Today, we talk about polishing those listening skills, and how we can use them better with our clients. If we polish this skill and become better active listeners, we will have better trials because we’ll be able to listen better to what the jury is telling us during jury selection. We will have better cross-exams because we’re going to listen actively to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Your direct exam is going to go so much smoother. People get up there and get nervous and half the battle of the direct exam is being able to listen and craft that next question if you’ve got to go back in for the second time. So listen in and learn some of the best ways and some tips on how to get better at active listening and how to prepare your client for depositions.
In this episode, you will hear:
- What is active listening
- Why repeat what they’re saying, not summarize
- Why you should be actively listening
- Building trust through listening
- Getting people ready for deposition
- Examples of bad listening
- Active listening on Zoom
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.
If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just fill in your information below to download it.
Supporting Resources:
Episode Credits
If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.
He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world.
Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com
Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick: [00:00:00] Today we’re going to talk about silence and using silence in our jobs to yield some solid gold. So how can we polish that skill or maybe how can we start it today? Tune in.
Welcome to Trial Lawyer Prep. What if you could hang out with trial lawyers and jury consultants? Ask them about connecting with clients and juries more effectively. Then take strategies, tactics, and insights to increase your success. Each week, Elizabeth Larrick takes 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. Elizabeth is an experienced trial lawyer, consultant, and founder of Larrick Law Firm in Austin, Texas. Her goal is to help you connect with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. Now, here’s Elizabeth.
Hello and welcome. This is Elizabeth Larrick and you’re listening to another episode of Trial Lawyer [00:01:00] Prep. This podcast is designed and created for trial lawyers working with difficult cases, problematic clients, and taking those difficult and problematic cases to trial.
The goal is to help connect you with juries and clients in order to improve your abilities in the courtroom. In today’s episode, we are going to talk about silence and why silence is golden. I had a recent run in with some wonderful silence, and that’d be some amazing active listening. And I thought, you know, it’s a really good time to talk about polishing this skill up because it helps us in so many ways by closing our mouths, opening our ears, and all the wonderful things that can happen when we do that.
And one of the things that always I’m reminded of is, uh, Ernie, the attorney, Ernie Stevenson has a wonderful podcast. I was a guest on his podcast a couple of weeks back, but he calls attorneys, knowledge workers. And I love that phrase, knowledge [00:02:00] workers. And how do we get our knowledge? Well, we listen. So let’s talk a little bit today about polishing those skills and how we can use them better with our clients.
How do we practice this to get better? How can we use this in focus groups? Because really, if we polish this. So, um, we’re gonna talk a little bit about the direct exam. is going to go. So much smoother because people get up there and get nervous and I think half the battle of direct exam is being able to listen and craft that next question if you got to go back in for the second time, right?
So you ask a question on direct and they don’t get the whole answer out there. You need the rest of it, right? So how do you ask it again without saying hello? You missed it. And that helps with [00:03:00] active listening and also helps outside the courtroom when we’re taking depositions or talking to witnesses.
And sometimes I hear from lawyers, they’re using the silence to basically practice what they’re going to say, right? So they’re really not listening at all. So I’m encouraging not to do that. But that reminds me of a recent conversation I had with a lawyer talking about a client getting ready for a four day trial.
And this is a trial, there’s lots of details, you know, all trials have details. Some have more than others. And it just reminded me that We can all get so lost in the details, and I’ve been speaking with this client and helping them, and just lots and lots of details, so many details. And in my conversation with a lawyer, he pointed out that sometimes his client will go off on all these details, and so he just cuts her off, you know, just right in there, interrupts her.
And so I could understand why when I spoke with her and we did some work together, she had good report about the time we spent [00:04:00] together. Because even though we get lost in those details, it’s important always to stick with the silence, try not to interrupt people. And why would I want to do that? Right?
So people get, bogged down with lots of details. Our clients do too. And sometimes those details just don’t even matter. But they don’t know, right? They don’t play the game we play every day. They don’t, they’re not knowledge workers. They don’t know how this system works. And so you got to step back, realize that, and then also just keep listening and knowing that, hey, my job is to get them to the other side.
And sometimes it’s also to educate them with my knowledge about what is important, what’s not important, right? Help them keep that focus on the ball. And so today talking about silence and we’re really going to talk a lot about our clients, right? They’re the people we deal with most learning some of the best ways and some tips on how to active listen better, and then also for a client depositions and how to prepare them, right?
If we don’t listen to what they’re saying, they could say something pretty [00:05:00] detrimental to the case in their depositions. So, let’s just take a step back and what is active listening? There’s all kinds of stuff on the interwebs about active listening. And so these are some of the things that I have done collectively.
