How Can a 1-Hour Virtual Focus Group Help Your Case?
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
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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.