00] for even me to do a focus group, I feel terrible.

I think, gosh, how did this happen that there just wasn’t enough space? And that’s because it’s so easy to let go. Our schedules rule our time. And I feel like, gosh, I wrote to help you. I want to give you the information that a focus group could give you, but there’s no time because there didn’t leave any space for that.

And so, you know, there’s so many people say, Oh, we’ll do this, do that. I mean, blocking on our schedule is probably the best thing we can do to protect our time. And I know when. We work with other folks, whether it be assistants or paralegals or other people in the office, right? Protecting that calendar sometimes is not even our job.

And so we’ve got to teach everyone around us to protect our time so that we can have space to think about discovery, to plan out that deposition, to think about that mediation presentation to say, Oh, I do [00:21:00] need to schedule a focus group for that. Let me go ahead and book that day on my calendar right now.

And then I can. Book a reminder. If what I’m saying sounds totally foreign to you, give me a call. I’d lovely tell you how, how either Gmail or Outlook calendar works, because I think it’s such a great thing to block timeout out and then be able to get to that time spot and be like, Oh yeah, this is where I just get to sit and think and do a strategy or think about questions or whatever, maybe building space.

That is really what 2020 Three has been teaching me. And so that’s what my hope is for 2024. And, you know, we talked a little bit about what this podcast is set to do, what I hope it will do. And if you are someone who’s listened for the past two years and you want to come on, or you have an idea, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

And that’s what my email is for. I’m like any other lawyer who lives and breathes and dies by their email. So I totally will check it and [00:22:00] respond. But we just want to continue what we’re doing with this podcast and helping lawyers get better by learning from other people, whether it be the good stuff or be the mistakes.

That’s what we’re here for. That’s what I’m here for to help you with. And if we’re not connected on LinkedIn, please send me a connection because I would love to reach out and learn more about folks who are listening and what they want to hear from the podcast. Um, and of course, as always, my goal is always to get better with this podcast and speaking more to what I’m learning when we’re running these focus groups or when I’m working with clients.

So thank you so much for supporting the podcast in 2023. I hope that you stay safe. Stick around for 2024 and, uh, keep those automatic downloads coming. And if you haven’t left a review, please take some time to do that because that helps other folks find this podcast or just send a link to somebody else so they have a chance to listen as well.

All right. Until next time. Thank [00:23:00] you.

Have you ever wondered how the best trial lawyers prepare for court? Join me as I sit down with Justin Starin of McKenna & Starin, to pull back the curtain on the strategic deployment of focus groups in personal injury law. Together, we venture beyond the traditional mock trial format, navigating the nuances of targeted sessions that dissect specific issues like causation and case framing. Justin’s expertise shines as we dissect how focus groups can not only unveil potential juror biases but also refine witness preparation and bolster plaintiff credibility—essential tools for any legal arsenal. 

We also delve into the art of simplifying complex legal arguments for the lay jury. From revising opening statements to rendering technical evidence understandable, we expose the trials of countering preconceived notions and managing inflated expectations set by the likes of CSI. For legal professionals aiming to cut through legal jargon and connect with a jury, this episode is an invaluable masterclass in strategic case management.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Using focus groups for causation
• Responsibility of testing security systems
• Challenges in investigating a death case
• Expert testimony for defense against blame 
• Focus groups in legal cases benefits (90 seconds)

Follow and Review:

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Supporting Resources:

Justin Starin

McKenna & Starin

Justin@mslawmt.com 

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

Elizabeth Larrick: Hello, Elizabeth here. I just wanted to pop in very quickly to tell you a little bit about my guest that we’re going to have on today, Justin Starin.

He is a partner in McKenna and Starin personal injury law firm out of Missoula, Montana. Justin and I met many moons [00:01:00] ago while doing a deposition preparation for some clients of his. Which we’ll actually talk about in the episode. Justin is a total nature lover, as you will also hear. Loves to go rafting, spend time outdoors with his family.

All of his contact will be in the show notes if you have questions for him or need to reach out to him about a case in Montana. Okay, let’s jump in. Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and we have a brand new shiny episode today with a guest. I will say, Justin Starrin is joining our trial lawyer prep podcast to talk about focus groups and causation.

But before we totally jump in with Justin and just say hello for everybody here, Justin. 

Justin Starin: Hello. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Perfect. Justin’s up in Missoula and I met Justin and his partner, Sid. Several years ago, I want to say we met through the edge back in the day. It was called the [00:02:00] reptile and worked with these two folks. And we have been fast friends ever since.

And they’re so awesome that they get me a speaker spot at the Montana trial lawyers speaking pretty much every other year, which I’m grateful because I love going to Missoula. So Justin, thank you for getting me the speaker spots and welcome to the podcast. 

Justin Starin: Yeah, thanks for having me on. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yes, and so focus groups.

Plaintiffs personal injury work, workers comp stuff. Why do you run focus groups? I 

Justin Starin: think we’ve evolved in our focus group stuff over time, but mainly we do it to find out the viability of our cases from a juror’s perspective. We do it to learn what is the most compelling case frame for any particular case.

We do it to find out problems with our case or problems with our plaintiff. And sometimes we use it in all kinds of ways that, in fact, I’m always fascinated that there’s [00:03:00] always some new angle that we develop that comes out of focus groups. Witness prep would be a good example. You can find out what the defense is going to say by the focus group.

So yeah, there’s lots and lots of uses for them, but those are the main ones. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I. So I’ve been talking, I did an episode on it, and so let’s just be really clear for anybody listening, maybe if you’re a new listener, hello, we’re glad that you’re here, maybe you’ve been with us for a while, and yay, welcome back, but we’re not talking about mock trials, okay, so Justin, when you are talking about focus group, in your mind, what are you thinking of?

Justin Starin: We did back in the day, a full mock trial focus group, and it was very time consuming, very expensive. And it led us astray a little bit. It’s too much to do in one big show. Anyway, so the ones that we’ve, been doing lately and some of them with you. We’ve been doing just like [00:04:00] an hour, maybe two hours with a smaller group of people and more focused on a particular issue.

Maybe it’s causation. Maybe it’s case framing. Maybe it’s finding out what jurors think of your client. So usually Oh, an hour, two hours at the most. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Okay. So you said something that I want to follow up on. You said it led you astray. Can you elaborate a little bit? 

Justin Starin: Just to be blunt about it, we asked them for a number.

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh. 

Justin Starin: And so at the end of the trial, after the closing argument, we asked them what they thought a reasonable number was and then they gave it to us and it was higher than we ended up getting in the trial. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Oh. 

Justin Starin: So there might’ve been an opportunity to settle the case, but we were emboldened by the focus group number, and I think it was our first focus group, so we just didn’t have enough experience to really understand that.

And it’s possible we would do [00:05:00] another focus group that big, but I can’t imagine it in most of our cases. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, yeah, that’s exactly what I talk about is there’s such a big difference. And sometimes people think we’re talking about the same thing when we say focus groups, meaning it’s a mock trial.

It’s not because exactly for the reason you said, it’s really involved. It takes a lot of work. And most of the time you’re not going to do it until you were on the doorstep of trial when like things are set in stone and you’re just rolling the dice at that point. Do another thing to worry about is what comes in and what doesn’t and what people say on the stand.

Which no one can predict in a mock trial. Awesome. And you mentioned way in the back. So you guys had done in person before. 

Justin Starin: Yes, we did it with our friend, David Paley, who he played the role of the defense counsel. And I think we had experts. We had cross examination of the experts. We had an opening and a closing.

We might’ve had a direct examination of our client. I can’t remember. [00:06:00] It’s been about. 15 years ago. And I mean, it was fun, but it was a ton of work and probably not really that efficient in terms of getting what we wanted out of it. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. It can be really challenging and there’s a lot of data that comes out and it’s very hard to wade through it.

When you’ve just done it, cause you’re exhausted. And I know that you and Sid though have before the pandemic, you guys ran some focus groups in your office, right? 

Justin Starin: Yeah, we did. The biggest problem we had with them is getting the people. I never did develop a very good system for getting people to come to the focus groups.

We mainly used employment service. And I suppose there’s probably some problems with that. For me, it was fun to get on your feet and have interactions with mock jurors about cases, but then the pandemic hit and after that changed everything. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yep, I feel you on that. So let’s talk about just overall, what [00:07:00] kind of cases are you using focus groups in?

Justin Starin: We use them in a variety of cases, med mal cases, we’ve used them in products liability cases, we’ve used them in car crash cases, we’ve used them in premise liability cases, maybe even an employment case. Yeah, I think we used one in an employment case once too. I would say mostly our bigger cases, we don’t use them in every case, but some of the mid sized ones too.

I’ll give you a good example. We had a case that was in a parking lot at a box store, and the person was assaulted, the plaintiff was assaulted by some bad guys in the neighborhood. And we focus grouped it and we just couldn’t ever get the focus group to. side with us. They just thought that it wasn’t the box store’s responsibility to police the parking lot.

And so we turned down the case, even though the guy was blinded by the assault. So right off the bat, we were doing a focus [00:08:00] group. And in retrospect, I’m glad we did, because we could have spent a lot of time and energy working that case up and have it. Either lose at trial or get beat into a low settlement.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. And I think that’s such, I try to tell people that. Cause that could be a case you spend a lot of money on. You’d have to have a securities expert. You’d have to probably have just quite a bit of case expenses and depositions. And there’d be a lot of money that’s sunk in before you realize, Oh no, a jurors.

