What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants, ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively, and then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success?
That’s what we do here each week on Trial Lawyer Prep. This is a podcast for trial lawyers with a focus on difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial. Every episode is an in-depth look at how to regain touch with the everyday world, understand the emotional burden of your clients and juries, and use focus groups in this process.
Our goal is to help you connect with juries and clients so you can improve your abilities in the courtroom. This podcast is going to be about preparing cases step-by-step while always keeping an eye on the jury trial.
We will be giving you the tools, strategies, tips, and techniques in preparing cases to help you get in the trenches while also bringing the fun back to the practice of law and, more importantly, to help you sleep better at night.
In this episode, you will hear:
- About the podcast
- About the podcast host – my journey through the practice of law
Subscribe and Review
Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet.
We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast.
Supporting Resources:
Episode Transcript:
Hello, and welcome everyone to the first episode of Trial Lawyer Prep.
This is a podcast for trial lawyers with a focus on difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial. I am Elizabeth Larrick. I run a law firm practice in a legal consulting business in [00:01:00] Austin, Texas. As we begin this podcast journey together, I wanted to do introduction of how I got here to this present point of podcasting about being a trial lawyer.
We all start somewhere and it’s the journey, not the destination that creates us into the person, the lawyer that we are. It’s great to read about a jury verdict, a fantastic result, but it’s the behind the scene facts and investigation and case building that I want to know about as a lawyer. And that’s really what this podcast is going to be about preparing cases, the step by step, but always keeping our eye on that final sprint of a case.
The jury trial. I went to law school with the goal of helping people navigate the legal system. Law school is mildly helpful at pointing in the direction of your career, but all in all, law school is. Mostly getting you to graduate, pass the bar, and then releasing you into the wild. Before law school, I knew I wanted to help.
I wanted to work with people and be in the courtroom. Law [00:02:00] school and internships guided me into three broad categories. Criminal law, civil, personal injury law, and civil family law. One of the most important parts was finding a job that would teach me to actually practice law. I graduated university at Oklahoma Law School and started the search.
I was very lucky to land my first job at a personal injury law firm representing only injured folks, plaintiffs. Within the year, I was able to help on a jury trial, and every year after, getting into the courtroom for one or two jury trials. I was learning a ton about the practice of law and the business side as well, thank you Mr.
McIntyre, but I felt a big tug in my heart to return to Texas, to get closer to family. So after three years, I packed up and headed to Austin, Texas. I landed in a small firm, but eventually again, felt that tug in my heart to go out on my own. Thus, Larrick Law Firm was born in 2015. Then shortly after [00:03:00] opening my own shop, I jumped into an amazing opportunity for hands on trial experience.
A fellowship opened up with Mr. Don Keenan and the Keenan Law Firm, where I could join in work up cases, and even join trials across the country. So for about a year, I juggled my law firm and also flying out every month to Florida or Georgia or whatever state we were going to be trying cases in to be a part of the Keenan Law Firm.
In my fellowship, I tried cases in Kentucky, Washington and Nevada, sometimes lasting even nearly three weeks long. Plus, during the trials, we would have case workshops where we work up cases, we would run focus groups, and all in all just build cases up to go to trial. This particular framework is what I took back to my law firm and I use today.
I finished my fellowship exhausted, but excited. I get back to Austin and I just start working at my cases and start [00:04:00] doing some focus groups with local lawyers here. As a solo keeping costs efficient was vital, but I really loved doing focus groups. And eventually that love showed through and other people started asking me to do their focus groups.
And so I really enjoyed doing that. Doing those and of course, still do those today. And we’ll talk a lot about that in the podcast and the jump for me to prepare clients for deposition or for trial. This was one of the biggest turning points for me in my work was finding a way to help clients prepare for deposition.
And I came upon a continuing legal education seminar for depositions. As a puppy lawyer, brand new lawyer, my role in the firm was to take clients to their deposition, make sure things went well. And they generally did, but I found a pretty big dissatisfaction in my clients after they finished. So back to the CLE seminar that I go in for depositions, because I want to learn to take depositions.
But along the [00:05:00] way, I was asked to come up on stage to role play. And I had to play a client instead of playing the lawyer. And it really opened my eyes to that feeling that they get to that panic, not knowing what to say, but yet all in all knowing that the person across the table is just basically trying to get you.
I walk away from the CLE seeing this huge problem, but also getting a template. I’m working the CLE particulars put in by Mr. Keenan. And I got to know Mr. Keenan, and he has a witness prep template that I use parts of, but also that I teach. He has a Keenan trial institute that I teach with every year, and actually am part of putting together the client prep for depositions.
So flashback to Puppy Lawyer, get this great template, start using it, and it’s a try try, try, try, and as I go along I’m seeing a little bit of success, but fell deeply in love with the process and saw how clients were [00:06:00] transformed into these really confident, authentic people that told their story and And left feeling good.
And that’s really what I wanted was to help people in this weird process of the civil legal system. That’s something I really gravitated towards and have fine tuned and fine tuned. And again, this is something that people have asked me to do for them because maybe it’s not something they really want to do.
Maybe something they don’t have time for, or maybe they have a particular problematic client. And that’s kind of where it just became a very natural fit for me, which then rolled into focus groups. Because I learned how to listen, I wanted this feedback, and to get out of the way, listen to what people are saying, and roll it into case preparation.
Long story short, a few years later, and here we are in this podcast, to talk about these tools, to talk about strategy and planning, lots of tips and techniques in preparing [00:07:00] cases that we want to help you with. So, I’ve spent my legal career as a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer. I love what I do. I love helping folks when they’re at their lowest.
I love being their voice, but wow, this field can wear you down. It can frustrate you and mostly just exhaust you. It’s a huge roller coaster, highs, super high and low, super low. And there became points where I just really struggled with keeping up the law firm and having a lot of motivation and that’s really where I found these focus groups and helping people with deposition really brought me back up right on that roller coaster ride.
So for me, I want always to learn more about how to do my job better. I’m always looking for reading a book or seeing a seminar and these are great, but occasionally I just really want how to solve this problem. Uh, and as trial lawyers, we really want to prepare from the start. [00:08:00] going into that courtroom.
And naturally, most of our CLEs and continuing education doesn’t really focus on the super hard cases. We see the best of the best. And so what I want to do with this podcast is really get in the trenches and really work on how to bring fun back to the practice of law and more importantly to help you sleep better at night.
So I’m excited to start this podcast and I appreciate you joining me. As you know, this show is brand shiny new. This is episode number one and any and all support is greatly appreciated. If you haven’t already done so subscribe on your favorite podcast app, maybe Apple, Google, Spotify, wherever you listen, write a five star review, and if you could just share it with other lawyer friends and folks that you know, that may be struggling with the case.
Thanks so [00:09:00] much.
