From Journalism to Law: Transferring the Skill of Storytelling | Amy Bradley (Personal Injury Lawyer)

Amy Bradley will be the first to tell you that good storytelling is an art.

Now a Principal at Blankenship & Keith in Fairfax, Virginia, Amy's education and career in fact started in journalism. Following leads, doing the interviews, compiling research and then editing it all together to tell a compelling story for the nightly news.

And as more and more of her stories featured legal cases and watching trial lawyers, she realized that a new calling was beckoning, one where she could apply her distinct skills towards shaping and presenting an argument.

Amy joins us today to talk about that process, how one goes about creating a good story, and the difference between written stories and oral stories.

As you've heard before on the podcast, nothing compares to getting real trial experience, and this includes developing and practicing your storytelling skills. But Amy also makes a crucial point: we are always telling stories, and always have a chance to practice the craft. Observe how you interact with others around you, and how you can perhaps frame something mundane into a gripping cliffhanger.

Because juries have a need for compelling narratives, and a good story can literally make or break your case. What looks like just one random activity to an outsider could mean so much more to the victim in question. 

There is a powerful story in there.

"It's never too early to start talking about theming.  Every case has a few nuggets that you can build a theme from." Amy Bradley

In this episode, we discuss:

◼️ How storytelling is a crucial skill in both journalism and law.
◼️ Why the skill sets for trial lawyers are distinct from law school education.
◼️ Focus groups are invaluable for helping you develop a powerful narrative, and correct blind spots.
◼️ How valuing a case involves more than just medical bills; it includes emotional and identity aspects.
◼️ Testing out your stories and storytelling skills on those around you, whether at the office or at home.

Chapters

00:00 Starting Out in Journalism
07:03 The Spark: Discovering Passion for Law
14:52 Diverse Cases in Personal Injury Law
23:56 The Important Skill Sets in Trial Law
29:15 Crafting Compelling Narratives in Court
34:30 The Role of Focus Groups in Case Preparation
39:14 Valuing Cases Beyond Medical Bills
43:31 Overcoming Fear as a New Lawyer

Courtroom Stories & Tactics | RVA Trial Lawyers
Available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and at RVATrialLawyers.com 

Based out of Richmond, Virginia, Courtroom Stories & Tactics by RVA Trial Lawyers exists for lawyers who try cases to juries on behalf of people. Through our podcast, we hope to learn from them, support them, connect them, inspire them, and preserve their work for future trial lawyers.

If you are willing, we would greatly appreciate it if you left us a 5-Star Google Review by clicking here. Your review will help people find us.

Thank you!

Sharif Gray and Nael Abouzaki

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:33

I think that storytelling really is an art. One of the exercises we used to do in journalism school is like read an article, now tell me the story. There's a difference between writing a story, which lawyers are probably better at, in my opinion, because what do we do? We love writing, we love editing, right? So we can go back and like make that better. But when we're doing an oral story, which is what we do at trial, how do you make your storytelling more compelling?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

This is Courtroom Stories and Tactics by RVA Trial Lawyers, hosted by Sharif Gray and Niall Abuzaki.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

All right, before we get into today's episode, I want to take a minute and thank Maximum Medical Improvement Partners, MMI, for supporting the podcast. As many of our listeners know, one of the biggest drivers of case value for our clients isn't just proving liability, but it's whether the client actually gets the right medical care and recovers from their injuries the right way. As we all know, when their treatment is delayed or incomplete, their cases lose value. And maximum medical improvement partners help solve that problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

You're right, Sheree. My name is Dr. Stavicki, and I'm with MMI Partners. Our mission is to connect injured clients with the right clinicians and quarterback the clients' medical care from day one, leading to stronger recovery, clearer documentation, and increased case value.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Thanks, Scott. For our listeners who are interested in getting in touch with you all, how can they find you?