They’re never going to get with this. It’s always going to be like stuff happens. And this brings us to our topic today of coming to using focus groups for causation. And you may be thinking in your mind, listener, like medical causation, which is good, which we can. But I think what Justin and I are going to talk about is more about the mechanism of the event being the actual causation.

And one of the examples, which I think you guys, we did together virtually, Was a case that you weren’t really sure whether the focus group was ever going to put any blame. And so talk [00:09:00] about our 4th of July, tell me about your 4th of July case and what brought that to the focus group. 

Justin Starin: Okay. It was a tragic case.

There was a apartment complex and there was four, a small complex. There was only four units in, and there was two units in each side. And on the 4th of July, an arsonist had come to one of the upstairs apartments and had He used gasoline to light a fire at the door of one of the apartments, and the fire burned out, and there was a cursory investigation by the landlord, and then two days later, the arsonist came back, used more gasoline this time, and burned the entire place to the ground in record time, in a matter of hours.

The whole place was just, Completely burnt it to the ground and our client was in one of the upstairs apartments and she had to jump out of the window to escape the fire. And so the question really was, who’s at fault for [00:10:00] this? Who’s responsible for causing the harm? And is the jury going to put all of it on the arsonist?

Are they going to put some of it on the landlord? Are they going to put some of it on her? How do we work this out? And so that’s what we reached out to you to come in and. Do a focus group and try to walk us through that. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Cause again, at any point that could have been, well, who could ever predict an arsonist?

Like why would a landlord ever be able to predict that? And I think the other thing that was so crazy about sticking out of my mind. And again, just so everyone knows this is something that’s been long is long gone. And we’re not worried about any confidentiality here. We’re not going to mention any names or anything.

What amazed me was like the pictures of the fire. There were, it was one. Entryway one set of stairs up to the second floor and the arsonist first go around. He said just a little fire and they got out the second go around. He burnt, he put so much gasoline at burn the stairs. So the people in the upstairs units could not get out.

And then there was all this [00:11:00] whole other, maybe there’s a conspiracy and the people upstairs. And Justin was very good about creating some visuals for us and using some pictures. But yeah, I think we ran it more than once, I want to say, just to secure and get all the questions and everything, but tell me if you can, what you remember about what kind of feedback did you, did we get about what happened there?

Justin Starin: I think it was a mixed bag at first, and it really focused our attention on how we were going to frame the case as a systems failure instead of. A one off and the more that we were able to learn from the focus group, the more we were able to build this idea or this frame that a landlord does have responsibility and.

We’re trying to get around some of these causation heuristics, where a focus group juror might just focus on one piece of bad conduct by the arsonist, and that would be the end of the analysis. And we tried to move it back in time [00:12:00] to what was their security system like? What did they do to prevent it?

arsons or other crimes on their premises. That’s where they fell down. And that’s where the end of the focus of the case shifted after the focus groups that it really helped us learn how to figure out what was the root cause of the problem from a focus groups perspective. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And I think one of the things that stood out to me that Kind of became a little bit very helpful, which was the expectation that the renters should have about being notified about things going on.

And I think that was one of the biggest facts that you guys found had a lot of draw to it, which was that nobody told anybody it was all this gossip between the renters. That’s how the rest of them found out. 

Justin Starin: Yeah, they didn’t. First, they didn’t have a very good system set up. In the first place. And then they really didn’t have a plan for when something bad happened.

How are they going to notify people? How are they going to fix the problem? So it didn’t happen again. [00:13:00] And yes, that ended up being the focus of the litigation that then led up to the resolution of the case. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Anyone that’s it’s super easy. Yeah. How could you ever predict an arsonist? But it came once.

They definitely. Could have come again. And I think also, like you said, a cursory investigation, I think that was also something that kind of stuck out to them about what they would have expected somebody in the landlord capacity or the management company to do something other than what they did, which I think was pretty much nothing.

Justin Starin: Yeah, they didn’t do very much for sure. And I think the fact that The fact that the facts were egregious in the sense that the arsonist came and poured gallons and gallons of gas on a wooden exterior staircase, that then it happened so fast once the fire started. And we did go down and hire a fire expert to explain to us how the fire worked through the building and stuff.

And just a [00:14:00] wood structure exposed to gasoline is extraordinarily dangerous. Thank you very much. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And that was something I mean, regular people wouldn’t know as far as the, uh, how fast and what that really means and could it have been something else? And. I think also one of the things, maybe it was just my worry or my thought or my question, was like the fact that the arsonist was still out there, no one had really even tried very hard, I would say, to go do a second investigation or anything and just never got caught.

No punishment, no nothing. Once you’re able to get that feedback about the notice and oh, this happened, oh, this, they found it through gossip, then that kind of, that definitely helped. And I want to say for the second one, we changed things up a little bit to try and make sure we’re dialing in on the right parts.

Justin Starin: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what I’ve learned over time is that sometimes you need to do more than one focus group because you need to learn from the first one so that then you can reframe the case and then [00:15:00] present it in the second one. And when we first got the case, we thought it was going to be more of an analysis, not of the security system, but of the fire suppression system that, you know, but it turns out that because it was a relatively small facility, they were up to code in terms of their, their Fire suppression and fire alarms and all that kind of stuff.

So 

Elizabeth Larrick: yeah, it didn’t even have to have a suppression system, right. They didn’t even have to. Yeah. Yeah. And I always find that super interesting where we have an idea in our minds, like what makes sense sometimes legally. And then it’s, Oh, what’s the simplest thing that could have stopped him? Get fricking ring doorbell.

That’s what a lot of them were just like, wait a second. This is easy. Right. You can go get a camera for 5 or something and put it up there. Even if it’s fake. And that’s. Still deters people. Like they had so many good ideas and I was like, Oh yeah, okay. This is way easier than trying to have a sprinkler system in a pretty low rent apartment complex.

Justin Starin: Your lawyer brain goes down that rabbit hole and it’s nice to have a focus group that kind of brings you back to reality. [00:16:00] Make your case simple, which is important because as we know complexity confusion and ambiguity are your enemy So 

Elizabeth Larrick: yeah, and my gosh, we love details lawyers love the details I’m always like let’s not overwhelm people with the details.

Let’s just see what they do with these facts Because yeah, there’s so much detail that we get into that we have to write We’ve got to dig through all the fluff and all the stuff to then put everything together But at the end of the day when you go to trial It’s really simple. You really want to try to avoid all the extra confusion and You got to plant your flag.

You got to pick your path. And if you try to have two paths, it becomes way too confusing because there’s always going to be extra evidence with almost for both ways. And it’s hard. Although I can hear people think listening, go, well, what if there is contrib and what if they do have to take some responsibility, that’s a little different than, you know, Like Justin is saying, was it a security system [00:17:00] situation or a fire suppressant?

You tried to go both avenues and you didn’t test out which was stronger. You could just be spinning your wheels and just confuse everybody to begin with. Which leads me to our second example, which was an even more challenging causation with our gun manufacturer case. So I know that one’s got a hairy lot of details, but why were we so hounded by doing focus groups?

Justin Starin: It was a very complex kind of factual scenario and there was no witnesses to the incident where a young person had a firearm and ended up shooting himself with it. And the question was, did he do it intentionally or was it as a result of a defective product? And there was so much emotion and there was so many factors that we felt like we had to do focus groups to try to.

Understand it. And it was a very challenging case for a lot of reasons, [00:18:00] but just even the simple scene was challenging to try to figure out. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And I think the causation of why it malfunctioned was difficult because there were. So many pieces like that part alone. Let me just tell you people, they sent me, how old was this video of the inside of a gun and how it works?

I don’t know, but I took it and I slowed it down so I could understand. And we could try and watch it together with a focus group. So they would be able to understand like, why this was something that could happen without the gun could go off for any, you accidentally drop it. You literally touch it. You don’t have to do anything to it.

And it’ll just go off all on its own. And it was just like, okay. And then add in this whole other complication of a very young person who the whole defense was this, this is really sad. This is just a case of suicide. And the amount of work they had done to basically put so many facts on that side of that defense and then us, you [00:19:00] guys trying to figure out like, okay, we’ve got to be able to really pinpoint this causation of how it malfunctioned and then put it into the set of facts of what happened that day.

That morning and it was just really, I’m complicating it just by saying it sounds complicated just by me saying it. 

Justin Starin: I think I drafted that part of the opening statement, maybe 15 or more times and I would get done with it. And then I would bring it back to the team and I would say, okay, here’s my latest attempt.

And then they would shoot it down and say, oh, it’s too complicated. It’s too confusing. You got to make it simple. Why do you have to pretend like you’re an engineer, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just, it was, It’s probably the most challenging thing I’ve ever done as a lawyer was to try to figure out a way to simplify that level of complexity and not sure we ever really got there.

Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. At the end of the day, they were the focus group and we, I think we did two or three, I want to [00:20:00] say, and the focus group was still just came down with a lot of confusion. And unfortunately it was just like, what’s the simple, instead of trying to understand or learn or. They, the simplest thing was for them just to blame him, which was of course not what we wanted.

And another thing, of course, which is so frustrating as lawyers, sometimes as you have, there were mountains and mountains of evidence and proof of all of this stuff. And it was going to probably come in. And that was like, the other hard thing was like, okay, how do we synthesize, how do you guys like siphon all this, like really good, hard proof.

It was a really, it was a huge challenge. 

