Three Focus Group Questions You can Use to Reveal Hidden Case Weaknesses [Ep 157]
“What part of this story just doesn’t hit you right?”
How would a potential juror answer that question? We’re talking about gut feeling, instinctive reaction: something that’s there, and they’re trying to put their finger on it.
These are very good avenues to explore in focus groups, and can uncover emotional and cognitive responses that you weren’t expecting.
Today’s episode features three questions that are deceptively simple yet powerful in their nuance and framing. Successfully applying them will not only make your case stronger, but help you be much better prepared for what the other side is thinking as well.
In this episode:
- Strategic questions can reveal case weaknesses effectively.
- There are hidden weaknesses in your case that you may not see.
- Asking jurors to explain the case in their own words can uncover confusion.
- Emotional responses are crucial in jury decision-making.
Have a trial or mediation coming up and want to test with a focus group? Book a free consultation call with Elizabeth to learn more: www.calendly.com/elizabethlarrick
Are you a lawyer looking to run your own virtual focus groups? I have a free starter kit that can help you get started that includes checklists, questionnaires, confidentiality forms and more!
Use this link to download: https://elizabethlarrick.kit.com/diyvirtualfocusgroups
Don’t miss out on the Trial Lawyer Prep Newsletter that is delivered right to your email with extra tips and ‘how to’ information. Join the newsletter here:
Episode Transcript
Elizabeth Larrick (00:00.746)
You think you know your case’s weaknesses. You’ve lived with this file for months, maybe even years. But there are hidden weaknesses even you can’t see. And the right focus group questions will reveal everything.
Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep, where you learn to better connect with clients and juries, gather persuasive strategies, and learn how to use focus groups in the process. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and in today’s episode, we’re gonna dive into a direct how-to for your focus groups.
Today, I wanna share three questions that you can use to expose problems you didn’t even know that you had. And these aren’t necessarily obvious questions. In fact, sometimes when lawyers hear them, they’re pretty surprised. But great questions can reveal really great hidden biases in your cases. Now, these are just three questions from hundreds that I have developed over the years of running focus groups.
I pick different questions based on the specific facts that you give me on the problems that you’re trying to solve and what we’re trying to discover as a focus group discussion unfolds. But these are the three that give you a taste of how the right questions can uncover the case weaknesses you didn’t know you had. So if you’re heading to trial or maybe you have that big mediation coming up and wanna make sure you have strategic insight about your case,
Let’s talk about setting up a virtual focus group for you. I run several every single month. And you can click the link in the show notes for a free consultation. All right, let’s dive into these three specific questions you can use. Question number one. If you had to explain this case to a friend who knows nothing about it, what would you say? This question is excellent at trying to get
Elizabeth Larrick (02:08.696)
the focus group members to regurgitate your presentation and they take a different frame because they can’t just tell you exactly what you said. Now they’ve got to explain it to someone. So it’s very creative in the sense that we’re getting out of our typical tell me what you think. It also kind of bypasses some legal jargon and gets you out of your own way as a moderator. But really what this is revealing is where is their confusion?
where are their missing steps? Whereas you have created maybe this presentation, you’ve created this opening statement, you feel like it’s got everything they would need, but this question will show you really what they have in their minds because they’re then recreating it, okay? And that’s really what we wanna make sure because that’s how memories are made. Now, let me give you a quick example of this. We often have lawyers that come in and they will practice an opening statement.
and then we will go directly into getting feedback from our focus group. So in these situations, do fairly often hear when I ask this question, focus group members are missing vital pieces of the presentation that’s been given by the lawyers, and then they just fill the holes with things that they never even heard. Or there has definitely been times where I ask this question,
And when I get back is a blank stare because then they actually realize I don’t even know how to describe how the crash happened. I can tell you where it was. I’m pretty sure I can tell you a couple things about the injuries, but I don’t even know how this crash happened. That is a huge problem and definitely something that you want to know. Also, this gives you an idea of some of those facts or assumptions that people make when they just hear some of the facts, but not the whole thing, right?
And again, this is where that regurgitation comes from when they give it back to you. So you can see where that confusion was, find what they’re missing and then be able to reconnect them and figure out ways in that strategic insight session to learn how you can present a little better. So we always wanna know how our case comes off to people. Well, ask them to explain it to someone else. All right, our second question that we have for you today,
Elizabeth Larrick (04:33.742)
kind of falls more into the, I would call an emotional category. We always wanna be thinking about how our cases are emotionally hitting people. We’re emotional creatures, we make almost all our decisions that way, that’s what brain science tells us. So in focus groups, we really wanna be asking questions that get to how the participants are feeling, and that’s really hard to get to without sounding like you’re.
