Emerging Litigation Podcast

From Socks to Strategy: What Zoom Focus Groups Reveal About Your Case with Elizabeth Larrick

• Tom Hagy

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How do you know if your witness is credible? Is your evidence compelling—or confusing? And will a jury really care about those bright orange socks?

In this episode of the Emerging Litigation Podcast, trial attorney and focus group consultant Elizabeth Larrick joins me to explain how remote focus groups are changing the way lawyers prepare for trial. Elizabeth shares what she’s learned from conducting over 1,000 Zoom focus groups—insights on testing case narratives, assessing witness credibility, refining trial strategy, and even improving jury selection.

You’ll hear how quick, targeted virtual sessions help identify blind spots, shape more persuasive stories, and prevent courtroom surprises—while also giving lawyers valuable practice engaging with real people before trial.

Plus: What happens when jurors prefer the disheveled guy over the polished one? Why you should probably rethink those flashy shoes? And why, sometimes, less (facial expression) is more.

Thanks to Elizabeth for sharing her expertise—and her sharp eye for socks.

If you have comments or wish to participate in one our projects please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
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Tom Hagy:

Welcome to the Emerging Litigation Podcast. I'm Tom Hagy, longtime litigation enthusiast, editor, publisher and now podcaster. I'm founder of HB Litigation, which is now part of Critical Legal Content, a business I founded in 2012 to serve as a content marketing department for law firms and litigation service providers. And now here's today's episode. If you like what you hear, please give us a rating. If you want to reach me, please check out my contact information in the show notes.

Tom Hagy:

So, let's say, your case involves a man who has suffered traumatic brain damage and his family, who has filed suit against a company they blame for his injuries, has found some home movies of their dad playing cheerfully with his grandchildren. This was before the accident. He was demonstrating a full set of faculties that that aren't there after the accident. You wonder how might a jury respond to the video? When in the trial should it be presented? Might there be any surprise reactions, unintended consequences, I guess, to a side-by-side comparison of the before and after of the man? What if the video was uncovered close to trial? You haven't had it all this time and then it turned up in the attic. How are you going to get answers about its use quickly? How are you going to get feedback on it in time to make adjustments to your presentation. That's what we're going to talk about on today's episode of the Emerging Litigation Podcast. We're going to dive into a solution for this problem and that is remote trial focus groups, and we're going to talk to Elizabeth Larrick, a seasoned trial attorney who discovered she had a knack and a passion for jury research, for case strategy and for preparing witnesses, and she talks about this all through the use of focus groups conducted remotely. Now she's done more than a thousand of these, can you imagine, so she's got a lot of experience behind what she has to say. So listen in. She's going to share these insights into conducting these sessions and in a way that will empower attorneys to refine their trial strategies Also will empower them to gauge the credibility of witnesses and their own credibility, for that matter. It also can help measure the value of evidence and helps tell compelling stories that win in court. We all want to win in court. We all want to win in life. But let's focus here. We're going to talk about how virtual focus groups differ from traditional mock jury situations, the unique advantages of virtual focus groups, how they can help lawyers sharpen these presentations, the presentations of their arguments and their evidence. We're also going to get a sense of how it can help determine the value of cases.

Tom Hagy:

We're going to touch on some of the little things, too, that matter, like an attorney's choice of socks how that might sit with a jury if he comes in when they're particularly flashy. So who knew that they could be a factor in attorney credibility? But we all know such a thing can. It raises questions too, like which is worse? Do you want to have an attorney wearing attention-grabbing socks or no socks at all? And Elizabeth and I kind of landed on not wearing them could be worse. I guess it depends on ankles. It all depends on the ankles, so let's not judge everybody. We welcome your thoughts on this, because we know you have them and we want to hear them. Sometimes I get off track, like I think I just did.