Justin Starin: Yeah. It really was. That, that one would be just tough. 

Elizabeth Larrick: I know. And I’m glad we, again, this is another one that has been closed out, but just another one of those ones where it’s holy mackerel, like having to try that case. Cause you guys were coming up on the doorstep.

This is, wasn’t one where we, it [00:21:00] came and this was the beginning part. No, this was at the end of trial prep. Let’s run this opening. Let’s put these pictures out there. And I think the hard part was because again, coming at the tail end and getting ready to try it, there were so many pieces of things that just weren’t even available because at the time that that all happened, no investigation was done at all.

Justin Starin: Certainly not at the level that I think you would expect for a death. And I think there was just some assumptions made by the law enforcement. Officials that investigated the incident of what it was and they really didn’t take a deep enough dive into the cause of the incident and that ended up making it very difficult to try to reconstruct.

So yeah, it was a challenging case all the way around. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Because you’re going against what the police report says, and you’re going against what the manufacturer says, and you’re going against what [00:22:00] would be looked at as, oh, this seems like the simplest explanation, and respectfully, I don’t think suicide is ever a simple explanation.

I think that’s probably the more complicated one out of any of them, but it was a lot. And you guys were It’s getting ready to go to trial. So it definitely answered some questions for us, but I think this was a focus group that kept leaving us with more questions about, and also how to answer their questions.

Because just like you said, they had an expectation about where’s the ballistics, why didn’t do the powder thing they do on CSI for the gun residue, 

Justin Starin: right? That always seems to be the case. There’s always seems to be like a juror’s expectation that there’s going to be a lot of. Kind of CSI type evidence.

And as everyone that’s probably listening to this podcast knows that rarely if ever happens. 

Elizabeth Larrick: No. And you guys had tried that. Okay. We have pictures and it was still was not enough because it was just going to be, it [00:23:00] was just so close, you know, as far as like the distance and all the stuff that was just, they all of course expect that it’s like, whenever we do a focus group now, any, I don’t care what kind of focus group it is.

Like, where’s the video footage? I’m like. So everyone just expect your car is going to have some kind of video camera, the front door, the convenience store, which I think we get used to that. But at the same time, nobody’s, do you have video in your car? No. Why would you expect? Anybody to be at the video, but that’s just one of those things.

Well, where’s the ballistics? Where’s their gun residue and where’s the, whoa, you didn’t do the whole like recreation thing. Oh man. So yeah, there’s a lot of expectations people have out there. And especially in that particular case. And it was just like, how do you get around that? Because you were going to have to like have a little side.

Like a side tussle with the police while you’re in the middle of having this other case again with the gun manufacturer. So yeah, there were lots of issues for sure in that case. But do you feel like the focus groups helped the case resolve? 

Justin Starin: Yeah, [00:24:00] definitely. I think that’s definitely true. It certainly showed us.

What we were up against in terms of trying to persuade people’s preconceived notions of what the case was about or what a manufacturer’s responsibilities are. Some of the more preconceived notions that people have about these kinds of scenarios were just clarified for us to the point where we could then take a more direct approach.

honest look at our case and value it in a different way than if we hadn’t done those and we would have maybe got overconfident. And yeah, definitely. It always, I’ve never had a focus group that I didn’t think helped. Everyone that we’ve ever done helped in some way, some more than others, but I’ve learned something from every one of them.

Elizabeth Larrick: And he means some more than others. He means the first one we ever did together because Sid and Justin were my Guinea pigs. They were my very first. virtual [00:25:00] focus group in May of 2020. I was like, y’all, I’m going to try this out. Let’s see how this works. I think we had four people there. Do you remember we had four participants?

Justin Starin: Yeah. 

Elizabeth Larrick: What we ran, I have no idea what case we did, what we ran at all, but I think it was just, Is this possible? Is this going to work? Thank you for being the guest. Yeah, 

Justin Starin: absolutely. 

Elizabeth Larrick: I’m not even sure what we got out of that other than, okay, it’s totally possible. There are a ton of things we need to fix before we go forward with any more.

But, but yeah, I think folks groups of course are useful because they tell you just like you got clarity that, Ooh, maybe this is not one that needs to go to trial. And sometimes. A lot of times that’s what I feel like sometimes, like it, that’s what it helps you do decide, Oh, we can try this case. Totally fine.

Like the arsonist case. Yep. We can try this case. We know how to try this case. We’re going to get past those little things that they think. And then other times it’s, this is more than we can bit, bit off more than we can chew for sure. 

Justin Starin: I was thinking [00:26:00] about that one case that you helped us with the misdiagnosis of the cancer tumor.

After we did a focus group in that case, we learned that, and I’m going to give you the brief facts, so there was a young girl who had a growth on her arm, and the surgeon removed it, sent it to the pathologist, and the pathologist put it under a microscope and looked at it and said there’s no cancer. A few months later, the tumor came back, the surgeon removed it again, sent it back to the pathologist, this time, oh, yep, there’s cancer.

Oh, and by the way, that first specimen you sent us also had cancer. was also cancerous. So we got a problem. And what we learned in the focus group that really helped us in the preparation of the case was that they were going to blame the mom for not getting a second opinion. So mom, you should have taken your child to get a second opinion.

And So what we did when we started taking depositions is we [00:27:00] chose not to sue the surgeon, even though some of our experts thought that he may have been somewhat culpable, but we decided we’re not going to sue him and we’re going to use him to get around this. And so in the depositions, we went and said to him, do you rely on the pathologist?

When you make medical decisions about your patients, yes, and have you ever got a second opinion from one of your pathologists? No. Do you think it’s reasonable for you to rely on a pathologist? Yes. Do you think it was reasonable for this family to rely on the pathologist? Yes. And that really helped, knowing that, helped insulate our clients from the defense, which was that the mom was somewhat culpable.

Elizabeth Larrick: Mm hmm. And then it was like her deposition, like they couldn’t get her to do anything. She absolutely positively would not budge one inch and just gave them a run for their money, hardcore, [00:28:00] the epitome of a mama bear for sure. And terribly sad case. It’s so sad, but. You guys fought that thing all the way to the end.

I remember you were like, we’re going to have to go to trial. I was like, all right, let me come back. I’ll come back and help. Cause yeah, it was just like, you guys had been really with them for so long. And there were so many other extraneous things that were happening that were just like, Oh my gosh, we have to get this finished.

Like there’s a time constraint here. This girl, this woman is basically going to succumb to this cancer before we’re finished. Like Her whole, she was such a fighter, her whole goal was to hold, hold them accountable. But yeah, such a good way to use focus groups in the beginning, because you guys, that’s a pretty big case strategy thing to do, to not sue somebody.

Right. Most people would have said, oh no, you sue everybody and then they’ll pay you to get out, which can cause a [00:29:00] lot more problems than it does put extra dollars in your pocket. 

Justin Starin: And I think he was grateful to us for not suing him and it made it easier for him, I think he would have done it anyway but it made it easier for him to go to the deposition with less stress in terms of his testimony at the deposition and.

It really worked out very well because he was kind of a charming, you know, it’s, he was an orthopedic surgeon. They typically are people, persons, unlike a pathologist who’s behind the scenes. And they’re the nerds. 

Elizabeth Larrick: They’re one of the smartest people that come out of med school because they got to look at microscopes and do what that’s just all there is to it.

And you guys also had the primary care and doctor in there too, which had his own flavor of interesting issues, which. We’re not ever going to come into evidence, unfortunately, in any form or fashion. But yeah, those were good focus groups. Good example. I forgot about using that particular case. Let me ask you, because we got people who, from all over who listened to the podcast, what would you say to somebody who maybe is on the fence [00:30:00] about doing a focus group?

Justin Starin: I would say, do it and see how it goes. Like I said, I’ve learned something from every one of And they’re just not that much money. Compared to what you could spend just spinning your wheels about what the case is about or fretting over some fact that you don’t understand how it fits in the context of the frame that you’ve developed, or sometimes I’ve even thought that maybe they help with the briefing, you can understand that this is what’s compelling to people, and judges are people too, and if you got the first part of your brief and you’re trying to persuade the judge, Having some compelling facts help.

And if you know what facts are compelling and what aren’t, yeah, I think I would absolutely. Recommend doing them for sure. 

Elizabeth Larrick: And like I said, you guys literally bought a camera, used the room in the basement, and had some people come in. That’s how it, that’s how we all get started. That’s [00:31:00] exactly how I got started.

I borrowed somebody’s conference room. I bought a camera. We started advertising on Craigslist and people showed up and like you said, you’re going to learn something from every single one of these. And it’s only natural that we are stuck in our lawyer brains because that’s how we. Went through school.

That’s how we progress. We hang out with lawyers when we have questions, we ask other lawyers. That’s what listservs are for. But I always find that that then naturally creates blind spots that we’re just not going to see everything. And sometimes it takes an outside person for 75 bucks. A hundred bucks to tell us something, you know what?

And guess what? It’s worth every single stinking penny. That 75 opinion right there could go and save you a hundred thousand dollars or 50, 000 on that expert who you don’t really need. Or what I always tell people is we get really obsessed with experts and that’s such a good other place where it’s like, go learn what they need to know from the expert.

And then. Have the expert testify to [00:32:00] that, but don’t feel like you automatically understand what a juror needs to hear from an expert. And I got to tell you, experts don’t really like that because they’re like, I want to tell my whole blah blah. Okay, you need to get it for an expert because they clearly don’t get trial.

