The Before and After Witness Prep Template by Courtney Wilson
Having before and after witnesses is very useful to help tell your client’s story. These witnesses can talk about damages in a way that your client just can’t. Jurors can heavily criticize a client’s testimony and label them a “whiner” or “complainer.” A well-prepared witness is able to talk about the changes in your client’s life in an authentic way.
As trial lawyers, it’s important that we’re able to build a level of trust and comfort with our clients and witnesses. But building that relationship just doesn’t happen overnight.
In today’s conversation, Courtney Wilson takes a deep dive into the three-step process for building trust with your before and after witnesses. Courtney currently practices personal injury law and medical malpractice law in Mississippi.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Finding two to three people talking about the client’s experience
- How to build trust with your before and after witnesses
- The importance of explaining why testimony is needed for the case
- Assignments for your witnesses to get more information
- Why stories are more compelling than an expert talking about the injury
- Managing the fears and concerns of before and after witnesses
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Supporting Resources:
Courtney Wilson 
Tynes Law Firm
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Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I wanna jump in here real quick to introduce my guest, who is a returning friend to the podcast, Courtney Parker Wilson, who joined us prior to talk about adversarial focus groups.
And she is joining in the trial series that we have [00:01:00] been conducting here on the podcast. And she’s going to talk about before and after witnesses, but just a quick reminder that she practices personal injury law, med mal in Mississippi. If you have a question for her, you can obviously find her information in the show notes, but let’s get right to it and join the interview.
Hello, Courtney. Thank you so much. And welcome back to the podcast. Hi, thank you. We had you here before talking about focus groups, and today we’re talking about something pretty different, but I remember the excitement. You gave me a call and said, Oh my gosh, we’re having a trial. And I came up with this fantastic before and after preparation template before and after witnesses.
That is so, uh, I was excited to have you back. So you can come and talk to us about the template, but before we get to that, let’s just talk in general about using before and after witnesses at trial. So tell me a little bit about your thoughts on that and how you Approach it. So
Courtney Parker Wilson: I’m not entirely sure I told you that I had come up with this [00:02:00] totally new, fabulous template, but
Elizabeth Larrick: we’re going to give it to you.
So how about that?
Courtney Parker Wilson: Before and after witnesses, I think are really very useful to help you tell your client’s story without having your client tell their story. their story. So I see them as able to talk about damages in a way that your client just can’t because when you have the plaintiff themselves sitting up there talking about how hard this has been or how terrible The experience is that can come across as whining and complaining.
And I feel like the before and afters do a really good job at being able to talk about the changes in your client’s life in a way that’s authentic, but doesn’t carry the stigma that your client does when they try to talk about it. So they do the heavy lifting in my mind of telling the story of the damages, if that makes sense.
Elizabeth Larrick: [00:03:00] Yeah, absolutely. So they’re getting up and they’re given examples, things they’ve seen, but from a very uninvested place versus clients are extremely invested. And it’s easy for jurors to basically say, you know what, they could totally just make this whole thing up because that’s what we’re here for, right.
Is them to get money for feeling pain or mental anguish or what not. So yeah, absolutely. So
Courtney Parker Wilson: ideally, right. You would want to have a few of these people.
Elizabeth Larrick: That’s going to say, how many do you like to have and how do you kind of gauge thinking about the range of cases? People may know a car wreck case. And again, we’re really kind of thinking more about like maybe the injuries.
So how do you gauge how many before and after witnesses you’d like to have?
Courtney Parker Wilson: Well, before and after witnesses can come in a couple of varieties, right? Like, sometimes you have people who are also fact witnesses that are before and after witnesses, so they may be doing some different work for you in addition to their before and after [00:04:00] work.
Anytime you can, use witness for two purposes, I like that because I like efficiency and all things, but ideally I would want to have two or three people to talk about the client’s experience. And very often, it takes some work to get to those two or three people. And I don’t have any particular problem with using family members as one witness.