And some things that they suggest that I don’t necessarily always do, but there’s nothing wrong with some of this stuff. For me, active listening has a pretty big physical component. Straightening your body and squaring up to the person who’s speaking, keeping your eyes and your head in their direction.
You don’t stare at the person, but making good eye contact. All right. Making sure that they know that your eyes are on them. Keeping those hands still, right? We’re always attracted to grab a pen and paper and take down notes. Sometimes you just got to put it down. You just got to actively listen to what’s saying instead of taking those notes.
So keeping your hands still. Still keeping those feet still. And like I said, not writing, right? Resist the urge to take notes. A lot of times I’ll speak with lawyers about [00:06:00] how to improve their skills in deposition prep and always tell them, don’t take notes. And they normally say, how do you do all that?
How do you remember all that? I said, well, I had a couple of years practice, right? Active listing and writing everything down is not always the good thing because you’re not listening. But also the client wants to know what you’re writing down. What are you writing down over there? You know? So. Yeah. I think you’re kind of distracted.
So if you have to have notes, which I encourage, record the thing, right? We have Zoom right now, which is fantastic to record things super easy. Set up a video camera. You need to bring in an assistant to basically take notes. Do that, but your job would be actively listening. Ask some follow up questions.
Ask some clarifying questions if you need them to clarify, right? Show you’re paying attention and that maybe you want to know more. That’s a great follow up question. Just tell me more about that. Don’t respond in judgment or that doesn’t matter. That’s not what’s important. A lot of times, again, they don’t know.
They don’t live in our world, they don’t know what’s important, what’s not important. It’s hard for them to sort the details out. They [00:07:00] don’t have a system to sort, then they just think it’s all important. It is important not to be judgmental, not to immediately come out of the gate with a response. That’s not important.
Don’t focus on that. Follow up question, clarify question if you need to. Figure out where these thoughts and details are coming from. It’s always helpful. Nodding along. It’s a good way to actively listen. Very important to wait for the person to stop speaking before you start speaking. Now, having moderated several hundred focus groups, you learn how to get someone to stop talking, right?
So make that like, open your mouth like you’re gonna talk. Those are good ways to get people to stop speaking, but that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re not talking about focus group moderating. We’re talking about active listening with our clients. So don’t do that. We know how to make people to stop talking, right?
So don’t do that. Just wait for that person to stop speaking. Keep that blank face, right? Keep that active face facing towards them, but not making a face like you’re about to talk. Repeat things back to them. Good way to keep the conversation going to [00:08:00] make sure that they know that you’re listening.
Summarizing. I try to hesitate not to summarize. Right? Because I don’t want to craft their feelings. I don’t want to say something the wrong way. Just repeat back if you can or just ask follow up questions. So those are some of the main key points for me when I am trying to actively listen and sit down with somebody or sitting in a focus group.
So what does that do when we actively listen? One of the most basic things is showing a sign of importance. What they’re saying is important. Physically, I’m squaring up. I’m listening. What you’re saying is important. It’s a big sign of respect that you’re taking what they’re saying seriously. Shows you’ve got some patience.
You’re not interrupting. And most of the time, becomes a reciprocal agreement, right? I’m going to give you space to talk, and I’m going to listen, and then I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen, right? So we’re kind of making this silent reciprocal agreement about listening. Now some people may be [00:09:00] thinking, all right, you clearly not ever met my client who doesn’t listen and cuts me off.
Well, think back. How did that first interaction with you go, right? Did you listen to them? Did you let them finish everything they’re going to say? Did you interrupt them at all? Some people just have a habit of interrupting. And you got to notice that, right? And again, that helps us with our active listening.
Gosh, they’re going to interrupt me. They’re probably going to interrupt the whole time. I don’t know if this is a good client to work with for me, right? It helps you pay attention to their habits as well. But starting off on the right foot is very helpful. Now, maybe you have a habit of interrupting.
That’s okay. We all have habits. I have a habit of doing that as well. I always have to work on not interrupting people. And when I go back to start actively listening and knowing, oh shoot, I’ve interrupted. Generally, I always apologize. Because I don’t want to interrupt somebody and I’ll reassure them that I’m going to actively listen, right?
I’m here to listen. Okay. But also if you got to start over, you start over. What’s the big deal here that shows that you’re [00:10:00] at least paying attention. And if we do all these things, we bring this into our client relationships, it builds trust always does. And I talk about trust over and over again because I think it’s so vital in the system that we work in.