SPEAKER_02 2:08

You can visit us at nmi.partners. Again, that's nmi.partners.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

All right, we're back. And today we are fortunate enough to have Amy Bradley, a trial lawyer up in Northern Virginia with Blank and Chip and Keith, join us. Amy has a unique background in that she was a journalist, then criminal defense lawyer, and now a personal injury trial lawyer. And before we got on this episode, I know you and I were chatting, Amy, and it was very clear that we're both very lucky to have found this work and never want to leave it, right? So before we get into it, because I have a ton of questions, go ahead, take a minute or so and introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Sure. So my name is Amy Bradley. I am a principal with Blanking Supreme Keith in Fairfax, Virginia. And I'm actually barred in Virginia, in Maryland, and in DC. I love taking catastrophic claims and trying them, working them up. Love helping people. I think that's my life's work. It's my passion. I kind of fell into this particular venue where we help people, but I'm certainly glad to be here. And uh thanks so much for having me, Sheree.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yeah, no, I'm excited to have you. Well, let me take you back to your days in journals. What did that look like?

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Oh, it was quite the journey. So my major when I went to University of Missouri was broadcast journalism. University of Missouri, I think, is the world's first journalism school. And it has a wonderful reputation. One of the reasons I think it has that reputation is because it gives you hands-on experience while you are still in college. So the college owns a TV station. And so while I was still in school and learning and going to class, I also was working at a real NBC affiliate and learning the craft that is journalism. One of my favorite things about going to Missouri was that they have a huge emphasis. It's called the Missouri method. And one of the things that we really focus on is telling stories. And so it's crazy because, you know, transitioning from being a broadcast journalist to being a lawyer, I now realize that I just get to tell longer stories and more in-depth stories than I did when I was a journalist. But my daily, depending which station I was at, my daily routine was interesting. The very first station that I worked at, I produced and then anchored the morning show. And so I would go in in the middle of the night. I would actually write the content for the show, prepare the tapes that would run, and then I would quickly get myself together and then co-anchor the show with another female anchor who was older than I was. She'd been doing it a lot longer than me. But because I was the new guy, I had to produce the show overnight. So I did that at uh my first station. And then when I went to Pennsylvania, that's when I actually was hired as a reporter, like full-time reporter. And it was interesting because the news director who hired me, he said, I think you want to be an anchor. And I said, I wouldn't have applied for a job as a reporter if I wanted to be an anchor. And I actually loved reporting. I love like going out, and every day I have to find a story, tell a story. And at that particular station, we had to tell two stories every day. So I, me and a photographer, would go out and we would figure out what the news of the day was, figure out an angle, figure out a story, and then go capture it. And then you have to edit it, and then usually I would do a live shot. So I would be on the air, usually at 5, 5:30 or 6. We had three different newscasts in the evenings. And then I became a member of the iTeam. I was the only female member of the iTeam, which is the investigative team. So that gave me a little bit of leeway where I could work on more investigative work because investigative journalism was actually what drew me to journalism in the beginning. Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

No, I bet. Investigative journalism seems cool. I mean, you're like very cool.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

Yeah, you're actually that's a great way to sort of analogize it, is you're like the detective. And so your job is to dig, dig, dig, right. And so talk to as many people as you can talk to, find as many facts as you can find, and that can be researching. It could be at a library, it could be uh, you know, now of course it would be online, but in those days, it was kind of a mix of different things. And so I would like chase down a tip and see where it led. There was some very interesting stories that we ended up covering, some that are probably not appropriate to talk about on this broadcast. No, I'm just teasing. But uh, we did some really interesting work and I loved it. I was passionate about it, but I also sort of saw that the writing was on the wall and I might not want to do it for forever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

It's an important societal function, right? To be an investigative reporter because I mean there's power in what is being shared and what is being broadcasted. And anyways, I forgot what it was. I think it might have been when all the NSA stuff was going on. I remember following an investigative reporter who like broke the news and watched a documentary about it. I don't know. I just remember being like, man, they've got a cool, cool job.