Tom Hagy:

We did end up talking about some of my favorite things, which is a bizarre trend where people are using artificial intelligence to turn themselves back into babies. You know videos, rather you know than actually going back in time. So you know you've probably done this, people have probably done this for you. Sometimes, though, when people do it, the baby image comes out and the baby has a complete set of adult teeth. It's a disturbing look. It's more disturbing than you might imagine and I'm going to show you With that. Check your socks, check your baby teeth. Here's my interview with Elizabeth Larrick of the Austin, texas-based Larrick Law Firm. I hope you enjoy it. Elizabeth, thank you very much for talking with me today. I really appreciate it. This is an interesting topic to me and that's where you say it's a pleasure to be here. I've never been on such a professional. No, I'm kidding.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I'm listening in for the cue and the space.

Tom Hagy:

Elizabeth, thank you very much for doing this today.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I'm so sorry I did it again.

Tom Hagy:

No, I don't care, let's forget it. So, let's just get right to it. So so why don't you tell me a little bit about what you do first, or tell me, or tell our listeners, what you do?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yes, Tom. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I am excited to be here so much that I keep interrupting you.

Tom Hagy:

It's so natural it is so natural.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yes, I am a lawyer here in Austin, Texas, and I did plaintiff's personal injury for many years. Got in the courtroom, did some trials and really just found that I had a knack and a love for helping folks with focus groups and witness prep. And so I about five years ago, right before the pandemic, turned everything over to do trial consulting and wound on my firm and so that's what I've been doing here for the past couple of years. But all along I've always been doing focus groups, been taught witness prep, but really just had a good sense of listening to folks and being able to help lawyers understand that and then translate that into opening statements and jury selection and fun stuff like a cross-exam.

Tom Hagy:

Okay, well, very cool. So let me get started on the basics. Here we're talking about focus groups. We're talking about doing them virtually, like we are right now. This is virtual, really. No, it's not really virtual, it's just remote. Virtual would be like if we were avatars or something I think, never mind.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I think people get a little. It's one or the other. Zoom focus groups generally gets us real specific about what we're talking.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, I'm an editor, so these things concern me a lot. It's like when we say oh is it, they say, is it a webinar or is it a live meeting? Well, it's both, you know what I mean. So all right, that's boring, let's dive in then to so talk about kind of the basics of of what we are and what we aren't talking about with a Zoom focus group.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yeah. So you know we most time when lawyers think about focus groups, they think mock juries. That is not what we're doing through Zoom. It's just it's way too complicated. So these are really simple groups that meet for an hour, two hours, three hours with, you know, eight to 10, 12 folks. And we're doing, you know, neutral feedback, you know, just to find what our blind spots are. We're doing opening statements to do some advocacy, to figure out what are our case themes, and we can even do witness credibility, have people watch clips and tell us what they think. So it's a very flexible space and what is so unique about right now is so many people have the technology and have used Zoom, they have the internet, whereas before the pandemic it really was impossible to find a group of people who had all those capabilities, and now everybody does.

Tom Hagy:

Right, yeah, yeah, it was fun to hear some of the stuff during during the pandemic of things that didn't go well, but I remember there was, there were actual trials taking place and I do remember, you know, there were a couple of jurors were. One guy was pushing his grocery cart around with his kids, uh, in the grocery store while he was on trial. Another one was just lying down in his bed and, uh, they were thought. They thought maybe he was going to smoke pot or something, the way he was kind of reaching for, uh, for something that looked like a bong, but it turned out to be a soda bottle, but all right. So then there's the famous the cat lawyer.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yes, yes.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, God bless him. I wish you'd look him up and see what he's up to these days. One thing you said about these focus groups is you can it's not a whole like a mock jury, but you can pinpoint specific issues that you want to get feedback on. Is that right? Absolutely yes, and that's probably the better way of concisely saying it than the way I did.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yeah, that's why I did it.