But I feel like getting a little farther outside of the client is better. Do we have a co worker that can come talk about changes? Do we have somebody, you know, that like you go to spend class with? Is there somebody who is a little farther away from you who can talk about the change they’ve seen in you?
Because I think they get more credibility that way. They’re not invested in your client [00:05:00] personally. Or concerned about the outcome for your client, maybe in a sort of tangential way, but it’s not affecting their lives personally. So I feel like they get more credibility that way. Now, I can tell you from my personal experience, it’s really hard to get to those people.
It’s really hard to get your clients to identify somebody that can talk about them that they are not close to.
Elizabeth Larrick: Right. So I was going to say, do you normally cast a really wide net? So we, sometimes you got to start with a list of people. Like 15 to 20 people sometimes where it’s just like, give me people you just run into in life, right?
Like, and then, you know, we’ve got to figure out a way then to kind of who then has the better experience or has the availability and who is willing to come that really kind of skinnies it down
Courtney Parker Wilson: pretty quickly. And I feel like with my clients, it’s this exercise in getting them to believe me. Right? Like I know you have friends.
I know you have [00:06:00] family members who have seen what you went through, but I need other people. It’s like, they almost don’t believe you at first. that anybody else would have anything to say that’s useful or relevant. So I feel like you’ve got to do some convincing of your client first to even get to give you the list of people before you can go anywhere.
Once we actually get our grouping of people that we’re going to start talking to, right? And we kind of narrow that list down and we’ve decided who we really want to focus on as our before and afters. Then you get to sort of move on to the next level. If that makes sense.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah. So what kind of problems are you, since we’re talking about casting a wide net, like what are some problems that we as lawyers run into when we’re trying to find before and after witnesses other than the client giving us lots of people.
So let’s imagine we’ve got our list of 15, 20 people. What kind of problems do you run into after that point? [00:07:00]
Courtney Parker Wilson: They are myriad. I have run into the problem of calling up people who say, well, I don’t think she should be in this lawsuit. I don’t think she should be doing this, right? So we can cross them off the list because their opinions about what’s going on are overshadowing anything else, right?
That they might have to say. So we want to not bring anybody who’s really certain that our client just has no business bringing a lawsuit. We get rid of them. And then you talk to some people who are either so wrapped up in themselves that they can’t talk about somebody else. We run into people who are not very educated and then therefore not able to express in words the kinds of things we’re asking for, right?
They want to tell you that yes, their friend or their acquaintance is different, but they can’t articulate what that is or how they even know [00:08:00] that, what it is they’re noticing. So that person’s not going to be a particularly good witness either. So I want to cross them off the list. And then I talked to people who just have these incredibly strong personalities.
And on the one hand, that might be great, but on the other hand, might not be so good. So I think you, you’ve got to make a judgment call. How do you react? To this person, when you meet them, if you’re automatically turned off, like probably don’t want to use them either. So there’s a lot of, I guess, betting that goes on.
Like there’s a lot of phone calls. There’s a lot of meetings. There’s a lot of talking to different people, just trying to get to somebody that seems like they can articulate the change they have recognized and seen the change. and they’re comfortable talking [00:09:00] about it.
Elizabeth Larrick: Right. And they have a desire to help.
I think that that right. Having that innate desire to help always significantly makes your job easier versus people who just right on the front end, just have kind of like, ah, I don’t know if I want to get involved or right. Just this hesitation just from the, from the jump. Well, yeah, but. I just don’t even know if I want to go down that road because there’s a whole lot of uncertainty.
So I know we’re going to, we’re going to jump to our, our template super shortly, but really quickly, fun example. So it’s helping someone get ready for trial and they had made some videos of their before and after witnesses. And most of these were all family, which again, like we said, sometimes that’s just.
Kind of the nature of the game. And this was an, uh, an older client who didn’t have as friends that were around kind of a sad deal, but had this spitfire of a sister. I mean, just, I mean, she was saying all kinds of stuff. And there was a big hesitation of like, Oh [00:10:00] my gosh, she’s like really putting the client in a whole different light in the sense of she’s not doing enough to get better.