SPEAKER_03 7:02

So yeah, I mean, I really look at it like it is a pillar of our democracy because if we don't have free information and if we don't have journalists out there digging to get the real stories, there's a lot of things that we would not be privy to, just as regular everyday citizens that have other jobs that we go to for at least eight hours a day, right? We just don't have the time to do that kind of digging. And I think that that's why it's so important to democracy, to a free country that we have really good journalists.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Absolutely. Now let's talk about then what was that spark that said, you know what, it's time for maybe to take a look at the law.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

So when I was in Pennsylvania, I had the opportunity to cover two murder trials and a very large constitutional civil case. And for the very first time in my entire life, I sat through a trial. You know, I had covered bits and pieces of trials or maybe a verdict or something in in other places and other TV markets that I'd worked in. But I had never actually gotten to sit from opening gavel to verdict and watching the process, especially a couple of the murder trials, I loved watching the experts. I loved watching the attorneys do what now we do. Really, it's storytelling, but in like this really interesting, different way. And I loved the intellectual challenge of it. I thought, oh my gosh, that looks so much more intellectually interesting than what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. I also saw that there were, you know, changes happening in the media that I was not excited about. So a lot of TV stations used to be owned by families, and they took a lot of pride in what they were producing. They took a lot of pride in their journalists and they invested in you and they invested in what you were doing. And unfortunately, corporations have really taken over media ownership. And so what that has resulted in is basically like a watering down of real journalism in television. You still have newspapers that are very invested still in good journalism, but I think TV stations more or less are mostly owned by corporations that are now more interested in profit than good journalism.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, from what I've learned, at least in journalism, it can be difficult to make a living.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

So difficult. So yeah, I wasn't going to bring that up, but since you said it, Sharif, I mean, I was making very little money and I was actually in my sixth year as being a journalist, which maybe doesn't sound that long, but I mean, when you're moving TV stations and markets every year to two years, it's kind of grueling. It's really nice as a lawyer because I've been able to put down roots in one place. I literally was moving by myself because I didn't have a family. So I was moving by myself like every year or two years to a completely new city and state where then I'd have to sort of start over. So there were a lot of factors. The biggest one was that I was a little bit bored with what I was doing on a day in and day out basis. And I couldn't really see myself doing that when I was like 50, for example. But definitely pay was a factor, and then having to uproot myself all the time was also a factor.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Absolutely. So law school, and then you don't jump into civil litigation, right? You go into the criminal work.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

Yeah. So when I was in my first year at George Mason Law School, I begged Peter Greenspan and Christy Leary, who was working for Peter, if I could just come and work there for free. And uh I said, you know, so I I literally harassed Christy Leary. I would call her, she's now Judge Leary. I would write, Attorney Leary, please let me know and I can start working for you. So eventually they did let me come and start working there. And for those that don't know, because we probably have much more of a civil audience, Sharif, Peter Greenspan is the attorney that defended the DC sniper. So like we were doing crazy large murder trials. I don't even know how many murder cases I was involved in during my time there. So I just started as a law clerk and then I ended up staying there one year as an attorney. So I was there all through law school and then one year as an attorney. Fascinating cases, the most interesting work, maybe that I've ever done. And so I started there. And then I sort of fell into plaintiff's work after I then transitioned. Uh when I left Peter Greensbone's office, I went to State Farm. So I was in house counsel for State Farm defending people who get sued, you know, in car crashes and things like that for about three years, which is really where that's where I got my, I call it like my trial shoes, because I just had tons and tons of trials.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah. And that's something that I mean, I I tell people who say, hey, I want to be a trial or I'm in law school. In fact, I had a conversation with a lady yesterday who's super pumped. I think she's like a 1-0 or 2-0, and she's already like looking, it's incredible. Like I'm like, you're doing the right thing. But strongly consider going into criminal law first. But I also recognize like insurance defense is another way to get that experience because it's just very difficult, I've found, and I've been very lucky, and I didn't realize it at the time, to get a lot of trial experience on the criminal side because it's just so hard to replicate on the civil side. I mean, I tell I told this young lady yesterday, if I have three or four jury trials in a year, that's a fantastic year.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