pandering or looking for sympathy. this particular question I find very helpful and that is what part of this story just doesn’t hit you right? Maybe it just doesn’t sit with you, right? That’s all it is a very simple question and it’s broad for a reason because we want to gather up anything that may not be sitting right with them, but it doesn’t make it so specific that they
kind of say, well, I’m not really sure because they maybe can’t put their finger on it either. So it gets to our emotions without using the word feeling. A lot of folks, when you ask them, well, how are you feeling about it? Sometimes they don’t know, right? So it’s hard to get them to answer that question. That’s why I love this one because again, it’s pretty broad. It avoids the appearance of pandering for sympathy. And then again, kind of reveals some of these hidden things that they may not be able to totally put their finger on, but rather,
tugging at them or whatever that hunch may be. So again, this question’s super neutral and it gives people kind of the option to say something that may not be fully formed right in an opinion, but it just doesn’t sit right. And one of the examples that I have for this is we recently ran a focus group, a fairly long focus group I would say, on a nursing home case. And so the facts were really, there’s some severe negligence claims going on.
And we wanted to know where were the feels in this case. were lots of different things that we had expected to hear, but one of the things we did not expect to hear when we had this question was that the fact that they had stopped charting in the medical records. That was something that just did not sit right with a large portion of the panel. And again, not something that we had flagged as an expectation before.
Elizabeth Larrick (06:56.696)
There were many other pieces of egregious facts that were very touching, very terrible, that would give somebody the feels, but that particular one was not one we expected and very glad that we asked that question because then we were able to kind of gather it up and be able then to put that at the forefront of the case when they were getting ready to formulate their presentation. So when something doesn’t sit right with focus groupers, with our jurors,
they find a way to tap into that and rule against you. We don’t want that. We want to be able to find where it is those feels are not matching up before you get there, right? That gut feeling that they may be having, you wanna be sure and discover those early on so then you can reshape your presentation of evidence, reshape how you are talking about the case as well. All right.
Our last question to share with you in this episode is kind of a strategic framing question. So there’s two parts to it, okay? And you’re gonna see why there are two parts. The question goes, the plaintiff loses, why do you think that would be? Now I’m using the word plaintiff with you because if I tried to use an example, it’d be challenging. So in this scenario, you would want to put in whatever the main
name or if you said person driving car B or the red car. And then you would flip flop and you say, if the defendant loses, why do you think that would be? Now I love this question because we’re getting both sides of the coin here. So we’re really as a moderator, as somebody seeking feedback, we are looking very neutral and we’re also having them put on two different point of views. This works excellent.
when you have a focus group that feels like it’s very weighted feedback on one side, because then you’re going to force people to put on the other point of view and give you their thoughts. And it really makes them articulate the strongest arguments for you and get rid of any fluff. If there is any. Again, I like this from both sides. And typically when I use this question, I tell them ahead of time, we’re going to take both sides. Okay, so let’s start with this one. If the
Elizabeth Larrick (09:20.994)
blue car loses, right? Why would that be? And again, if we’re just looking, we’ve got a short time period and we just really wanna get in there and get those main case weaknesses, this is a great question to get right on it. And again, it’s pretty broad. If you wanted to finagle with language, which you don’t have to, remove that word why and just say, how come? If FedEx loses,
How come, right? You could make it even shorter and simpler than that. But again, you can use the whole one as well. Obviously I’ve used this question many a times and it’s very helpful when we get to see our focus groupers take both sides of it. And again, in the frame of why lose, okay? Not why win, okay? But why lose? Very key on that. And again, helping you understand where is the true battleground for your case.
So this question does a lot of heavy lifting for you and it shows you kind of those real weaknesses that are boiled down to those simple points. And you can do it without revealing your own bias. These are three very simple questions you can start using today in your focus groups. So let me say them one more time for you so that we make sure we get them right. And of course, you know there’s gonna be a transcript somewhere that you can also
look at. again, question number one, if you had to explain this case to a friend who knows nothing about it, what would you say? Question number two, what part of this story doesn’t sit right with you? Question number three, if you were the plaintiff, if you were the defendant, loses, why do you think that would be? Or in a shortened version, if you’re the plaintiff,
If the plaintiff loses, how come? If the defendant loses, how come? Now, you’ll notice none of these questions are asking our jurors to vote, right? Yes or no, or make any kind of decisions. Instead, we’re really trying to reveal how they are thinking and feeling, which is really key in these focus groups. And really what you need before trial, before that big mediation,
Elizabeth Larrick (11:45.142)
Instead of just a simple note, we really want to know how things are working in their brains, how they’re synthesizing things and analyzing your case. That’s the key point, of course, of doing focus groups. If you found these three questions helpful and you would want more specific strategies, then please join my monthly newsletter. I share one email a month that has practical tips, focus group techniques, witness prep, how-tos,
to help you each month and the link to join the email newsletter will be in the show notes. Thank you again for listening to Trial Lawyer Prep and until next time, keep prepping to win.