And so we was just kind of like, wow, what do you do with this person? And. The focus group loved her. I mean, they just thought she was the bee’s knees. And I said, you know, what if we thought differently about this person? And instead of feeling like, Hey, oh gosh, this is going to be bad. I said, you know what?
We should just compare to your client and say, you know what? That’s what our client should be. Like, should be the spitfire and going out and doing all this stuff. And she’s just not, but that is a perfect example of look, These sisters, they were a year and a half apart, right? 70 in their seventies. And so it was just kind of like, as we do with older clients, Hey, they’re going to live a lot longer.
Look at the family tree, all these people live into their eighties. And so it was just kind of like, Oh. Well, it’s not canner, [00:11:00] right? Like you said, how can we use this person as much as possible? But I think sometimes it’s kind of like, okay, if this is what we’ve got tested out, but also can we look at this in a different view and still she’s authentic.
They loved her. She’s not a hundred percent saying stuff about the client. That’s great. But she makes a really good comparison for somebody in the same age, if you didn’t know. Right. Like as far as family comparison. So there’s always kind of a, like, okay, if this is what we’ve got, how do we really try to think hard about ways to look at the testimony and sometimes see it in different light so we can use it, what we’ve got.
Courtney Parker Wilson: Yeah, no, I think that’s a great point. I feel like so much of lawyering is. Being able to step back sometimes and say, okay, that’s not what I wanted, but what have I got? And can I use it?
Elizabeth Larrick: Cause that was what we were testing was okay. I’m not keen on what she’s saying, but maybe they will be. And that was just one of the things I was like, you know, [00:12:00] let’s just take it at face value.
Look at these two women, they’re a year and a half apart. That’s what the life she should be living. And we know because they’re sisters, right? They come from the same, same background, same genes. So, okay. Let’s talk about this template here. Tell me a little bit about, you talked about a couple of phone calls.
So walk us through kind of what you have put together.
Courtney Parker Wilson: Well, yeah. So I think we have to start with the idea that people do not want to talk to a lawyer, even if you’re the lawyer for their sister or friend or daughter, or what they don’t want to talk to you. Lawyers are not well liked. No. When you call this person up for the first time, they are not going to be real warm and fuzzy with you because they don’t trust you.
And I think that’s the first thing you have to recognize when you’re dealing with this before and after witnesses. And because of that, you have to build some trust with them. [00:13:00] And that is not a process that occurs Over the course of a five minute phone call. So I’ve done several trials where I tried to do before and after witnesses in a day, and it just doesn’t work well because If you’re an intuitive person who can tell when someone else is comfortable and when they’re not right and you spend an hour with this person and now they are really nervous because you have talked to them about the kinds of things you want them to say and how we need to talk about the client and now they realize they don’t know what to do so yeah yeah nothing but make it worse so to avoid that right what I like to do is try to create a level of comfort and a level of trust with the before and after witnesses.
So I look at this as like a process. So I start [00:14:00] out with a phone call, and this is probably a couple of weeks before the trial. And I call this person up and I say, Hey, I’m the lawyer for your friend or for your family member. And we’ve got this trial coming up. And this is how we want you to be involved.
This is what we need from you. And then I try to explain to them why their contribution is going to be valuable. Because I think for a lot of people, if you can tell them the why of something, they are much more likely to invest and trust you. So I try to explain to my before and after witnesses that what I’m going to ask them to do is tell us some stories about their person.
But this is a hard thing for someone to do. If I were to walk up to you and say, Elizabeth, tell me some stories about me. Tell me some [00:15:00] stories about good times we’ve had. Like that would be a hard thing for you to
Elizabeth Larrick: come up with on the spot. Yeah. So you’d be, you’d really feel on the spot. Yeah.
Courtney Parker Wilson: So what I do is I call these witnesses and I tell them like, this is who I am.
