Client Deposition Preparation: A Quick but Crucial Tip [Ep121]

Client depositions in 2024 are still virtual, but how are you preparing your client? Virtual? In person? Equip yourself with strategies that ensure your client is not just ready but confident and composed. Join me as I dive into the essential practice of virtual deposition preparation. You’ll learn why it’s crucial to simulate the actual virtual environment during practice, helping clients handle technical hiccups and communicate effectively when things go awry.

In this episode, I share actionable tips drawn from real-life experiences. From practicing with Zoom to managing on-screen documents, discover how segmenting preparation sessions can vastly improve client performance. Tune in to understand why treating these practice sessions with the utmost seriousness can set your clients up for success, making those virtual depositions less daunting and more manageable.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Importance of simulating the virtual environment during practice
• Handling technical issues and communicating effectively online
• Benefits of segmenting preparation sessions for better client retention

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Episode Transcript

Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. I’m your host, Elizabeth Larrick, and I’m really glad that you’re here today.

This is going to be a short episode, but very vital to what you do every day because we are talking about client deposition preparation, nearly any litigation case. your client is going to have to be deposed. It’s just part of the process. It’s how the other side does their calculations. And mostly like we’ve talked about before in other episodes, your client has got a really big target on their back.

So they want to get their bite at your client in a deposition. However, here we sit and it’s 2024 and a majority of client depositions are still being taken virtual. In my experience, what I have been seeing it in helping lawyers with deposition prep. A good chunk is still being taken virtually. And so I wanted to put this episode out to kind of a little bit of refresh, but also tell you what the experience has been that I have seen that really helps specifically with preparation.

And it comes out of a conversation that I had with a lawyer recently who asked me what my opinion was about preparing clients in person or virtually. And what I told him was, Hey, listen, here’s how I think of it, which is practice. Like you play, if your deposition is going to be taken virtually, you need to be doing the preparation, all of it, or a good chunk of it.

Most of it needs to be done virtually with your client because we want to give them the best preparation possible. So even if. You are going to just spend maybe an hour on one day and an hour on another day with your client. Again, we’ve talked about the extreme benefits of separating your prep file on two different days.

That little trick alone will significantly increase client success of retention of the information you’re giving them. But Again, going back to different days when we’re just going to have two hours, one hour on each day, having that preparation virtually, even if you have access to your client, you live in the same town, they want to drive down.

Like you still want to put them in a different room, put them in front of a computer and practice being on front of the zoom, because there are so many frustrations that to us now, we’re four years in. Okay. To doing a lot of things virtually. We, it’s now normal to us, but most of our clients have gone back to doing most of their things and their jobs back in person.

So they have forgotten about the frustration that can come when you can’t hear or the vigilance you have to have, that if that last part of that sentence cuts out or that question, you have to stop and say, can you start over? I didn’t hear that. And that can cause a lot of frustration. For the client in the deposition in the virtual depositions.

And so you just, you really want to give them a good head start with practicing in preparation on zoom. The other thing I find really helpful is that when you practice looking at documents. Because again, there is a lot of extra burden on the person being deposed to say, I can’t see that. Can you make it bigger?

Or I can’t hear you. Or I need you to repeat that, which wouldn’t happen if you were in person. So if you’re practicing, you’re preparing your client in person for virtual, They’re going to miss out on that whole practice they would have with the virtual. So again, this is a short but crucial tip in preparing clients for depositions when it’s going to be virtual and practice like you play.

I used to play a lot of team sports, soccer, basketball. And if we’re out there lollygagging or doing whatever our coach would be like, if you, this is how you practice, then this is how you’re going to play a game time. So we have to practice hard. Like it is a game time. And that’s exactly what I always say here.

People ask me like, well, what’s your preference? And I always say, well, we have a moment in time to prepare people to do their best In the step position where they may only have one, two, three hours to give everything they’ve got to this other side for evaluation for, you know, all these things, how they are perceived, what they say, how they say it.

And so we have so much to pack in, in the form of information, in the form of. Here’s how things are going to happen. And so doing this simple step of doing it on virtual, really, we’re covering that step. Instead of me explaining to somebody in person, Oh, you’re going to have to do this. They have the actual practice of Oh, I can’t hear you.

Oh, say that again. Oh, I can’t see that document. Or, you know, can you highlight that for me? Like being very proactive in being able to hear and see what’s going on. And again, just working through some of that frustration, not to mention the small things that we talked about originally when virtual came out.

Depositions came about, which is, do they have the right setup? Meaning do we need to get them somewhere where they can have good internet and good lighting? Do we need to change their background or teach them how to put the blurry background on so that that’s not even a problem with the deposition. You know, that way, again, we’re starting out on the best foot possible and giving the best practice.

Now, if our deposition is in person, then yes, all or most of your preparation should be in person. Again, for that same reason, being face to face. having that different emotional connection that you, that somebody may have or that pressure, right. Of being, you know, deposed with a bunch of strangers in a room.

Again, this is always why when we are preparing for deposition in person, we don’t prepare somebody at their home at a place where they are very comfortable. Like we prepare in a stale conference room, because that is how that deposition will be a stale. emotionless room versus being at home, right?

There’s a lot of comfort. And that’s the same thing with virtual, right? That is a huge benefit of being in a comfortable place, being at home versus, being in this, you know, stale environment where, you know, any emotions being sucked out of the room by the opposing counsel. And you want to be able to, again, practice that with folks they’re getting ready for deposition.

So this is a short episode of, I felt it was really important because in my conversation with this lawyer, where we talked about that, like, do we do it virtual or do we do it in person? And Oh, this is how I’ve always done it is go in person. And then it was like, he said, wow, I never thought of it that way.

And you should be telling people this because they’re probably thinking the same way I am, which is, Oh, it’s a deposition. I’m going to go in person and prepare this person and, you know, have a better connection and, uh, you know. Well, sure, but we’re missing out on that practice. So this is me telling all of y’all, uh, one of the easiest, smallest things to do is switch that preparation from in person to Zoom when you have that virtual deposition notice.

Okay. And also think of this too, when it comes to experts, which I think we are already doing this. Um, yeah. But if you’re not, same rule applies for our experts, right? Give them that practice. If they’re not used to it, give, especially with the documents. And that’s a whole different ballgame. Most of our clients don’t have to tackle a ton of documents, right?

We may have medical records, maybe some emails, text messages, uh, maybe some contracts, things we have to look at not nearly as much as our experts may. So remember practice like you play. Right. And this applies, you know, when I talk about this too, when we talk about focus groups, right? Practice like you play because you want it to feel as realistic as game time as possible.

Right. So that’s what we’re doing here today. Okay. I hope that this episode was helpful. If it was, please pass it on to somebody else. Click that little share button, text it to somebody, send an email to somebody who you know is possibly needs to hear That they could lift a burden off themselves, but also do this virtual preparation before depositions with clients to give them that added bonus, that added benefit of practicing with that platform before they get there.

Okay. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you enjoyed it. If you would please leave a review. I got to tell you, it’s been a little while, almost a year. So somebody just reach down there, pick those five, hit the rating, but also leave a little review and it helps other people find this podcast. All right.

Until next time. Thank you so much.