Like, you know, there are experts that you take to trial and there are experts that you take to get it settled. Right. And there are, I can think of a really good example in Texas right now where it’s, oh yeah, if I’m going to trial, that’s the guy I’m picking. If I just, I know I need one, but I’ll go over here to this pile of people.

There’s just a huge difference because they get that the jurors involved is not just about them and, you know, pontificating their opinion, total soapbox and sidebar. Sorry about that. All right, Justin, you’re in Missoula and folks, if you want to learn more about Justin and Sid, then I’m going to put all the contact information in the show notes.

Justin is also a river rat. So if you have any interest in. River stuff, and I’m going to say river stuff because if you live in Texas, you get it. We don’t have [00:33:00] rivers. We damn them up to make lakes. But anytime I’ve been up to hang out with Sid and Justin, I get to go on the river and I’m always grateful.

So thank you for my river trips. 

Justin Starin: Yeah. We’re going to, we’re going to turn you into a dirt bag by the end of this, for sure. 

Elizabeth Larrick: So the funny thing is another sidebar here. When we float down the river in Texas, we get a tube and a cold beer and we put our butt in the tube and you just float down the river.

Not so much in Montana. You’re going to get swept away, uh, got to get a whole boat thing, which is not even a boat. I’m not probably not even saying it right with the Justin gets out there. How many boats do you have? It’s not a boat. It’s a raft. 

Justin Starin: I have a couple rafts, some kayaks. Yeah. Lots of boats. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Lots of boats.

He even took the whole fam down for a couple, how many, was it a week? 

Justin Starin: A week. Yeah. 

Elizabeth Larrick: 10 days down the snake river. 

Justin Starin: The salmon and the snake. Yeah. Yeah. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Nice. See, I remember it. All right. If anybody wants to know about rivers or personal injury cases, and they still have workers comp in Montana too, by the way, we had Matt Murphy [00:34:00] on and he talked about workers comp, which doesn’t really exist in Texas anymore.

And other places too. Justin, thank you so much for joining us. 

Justin Starin: Yeah. Thanks for having me. 

Elizabeth Larrick: Until next time, thank you so much. And everybody, if you enjoyed the podcast, please rate and review on your favorite podcast platform. And if you haven’t done so go and follow and connect with me on LinkedIn. That link will be in the show notes if you weren’t already doing it.

All right. Thank you.

Communication is the heartbeat of every relationship, and the bond between lawyer and client is no different. Listen in as we discuss the challenges and strategies of managing client expectations in the legal field with Matt Murphy from Montana. Specializing in workers’ compensation cases, Matt shares his invaluable experience and emphasizes the importance of being upfront and honest with clients, even when the news isn’t the most favorable. We also tackle the complexities of managing expectations in personal injury cases and the pivotal role trust plays in the lawyer-client relationship.

We highlight the importance of keeping clients in the loop and seeking their feedback, no matter how uncomfortable it might be. Listen to how changes in judges or legal rulings can alter a case’s trajectory and the need to involve clients in the decision-making process. Get insights on the importance of transparency and the art of delivering difficult news. Matt shares practical tips on effectively communicating with clients and setting realistic expectations. 

This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the legal field looking to enhance their client communication skills and build stronger relationships. Learn about the importance of open communication, managing expectations, and maintaining a strong client-lawyer relationship. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• The importance of building client relationships
• Importance of communication and trust
• Challenges with accepting medical treatment choices
• Importance of documentation and contact information

Follow and Review:

We’d love for you to follow us if you haven’t yet. Click that purple ‘+’ in the top right corner of your Apple Podcasts app. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.

Supporting Resources:

You can learn more about Matt Murphy & his practice by visiting:

Matt Murphy website profile: https://www.murphylawoffice.net/about-our-attorneys/matthew-murphy/ 

Murphy Law Firm website:  https://www.murphylawoffice.net/

Episode Credits:

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

Episode Transcript:

Hi there. Another quick introduction for our guest, Matt Murphy, who is joining our podcast. Matt Murphy is a lawyer in Great Falls, Montana. He practices with his dad and his brother and has basically grew up helping in the law firm in some capacity since he was 12 years old. He has a passion for workers’ comp and he is currently a co-chair of the workers’ compensation section for the Montana Trial Lawyers Association. If you have questions,

about Montana or workers’ comp law, please reach out to Matt. His contact will be in the show notes. Hello and welcome back to the podcast Trial Lawyer App. I’m your host, Elizabeth Lerner, and we have a shiny new episode today with a wonderful guest from a state that I have a very special place in my heart, poor Montana. Matt is joining us. We heard a little bit about his bio in the mini intro, but I wanted Matt to come join us because I met him.

multiple times at an Intili Montana Trial Lawyers Association seminar. And he has this great bubbly personality. I know that he loves what he does. And he has a true heart for helping workers and his workers comp, which I know a lot of folks that are listening, even my Texas folks are thinking, well, I don’t do workers comp. And that’s okay, because what we’re going to talk about today is client management and more specifically more about client expectations. And

speaker-0 (02:05.226)
This came up for me here recently where I was assisting and helping with a trial and there was some definite expectations that had been missed. And so the client had quite a huge expectation for this trial and their time on the stand, which was very different from reality. So we had to work with that. And so that kind of spun itself into an episode. And I thought, gosh, Matt would be great for this because I know he loves his clients.

He’s also a pretty good straight shooter. thought, let me get Mountain here to help us. So Matt, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much, Elizabeth. That’s very flattering. And I can’t really imagine a better compliment for an attorney than it being obvious to other people that they love their clients. Cause we do. And I’d say that we, cause I speak for all of Murphy Law firm. And I’d also like to return that. Thank you for all that you do. We’ve really learned a lot by listening to your podcast and attending your speeches at the Montana trial lawyers association. So thanks for everything that you do as well.

Well, pile it on now. love this set up, that’s why it’s part of the podcast and why this podcast is really made for people who are working with clients, first-hand clients, workers, comp, employment law, a little bit of business litigation stuff, because managing client expectations is really across the board. But where it tops up so often for people like us and like you is when we’re having our clients that are going to testify.

or they’re coming to a hearing or they’re going to mediation and understanding really what we need to be doing so that we kind of avoid some of these places where we need a lot of trust from our clients when it comes to handling a case and making decisions for that case. And when it’s their turn to come in and do testimony or be at a mediation and answer questions, right? We want to make sure that they’re going to trust our guidance and coming to trial as well. So just from the standpoint of like,

speaker-0 (04:04.074)
Why is this even an issue for us as lawyers? And my perspective is we go through law school. We’re super trained to think intellectually and be super logical about stuff. And sometimes managing expectations feels like stickier and a little bit more emotional when it’s straight work for us. So I know it’s hard to have the conversation with people. And has that for you, Matley?

practicing, has that been kind of a hard conversation or a little bit uncomfortable to help manage people’s expectations?

Absolutely. And it’s kind of shameful to say, but in Montana, work comp, that arena, you have a lot of that because the benefits that an individual is going to get in a work comp claim, that pretty much day one anymore, I will have the conversation that says, you’re not going to be in love with the result. No matter what I do, no matter what anybody does, the law just affords the remedies that it affords.

It’s a insurance policy written by the Montana legislature. That’s the Work Comp Act. And it just keeps getting whittled away, whittled away. It’s been on this downward trajectory for well over 50 years here in Montana. I know that’s not just true in Montana. I’m familiar with other state schemes. so you’re not going to be able to tell a Work Comp client, we are going to have our day in court talking to the jury.

about the human damages. There is no pain and suffering. There’s no loss of consortium. There’s no established course of life. So you’re limited to statutory medical, statutory wage loss benefits. Those are capped in all sorts of crazy ways. I could go on for days about it. We’ve challenged the constitutionality of those statutes. You we’ve had a case in every decade for over three decades, at least one, but those are hard. They take forever. You got about a 4 % chance of winning right out of the gate.

speaker-1 (06:00.588)
So anyway, you are in most of the clients that I represent having a conversation day one about the fact that the benefits that are available to them are going to be less than what they’re hoping for, certainly less than what they’ve lost. I mean, we are not getting made whole in a work comp claim. And I’ve realized that you kind of got to start on that foot because if you just talk them into

how well you’re going to do and how big of a delivery you’re going to have day one and then a month later or three months later or a week before trial, which would be terrible. Now you’re bringing this to their attention. You’ve already lost it. So they don’t want to hear it, but they can tell you’re being honest and they can tell you know what you’re talking about and that you’ve had that conversation before. So yeah, back to your question. Yes, we have that conversation. Unfortunately, it’s a little bit easier in the work comp context because you can

almost have this common enemy, the Montana legislature. And here’s this book and I’ll show you the exact verbiage, which is a little bit different than all the complexities of trying to explain why, you know, when you go before the jury, things might be a little bit different than what they hope, but that, you know, that only gets you so far. It’s still going to be on you to be honest and candid and establish that rapport with your client.