This is what we’re going to try to do. We’re going to try to tell the story and let you help tell the story. And the way we’re going to do that is have you tell some vignettes. Have you tell some individual stories about what your friend was like? Maybe there was a crazy party you guys went to, like, tell us a silly story about that.
And then after the injury, tell us a story about your friend now. Right. But that is just not something that people are prepared to do off camp. So you got to give them an assignment, right? Yeah. So this is what I want you to do. [00:16:00] And if you would take some time over the next week and sit down and think about it for a few minutes, maybe just make yourself some notes, maybe some stories that you think you would like to tell me, or that a jury might like to hear about this person.
And we’ll talk again. Right. So this first phone call is like 10 or 15 minutes. And I do a lot of talking in the first phone call. It is the Courtney show in the first phone call. And then we set up a time to have another call. Right. Or a zoom meeting, or if they’re local, I try to get them to come into the office.
That’s a big ask of your before and after witnesses often to get them to like take time off from work or something and come to your office. But if they’re local and we can do it early in the morning or in the afternoon or something, like I try to get them to come, but. I do a lot of this. Right. So when we [00:17:00] set up our second meeting, their assignment is to have come up with some stories that they can tell me.
And then when we do the second meeting. That one’s usually much longer because what normally happens is they get this assignment for me and then they go call their person, right? And they say, friend, what have you gotten me into?
And then they talk to them about the case and they talk to them about me and they talk to them about what, what we’re trying to do and why, why are we doing all this? And They have this, what I think of as like a permission granting conversation with the client. And once they have that conversation with the client, they feel at liberty to expose some things.
And when I talked to them the second time, they’ve given it some thought. [00:18:00] They’ve talked to the client. Now they’re actually ready to talk to me. And usually what happens in that second phone call is. We start talking just about the client and they tell me things
Elizabeth Larrick: and
Courtney Parker Wilson: I take notes. So the second meeting is usually a lot of the before and after with this talking because now they feel like they can tell me.
And so they, they do. They tell me all kinds of stuff, right? Like about before the incident, about what happened during the incident, about how their friend changed, about things they can’t do anymore, about all kinds of stuff like that. And then they have a lot of questions for me. Oh yeah. What can they talk about?
What should they say? What shouldn’t they say? Is this going to be helpful? Is it going to hurt? And then a lot of really practical questions too. [00:19:00] Where are they supposed to be? What time? How will they know where to go? How do they need to dress? Stuff like that. So I feel like that second conversation is enormous, right?
And very often we don’t actually get to their assignment. in that second call because it’s like the floodgates have been opened and they have something to say now all of a sudden. So I take notes through this whole meeting and I kind of outline in my notes like little groupings of topics or stories or things.
And so at the end of the second meeting I say to them, well, okay, let’s talk again. And we talked about this story, or you kind of mentioned that you guys used to go kayaking, or you kind of talked about this thing. I want you to think about those events and come up with a story that you can tell me about that, like a [00:20:00] specific time that you went and did this thing, and then I want you to fill in all those details.
So now they have second assignment, right? Think about it, Ruthvine. Get me to a real story that we can talk about. And then on our third meeting, right? And I try to get them to come to the office for this one. Like I said, that doesn’t always work. But the third time I talked to them, I feel like it’s when the real, we get to the real thing, which is, Tell me about that kayak trip that you and your friend always did.
And her dad would come as a matter of fact, he’s the one who always set it up. It was a father’s day thing and we would bring the cooler, but we would try to bring wine coolers because her dad was there and we would try to like sneak drinks out of the wine coolers. And like, it becomes this really endearing, charming story because it’s [00:21:00] now real.
about, well, yeah, she is not as outdoorsy as she used to be.
Elizabeth Larrick: Right, right. Yeah. You’re telling the story, you’re bringing all the details out to the juries, like with them in that story, looking at that cooler, there’s so many, much more real life moments versus like you’re saying a big category. Well, yeah, she just doesn’t do that anymore.