Because it’s a foreign land for a lot of people, and they’re already in a terrible place, and they’re gonna have to reach out to you, somebody they don’t even know, maybe there’s a referral, and trust you with something huge, right, that’s out of their control. Also sets really good expectations, right, if you treat them that way.
That’s how you want to be treated as well. This all kind of forms and comes around and helps especially when we’re doing deposition prep because we’re really spending a lot more one on one time. Most of the time clients come in, they sit down, Hey, just tell me what to say, right? You tell me what to say.
And this is, to me, is one of the best times to flip the script and to listen. To learn so much more. [00:11:00] And that all comes into this context because of this pressure to get prepared. This deposition. We have a deadline. It’s not just ongoing conversation from intake. As the case goes on, I mean, there’s, there’s a pressure cooker here.
It’s vital to talk about this stuff. You got to get it out of there. They know that they’re going to be asked all kinds of questions. So this deposition pressure really helps create this place where we got to sit down and talk and listen. And in the times that I’ve done that, I’ve learned. So much more.
I’ve learned new stories, new feelings, family history, disputes. secrets, all kinds of stuff that people have kind of hidden up in there. And a lot of times, the feedback after I sit down with a client, they say, that’s the best therapy I’ve ever had. I’ve never talked to somebody that long about what happened to me or about My injuries, or I put this stuff far, far away.
I packed it away. I didn’t want to get it back out and talk about it, [00:12:00] but I’m so glad that I did because my feelings around it, my understanding around it is so much better. I have such more clarity about it. And that makes. I love that. That’s why I love getting people ready for deposition. It is one of my favorite things.
I saw that as my passion many, many years ago and have done everything I can to keep doing it. I really love it. And to me, and I’ve probably talked about it before and I’ll always talk about it again is the listening part of it. I think it’s one of the skills that has made this. Such a passion for me and made it easy for me.
This is something I love to do and it’s easy. I could do it all day. Focus groups, the same thing, right? Listen, I have that really, really trained diet and make sure that I’m active listening. And also along the way, ultimately I am genuinely interested. You know, I genuinely want to help and I want to be curious about it.
But when I think about where [00:13:00] does this come from, it’s always back to when I walk into, we walk into these people’s lives, we’re strangers. They don’t know us. It’s a legal relationship. And so to sit down and have really an intimate discussion because They’re going to have a deposition and a stranger is going to ask them questions and it’s not going to be active listening.
It’s a very, very weird proposition that we have with depositions. Question answer, question answer. How do we set the tone then? Right? We’re complete strangers. Well, that’s what I’ve done. It’s just really intently actively listen. I mean, people can come in very hostile, very defensive. They don’t want to do it.
They don’t want to be there. What’s the point of this? It’s going to be fine. And I’m going to be fine. And that all melts away when they realize, Oh, well, she’s listening. Wait a minute, she’s not taking any notes? She’s not telling me what to do? She’s not interrupting me? She’s not judging what I’m saying?
She was asking follow up questions? Wow. It really makes such a [00:14:00] big difference. Now, I’m also growing, right? I’m learning more. I’m helping the case. So that’s my urge, right? That’s my purpose of having today’s episode about silence. It’s like, ah, it’s gonna be so much better for you. And then, Once you’re practicing on your clients and that gets better and you get better referrals, that’s all just going to pour into everything else that you do, depositions, trial, jury selection, focus groups.
One of the good examples of bad listening would be I was helping a lawyer, called me up. I got a client, he says, who won’t listen to what he says. who is terrible at expressing his empathy and expressing what’s happened to him and his injuries and what’s going on in his life. He just, I don’t think people are gonna like him.
Can you come in and help? Sure, sure, sure. Happy to do it. So, go to the office, meet the gentleman, client, he’s very nice. He is very talkative, totally talkative. He’s just talking my ear off. [00:15:00] But when he’s talking, I’m learning so much. He’s got this amazing backstory and about how he came to America and he’s working and trying to support family and wants to start a family.
And the lawyer comes in and wants to sit in, hang out, listen. Sure, sure. Lawyer comes in, opens up a laptop and starts just working on something else. It’s not listening at all, totally can tell. And then all of a sudden we’ll stop while the client and I are having a conversation and interrupt and say, Nope, that’s not important.
Don’t worry about that. Don’t say it like that. That lawyer is going to blah, blah. I’m just like, Oh my gosh, whoa, whoa, what’s happening here? Not only are you, you’re the opposite of active listening and you’re disparaging spouting out these questions. It got to a point where we actually had to stop what was doing.