That's a lot of trials, uh, jury trials, especially, and especially when you're on our side, on the plaintiff side, on the defense side, you know, if you're doing insurance defense, you will definitely get at least three or four jury trials a year. But on the criminal side, you know, you're gonna see trials all the time, either as a prosecutor or a defense attorney. So I agree with you. And I recommend the same thing, Sharif. When people are looking, they say, I want to be a trial lawyer. I say, well, you know, you can always transition into something else, right? Because the skills are very versatile, but it's a great place to start is doing criminal work.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Absolutely. Yeah, and it's fun. I mean, what's really crazy is that I remember, at least for me, going through law school and all that, I was like, you know what, I want to be a prosecutor, prosecutor, prosecutor. That's all I wanted to do. And then I got into the army and they said, All right, Sharif, you're gonna do defense work. And I was like, How dare you? Like, I want I'm a prosecutor, like that's what I want to do. And then I got my first few clients, and my eyes opened. It ended up being some of the most meaningful, purposeful work I'd ever done. Now I I very much still love what I do now, and we can talk about kind of where the similarities are because I imagine you and I probably have the same thoughts as to that. But when you realize like the Fifth Amendment matters, the right to remain silent, right? It's there for a reason that people are can be overcharged, people can be wrongfully accused, and that there's only so much standing in between the individual and the government, right? And it's that criminal defense attorney. It's a stressful, but just an immensely rewarding job. And I have the added benefit of getting to do in the army, so my clients were I mean, we're soldiers, right? And so it was really, really cool. And then back to the storytelling, Amy, like you can't make this stuff up, right? Like the stories that you hear. I mean, it's just crazy.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Oh, yeah, definitely you definitely can't make it up.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

You can't make it up, right? I mean, like non-stop entertainment to some extent. Granted, it's not easy, but so I've never met Greenspan, but I remember being in court a couple months ago, and I s I heard his name, and I could tell like he was at the docker call and he was there for a car crash case. So I guess they're doing some injury work now too. But I've I've heard nothing but great things and how he's an exceptional trial lawyer on the criminal side.

SPEAKER_03 15:35

Yeah, he's the best. I call him the gunslinger. He's the best gunslinger I've really ever had the opportunity to sort of observe on a regular basis. I think his biggest skill set is that he can think on his feet and cross-examine on his feet like no one else I've seen. And it is definitely a skill set.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

And it's something that you have to develop, right? I mean, it's not something born like so. Let's talk a little bit about what you're doing now. So, I mean, I I'm a big fan of your firm. Peter Everett is someone who has been wildly too kind to me. Why, I don't know. But um, he gave me a lot of great advice a few years ago that I've followed, and it's really helped, especially in the terms of like getting into more of the crime victim type litigation, which I love, absolutely love. In fact, right before this call, we have a new case involving a lady who was shot 10 times by an ex-spouse, former law enforcement. And there's some real questions and concerns about what the police did and and also what they chose not to do that may have contributed to the situation. So it's fascinating work, and it's not work that you think of when you think personal injury, right? But can you talk about the types of cases that you all do and what that entails?

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Yeah, sure. So, well, first of all, I will second what you said about Pete. Like he's the most generous, wonderful mentor, and he's also my mentor. And I'm just lucky that I get to work alongside him and like, you know, saunter into his office multiple times a day and ask questions.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

I've heard he's a bit he can be an obnoxious UVA fan. I went to UVA, so like I don't have any complaints, but I've heard from others that he may wear UVA a little too much for their liking.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

You know what? I'm gonna take the fifth on that, Sharice. All right, because you know, I'm just I'm just like a Mason grad, so you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

We'll make sure Pete listens to this part of the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

He's terrific, and yes, he is definitely a diehard UVA fan. So yeah, we do all kinds of interesting work. As you kind of mentioned, we do a lot of premises liability work, we do crime victim work. I know that Barkley Horn is really interested in continuing on with that. I know that's been a big part of Pete's practice. Rob and I, I really have enjoyed doing products liability with Rob. So we help people who are injured by defective manufactured products. Like right now, we're representing someone that got hurt by an electric trimmer. It was like a manufacturer's recall on that. And so just really interesting cases and unexpected cases that I think to your point people don't think about with personal injury attorneys. I think they think that we just do car crashes. I in particular really love trucking law. So I go to a lot of the AATA conventions and CLEs, and also like I'm a member of the AHA trucking litigation group and both the women's caucuses for both of those different groups. And I'm actually going to China with the mother truckers in October. So I'm really excited about that. Just lots going on. I said China, I meant Japan. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Same area of the world, right? But that's crazy. So what now I'm now I'm curious. I mean, I can't let that go. What are you all gonna do in Japan?