Courtney Parker Wilson: So I think that. What you’ve got to do is allow this before and after witness, right? To become comfortable with you, the lawyer, as a person. And that takes some interaction. It’s not going to happen with one phone call. And they need to trust you. And they need to believe that, first of all, you’re going to be respectful to them.
And by that, I mean that you’re going to listen. About to say.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That means you’re gonna give one, you’re devoting time, but you’re also [00:22:00] listening. Yeah.
Courtney Parker Wilson: Right. You’re not gonna interrupt them, you’re not gonna rush them. You’re not gonna tell them that what they’re saying is wrong, and then once they get that comfort level with you.
Now they believe that you’re really trying to help and that you will be kind and respectful with them. So now they can talk to you, they can open up, they can tell you the story, but I really do believe it takes that commitment, a lead up to a workup to a level of comfort that will allow somebody’s friend to tell you something that exposes their real life.
Mm
Elizabeth Larrick: hmm. Well, I think also to sometimes what I have seen is lawyers will assign this for a paralegal or another person or even an investigator to do this work and it works for them, they’ll do the follow up, they’ll get the trust and then it doesn’t [00:23:00] translate because when you go into the courtroom.
They’re faced with a lawyer with, just like you said, the very first call they get is what you’re a lawyer. And I, and so there’s a really big disconnect. So I love that in your template, it’s you doing the one on one because then when you guys walk in the courtroom, it’s like, There’s trust, there’s comfort.
And also you have had so much time and experience, you know, how they speak, you know, the questions that they appreciate more. And you know, if I gave them this question, it would stump them. And then when you stump somebody on the stand, Oh boy, you better have a real quick way to get back in, get them back on.
Because if they’re stumped, they’re just, I mean, they’re frozen. I’ve seen them. They freeze. And it’s just like, Oh, I just stumped them. How do we get back? So this, the trust, the kindness is really go such a long way when you finally have to step in that courtroom. And so I love the template in the sense of giving them space.
[00:24:00] And also I absolutely love, I talked about this before when this happens in our client deposition prep, which is basically when you give somebody an assignment. Like, Hey, take this with you, go back, think about it. Even if they’re not thinking about it, their subconscious will continue to try and find the memories and the details.
And so even if they don’t sit down and do it, their brain will work on it and come up with stuff. And so giving that time, even if it’s a week or two weeks in between, still significantly helps people come up with more information. Their brain will continue to try and work on that because you’ve asked them.
I mean, that’s, that’s what a question does to our brains. We want to find that answer. So I think that is super helpful to use that neuroscience, use our brains, trick them into thinking and finding more information. Not really tricking them, but you know what I mean?
Courtney Parker Wilson: Yeah. So you asked me to be ready to give an example.
Yeah.
Elizabeth Larrick: [00:25:00] Yeah. Tell, tell us about, and Heather was the example. If you can talk about Heather, it’d be great.
Courtney Parker Wilson: Is Heather supposed to be the client or the witness? That’s the witness. That’s okay.
Elizabeth Larrick: That’s the friend. The friend. Yeah. The friend.
Courtney Parker Wilson: So we had big trial coming up and I had a client who was young when she was injured and she was the mother of two small children.
And so after she had these two children, she moved back home and lived with her dad and kind of left all of her friends. And she suddenly became the stay at her mom. So she was very isolated and trying to get before and after witnesses out of her was a real challenge. But I did get one who was her friend.
And I did a lot of work with the friend, Heather. The first time I called Heather, she was super standoffish. [00:26:00] She did not want to talk to me, was not sure at all that she even remembered anything that would help because she and the client hadn’t been close in a few years. And she also has, she also had a baby who was just turning one and she was very concerned about her baby and the first birthday party that was coming up and things like that.
So I gave her the introduction, the homework assignment, what the plan was, why she was going to be valuable. And then I gave her like a week or so. And in that week, she called and talked to my client. And it was actually the first time she had talked to my client in a few years. They had this great conversation about what’s been going on in each other’s lives and why they haven’t talked in so long and just catching up as old friends [00:27:00] do.