Yeah. And I think you kind of nailed it. It’s really about the timing of the conversation and how you’re presenting it because that’s a total intellectual like, you think this is what you deserve. This is literally what it says it like and why. And you can go talk to six other people. They’re going to tell you the same things. But a lot of times, I’m unsure you’ve had this in practice where you have somebody who comes to talk to you and they interviewed a lawyer and they say, well, the other lawyers didn’t say that. The other lawyer said this or that. Then it really kind of comes down to

how do you express yourself in the most honest way possible? Like, I’m just here to help you and here’s truly what it says, you know, I’m not making this up. I’m not just trying to get you to sign on. And I do think it’s really kind of one of those things where people…

speaker-0 (08:02.99)
It’s just a hard conversation sometimes to have and it’s hard to break people’s expectations and to know you’re not gonna be made whole. I that’s a great example. Like there’s this whole loss here of like, here’s where you need and here’s what the law provides. And I think even that happens a lot of times in car wreck cases as well, where it’s just like, you know, well, $5,000 is all they’re offered. And it’s like, that’s true. There’s not really a guideline for this, but that’s why we go to trial and why our litigation and all these other things. That’s kind of where

You have to constantly be talking about managing these expectations. You said, Hey, you guys do it right in front you. Are you doing it along the way as the case goes along? Or, know, when you guys are coming up to that making decision point, how else do you work in managing those expectations?

So with comp, you know, that’s easy for me to answer because I do it right off the bat, but it’s for specific reasons. That is the statutes that prescribed benefits are just, I don’t like them. And I can say that and I can say how we lobby and I can tell them all the stuff we do behind the scenes that are in their case to try to change that. Some of it works. All of it helps. Most of it doesn’t do a whole lot, right? But that’s an easy one for like say a car wreck case.

or really any personal injury claim where it’s not so black and white, you don’t really have that common enemy, the statutes that limit benefits. Instead, as we all know, oftentimes the enemy is some aspect of your client’s case, or in other words, some aspect of them. And I don’t think you’re going to be able to understand it well enough to really get into it day one. But what you can do and what I certainly do is day one, I mean, I do this before I hire.

In fact, if I’m thinking, I mean, I usually probably do this twice before we sign them up, just to ask them, what are your expectations? I find that most people and by most is probably a vast majority are reasonable with their expectations. want to get my car fixed because I’m missing work right now and this rental isn’t working out. My neck hurts. I want to get my medical bills covered. I’ve had to miss a month of work and I got a mortgage. I mean, that’s all totally reasonable stuff.

speaker-1 (10:17.728)
And so pretty clearly right out of the gate, you’re going to realize this individual has reasonable expectations that I shouldn’t be able to meet if I’m doing my job and I hope I am. So you’re going to have that conversation in the intake and then you’re going to have that conversation when you meet with them in person. Because part and parcel to all this is during your representation of clients in whatever realm, you got to be meeting with them in person and you got to be talking with them and you should be asking them, what are your expectations now?

as the case progresses and you’ve had a number of conversations with them where you’ve covered this item in this conversation, a development, now it’s Depot Prep. you know, as the case grows and your relationship with that client should be growing, if you’re calling your client for the first time the week before a deposition, I don’t know how you tell them anything. How can they trust you? How could you trust them? As it goes, I think most of time you’ll find their expectations shift a little bit and kind of track.

what it should based on what you’ve been telling them, based on what you know about the case that you’ve been communicating to them, based on the rapport that you’ve established by having really good communication and always shooting them straight. And you kind of mentioned clients that come in that have consulted with other law firms are almost like testing you. I find that the easiest and the only really solution to that, but certainly the easiest is just shoot them straight in plain English and let them know. And if they don’t like it, you’re doing yourself a favor, but

they’re probably going to like it because you might be the first person that’s actually, you know, shot them straight in, whether they have a law degree or not. People like juries can detect the truth and the credibility they got, you know, like Jerry Spence says, psychic tentacles. And they have that in your office. They’re looking at you. You know, that they know when you’re exaggerating, even just a little bit versus when you’re shooting them right down the middle. And that’s how you got to approach that.

Mm-hmm. I totally agree. And I think that’s kind of part of some place where we don’t sometimes as lawyers stop and ask that they open a new question. What are your expectations now? How do you think things are going right now? We’re really just stopping and listening and asking that open-ended question. Most of the time when we are calling and having conversations, it’s us telling them.

speaker-0 (12:34.456)
here’s what’s happening, here’s what the next step is, here’s these instructions, here’s this, right? And so that stopping and listening along the way, like you said, really helps to build that trust. And also I think it’s really important for us to also express what we expect as well. And that way you’re building that relationship together where it’s a tit for tat, like you tell me, I’ll tell you, right? So we’re constantly on the same page because what can happen if we don’t…

those conversations early and often is, I I’ve seen people get fired, I’ve seen people get sued, I’ve seen, honestly, like a client basically loses interest and it’s just like they’re like, whatever, I don’t want to do this anymore, let’s finish this out. And then, obviously, you never get a referral or a good review from that person when it was probably just a matter of having these conversations. And nobody wants that to happen, but…

What I saw in that case was basically what started as probably a small seed grew into this giant tree of anchor. And it was just like, how do we now manage this? Because now we have a whole different set. We’re not changing it. That is set and we’ve got to now somehow work and manage around this when we probably could have done that a long time ago and not have this.

giant ball of anger ever dealing with. So let me toss it back to you, Matt. What are some of the things that you’ve seen happen when we don’t manage clients expectations?

And that’s a really good analogy because if you represent people long enough over in complicated areas of their life, because I mean a personal injury lawsuit, as much as we try to limit the inquiry and as much as we try to keep as much of our clients privacy to themselves as possible, their whole lives get opened up, whether they like it or not. Regardless of what we do, it just happens. So you’re involved in all areas of their life. And when it’s that broad for that long, you…

speaker-1 (14:30.584)
You’re going to have, you know, we’re people, we’re people, there are people, going to, you’re going to have some issues that start as seeds. And I really do feel like you can at that phase intervene, salvage the relationship by doing so. It’s just like having your first fight with your significant other. You become stronger in your relationship with that person and hopefully you don’t have to have too many fights, but we’ve had plenty of clients that are extremely difficult that

Nobody else could help. And we have some excellent firms and we’ve had clients had to move on as well. Sometimes that is what is necessary, but we kind of pride ourselves on being able to take a problematic client, if you want to call them that, or someone who’s really difficult to work with and get through it by being honest, by counseling them, you know? So yeah, you got to keep asking the question, what are your expectations? But you also got to keep asking, how you feel? How’s it going? What do you think? Could we be doing anything differently?

The only reason you wouldn’t ask certain questions like that, I think as a lawyer is because you’re kind of insecure about what the client might say. And there’s no reason for you to be like that. You know the law better than them. You know the process better than them. You should not worry about what they’re going to say because whatever it is, it’s going to lead to the route that you need to address to get back on that same page with them. And you can’t forget your obligation to be a counselor of law. You’re their advocate. You’re staring up through the legal process. part of that

And as we all know, the part that pays massive dividends by the time you’re actually getting to trial or getting them through a deposition, if it doesn’t go to trial, is the rapport and the trust that you’ve established with them. So I think your question, I went off on a tangent there was, what have we seen? What are some examples of breakdowns or bad state developments that have to be communicated that lead to a disgruntled client essentially, right?

One that actually just happened to me last week was in Montana, we’ve had a work comp judge for well over a decade who I wouldn’t say trust more than the new judge by any means. It’s just, know this old judge that I’ve been trying cases in front of and had conversations with, listened to him speak. So I’m really comfortable predicting how I think he’ll approach certain issues. Now we have a new judge, you know, in the appointee process, there’s partisanship to his degree.

speaker-1 (16:51.788)
Not that I believe this new judge has that problem, but is an unknown. And so it has to change the advice that I’m giving to my clients. And it sounds like I’m saying something different than I said six months ago, because we’re still in the litigation process, pretty far from trial. That’s not what’s happened. It’s just a new judge got appointed. So things did change. And this isn’t a great example because this client wasn’t disgruntled, but the reason was they weren’t happy.

They didn’t like what I was telling them, but I’ve had enough communications with this person. I’ve put the time in, had enough interpersonal reactions and been able to actually bring them into my office and face to face enough. And they know me now. They know my paralegal very well. They know our secretary. You know, they just, trust us. So I was able to explain to them, show them. now we ultimately resolved that case for less than I probably would have advised under the old judge, but with the unknown and

some new issues, I do believe it was the right decision. So, you know, that’s one example. And then I can think of many more where due to a new fact or say a legal ruling, you’ve kind of had a lot of your eggs in a basket. You get a bad ruling. Now you’re telling this client, well, it’s not going to be anywhere near where we were hoping to get. But if you set that up right by explaining that at the outset, it shouldn’t be that difficult to say, see, remember when we talked about this before?

And now it happened. now we’re kind of in this camp A as opposed to camp B where we were hoping to end up.