SPEAKER_03 18:52

I mean, honestly, it's more of like a fun trip, uh, but it's like cool that the group is going. There are not a lot of female trucking attorneys like across the country, and so it's a great opportunity for us to like get to know each other and uh just do fun things. So I don't think we're actually doing any work there.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

It's well, one thing I want to stop on and pause on this for a second is one of the things that I've enjoyed so much about this practice area, just plaintiff's injury work, or amongst those who genuinely care and take this work seriously and find it purposeful. I mean, there is real community and there's real camaraderie. It that is something that I've just never experienced before. The idea of a rising tide lifts all boats is real and people genuinely believe in it. Now that said, there are there is another part of the personal injury world which they'll um, what do you call stab your tires if they could, right? Because they they're worried about their market share. But among those who I think are doing this work the right way and for the right reasons, I have found the camaraderie and the collegiality to be second to none. And it sounds like you found the same.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

100%. We are so lucky because just like you said, if you find the right people, I have friends all over the country doing plaintiff's work that, you know, I can call and ask for help. I can call and say, Have you ever encountered this issue? And even locally, I mean, I think it comes from having an abundance mindset, right? There is plenty of work for all of us. And I would hope, just like I think that other people sometimes call and ask me questions, that we should all be helping each other because as you said, rise and tide, we all benefit from that. And really who benefits from it the most is our clients. And so I love the camaraderie in what we do, it's amazing. I find that it's like nationwide, it's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

It's amazing. No, and I I've been very lucky and privileged to get to go to a handful of these conferences around the country, and it it is, it's nationwide. But again, it's among those who are genuine trialers, like they really care. And I mean, I think there's I'd love to get your thoughts on this. So the criminal defense attorney, right, when they're asked at the cocktail party, well, how do you defend the person who you know they did it, right? And the answer is, well, everyone deserves a defense, everyone's a human, right? But the real answer is at the end of the day, there's this thing called the constitution. So, regardless of what you think about my client, I want you to think about what is on this piece of paper matters. Because if we don't enforce it and hold the government accountable to it for this person, then what's to stop them from coming after everyone else, right? I mean, that's more or less the answers, right? I actually think in plaintiff's work, there's a similar answer. And it is we have an opportunity to do a couple things. One, accountability. Oftentimes, I'm sure you can relate to this. Our clients don't walk into our office and say, I just want a ton of money, right? No, they want someone to say what happened was wrong and they're sorry. They want accountability, right? And then the next thing is this level of deterrence, public safety. The hope is that if we are able to send a message through this litigation, through this case, then maybe this doesn't happen to the next person. And then the last thing is kind of, and for those who listen to the podcast often are probably gonna roll their eyes when I say it, because I say it all the time, but we have this opportunity to be an advocate for the value of human life. The number is not an award, it is not a lottery ticket, the number is a recognition of the value of what's been taken from a person. So, yes, Corny Sharif says we get to stand up in court and say human life matters, and it matters a lot. And this is the number that you put on it. And so I think there's a lot of similarities to the criminal defense lawyer and the plaintiff's lawyer for a number of reasons.

SPEAKER_03 22:46

I totally agree with you, Sharif, like a hundred percent. And I mean, how lucky are we that we are chosen by our clients to be their voice in the absolute worst moments of their lives, right? And you could take that and you could say, that's somebody who's been charged with a crime. That's somebody who has been catastrophically injured or lost a loved one because of the negligence or wrongful act of someone else. And so I just feel so blessed, truly, that we get to be that person's voice and stand up for that person, fight for that person or their family. It's like the best job in the world. Like I can't imagine doing anything else now.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Oh, of course. And then when you add the trial into it, like Oh my gosh. Like there is nothing for me more professional and exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time of standing up in the courtroom and that pressure of having to be on your feet and think of a million different things and present the case in a persuasive way. I mean, I imagine for you that you'd probably get that rush similar to that rush that you had as an investigative reporter.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Yeah, totally. It's fascinating to me because, and I I'm hoping that you'll agree with me on this, but you don't have to. When I come home from a day, a full day of trial, like I had two trials back to back on, I don't know, someday earlier this week, because I do these pro bono protective orders for legal services in Northern Virginia. And I'm absolutely wiped out because you are like on your feet, you're thinking on your feet, you are thinking about all the things that could go wrong, you're worried about this person and what happens when they leave the courtroom. Like, you know, there's just a multitude of things when you are in trial that when you're sitting behind your desk at the office, you don't have all those stresses and all that pressure. And I don't know why, but like when I come home from a day of trial versus like just a day at the office, it's like a totally different level of exhaustion.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