They eventually got around to this case, right? And my client had already heard from me why the before and after witnesses were going to be important. My client then reinforced it for me and told her friend, look, we really need you to come and help tell my story. So she got permission right from my client to talk about their private interactions.
Because I, at least for me, I’m a private person and I would not feel comfortable telling you things about one of my close friends. Unless my friend had indeed said, yes, you can tell people about that. So Heather talked to the client and got that permission. And then we did our second phone call and she had lots of questions for me in the second phone.
What kind of thing I wanted from her. And she had lots of questions [00:28:00] about the case and the trial. Because she was suddenly very invested. Oh, yeah. And she wanted to know what was going to be good for her friend? What was going to be bad for her friend? How could she help? What could she contribute? So we talked about all of that.
And this is the point at which I told her, I need you to come up with some stories. And she and I talked about very generally the change in the client, like what they had done as friends before the injury happened, how their relationship was and what they depended on each other for. They lived together, like when my client was in undergrad and they went to festivals and like down to the beach and all this kind of stuff.
And then that all changes. And we talked about generally. And so I told Heather, like, okay, think about it like this. I want you to come up with a story from [00:29:00] before the injury, when you guys lived together to tell me a story about my client for men, and then tell me a story about my client afterwards. So she says, okay.
And all she goes, we set up the third phone call. When I called her for the third phone call, I could not get a word in edgewise. Okay. She was absolutely gushing. She had sat down and thought about her friend and about what their relationship used to be like, how close they used to be. And by the end of our third phone call, she is thanking me for helping her to understand her friend’s pain and why her friend changed the way that she did.
And it ended up being just this beautiful thing because my client and her friend. had this sort of like [00:30:00] reawakening of their friendship. And the friend, Heather, comes to the trial, which was not, the trial was in Jackson. It wasn’t local on the coast where I am. So we all had to travel three hours up, but she decided this before and after witness to come to the trial, like for the whole thing.
Oh my gosh. Wow. She booked a hotel room, stayed. For the whole time she was with my client, the whole time they went to breakfast together, lunch together, dinner together. She was this incredible support system and she was a fierce advocate. for her friend because she had spent the time thinking about it.
She came and told this great story about after the injury and [00:31:00] she talked about how she asked her friend to come help with her baby’s first birthday party because she needed help and I don’t know how many of your listeners are initiated into the like deep south baby birthday party culture.
Elizabeth Larrick: I don’t know.
But
Courtney Parker Wilson: it’s a thing.
Elizabeth Larrick: It’s a thing. Okay. It’s a big thing.
Courtney Parker Wilson: There are smash cakes, there are party favors, there are decorations. I mean, it’s a whole thing. So she wanted her friend to come and help. And so she told this story about how she was so frustrated with my client because she did come to help, but she wasn’t any help.
She wasn’t able to lift anything. She wasn’t able to help move anything. She wouldn’t get up in the morning and get going because she was in pain. She wasn’t able to help move all the stuff. To the venue for the [00:32:00] birthday party. She wasn’t able to help put the decorations up and the friend was so frustrated and so mad with my client about coming to help, but then not actually helping just really being more of a pain in the butt than anything.
And she told this story from the position of, I never put it together before. I never realized that it wasn’t that she was being lazy or not wanting to help me, but she was hurting and she couldn’t climb up on the ladder and hang stringers. And she couldn’t do these things and I never thought about it like that before.
And now I feel terrible because I was so hard on her and I was telling her, just get up, just do it, just push through. And she told this beautiful story about how she had discounted her friend’s [00:33:00] pain and her friend’s experience until she really looked at why her friend wasn’t able to be the friend she thought she was supposed to be.
So it was a really beautiful story in the end. And I don’t think we ever would have gotten there. I’m not spent so much time sort of convincing her to open up and convincing her to think about it, convincing her to look at this and get there.
Elizabeth Larrick: Along with that, like the permission with the client, right?
