How to Handle Client Resistance to Preparation
The client deposition has a significant amount of weight when it comes to deciding case value. However, one of the most common problems trials lawyers have is dealing with clients who resist preparing for deposition.
These are clients who actively avoid giving time for preparation. Whether it’s because of their work schedule, family commitments, or they’re just too busy to dedicate more than 30 minutes with you. They just don’t seem to have any time other than the day of the deposition.
There are also clients who subconsciously resist. They either show up with the kids for deposition prep, or they tell you they’ve had an emergency so they have to leave early. These are little subconscious things telling you that they’re not going to give you their full attention. But why?
In this episode, we delve into why clients resist deposition preparation and how to tackle this resistance. This is a big deal because failing to prepare for deposition can potentially hurt or damage the case. Therefore, this is the way to the end. This is the necessary step we have to take right now because if we don’t take that step, the case value significantly plummets.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Why clients resist and why this is damaging to the case
- Asking for time commitment
- Some examples of disasters that happened due to client’s resistance
- Resolving resistance in a call
- Educating clients why they have to put effort in a case
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Supporting Resources:
Do you have questions or a particularly challenging client preparation, email Elizabeth directly for assistance: elizabeth@larricklawfirm.com.
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Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome to a new episode of Trial Lawyer Prep with me, your host, Elizabeth Larrick. Thanks for tuning in. This is a podcast dedicated to tips, how to’s and strategies you can use right now to improve your case or client relationship. Today we are going to [00:01:00] tackle a common problem, a common question that I get, which is what do I do when my client is resisting Preparing for deposition and this is really common happens to me often happens to lawyers that I work with and this is really a common question that I get when I am speaking about deposition preparation or witness preparation.
What we’re specifically talking about is clients who actively avoid giving time for preparation. Examples would be they resist giving you any time because of their work schedule or their family commitments or just all in all, they’re just too busy to dedicate more than 30 minutes with you or because they take up time for the deposition, they really don’t have any time other than the day of the deposition.
I’m also speaking about clients who subconsciously resist, and these are the clients that show up with the kids for deposition prep, or they show up, but then they tell you they’ve had an emergency and they have to leave [00:02:00] early. Just those little subconscious things that pop in where they’re really not going to give your full attention, despite making a promise that they would, and they break that promise.
So why is this a big deal? Like, how would this really make a big deal for depositions, or how could this really damage your case? And I think that it can significantly damage the case because they walk in unprepared for any of the difficult or hard hitting questions. Lots of surprises. And if you’ve ever been surprised by a question, you generally don’t have an answer and you’re going to end up creating one or the default, which is the, I don’t know, which some of these questions they’re probably going to have answers to, but that dreaded, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, can kind of become a broken record, which can really hurt the case.
At times I have clients who basically, Hey, I’m busy. I got this thing. I’m going to do my own thing. No big deal here. Well, they end up maybe stretching the [00:03:00] truth a little bit or embellishing when they don’t have to. Or, again, like I said, if their own route, I should say, their own decisions about how to prepare may go the wrong way and they end up just shutting down.
Either way, it’s really not going to probably fit with your case strategy about what they need to do in this deposition. It can make it extremely difficult to fix, especially if your client has really important factual information that needs to come out. And ultimately, you could be looking at having a case that is difficult to settle and definitely is settling for less value.
So we really don’t want to damage the case that way. If you Work like I work, which is I’m a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer, which means I work things on contingent. I take a risk, right? I take on cases and it takes a little while to, to get paid. You really want to make sure that you put in the effort at the [00:04:00] right point in time that will increase value.
And in my mind, the client deposition is one of those value adding places where, wow, They’re going to put more value into the case when my client does an excellent job, explains things, tackles hard hitting questions, no problem. Now I know some lawyers don’t believe that the client deposition has a significant amount of weight when it comes to deciding case value.
So they don’t spend a significant amount of time or really a lot of time at all, maybe 30 minutes with the client, maybe send them their answers to discovery to read. This is probably not the podcast for you because we spend a lot of time on this podcast talking about the I’m going to be talking about client relationships and witness preparation and spending the extra time to educate our clients to build confidence in our clients.
And [00:05:00] have our clients basically step up to the plate at deposition and knock it out of the park over and over and over again, to the point where our defense counsel’s like, wow, okay, well, I guess I’ll have to go back to the carrier and tell him. But also you got it in black and white and that depth in transcript.