Tom Hagy:

No, I didn't do it that way. Well, okay, so one of the things you also talked about was was was witness credibility, which is really interesting, I think, to me and would be to other attorneys. So do you have some examples of ways you've tested witness credibility in different types of cases?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yeah, and I would just say, from an attention-grabbing standpoint, like people are into watching videos, Like YouTube is still the number one search engine. People are into watching videos. Like YouTube is still the number one search engine, People love it. And so for us as lawyers to just play small five seven-minute clips of people and then just ask people to judge it like they love it, Like absolutely, so they get their popcorn out Like they're into it. So we have personal injury cases where we've done folks just to try to figure out what's their credibility when they're explaining their injuries. We've had people who are in discrimination cases where they're having to describe what it is and then basically asking our focus group does that sound like discrimination to you? Because these people were highly educated group of folks and they were overcomplicating it and so it became a like let's test them before they go to deposition, because discrimination case, if you don't get it right, you're MSJ it out and you know you've lost. So that's a great place to practice when you have that kind of pressure of an MSJ. Um, that's a great place to to practice when you have that kind of pressure of an MSJ. But you know, one of the funnest things about doing the witness. Credibility is the contrast, because what jurors are comparing it to. So you always like to have two people that are in the case so they can contrast them and say like, oh, that we liked that one, or oh, we didn't like that one. Or compared to them. And so we we like to do this a lot when we have our business divorce cases, because you really want to know, like, okay, who's one credible, but also like, when you compare them side by side, you know what what ends up happening in their minds.

Elizabeth Larrick:

And Just here, a recent example we had was a super polished witness. He had on his blazer, he's got these great answers, he's very polite. And then the next guy was like the disheveled guy. Barely has his buttons on, he looks sweaty, and they felt so bad for that guy and it was like, yeah, that was not what the lawyers wanted to hear. They wanted the you know, the polished guy to be the, the, the one, and he was too polished. So then they were trying to scramble to get ready for trial and it was just kind of like, oh my gosh, if this character shows up, this disheveled, you know, I got to take an advantage of person, Like they're not real, like the jury's going to go with that guy. So it becomes really entertaining. But also just when you have this contrast of the different witnesses, it really helps amplify what your problems are with your witness.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah yeah, the impressions that humans give on other humans is like they say it's within the first few seconds. So you, I, I, somebody often say oh, I feel bad for that guy, Look at it?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Oh yeah, absolutely, and that's what we, you know we ask them. You know what question would you, would you want to ask this witness? And I've had them come back and say like I wouldn't ask that guy anything. He's never going to tell the truth.

Tom Hagy:

Right, right, there you go. Yeah, I saw, yeah, the two polished thing could come up. We had invited jurors to a conference of trial lawyers once and they were from an actual case and one of the lawyers was there on the panel and one of the jurors I mean they, they're not trying to impress anybody, they don't care. They got there, we paid them something, they're, they're on their way, they're going to lose their jobs, and so the respect they have for lawyers was it was they either did or didn't, but anyway they, this guy came in, he's obviously fit, he's got his thousand dollar suit on and he's you know, uh, this watch obviously was a rolex and all this stuff, and the lawyer is sitting there. So I didn't want to hear from him, I didn't trust him, and the lawyer is just sitting there rubbing his head. It's like you know, here I am trying to look professional and and it's really it's working against me yeah, and it's.

Elizabeth Larrick:

it is so amazing, having done as many trials as I have, like that lawyers will still kind of go out of their way sometimes to be flashy, and I'm like you are thinking yourself here like you don't need the fancy socks like or you know, or you're, you got a subtle tie that's got stuff on it. It's like you know, just I think it's funny. You went tie, that's got stuff on it.

Tom Hagy:

It's like you know just, I think it's funny, you went right to the socks.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I did I did. Has that? Has that come up before? Yes, it has, they're like oh, really okay yeah, I was a lawyer and he was, uh, he had on a really expensive pair of nikes, which was unusual and then these bright orange socks and I was just like what, what? What are we doing here, man?

Tom Hagy:

You know, yeah, all right. Well, there's a key takeaway right there.

Elizabeth Larrick:

That's right. That's right. Please watch your socks.

Tom Hagy:

And you should wear them also, I think.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Oh yeah, well, yes, that's also very important.