Them having that conversation and getting that permission, like you said, absolutely. And the details, right? I mean, the devil’s in the details, especially and her thoughts and her feelings. So in the courtroom in this moment, could you tell how the jury was receiving the story? Think her story. came
Courtney Parker Wilson: off well.
Unfortunately, this is federal court we were in and you’re nailed to the podium in federal court. So that put me in the middle of the courtroom, right? Trying to ask questions to my [00:34:00] right and also look at the jury to the left. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. That
Elizabeth Larrick: helps us understand then. Cause I know sometimes the courtroom, it’s like the witness and then like one foot is then then there’s the jury, right?
So you got opposite sides.
Courtney Parker Wilson: Yeah. For the, in our federal courthouses. Yes. So it’s really hard to like watch the jury at the same time that you’re talking to this witness over here, but Those kinds of stories are so much more compelling than listening to your expert neurologist. Talk about the injury to T five.
T four, right, right.
Elizabeth Larrick: Or your client’s point of view on that story. You know, I went to go my friend’s baby shower and I just couldn’t help. It’s like, because the friend told the point of view that the jury would have too, which is like, get up, just come on. Just push through. I, I need your help right now.
Why can’t you just do it? So I love that. That’s because. I mean, that is totally exactly people who haven’t experienced that. That’s the perception that you would have. So I think as far as nailing what the jury would be thinking, and she said it, you couldn’t ask [00:35:00] for anything better than that.
Courtney Parker Wilson: Well, yeah.
And I loved this testimony because I felt like it wasn’t what you would exactly expect from a before and after witness. When she told me the story about how frustrated and angry she was with my client about this birthday party, I thought that is gold. Because it’s so authentic, right? And I can just imagine the frustration that you would feel if you like brought your friend to help you and they weren’t doing that and you’re so stressed out about this thing you’re trying to get ready for.
It just, it had such a ring of truth to it. And I thought it was so relatable. Like, I thought, this is gonna be compelling. This is gonna be something that is accessible to other people. They are gonna understand what she’s talking about. And it illustrates that Sort of [00:36:00] in a backwards way, right? My client is going through, which is the guilt and shame of not being able to be the right kind of friend in that moment.
Elizabeth Larrick: And I’m sure that’s probably why she isolated herself because she just feels like no one’s going to believe me. So let’s talk, how long did that story take up there? I mean, how long was she on stand? Oh, five minutes, something, maybe it’s short, right? Short and sweet. And to the point it’s, we’re not talking about a long time on the stand.
Courtney Parker Wilson: No, no. I think I had her tell one before story and one after story. And she answered, she was also a joint fact witness. So she had been around when the injury first happened. So she had seen some things early on that she testified to. But yeah, I think in total, her testimony was maybe 10 minutes, something like that.
Elizabeth Larrick: Right. Does she have any questions from opposing [00:37:00] counsel?
Courtney Parker Wilson: The only question that she really got from opposing counsel was about my client’s Facebook page. Oh, okay. So it was weird. I don’t think it really landed, but
Elizabeth Larrick: yeah, I’m shocked they even asked anything. Cause I mean, when you have that powerful of a story, you realize, wow, these people, this person is invested.
I mean, that that’s an investment. To come up there, but also to be that vulnerable and tell that story. Cause she’s got to be vulnerable. I mean, the witness has to be vulnerable up in the stand and then really trust that what you’re asking them lawyer, who I don’t know that this is going to actually be helpful because they don’t know.
I mean, that’s the, that’s their fears is that they’re going to get up there and make it worse, which is what they don’t want to do.
Courtney Parker Wilson: Well, and nobody wants to look stupid.
Elizabeth Larrick: Oh, absolutely.
Courtney Parker Wilson: They don’t want to feel like they’re overstepping or they’re saying something that sounds ridiculous. So you’ve got to manage the before and after [00:38:00] witnesses, fears and concerns.