So. Back to the conversation at hand. Why would clients resist? What are some of the causes that we have probably seen as to why clients are just going to avoid doing this either actively or subconsciously? And sometimes it’s just they’re uneducated. They have a failure to see the significance that they play because they’ve hired you.
You’re the lawyer. What’s going on? You’re going to do the job that they don’t have to. That’s why they hired you. Why you’re getting paid. And like I said, a lot of that is just um, uneducated, meaning they just don’t know. And I’m not saying that They’re, have a low IQ or they’re not very smart. No, no, no, no, no.
I’m just saying, like I said in a couple of podcasts back [00:06:00] about lawyer jargon, we live and breathe in this world and it’s a pretty weird world to anybody else looking in. So that’s why I say it’s important for them to just be educated about, hey, how does the deposition set up the case and where does it work into getting case resolution and why are they so important?
They don’t know that. It’s not something they regularly do, so it’s very important that we take that moment to just educate them, to give a little bit more information about it so they can see, oh, okay, I get this. A lot of it also comes from fear. A lot of people in this world operate based on fear, and if something is fearful, they just don’t do it.
We just put our head in the sand, and we just move on. And there are lots of things that we do this in our lives with. It could be for certain relationships, or having to do something different, change, this is something I’ve never faced before. So, that’s another huge cause of basically resisting. It’s just like, hey, this is, this is new, and you’re telling me I [00:07:00] never have to do it again, so, like, why do I have to do it now?
And a lot of times Anger also is something that I get out of people when they don’t want to spend some time getting ready for the deposition. Why, why do I have to spend more of my time? They’re the ones who cause this whole thing and anger, just drill down, it’s all kind of a little bit going to come back to fear.
And there are people out there also who are just extremely busy. And that’s okay. There are people who work two jobs or they work a job, they take care of their parents or they get kids take care of single parent homes. Those people do exist as well. And I work very hard when I have people that way, because I see, hey, these are hardworking people.
They’re doing the best they can. How can I work with their schedule? Maybe we can spend some time on a Saturday or spend some time on a Sunday. But one of the things that we’re going to talk about here in a minute is the commitment. We’ve got to get a commitment from our clients to do this. [00:08:00] And it’s also our commitment to them.
We’re spending the time as well. And That’s another part of the education. They don’t understand. Hey, I’m here to make this commitment to you because of how significant your deposition is. I need you to commit to me. And when we do that, I always say, hey, listen, I’m giving up something too here. Like I’m giving up time that I could be doing something else, but because it’s so significant, that’s why we do this.
I’ve had people who switch schedules on me at the very last minute. Whoa, we got, this is the only day we have together and I can’t spend it with you. And okay, just know quid pro quo here, right? Tit for tat. Like I’m going to then ask for more commitment on a different day. That means you’re going to take up time off work and we’ll talk a little about that.
I’ve had somebody, uh, how to handle those people who say, well, I just can’t take off work. So anyhow, let’s go back, take a couple of paces to go to how can we tackle this resistance that we’ve got going on? One of the things I think is a really easy [00:09:00] step to implement is before you flip that switch to go into litigation, before you file that lawsuit, you have a conversation with them pre lawsuit to get a commitment about what their time commitment is going to be when it comes to this lawsuit.
I, I think, Almost always do this when it comes, especially for discovery responses and deposition time. And it’s basically, it’s a promise, right? That, hey, this is what I’m committing to as your lawyer, and this is what I’m going to ask of you as well. And making that commitment, making that promise, that does something in our brains.
There’s neuroscience studies that basically say, hey, this is a psychological mechanism. That’s going to foster cooperation and trust. So get that on the front end. You want future cooperation. You want future, you know, hey, help me facilitate getting this done for you. And I always think that’s a very good time to [00:10:00] walk through with them, to get that commitment from them.
And that’s basically always a backstop. So when I ask something of them, I need you to give me a list of 10 people for before and afters, you know, that, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you, now you’re invading my personal space and I don’t like this. And it’s like, Hey, we actually talked about this. We made a commitment together.
It’s like, okay, you’re right. So it always creates a really nice backstop. Now, if you don’t do that, hey, this is a great opportunity to start implementing that today. You can still make the request for a commitment or a promise. And then I normally do that before I’m actually going to schedule the deposition.