Tom Hagy:

So you've tested other credibility in other contexts. You had mentioned Lisa. You talked about discrimination. What else did you have? Did you have a PI case?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yeah, a personal injury case. You know, occasionally people will get tripped up on our Fifth Amendment right when it's like there could be a place where somebody should take it, but what does the jury think about it? And so you know we had here recently where we tested both ways right, where in one focus group he took the fifth. In another focus group he just told what happened and the gap of imagination that allowed those people to create the worst case scenario was really like, oh my gosh, we really have to now dig deep and figure out if he needs to take the fifth, because it could really end up hurting his credibility.

Tom Hagy:

Right, sure, yeah, I can see where that. Yeah, people make that assumption. Why would? Why would you take it if you don't have to?

Elizabeth Larrick:

And sometimes people don't penalize them, like they're like, absolutely, if that's my right, like I'm not gonna. You know I'm not going to get tripped up by that, but I think, because of the scenario of this case, where there was just this giant gap of information, nobody was telling what happened in this particular evening and so then it became okay, well, you have the information and you're not telling us. You know versus just like you know, were you drinking that night? I take the fifth. You know? Something simple like that.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, that makes sense. So, um yeah, so yeah, I'm jumping around a little, so you'll just, you'll just.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I'll flow you go, just flow.

Tom Hagy:

So what about? Because a lot of lawyers want to know certainly what the value of their case is, and assessing damages, I don't know, maybe it would help with settlement or something. So what? How does this? Have you had experience with that? How does it work?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yeah, that is like one of the number one questions I get all the time is like well, they tell me how much it's worth and I say, yes, but it's not really reliable. It's just eight to 10 people. I mean, there are other tools out there that can really get you much closer. When you do like a big data study that's got 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 inputs, then you really can statistically come back down to what would be. But with these eight to 10 people, what's more important is just testing. What is the information that you have?

Elizabeth Larrick:

A lot of times people rely on life care plans. Right, that put together how much people are going to need for care and household modifications and medications for the rest of their lives. And it's fascinating to have just testing that kind of information, because we are, as humans, programmed to focus on the present right now. Well, I will worry about the future later. Like what's how? You know that'll take care of itself, and so it's very like it's interesting and lawyers take a lot for granted to think, oh well, I put this together, we got a great doctor's going to get up there, and I'm always like, yeah, you need to test it though, because you could totally lose a bunch of credibility If you know they're saying this guy needs a ramp and he needs all these things and then the guy lives in a house with like a flight of stairs. Yeah Right, yeah, they're going to put that together real quickly.

Elizabeth Larrick:

So you know, some of those little things of testing like the credibility of it and and putting together the story of the damages itself is sometimes pretty precarious if you don't have enough before and after witnesses or just relying on, like maybe a spouse or a child. You know there's a little bit of credibility there. So it's helpful just to have those pieces tested to make sure we're good or we're missing on stuff. And going back to those videos, you know one of the coolest focus groups I've done here recently was an older gentleman had a traumatic brain injury and no doubt I mean got hit right on the noggin. You know we can't dispute that. But what was cool was his daughters had taken videos of him with his grandkids before and then after, and it was night and day.

Elizabeth Larrick:

And the focus group was like we were so glad we had those 30 second clips of him, you know, playing whack-a-mole with the, with the little kid, or holding the baby, and then afterwards like there's just you know yeah can't do any of that. So it's it, do any of that. So it's amazing, like the little things that we may have in our lives that really help jurors understand damages.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, so you're using images, tell a story and you're presenting evidence. So for lawyers who want to use this, can you help them craft the sequence of events in telling these stories?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yes, yeah, I mean I think with focus groups they really tell you the sequence you need, because we'll, we'll, you know, fashion the story one way and then come back and do it in a different way to see which way hits them. But yeah, from a from a standpoint of brain science and like primacy, what are we saying first, recency, what are we saying you know last, but how are we helping create the story that we have to be very conscious of organizing it, otherwise it's just mass chaos in their minds, it's just confusion.