Yeah. And I think that’s exactly because rulings change cases. We don’t have any control over that. You know, we can try and predict things. You may take a deposition and all of sudden you learn one of the claims that you thought was maybe pretty viable is now dead, right? Dead in the water. got facts that basically kind of obliterated, you know, not obliterated, basically take away your factual basis for the claim. And that’s sometimes where, like you said, it goes back to when you’re making a motion.

speaker-0 (18:52.462)
or you’re taking depositions, I think sometimes we forget we need to check back in and say, hey, let’s just do it, check it, and we took these depositions, here are the facts that we found out. This is it impacts what we’re doing. It’s gonna change things this way or that way. We can predict as best as we can, but I think that’s part of going back in and keeping that education going and keeping that conversation open because I think I’ve seen that happen quite a bit, like where it’s like, you take that opposition.

you find out something new that’s detrimental and it’s like, I dread, I don’t want to make that call or I have that equal client who I know is going to be really like, you know, and I think you made a very good point of like getting that person in person. And I think even just getting somebody in Zoom because that way they’re able to see your face and see how you’re expressing yourself and making yourself available. And it’s not that you’re saying, I’m sorry we failed because

We can’t control what happens in that position. The facts come out or how a judge rolls. And I certainly have had a situation where I had to call a client and just say, yeah, listen, this happened and it was a mistake. You know, and here’s what I can do to make up for it. And here’s how it’s going to impact things. And anytime I have like totally come to the carpet and just said, this is what happened. Everybody’s sure like, okay, like we get in a problem solving node and set it like.

fixating the problem. And that’s generally what I try to say is like, listen, this is where we are now. Like, here’s how I’m going to help. Here’s how we’re going to make up for it. But because at the same time, think like you said, you’ve done a good job of bringing people along in the relationship. And in that case, they’re going to have enough trust in backgrounds to know like, okay, this is what Elizabeth said at the outset. You know, this is what Matt said at the outset. But here’s where we are. And it’s okay to remind people the battles that you’ve been through to get to this place. It’s not, is not easy.

for you or for them. they, think sometimes they forget about like, it’s a battlefield all way through. So keeping that education open as well, I this is a huge factor in keeping people, cause that, think that surprise factor is the worst thing. That’s what I, I, it’s the worst thing.

speaker-1 (21:06.358)
Yeah, surprise coming after a massive gap in communication and they haven’t heard from you and then all of sudden you just call them with bad news. You can’t expect anybody to be okay with in any type of profession, right? You go get blood exams from your doctor and six months later they call you and say, well, yeah, you know what? You got a month to live. You’d be like, I kind of expected a call earlier or you bring your car into the mechanic and then they send you off on your way. And then six months later,

The car breaks down and they’re like, well, yeah, I mean, your engine was bad. mean, that’s would be unacceptable in any realm. It’s not acceptable here either in ours. And ours is very complicated and very interpersonal. So I think there’s even like a heightened duty on us to meet those client standards of trust and communication and relationship building. And you kind of mentioned, well, you often mentioned in the multitude of episodes that you have addressing depo prep specifically, but also trial prep.

One really good way to kind of keep your client in the loop that doesn’t necessarily require that you set up an in-office meeting is to just send them these developments in the case as you go. it’s almost like giving them homework, but it’s also keeping them in the loop. It’s also keeping them invested. So I will send them every deposition transcript, unless it’s, I mean, I can think of some examples that I wouldn’t, but any fact witness, their doctor, I will just send them and say, Hey, you know, if there’s a

Obviously big bombshell fact. I’ll point that out and call them in and whatever. But if it’s just pretty run of the mill tracks with more or less, but obviously every deposition does has some new information, maybe good, maybe bad, whatever it might be. Send it to him. Hey, give this a read and tell me what you think. Like just a quick little cover letter. Sometimes they won’t call you. I don’t, maybe sometimes they don’t read it. I’ll call them out later. If they don’t, Hey, what’d you think of that deposition? Did you see that part where Dr. So-and-so said that? it’s like, Hey man.

I send you stuff to read, expect you to read it just like I’m reading it and I’m there. And if you send me an email, I read every word and you can check them there. But it keeps them coming along. It keeps them apprised of developments. Oftentimes they’ll call you. Sometimes they’ll give you really good stuff. They’ll say, hey, that’s not, that’s not right. And here’s somebody that I know that can refute that. Or here’s why I know that’s not correct. A lot of times they’ll just say, man, Dr. Miller really kind of bailed on us there. He told me in the appointment that

speaker-1 (23:32.226)
He was a hundred percent sure this was causally related and now he’s saying that he doesn’t really know. And you’re like, right. And that’s his testimony and that’s going to affect the value and that’s going to be what the jury hears. And so now you have that conversation and it doesn’t have to happen in the mediation or they don’t read it in the motion in lemony or whatever it might be. So you can keep your clients involved with a simple letter and a transcript and email.

And they’ll get it. I mean, they’ll understand most of the stuff and when they don’t understand, guess what? It’s good time to have a conversation and get them on same page.

Yeah. And city people transfers is pretty intense. I’m not gonna lie. I it’s when it’s in your example was for their doctor, like you go take their doctor, like here’s your doctor set, you know, then reading or rep stuff, a little bit. And it’s just, you know, like some people get like super lost and they’re going to give up, but I like it. Even just giving a quick recap email or.

Yeah that one, yeah.

speaker-0 (24:37.326)
I love using, cause people love videos. Like I love using Loom, it’s free and you can make a five minute video for free. And they literally just watch, cause again, you talking like we love, we’re easy. Talking to us is like easy. So you can talk that out without having to write it. Cause if you’re like me, like when I write a client email or an employer email, like I write it and I leave it and I come back and I read it again. Cause I just want to make sure like, can I be clear?

How can I leave no ambiguity here? Like, am I covering everything versus like, I think when you say it, it’s five minutes, you can watch it again and speed it up. And so can they, and email will even do a transcript as well so they can kind of watch it. But keeping up with people that way, in a way they’re gonna read it in a page. And of course, I always ask myself, what’s the easiest way for us to communicate? and I know you’re gonna like, some people love email. Of course, I love email. We live and breathe email, but some people don’t. Like, well, can you just text me? Like, sure.

And you can do the same thing on your phone. Just text, talk, or do that little audio file really quickly just to let them know. And like you said, it’s like, do you want more? Let’s get a recall. Or are you good? Just making sure there is anything else. But I love that because those little changes from that position, that’s where you’re going to get an ideation and that’s where it’s going throw it at. You’re like, well, that’s not what they said that appointment, right? And then it’s like,

Okay, now we’re going to be in a huge deadlock because your client thinks that’s one way, but in reality, that’s just not how it out in demo. So that’s a good solid example. And why I really like taking the client demo a little bit later is again, so you have that ammo, like you know what’s in there. So you know where that client has to fill in those gaps. Then that significantly helps. And so they don’t have to get you down on the leads.

But okay, here’s where that gap is and here’s where the client can help or prepare and understand. then I think, like you said, the more we can kind of get them invested in what their role is, the better they are at meeting our expectations and for themselves and helping them kind of get through the emotional and psychological burden of being in this situation, being permanently injured at times, or there’s always going to be some kind of major impact to people’s lives when they’re injured.

speaker-0 (26:56.91)
Like that is such a huge component of giving them a role in the ability to do the rest of it.

precisely and everything we’ve been talking about so far is super important in establishing the trust and the ability to have those conversations with your client for better or for worse. The ability for them to be coachable because as you’re talking with them more and more and as you’re keeping them invested and involved in the case, they are becoming more and more coachable. I have not had an example yet where a client just can’t help but

eventually perceive, okay, this is a complicated situation that I’m not familiar with, that I need help with, or at least I would benefit from help. But what it also does is it enables you to do your job. I mean, it serves so many different benefits, but if you really want to be able to present the best version of your client’s case to the judge or the jury, especially the jury, you got to understand them, you got to know them, that’s going to take time.

And so you’re checking off all these important boxes when you’re doing these trust and relationship building activities, like going to their house. I mean, you want to get on somebody’s level. I, again, I think, you know, obviously this isn’t my idea, but I read this in the first Jerry Spence book I ever read. I mean, you go have a meal with your client in their house. mean, so that you’re going to, they’re going to trust you. They’re going to like you and they should. mean, it’s a special thing to be able to do that and for people to invite you in.

It’ll build that trust. It’ll allow you to have honest communications with them. It’ll give you access to the inner circle in their mind and in their heart, but it’ll also give you the tools that you’re going to need to present their case. So you don’t have to think of it like you’re only doing this so that someday if you need to give them bad news, you’ll be able to do that. It will help with that, but it’s kind of necessary to enable you to do the job if you end up in trial and everything in between, even writing the settlement brochure.

speaker-1 (28:57.71)
or the mediation brochure. mean, you will do a much better job having an intimate understanding and relationship with your client versus not really of having had much communication with them up to that point. And it, sure as can tell, so can attorneys, so can mediators. They know.

Absolutely. I would sell people what they’re going to go to trial. Do you your client? Because if you, who cares about the jury things, because they’re going to know right off the bat, you don’t want to post. But I think there’s also this occasionally when I’m talking with lawyers about preparing and bonding and people would say, my personality is just not necessarily very warm to that bonding perspective. And that’s where like, like the just having

open conversations, asking them about their expectations and constantly talking with them and listening to them is still, oh my gosh, goes leaps and bounds to that bonding and that trust relationship. Even though it feels like you’re still very much seeking to like an intellectual place, like checking in and keeping those lines of communication open, that’s half the battle because bad facts can happen anytime. They can be at the beginning, they can be in the middle, like…

depositions can change things and like avoiding conversations that are difficult because you’re busy or your skill letter apparently will take care of it. Like all those things just totally lead to trouble because it just kind of alls up. And then like I said, it can just lead to maybe having to take an avenue to your client really isn’t happy with or sometimes what I’ve found is even if you do everything right, you’re going to learn a lot about your client who…

will never have their expectations met. But you know the front end and you know how to manage it. Like, okay, like you said, difficult clients, we’re all gonna have. But as long as you’re doing your half a load on what expectations are and educating and doing all that, then you can at least tell them, hey, listen, we’re talking about this. I’m not hiding anything. You’re being upfront with how you feel and I’m being upfront with what the facts are. So we can work through this together or if you think somebody else do better. Because again, like you said, there are some people that you just

speaker-0 (31:11.502)
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Yeah, absolutely. And the obligation is not become their best friend. In fact, I mean, that happens. mean, I’ve become friends with my clients and I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, but that can be a problem. And that’s not, again, that’s not the job description or requirement. This doesn’t have to be a relationship where you’re going to be best buddies with this person. But if you’re considerate and I say considerate because I mean, you don’t just get to be so busy that you’re blowing off.

their feelings or you’re not taking the extra steps to make them feel good. mean, you need to polish and do that. And then just being honest, you’re going to develop mutual respect. That’s what’s important. That’s what the jury needs to see. And they will. We talked about how, well, the insurer and the defense attorney will know that the jury will definitely know whether you like your client and what your client thinks of you relatively quickly. And that’s critical. I mean, if your client doesn’t trust you, how’s the jury going to trust you, right?