So anytime, you know, I get that email or that letter or get that call from a lawyer, hey, You know, we need to prepare this witness. What deposition dates work? What do you want? Okay, great. Well, let me just get on the phone with the client right now before we schedule this thing to talk about the [00:11:00] commitment that it’s going to take to figure out where is this thing going.
Resistance is going to come from with this client. Is there any resistance? And basically explaining, hey, what does the time commitment look like? And that’s me making the commitment to you and you making the commitment to me. As far as making this call, I also like to do educating. Right? Talk a little about what I know are common fears.
What are they going to ask me? Well, I say that, but I just, I go ahead and take that objection off the table. We are going to tell you what they’re going to ask you. I don’t need that. That’s so common enough that I just take that off the table right away. That objection. And I spend some time again, educating on the purpose of a deposition.
And again, one of the things that I always hear really, really common from clients is, Hey, I just want to get this thing over with. I don’t want to file a lawsuit. I don’t really want to be in the lawsuit. I’m not one of those people. I just really want this over with. Well, [00:12:00] let me give you. The road to the end, which requires your deposition.
It’s necessary, but it’s a step towards the end. Don’t you want to move things forward, right? They may not know that. And then they’re thinking, oh, well, it’s just the necessary evil. I just show up and tell the truth. I don’t really need you to tell me that in preparation. That’s where the other part comes in.
Hey, let me tell you why this is so significant. What is the importance of your deposition? What is the purpose? So let’s open the door to a little bit about why we spend time together because you are going to get hard heading questions, because they are going to evaluate you. What you say has a lot of weight in the value of the case and without it, we can’t move forward.
We will have a significant loss if we don’t have your deposition and we try to settle this case. And we also want to make sure that we, like, like I kind of talked about before, that fear, what will they ask me? I’m going to put that right out in the beginning. [00:13:00] I don’t need someone to tell me, Hey, I want to know what they’re going to ask me.
That’s total fear of the unknown. I’m just going to front load my conversation with that. I really like to think of this in the sense of, I’m trying to sell them on committing time for me to make that commitment. I’m trying to get that commitment from them. So how do I do that? Well, I need to remove objections off the table.
If fear is what’s standing in the way, I’m going to put that out there right away. We are going to tell you what they will ask you. We will practice what that question, what those questions look like. Well, if it’s, I, I’m too busy to do this, we can’t, we just do it without my deposition. Let me tell you.
This is the way to the end, right? This is the necessary step we have to take right now. And if we don’t take that step, case value significantly plummets. And we may not even be able to get it settled without it. So a lot of little bitty pieces of education go into this, this call. And [00:14:00] that way I’m tackling the resistance I may get.
The active resistance. Well, I don’t have time, Elizabeth. I can’t take off work to commit to this. I have a family, I have to pick up my kid. Or that subconscious part of it, which is just like, well, I may just I’ll just leave early or I’ll just bring the kids with me or all of us have them in the room with me.
When I zoom. No, that again, we’re in this little conversation, trying to tag away all those little things that may be there and asking for that verbal commitment. We’re, that’s where that brain science come in. we want that psychological mechanism of cooperation. I’m making a commitment to you, you’re making a promise, right?
That’s our social contract here, that’s the world we live in, so we want to make sure that we plant that seed. And exploit, talk about it on the front end. You don’t have to ask a question about it. You already know. So here are some of the disasters that i’ve encountered when I thought well It’s no big deal if I don’t get to make this commitment call or give them a little bit of [00:15:00] education or talk about this Okay, so i’ve had somebody zoom basically from a campground turn on the zoom and Sitting out at the campground going camping family’s running around And i’m just like oh Okay, this is really, uh, subconsciously she’s telling me like, I really want to prepare.
I’m going to be really distracted. At that point, it’s on me. I should have asked for the commitment and clarified, Hey, when we do these zoom preparations, you need to be in a quiet space that’s undistracted so that we can really spend some time and dig deep and work on these hard questions and work on organizing your truths.
All right. I’ve also had husband and wife show up together. And I just tell them, Hey, I got to work with you one on one, right? We can’t have you both sitting in on each other because each person’s deposition is significant. Boy, howdy. They’re frustrated with me. Just like, and then I’ve also had the client who joined zoom.
[00:16:00] Using some earbuds because she wanted to complete cutting hair for a client. She just wanted to keep working through our meeting and surely she’d absorb all the things that I’m saying. And they’re frustrated because they’re thinking, well, I made the time commitment. I’m frustrated because I’m thinking I made the time commitment.