Elizabeth Larrick: As well as their confidence. Yeah. Build their confidence up. Absolutely. Absolutely. Awesome. Well, this has been so helpful. So what I’m hearing from you just to recap is we’ve got like a three step process for building trust, but also comfort and getting the goods, getting the details in the story, right?
So three process, three different calls, looks like time spread out in between those to make sure you’re getting the goods. And then do you do a little brush up? Like right before trial, as far as a check in and like that kind of stuff.
Courtney Parker Wilson: So once you build a relationship with a witness, they’re not going to leave you alone.
You end up talking to them a lot, actually. Right before trial, leading up to trial. They’re sending you text messages, they’re sending you emails. In my mind, it becomes this real relationship you have with another person who now feels like they’re part of the team
Elizabeth Larrick: and [00:39:00]
Courtney Parker Wilson: they want to talk to you about stuff, right?
They want to tell you, Oh, Hey, we got this hotel and we’re going to go get a margarita and like, so yes. I do talk to them quite a lot actually leading up to trial, but I have encouraged all of them to be really clear on which stories it is that I want to pull from them so that they feel like they know what’s expected of them.
They know what questions are going to be asked and they know the answers. So that creates a comfort level and a confidence in them. We talk about what are your two stories? What are your three stories? Like things like that, just to keep it fresh in their mind.
Elizabeth Larrick: Awesome. Yeah. And I think that always is super helpful, especially when, and then also it really helps because at the end of the day, sometimes with trial, it changes so quickly and it’s like, Oh, sorry, you’re not going to be today.
You’re tomorrow. And they’re totally okay with it. They’re like, Oh, you know what? They’re flexible [00:40:00] because they’re, the investment is there. They trust what you’re telling them. And they still know that they’re ready and willing to come and help. So. Because that happens so often where the judge says, we’ll just move that witness.
And you’re like, Hmm, they don’t, when it comes to your experts or somebody else, like the judge is like, well, they give it more deference, but when it’s a before and after a fact witness, they’re like, we’ll just move up. I’m like, so I think that helps also when you’ve got to like, ask for that favor. Like, can you, can you change your schedule?
Can you come tomorrow afternoon? Yeah, definitely.
Courtney Parker Wilson: Definitely. I need you to be flexible, please. Don’t be me.
Elizabeth Larrick: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, is there anything else that you would add or as far as helping lawyers get there before and afters? And again, like I said, some people defer this to staff, which I think can totally be done for that initial wide cast, getting those, that big list of 20, 30 people and maybe narrowing it down.
Is there anything else that you would suggest or add?
Courtney Parker Wilson: Well, I mean. [00:41:00] In that way, I’m a complete control freak. Like I think most trial lawyers are. And
Elizabeth Larrick: yeah, most lawyers. Yes.
Courtney Parker Wilson: I need to, I need to talk to them. I need to hear them. I need to make a judgment call about what kind of witness this is going to be.
And I might not agree with my paralegal, you know, about that. So I think it’s important for the attorney to do this because you’re the only person who really knows what kind of story you’re trying to tell and if this person is going to help or hurt. So it’s, I feel like it’s hard to delegate that particular task because ultimately you are the conductor, right, of this whole trial.
And you’ve got to know what the moving parts are because you are building it. And if you don’t know what this witness is going to say or how they’re going to come off, You’re not conducting properly, right? [00:42:00] So I think that’s something that you as the attorney really have to be.
Elizabeth Larrick: Yeah, absolutely. And again, because anything you build directly translates into that courtroom and it’s so worth it.
I mean, the quality you put in ahead of time turns into the quality you get in the courtroom. So it definitely makes a huge difference when you are doing it and it pays off. It’s not like it’s going to be a gamble. I’m glad you agree. Awesome. Well, Courtney, thank you so much for joining the podcast again.
I really appreciate it. Thanks. It was so much fun. Good. Awesome. I’m glad that you had a good time. So, all right. Well, thank everybody else for tuning in. If you want to get ahold of Courtney and talk to more about her before and after, but her content information will be in the show notes. And until next time, thank you so [00:43:00] much.