Tom Hagy:

Right. Yeah, it's just kind of a fire hose, that's right. Look at all the stuff I've gathered. Now I will blast it at you. So have you had examples where, leading up to trial, that the focus group has shifted caused the lawyer to want to shift their strategy?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Absolutely, absolutely. We recently tested a case. They were right on the doorstep of within 30 days. They were coming up and they had, I would say, probably three, what they considered key violations by the defendant. And there were more, but they thought these three, these were the most important violations. And we put it to a focus group and tested it and it came back. They had one right, but they had two others that were a lot stronger. So what we did was we took that information, we rearranged their opening to focus on those top three and then took the rest though we didn't ditch it, we put it into cross-exam and then in closing, he was able to say we prove these three things, but then we also prove these other three. So they had you know more on their list of things they proved, but then we also prove these other three. So they had you know more on their list of things they prove. But it became super important to just focus on those three for opening instead of trying to give them all six.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah.

Elizabeth Larrick:

And prioritize it in order of like first in time.

Tom Hagy:

Yep, I gotcha, yeah yeah. The sequence I'm telling a story is obviously critical to how effective it is, how people receive it and remember it, and so you've mentioned a couple of times you know people love videos. How are you able to effectively present demonstrative evidence, pictures, other things that people can look at and engage their reaction to those things?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Absolutely. I have a good relationship with a medical illustrationist and she works with another lawyer that we do a lot of focus groups and we will just put those images up. What makes sense? Does it look bad? Could you gather all? You gather all these injuries? Or maybe it's too much. So those are also really easy, quick ways where it's just you know show them the picture and kind of ask them what's injured. You know, because sometimes people will say you'll have a group of people that get it and then you'll have a group of people who are like I need you to walk me through this. So there's always a little balance. I think for everybody who's sitting on the jury you need to have a nice balance. But sometimes you get these medical illustrations and there's 50 words on the side of the image and they're like I can't even pronounce that.

Tom Hagy:

I'm like. I can't either, so take it off Some of the animations I mean, I haven't seen any even recently, but they used to be some of them were just so incredible. You know 3d animation, I imagine now, with animation and AI and things, they must be able to create some incredible. You could turn people into babies, for example, babies that have an unusual amount of teeth. That's right.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yes, I, I definitely.

Tom Hagy:

I have seen that recently you've seen that what kind of a bizarre person would make a baby of themselves with teeth? That's just so strange. Have you seen? This is a complete sidetrack. Of course we're talking about you, but um, we have you. Have you seen? There's a clip where, uh, a husband it looks like he's coming home from work he's dragging there's a baby in the high chair and mom had painted eyebrows on the baby. It's, yeah, it's the best, okay, um making fun of babies.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I mean it's hilarious.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, yeah. I don't know why babies are so funny. You know, just a very basic level where? Where are these people when, when you're doing this? So they just sitting at home, or they you know the grocery store? What? Where are these people when you're doing this? Are they just sitting at home? Are they, you know, at the grocery store? How are you setting it up?

Elizabeth Larrick:

We don't let them do grocery store. We, you know, we obviously have to set some rules up. They can't be driving in a car, they can't even be a passenger in a car and, trust me, I've had people show up on the bus and I'm like this not gonna work right, so uh, so yeah, we have a little bit of rules, but most of the time they're showing up at their kitchen table, or we definitely have people who show up sitting in their bed and yeah, yeah you know, we, just you know, we have a few lighting requirements and things like that, and you know, please try not to smoke.

Elizabeth Larrick:

But you know again, the more relaxed people are, the better feedback you get try, try not to smoke.

Tom Hagy:

I think that's a good tip. I think for anybody on Zoom it's like you must when they do that you just take it to black and white and it'll look like a talk show from the early 60s because everybody was smoking. So are there any like misconceptions that people would have about this? When you approach lawyers, Tell me what that conversation is like.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I think one. Most people are like whoa, you're using Zoom to do this? I never would have thought about that. Like absolutely using Zoom.