And sometimes it’s just that really simple phone call to get that commitment. So you can avoid some of the frustrations. Now, most of the time, the resistance can be resolved in a call. So I kind of call this my level one resistance, right? Where we just have a phone call, have a little bit more education, a little bit more understanding.
Great. And that can normally solve Solve the issue. Occasionally, I got to go to level two, right where the clients doubling down. No, I cannot do this. No, I will not take off work. I’ve already had to take off work this much. I live paycheck to paycheck. Generally those people have given some kind [00:17:00] of feedback of frustration, why is it taking so long, or I have this expectation that I need to get 200 000, or I have to get 1 million or whatever this case, value expectation is.
Most the time, these people have told me this before, and then when my level 2 call like to recall that and repeat it back to them and say, Hey, you wanted X amount of dollars for your case. You’ve told me that multiple times. This is the place you can go and prove that this is the case value. But if you don’t prepare, you’re not going to know how to answer those questions because As much as you like to think you can totally handle all the questions, there’s going to be things that are surprising to you, right?
So, if you have this expectation of a return on this case, or this case value, then that is the type of commitment that you need to put into the case. If you’ve got, if it’s a million dollar case, I [00:18:00] need a million dollar effort. Okay, because I’m here, that would be great if we get a million dollars. So I want to put in a million dollar effort, but you have to do the same.
So occasionally I have to go back through and say, okay, Hey, what have I heard in this case? And how can I recall and repeat their words back to them to say, Hey, this is what you’re asked. That’s just what you’ve been telling me. You want, you want this case over with you. You don’t want to deal with it anymore.
Hey. That’s great. I’m giving you the road to freedom here. Let’s get on it and I’m committing to you and I want you to commit to me. They’re level one, level two. And this particular example that comes to mind for me is sitting down to work with a client who resisted acknowledging she had a brain injury and was very hesitant to commit time to prepare and really Did things against doctor’s orders, but was [00:19:00] adamant that her case was worth two million dollars, just to put that number out there.
Now, we were able to get her to commit, but that was only after I had a long conversation with a lawyer who told me, Hey, these are things I’m hearing. This is what’s going on. I said, okay, well, you need to get this commitment from her, but this is how you do it. She’s been telling you X. She’s been telling you Y.
You take that right back to her and you say, hey, listen, you’ve been telling me these are things that you want. Well, I need you to prove it. We got to have that level of commitment and so she showed up and there were things that she just still was very adamant about and again, there are times where it’s just like, okay, how can we make this?
How can we compromise and make this work? But it’s one of those things where you have to know why you’re committing to preparation and when you’re steadfast in that, they’re going to also see your commitment to it. And that’s really what you want to do is just make sure, Hey. [00:20:00] Why are you committing so much time, lawyer?
Well, that’s because it’s so important, right? Let me tell you a little bit about it. So client resistance is all over the board, especially I feel like now in post pandemic world, people don’t want to make time to come even sit in person. And I mean, I live and work in Austin and I have people who, my clients here in Austin just say, yeah, no, I don’t, I don’t have time to drive over there.
And I think, well, you have time to drive the deposition, you’re going to sit face to face with them, don’t you want to practice the same way? So, again, I’ve got to educate them, right? Why the time investment you’re making now is going to infinitely increase the case value, okay? So, let’s just try to translate that and help them understand that.
Most of the time, you can see this coming. This is not, Something that you’re not, it’s going to come out of the blue for you, and maybe it does, but most of the time you’re going to see it coming. You are going to know what the danger is to the case if you let this slide, right? Avoid my mistakes. Avoid the frustration.
Because when I [00:21:00] cause frustration because of something I know I should have done, and I didn’t do it, because I’m trying to cut a corner. That’s really going to impact my client relationship and I really can’t be frustrated then because it’s something I knew how to fix the problem. So that’s kind of what we’re talking about here, but again, you don’t want to waste your time with that.
So let’s just think about this and are removing fears, educating, using our call to make a commitment. And if worst case scenario, we got to up the ante, right? By going to our level two and using the words and basically helping them again, translate that into how does that become case value for them? So.
Alright, if you have any questions or you have maybe a client who’s being really resistant or you’re trying to work around their schedule, that kind of stuff, you need some ideas, don’t hesitate to email me with the email will be in the show notes. I really appreciate being a listener of this podcast. If you would rate and review on your phone.
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