And that’s if you get to trial, if you don’t get to trial, there’s definitely a reality where you could end up in the same spot result wise, but depending on the route you took to get there, one being that you had a good relationship with your client the whole way, their expectations are met, they’re satisfied, they’re a happy customer, they give you good reviews. Nothing gets you off on a better foot than when your client comes to you because their best friend or their brother or someone that they really trust is the one that sent them to you.

So just having good referral sources by maintaining that standard is probably the best thing you can do for yourself, but you can get to the same result that way, or you can go the way where, you you still get them the money or whatever it is, but you didn’t have a good relationship during that period of time. They’re not happy. And I definitely have seen that every client’s different, but in my experience, it’s more often than not how they feel about you and how they feel like you’ve been doing their case.

speaker-1 (33:08.32)
et cetera, then the ultimate result that’s going to factor into how happy they are with you. And again, I mean, with work comp, I’m already in my mind going, wow, there’s all these examples where no matter what, they’re not going to be happy necessarily with the result. But knowing that at the outset, okay. And then taking them through and showing them and being really communicative throughout seeing this is what I was talking about. This is what we talked about on day one. And then after this, whatever it is and

going forward and this is that lie I told you about, now this what we’re saying to the judge. They will be a lot happier and ultimately they’ll know you did your best. They’ll know you knew what you were doing and that you did a good job. And they will put the blame where it’s supposed to be, which is on the law, on the legislature, not on you. You can have a very happy client after the fact, even if they can’t get full justice, like you’re not getting in a work conflict.

And I think what you’re saying is absolutely true for car cases. I mean, I definitely think of many examples of percentage cases where, especially in men’s males, like anywhere you practice men’s male is going to be like, there’s just not going to be generally, there’s not going be enough quote unquote justice to go around because it’s just, that’s the sway of the laws, right? And I think you’re right. You can take two pads. can take the…

The path for, yeah, you’re going to have to spend some time on that relationship and expectation. And that means you and your office, like you said, it’s always a team effort and always have everybody communicating, or you can make it difficult and have less communication. Yes, you’re getting the job done. Yes, you’re going to get to that finish line, but at end of the day, like where’s it going to end up? And I think what people understand is people.

They may not ever understand why a law is written the way that it is. Like they may never understand people at that capitol are making decisions that really truly impact them. They may never get that, but they will totally get how you treat them. How you treat them as a lawyer is how they will believe any lawyer will treat them. And we sometimes are the only lawyers they have contact with. And I always try to keep that in mind because when I was growing up and along the way there were lawyers and

speaker-0 (35:27.47)
To me, they just had all this power over my life and other people’s lives. And it was just like, wow, what an impact they’re making. I don’t know that anybody will feel that way. They have that same expectation of like, what will you do for them will totally impact their lives. And it’s true, even if you get the best result, which is still not the greatest, you’re still making an impact on their life. And I think we always should be keeping that in mind. It’s like, okay, I know what I do as a lawyer is pretty normal to me because I do it every day.

those people like it makes a huge difference and how I really is how they’re going to proceed all years and I want that to be a good thing.

Absolutely. mean, how many of us have heard about, have had examples where clients are going, I just don’t trust that doctor and I don’t want to treat with them anymore. And you’re going, Ooh, that’s a really good surgeon for sure. It’s just a bedside manner. And so that doctor with the little charm school, I mean, they’re the best doctor in the Northwest, but it is a necessary part of the job. And more so, think with us than, you know, the surgeon who can show up and do a good surgery, but it contributes greatly to your client satisfaction.

their impression of attorneys. We kind of talked about at the outset, I mean, when the client comes through the door, they have expectations for their situation, their injury, their claim, but they also kind of have a preconceived notion of you. unfortunately, a massive, and even clients who walk through our doors, a massive portion of that is tort reform and just schist lawyers and whatever you want to call us. mean, they all have that.

And my brother is a general contractor and he’s always got about six to eight blue collar construction workers with him, whether it’s in his living room, whether they’re out getting a bite tea, whatever it is. I just, that’s my focus group. That’s my down and dirty focus group. Cause that speaks for Great Falls, Montana, especially. I’ll just run, float the ideas by them in all regards. They’ll just…

speaker-1 (37:27.23)
almost dial it in in five minutes, what I’ll spend thousands of dollars and hours doing with a formal focus group. But one of the things we will periodically discuss is lawyers in general. And those are the guys that I represent, guys and gals. mean, they get hurt in that construction trade. Those are the people we represent and they’re going to have that initial impression. They’re walking in and their whole lives, maybe they’ve been kind of degrading us in just cheerful conversation. All those lawyers. You’re starting on that slide.

And what will immediately kind of immunize that problem is honesty. It’s that simple. You just shoot them straight and simple and they’ll pick up on, they know how to read. Yeah.

And I think trade bleeding that over, it’s the billboards, right? It’s the billboards with the millions and millions, the commercials with the millions and the millions. And most of the time, there’s a lot of clients that I would deal with because I’m like, well, okay. I always ask people like, what do you think happened to that person that they had to get millions and millions and millions? Like, right. And that’s kind of perspective, not necessarily expectations, but let’s keep ourselves in a perspective where we kind of got to do that.

helping with some comparisons. But yeah, I mean, it can be super frustrating because people do come in with that. And doing it day in and day out, like, you eat what you can. Like, we got to keep that will be all we got to keep people coming in. And I think sometimes we forget to like stop. And what’s your experience? Hey, what do you expect of me? And just to make sure that we’re checking in and doing that and in the correct way. And because you never know and you just you can, something can totally creep up and you just like, you don’t know until too late. And all of there’s you me and you’re like,

don’t know, like when is it that they’re upset about? Like, and you just don’t know. And that’s kind of like getting that whole hidden surprise thing. It in, we’re just like, or you get really upset about something that they’re doing. And it’s like, okay, if these things are happening, like just stop, conversation.

speaker-1 (39:23.68)
Yeah, bring them in, get them in. The minute it bubbles over, get them in. Just, just stop call. You got to, we’re setting up an in-office appointment. That’s it. Come on in. mean, that’s, found that to be one of the most effective tools in the toolbox. Just immediately. Once it’s officially passed the boiling point, just, okay, we’re going to postpone this and we’re going to talk again when you come to my office or I’ll come to you, whatever, but we’re going to meet in person.

I mean, that cures the majority of those issues in my experience.

I agree. And I think people want your attention and then it’s by the attention and then it’s really difficult to stay really upset. When someone’s sitting across and you like literally just listening, it’s like, I can’t really be like upset with you while you’re just sitting or listening to me. And then we’re pro-assaulting. And it’s not like everybody has to say, of course, well, I’m sorry. And like, that’s not what we’re talking about. Cause sometimes it’s just the job. Like we can’t be sorry about a judge’s ruling. We can be disappointed in it.

Like that’s for sure. Like I’m just flying here and this one here’s how we pick up the pieces. And I think sometimes that’s where like we think, somebody has to apologize. It’s like, no, sometimes we just have to get together, talk about whatever it is that’s upsetting, figure out if it’s really something we can control and then let it go or work with it.

Yeah, that’s what they want. They want a problem solver. come in, they’re coming to you to fix this problem, to make this situation work for them. mean, so you’re right, but you can’t, like you said, you can’t just jump there. You got to start with the, just the same stuff you’d start with anybody, any human about when they’re going through a tough time or a difficult situation, the same exact rules apply. And it’s easy to put on the professional.

speaker-1 (41:11.938)
face and just not want to go there and not talk about emotions and not talk about disappointment for fear that you might be admitting that you’re the one that disappointed them or for fear that they might blame you. Don’t be afraid of that. mean, talk about it and allow them to talk about it and express themselves. They’ll feel better. They just having them re-explain the story in their own words will dispel some of that.

trauma, if you want to call it that. It’s the psychological facts. And then you can get to the problem solving, which is of course where we want to go right away. And in that realm, you know, have options and obviously have a plan, know your stuff. I mean, you generally will and certainly probably more so than them by leaps and bounds, but still don’t wing that part. When you’re delivering bad news with a follow-up of now what should we do? Don’t wing it. Have a good plan. Have thought it out yourself.

And I find that given them options, mean, as much as you might say, look, man, you know, there’s a really ought to do option A, but still, if that’s the only option you present, it’s a little bit suspicious. I would be suspicious of that if someone was saying this is all you can do. You only have one option. No, no, that’s never true. I literally can’t think of a circumstance in life where that is true. mean, and so right away you’ve activated their.