Gently ask the lawyer to come out in the hallway and just, again, I’m going to start active listening and figure out where’s this coming [00:16:00] from. What’s happening? And learning very quickly, there was no self awareness. He’s not aware at all what he was doing. I thought there was a problem or that that might be not very encouraging to the client.
And ultimately, I said, Hey, I’ll just finish the session and I’ll catch you up whenever we finish. So there is a good way to destroy a client relationship. And there’s a good way for the clients to stop listening to what you’re saying. If you don’t ever give them space and you don’t listen to what they’re saying.
So it can terribly injure the relationship you have with your client. If you don’t pay attention, do some active listening. Be respectful. Just be respectful to people and what they’re going through. And a lot of times, if I have a client that really, they’re pretty talkative, you know, I always say, hey, let’s, let’s have an agreement.
I really want to listen and listen to what you guys say, but can we make an agreement? I’ll 100 percent do that. And then when it’s my turn, you’ll 100 percent do it. All right, great. Let’s go. It’s okay to point it out if you need to. And [00:17:00] so what I want to do is challenge you to start some active listening, to work on your listening skills.
The easiest way to do that and how I learned to do it best was getting the physical part of it down, physically just training my body to do it. And then eventually my mind would follow even if there’s a new place, there’s a new courtroom, new people had the same routine, right? get my body squared up.
Whatever chair I’m going to sit in, but my feet firmly on the ground, not crossing the ankles, got my hands in my lap, got my eyes forward or my eyes on the person, and just a nice blank face. No, no judgy, uh, wrinkles going on over here. And as I If it did that, I saw positive responses, which is just going to reinforce me, which it did.
Then my mind followed. Right? So I had to get the physical side down before my mind would cooperate and follow along. What happened was, as [00:18:00] I’m doing that I’m getting pretty good positive responses was just reinforcing me. Right? So I just keep doing it. But the openness, the not judging clients really open up.
That’s what I would encourage you to do. Work on that physical part of it. Right? even if it’s for five minutes in a deposition or 10 minutes listening to the client. And you can still do this on Zoom, right? We can still see each other, make sure nothing’s distracting. Maybe for your next deposition prep is working on, maybe you’re not, didn’t start out well with this client, or maybe that’s your worry is the client won’t listen to you, right?
Start out like that, ask a question. Get all lined up and see what happens and then just keep practicing. It’s always helpful to remove all distractions, right? Get your phone out of there, ask them to remove all the distractions as well, right? That quid pro quo will significantly help. And just to reinforce this practice of active listening and why it’s so important to do it at initial client interviews.
And [00:19:00] even if that maybe didn’t go so smoothly, you can still do it for deposition prep. Start over on that new page in focus groups. So it’s totally a group of strangers, right? And people can say some crazy stuff in focus groups. Totally true. But what I have found is if you interrupt that one person. If you stop that person from talking, it really creates a discouraged environment.
And maybe not everybody’s discouraged from volunteering, but if you’re going to discourage a couple people, it’s really hard to recover that environment. If you have stopped somebody from sharing, or you’ve interrupted somebody, or you are maybe a little judgy, even if it’s, even if it’s positive, Oh, that’s a great comment.
Oh, I love that. Somebody else may be discouraged. Because you’ve judged the comment, right? You’ve judged whatever it may be. And again, we’re talking about focus groups here, which is where we want everyone to share, but it’s a group of [00:20:00] strangers. A piece of feedback that I get very often with my focus groups is you do a good job because You ask everyone to contribute, you make sure everybody is engaged, and it’s welcome.
Everybody is welcome. And you do that by making sure everybody has a chance to talk. You don’t let people talk over each other. You don’t let people interrupt each other. And that’s work. You know, that’s, that’s really hard. But I always start my focus groups by making sure everybody understands this is our environment.
And I will start off by not saying anything. I will give respect first, and hopefully everybody will follow. Occasionally, we have people who don’t. Most of the time, I try to give ample space and time before we do have to step up and ask people, Hey, don’t interrupt people, you know, let’s, everybody’s welcome.
And occasionally, it doesn’t happen every time, but it’s definitely happened. If you’ve had that experience, moderating a focus group can be a little bit uncomfortable. But, it’s also kind of your job as a [00:21:00] moderator to make sure everybody has that open sharing environment. So awesome. Well, I hope that you found this episode.
full of some knowledge and something that you can take back to your job, but it’s also great to use at home. Although sometimes I find that my lawyer ears turn off when I leave the building, but I promise I will keep working on my active listening as well. So if you found this episode helpful, please rate it, share it with somebody else.
And if you have any comments or questions, please don’t hesitate to email me and I will put my email in the show notes. So Thanks again. And until next time, thank you.