Elizabeth Larrick:

People have a misconception that these are giant six-hour Zoom mock juries and they're just not. I mean, these are like you said. They're issue spotting, they're finding our weaknesses, they're quick check-ins to see and get an outside perspective and, um, you know, they're not intended to replace a mock jury, but they're intended to you be able to get an? Um, a look at what the jurors think before you begin discovery, after you take that major deposition. Did you score all the berries in the bucket or was it just you, you know, bravado, thinking you got the, you got the person. So, and I would just think most people when I tell them you can do this, you, somebody in your office, can learn to do this that there generally is like oh well, you know what if we do it wrong, right. Most of the time I'm like, oh well, you know what if we do it wrong, right. Most of the time I'm like you're still going to learn something, even if you do it wrong?

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, you've learned that you need to learn how to use Zoom.

Elizabeth Larrick:

That's right, or you know, have somebody else do it, because you argue with everybody yeah. It's always a good communication skills at all levels when you're doing these as a lawyer.

Tom Hagy:

So are lawyers also presenting on these? Of course they are, yeah, so oh, that must be great education for them.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I I always hope that people see that there's a lot of value in just getting up and presenting to a group of strangers who, like, they'll look at you, get a third head, or they'll tell you like that's dumb, Like yeah, yeah.

Tom Hagy:

So as as as a podcaster who I only thought I was going to be doing audio, uh, when I started doing video, I came to realize, my God, I make a lot of faces. I, I, I'm paying attention to every word, but sometimes I'm like my eyes are doing things I don't even know about. I'm looking in different. I mean it's like just pay attention, man, you know, just focus.

Elizabeth Larrick:

It's it. You don't you underestimate how much you move and your mannerisms, and very few people naturally have that. Not going to move, affect the total skill. When, when people say affect like a total skill, when people say, oh, that's just natural, I'm like no, it's not. Trust me, I have seen the best of the best and it is a hundred percent a skill you have to practice.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, I first found out about it from my wife because we would have conversations and she would say things and I think I'm just listening and she's saying why are you making that face? I'm like I'm just listening to you saying what, what's? Why are you making that face? I'm like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not making you. You clearly don't want to do this or you don't like this person. I'm like, no, what are you talking about then? I didn't. I see myself on here. I'm doing this like oh yeah, I think I have a very expressive face, so I have to like poker face it like you.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, there's a fine line between looking psycho though. You know what I mean.

Tom Hagy:

You don't want to just like yeah, you got to get the nod, the journalist nod, and then yes, they're very good at that on like the daily shows and things like that, where they mimic reporters. They're like they're listening while they wait. Are the um? Are the people you pull in? Like I wonder, are you able to test, like different jurisdictions, or that would be interesting to me. It's like, ok, well, we're going to, maybe we're going to do this, try this in the city, I don't know Houston or whatever, but maybe Beaumont or maybe Port Arthur. Yeah, I'm showing off by all the different towns.

Elizabeth Larrick:

You are, look at you.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, yeah, but because the different jury polls are going to be different.

Elizabeth Larrick:

You ever use it that way. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely Cool. Yeah, we tried to do as as much as we can. We try to make. Uh, if people want very specific like we have to have all people from Port Arthur uh, generally I say like okay, well, let's, let's get a little bit wider, cause, guess what. It's okay if somebody you know is in Pasadena or you know like 30 miles down the road. We're not going to be too different. But I'm not going to put you a Dallas person in there, you know. But we have general groups where it's just generally Texas, oklahoma, where that's going to be fine for the majority of issue spotting or weaknesses and strengths.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, yeah. It would just be so fascinating to test different parts of the country too. I mean, I don't know, you probably haven't had to do that, but I don't know. It's just interesting for me, like, how does a New Yorker see something versus somebody from Oklahoma City or something?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Well, we did some testing for some folks that were going to trial and they were very similar cases, but one was in Seattle and one was in South Dakota. So we ran the exact same presentation but in two different places and it was fascinating how they had similarities but then they had complete differences on how they thought about these big trucking companies.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, I'll bet they did. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, going to different parts of the country, I was going to say something political, but uh, I won't. No, just no. Just because, um, just just say I think, uh, politically, I felt like I was in one spot on the spectrum until I went to portland oregon and I found out, oh, I'm really not that far off, I'm not that far from center as I thought.