The part of their brain that’s going, Ooh, Ooh, I might want to get a second opinion here. So give them some options. You know, here’s some different choices. mean, my recommendation is they’re going to probably go with your recommendation. Obviously you’re the professional. That’s why they hired you. But they like choices. I like choices. Everybody likes choices. These are the potential consequences. Shoot them straight on that because if there is an obvious option, the potential consequences are going to make that obvious to them too. So.

I mean, there’s definitely a way that you can structure that conversation without them blaming you, maintaining trust, in fact, strengthening it, dispelling some of that trauma for them, and then getting on the same page and making it their choice to be going down the road that we’re now going down.

speaker-0 (43:16.428)
Yeah, perfect advice. Because anytime you try to just tell someone what to do, here’s what, this is the only option. Like I’m telling you what to do. Like the inner two-year-old and I, it just pops up, you’re not going to tell me what to do. Like you said, I’m always awkward. So it’s like, okay. That’s why like, anytime you like try to just give someone a list of instructions, like people are always going be like, well, you know, I’m going to do it with my, cause again, our inner two-year-old. I think that’s.

super advice, is prepare yourself in that conversation, have options, know what those consequences are, each option. And then also I think going in knowing you’re going to first listen, let them invest, let them tell what’s upset with them and their own words. And so trying to go in and recap and say, okay, so I know that you’re mad. And so let’s just like hear them hear the options. Nope. You got to take that first step.

Listen to them, let them get it out and then move through like kind of with that, move it into that auto-solving area and having those things ready and set and go for you and have thought up root even just five minutes.

It’s probably, not going to take you that long depending on if the legal issue is really complicated. You probably already briefed it and that’s why you’re having this conversation. I mean, it’s not like that takes a massive time commitment, but you should be polished in part of the presentation because that is what you’re bringing to the table.

Absolutely. I think most of the time we have options, a lot of them lead back to leaning more on the client to get something forced. Like, okay, this is what the doctor said. So that means we need more before and after witnesses now. So I’m to lean on you now. That means we’re going to do this instead. Or we heard this, like, okay, that probably is going to close our claim. But I’m going to go talk to one other person. I’m going to talk to our ex, right? This person who could actually the judge may listen to and…

speaker-0 (45:09.678)
can throw feedback on it then I’ll get back to you, right? So there should always be some kind of plan of action and always a follow up. Here are the options. You don’t have to decide today. I want you to think about this and then we’ll come back and read this.

yeah, yeah. Great. you, right. You all, I make them sleep on it. I say that, right? Like just like you don’t go to a car dealership and walk away with a car. You go home and go to sleep. You wake up in the morning and then you decide, you don’t buy a house the same day you walk through one. You shouldn’t come into the lawyer’s office and have the lawyer say, okay, but you got to make your decision. No, no, that’s, everybody resists that type of pressure as they should. So right. You let them sleep on it. You say, Hey,

If your wife or husband has any questions for me, let’s have another conversation where between the three of us, or they can call me directly. If we need to have a couple more conversations before you make a decision, that’s fine. This isn’t like we got to have this answer in by Friday at five. And if it is, then you better be on Monday.

Yeah. Yeah. And I would say, because we definitely, and you and I are talking about this, when we have that factor, we got to come in and manage expectations. But if we’re talking about time conversations, like if you’re managing expectations and keeping communication lines open, when you do have that time, when you do have that, this is our deadline of deciding to go to trial or take that settlement.

they know you’re going to get in space and time and options to think about it. And they’re going to be able to make that decision much quicker than somebody else who hasn’t had as many car stations with you and discussions and knows much is going on in the case.

speaker-1 (46:49.07)
Exactly. And kind of the typical example is mediation. mean, they got to make a decision, which really we all know is you can ask for an extension and you should, if you have an indecisive client, that’s kind of what you should do for their sake. But I don’t really have that issue. And I don’t often, because I think you’re starting that conversation weeks before the mediation, or least a week before the mediation by copying them with the settlement brochure. Obviously you call them to go through it before you send it.

Talking to them again a couple of days before the morning dog. So that’s how you’re approaching virtually everything. Deposition prep, the direct examination at trial. And in doing so, you’re never actually putting them in that pressure cooker where they have a time limit. And I mean, I know I won’t accept that, know, clients will, they’ll jump off the cliff before they’ll climb down if they feel like it’s their only choice and you’re not giving them any other options, you know? So to their own detriment, I mean, I just have a client right now who

She’s got a chronic illness and there is a treatment for it. It’s terminal. But she’s holistic and she doesn’t feel comfortable with modern American medicine and for whatever, you feel about that is irrelevant. This is a human, it was a life that’s worth saving. And the doctor’s saying, this is your only choice and if you don’t do this, I swear to I’m going to get rid of you and you’ll never get treated. I’ll tell every other doctor not. I mean, he’s going crazy. But what he’s really doing is saying this is your only choice and that’s that.

So, she’s exploring all this other stuff. It’s not working and I’m sure her doctor’s unsurprised by that. But what she’s not doing is engaging in lifesaving treatment. And I think a huge part of the reason is because she was given one choice and an immediate, better get on it right now. And it’s like, that’s a mistake. That’s a professional mistake. You might be able to save that person with a different approach. And all it is is your words and your attitude. Why would you not adjust?

So I’m obviously this at the doctor, but I’m also on his team. mean, I agree with him. It’s just the way that he’s delivering it.

speaker-0 (48:54.71)
Yeah. And I think, yeah, that type of alice is deliberate for sure. And I think you can yell at me, human type, all of it is. You can’t tell me what to do with one option. Right. That goes for anything. you call my CPA, they tell me there’s, nope, you got one option and you got a pale, that’s like, my daughter tells me there’s one option. Like, well, you know, I’m pretty sure that they have more than one way to solve problems. that, you have been so awesome. Let me just.

Yeah.

speaker-0 (49:23.926)
Make sure there’s not anything, any other tips or tricks or things that you can think of that would help those as far as when we think about like, okay, products will advise for managing client’s expectations before it gets too late.

I we hit the majority of the stuff that I wanted to get out, but I really feel like I ought to just bounce that question right back to you because I’ve gotten more from you on client preparation than anybody I can think of. So I really appreciate the opportunity to discuss this stuff with you though and learn from you and hope it has some valuable information for your listeners who are, I know there’s a lot of them and they’re all excellent trial attorneys. So thank you very much.

Yeah, and I think we definitely nailed it and I think sometimes it’s just, we all need a little refresh, right? So maybe this episode is just a refresher for everybody who’s listening. I’m like, yeah, like I do need to make sure and like checking with people and that’s all it’s about. And for me thinking about managing expectations, doing it a major pin at higher, at major decision points, at litigation.

filing litigation, a deposition point, making sure we’re communicating those things because those are pivotal points checking in. And that’s really all you got to do. And when you get the bad news, just pull the band-aid off. The festering is like the worst. Because sometimes you just can’t. Then you really have to manage a whole different problem and like literally crossing your ears and hoping for the best. And that’s never what you want to do with a case or a client.

I couldn’t agree more. And everybody knows that. The only reason you don’t do that is because you’re trying to avoid it because you don’t want to have to that conversation or you’re worried or you’re insecure. But that’s the same rule that applies to any relationship you have in life. You got to address those issues before they turn sour and the virus spreads.

speaker-0 (51:25.486)
It is absolutely true because most people, they’ve already made a commitment to you. They signed a paper, they’re with you. But it’s still a relationship we both have to do work in. It’s not a one way street, no matter what relationship it is. So yeah, you need to have expectations. They need to know what they are. They have expectations and you need to find out what they are. Because that communication line is sometimes half about with folks. then the only thing I would add is like,

And I most people have some kind of case management situation that helps them document all our case notes and call notes. I used to just literally use a Word document that had like a date and action conversation. So I always had everything in one place. That was super simplistic take on it. I’m sure there’s lots of fancy case management software out there, but having that documentation and having those emails with us is really helpful too.

just to make sure sometimes you got to have that timeline to remind people like we covered this in the beginning. Here, I’m going to remind you one more time. And here we are. We’re now having this impact on you. Hard to see that impact a year ago, but here it was along the way. So just another little fine tune point, but.

Matt, again, thank you so much for joining the podcast today. Hey folks, if you want to learn more about Matt or you want to get in touch with him or you want to go to an interview in light of it, or I will tell you, if you want to pick his brain about Worker’s Comp and what the lobbying efforts and what they’re doing there, this is your guy. He literally is the point guy. So please reach out to him. He is in wealth of knowledge on that stuff. All of his contact information will be in the show notes. So if you want to contact him.

Actually, Matt, let me ask you, what’s the best way for people to get a hold of you or they want to learn more about you? What’s the best way?

speaker-1 (53:14.924)
Yeah, absolutely. can, anybody can shoot me an email at mattmatt at Murphy law office.net. So M-U-R-P-H-Y L-A-W-O-F-F-I-C-E.NET or call my office at 406-452-2345. Like you said, I’d be happy to talk with anybody regarding anything, especially Montana work comp or any other states work comp. love to collaborate on those issues and find it to be very valuable. So thank you again, Elizabeth.

Awesome. All right. I think that we’ll get all those contacts in the show notes. And if you enjoy the podcast, please read and review it on your favorite podcast platform. If you’d to connect with me, go to LinkedIn. I’m trying to get more folks to connect with me on LinkedIn. And so that’s what I would ask for you today. And otherwise, thank you so much for listening.