Elizabeth Larrick:

All about context, all about context.

Tom Hagy:

Wow, I was blown away. I was like because I lean liberal, I should say that. And then I went out there and I thought, oh wow, I can see why people find us annoying. Sorry, I'll probably cut that when conversations start off with I don't know how you feel about the police. I'm like well, I feel largely pretty good about the police.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Okay, I'm going to cut that fascinating and listening to people. And because news used to stick. News stories would stick and people would talk about it. But the news, information, travels so fast that things just don't even stick anymore. And so my example that is here in Austin we had an Amazon truck that, for whatever reason, went off the rails, not paying attention, end up running into, think, 10 or different cars, killed five people instantly, and it was on the news for, you know, days and days and days and days.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Well, shortly thereafter, I had a focus group and I know it made national news.

Elizabeth Larrick:

But we had a focus group just in San Antonio, not a peep, and we had we were doing a case with Amazon involved and I was just like, how is it that this is not nobody brought this up?

Elizabeth Larrick:

But it happens more often that you think that we lawyers think, oh well, that's going to be top of mind, that's going to be something people are going to be thinking about, and I have to tell them, like it's not, because you pick up your phone, you're in a whole different world. You put your phone back down. Like you know, we have so much information that rushes at us that, as lawyers, we really can't rely on. Oh, people are going to be thinking about that. We really have to be very conscious and focused about what we give people to think, about how we organize it, because while we think people may have grasped that story or grasp the importance of having rules for like, they don't, it just goes in one ear and out the other so it's definitely one of those observations that I've seen, and also people you know always ask me, well, what about political affiliation?

Elizabeth Larrick:

And in the past few years I can tell you like always ask me, well, what about political affiliation? And in the past few years I can tell you like that is just not a moniker of trying to figure out who the juror is for you or is not for you, Because you ask people they don't know either. They're guessing right. You may ask somebody who they voted for, but that doesn't necessarily at all translate into what we used to or what the science, the jury science, used to be was oh well, if you're red, then we're, then you're going for this, or if you're blue, I mean, it's just like. No, it's, it's out the window right now and it's not anything that when I people ask me, I'm like please don't rely on that.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Like yeah people just don't know and they're just as confused as we are about it. So it's not a way to, like you know, put somebody in a camp of a yes or no for your case.

Tom Hagy:

Texas. Also, tara Trask. I don't know if you know her, but she she was talking about how people and she's doing jury selection, how differently people are consuming their news and how the news is influencing their opinions of of experts.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Well, so, fascinatingly, people I think it's like it's an unnormal amount of people are getting their news from social media. And lawyers think, well, that's the question I need. But you have to go deeper than that. Because it's like what social media? Because you know, if 50% of adults are consuming their news on social media, but which is it? Because TikTok, unfortunately, is a lot of people's news source. But then the crazier thing is like people that are following or getting their news from social media are following like news promoters, not actual news channels or actual journalists. So it's very skewed and it's kind of all over the board. So when people ask it used to be a very popular question well, how do you get your news? But now it's like, okay, well, what's what social media channel is it? And you know how? How do we draw conclusions from that? Well, I mean, it's just that the news is very skewed, yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Larrick:

What you're watching.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, it is, and I'm, I mean I'm, I'm a trained journalist and you know, and I've, uh, and I mean I and I watch the news. I, I love social media. I get a kick out of it. I follow comedians and, um, I love, I'm a drummer. I love drummers. I see how, I see what a terrible drummer I am.

Tom Hagy:

But I also look, look for news and sometimes I'm just I'm, I'm, I'm appalled at how twisted some stories are. Or they'll put up a screaming caption. It's so funny. And recently I um, you see testimony and you know, different outlets will say look how this guy, you know, destroyed this witness, and then look how this witness destroyed the Senator and his same clip and, um, and some of them are like it's clips from you don't even know when they're from like when did this happen? What, what, what did it happen? Then you look even closer and it's like, oh, this is AI, this isn't even. I mean, you know so and I'm supposedly trained in this. Uh, I don't know, I don't know. I worry about what people are being trained or being how they're being educated.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yeah, yes, and that's why I said like now, I mean not, you know, definitely more than ever, but yeah, now it is so vital and important for, as lawyers standing up in the courtroom with jurors, to be number one teachers, because we have to, well, one, do the jury research to figure out what the attitudes are, what are you up against? And then number two, to come in and understand like it's. You know it's. It's a mile wide but an inch deep. People don't know unless they're have had their specific life experience, which is the same as the case, which is really rare, you know, really standing up and putting your teacher hat on in a way to help them come to the education they need to to then make decisions in the case.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, yeah, that's good advice, just educating them Also without making them feel stupid.

Elizabeth Larrick:

What a challenge for most lawyers. I kid, I kid, I love all the lawyers I know you do, so do I?

Tom Hagy:

I have loved them for over 40 years. I'm often the guy defending lawyers. You know I'm a lawyer. I'm like, oh God, please don't do that. A lawyer is the person you're going to want when things really hit the fan for you, person you're going to want when you are, when things really hit the fan for you and 99.9% of them are just awesome, just trying to make a living, trying to do the right thing and, yes, of course, so you use it to also help people pick jurors, I guess, or get an idea of, maybe, what kind of jurors they want. Is that something you do?

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yeah, Sometimes I think if you're going to do that you have to do several, like you have to do quite a few to be able to kind of put all that information together. But a lot of times what we're doing is we're getting people just to practice, and hearing reactions to your questions and being able to navigate. I mean that is a huge skill in and of itself for jury selection.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, very cool, all right. Well, I really appreciate it.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Yeah very cool, all right. Well, I really appreciate it. Any final thought you want to give somebody, if you had like 30 seconds to say why you should try this, why you should do a focus group by Zoom, is mind blowing and inspire so many ideas and creativity for trial, beyond what you and your team can come up with because you're in that box. They're in a whole other box and if you can spend an hour or two hours with folks and learn three or four things that will take your case to the next level, just do it. It's very inexpensive, it's easy to do. I've got lots of resources on my website, two really large blogs. I've done podcast episodes about it and even offer free webinars that are once in a while for lawyers to learn how to do it.

Tom Hagy:

Okay, good, maybe we'll do another podcast and then we can have focus group folks watch and judge me.

Elizabeth Larrick:

Okay, I mean, if you want that, I mean.

Tom Hagy:

okay, I just want, I mean, if you want that, I mean most lawyers do not do not want to do that, they are not into that. I would think it'd be an awesome service for an associate you know to get on and do this. I just think it would be a great service for them. So, elizabeth larick, thank you very much for talking with me today.

Elizabeth Larrick:

It was a pleasure oh, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed my time.

Tom Hagy:

Yeah, this is helpful. So I'll go through this and send it to you and if you tell me, you know you were extremely articulate. I didn't hear anything that you'd be embarrassed by.

Elizabeth Larrick:

It's okay if it's in there. I do all my own stunts, so when I see something that sucks, I'm like I'm it's in there.

Tom Hagy:

I do all my own stunts, so when.

Elizabeth Larrick:

I see something that sucks, I'm like I'm leaving that in there.

Tom Hagy:

The Emerging Litigation Podcast is a production of Critical Legal Content which owns the awesome brand HB Litigation. Critical Legal Content is a company I founded in 2012. That was a long time ago. What we do is simple we create content that's critical on legal topics for law firms and legal service providers. I believe we even have a catchy tagline, which is your legal content marketing department. That kind of content can be blogs, papers, they can be podcasts, webinars and we have a good time doing it and S4HB litigation. Well, that's the name under which we publish interesting at least interesting to me legal news items, webinars, articles, guest articles, all on emerging litigation topics. That's what we do. Once again, I'm Tom Hagee with Critical Legal Content, nhb Litigation. If you like what you hear and you want to participate, give me a shout. My contact information is in the show notes. Thanks for listening.