I mean, like your brain is tired because I don't want to call it a performance because it's not really a performance, but I do call it being on. You are on all day long, just having to be there for your client, be there for the judge, be there to make sure that you're listening to every piece of evidence coming in, trying to keep out everything that shouldn't be coming in, respond to legal objections, right? It's just, it is a lot, but also, as you said, extraordinarily exciting. I love going to trial. One of the reasons I love doing those protective orders is just that it gets me a trial almost every single time. And so it's it's, you know, if we don't have a big trial coming up in our work because we settled cases, at least I can get myself into court and have a trial.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, and you're staying sharp. I mean, the skill sets matter. And that's something that I think law school, I love you, law school, right? Your diploma's behind me. I'm we paid you a lot of money and it all worked out, right? But law school doesn't do a good job of and it's just, and not to say that maybe, maybe they're that's just not their priority, and I get it. But the skills that go into being a trial lawyer are very different from the study of law.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Totally different. I always say that in law school, really, all you're doing is learning to read and analyze the law. Yeah. Um, I I mean, I even took some like trial ad classes and stuff like that, and that's great, and that was helpful. But I mean, where you really learn to be a trial lawyer is by doing it. And that's scary because it's like learning by fire, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Absolutely. And I think you can like really like hit exponential growth by getting the experience and coupling that with like the right training and mentorship. Then you can go through the roof. But it's amazing to me like how important of a skill set it is because at the end of the day, right, we can work on a case for two to three years sometimes. And the only thing that matters is what happens for those four or five days in a courtroom. Like, I mean, yeah, granted, not to say that that worked beforehand didn't matter, it certainly did, because it's it's shaping what's going to happen in the courtroom. But the jury doesn't live with the case for those years in preparation. All they know about this case is what's presented to them in that courtroom. And so if the lawyer isn't ready to do that and hasn't developed that skill set, then they are not putting their client in the best possible position. But then on the flip side, like it's fun. And so one of the goals, I think, of our podcast is to learn. I get to learn from people like you who come on, and then also our hope is that our listeners get to learn from guests like you and others that one, you can do this, you don't have to be born some special way in order to be a trial lawyer. It is a learnable skill set, and to learn tools and skills on actually what you can do and where you can go find those, what trainings are available. So, one thing I want to dig in with you a little bit, Amy, is I want to talk about storytelling. And I've come to believe that everything in life now is this story, everything. So much so, I actually took a storytelling class this past year, and it was amazing. It was about like TED Talks and all that stuff, and it was great for me because it opened my eyes to like, okay, well, if I'm looking at my trial, what story am I telling about the case? What story do I want the listeners, the jury, the court, the defense counsel? What do I want them to be hearing and feeling? Right. And it's always a work in progress. I'm gonna be a continual learner, but I really want to learn, like, at least from your experience in journalism, what is a good story? How does one go about creating a good story, telling a good story? And I recognize I just asked you a super loaded question.

SPEAKER_03 28:23

I know, I was like, do we have four hours?

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Well we do, but I think people will tune off after they don't want to listen to me drone on about storytelling.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

Okay, so I think that storytelling really is an art. And I think that everyone, including myself, can improve on storytelling. And I think the way you improve on it is by continually doing it. I'm really lucky because my best friend is a fantastic storyteller. And so she's always trying to one-up me on how we tell the same story. It's hilarious. But I think you could take anything, you could take your morning and figure out how to tell a story about it, right? One of the exercises we used to do in journalism school, it's like read an article, now tell me the story, right? So there's a difference between writing a story, which lawyers are probably better at, in my opinion, because what do we do? We love writing, we love editing, right? So we can go back and like make that better. But when we're doing an oral story, which is what we do at trial, we're telling an oral story. I think that's something that you have to develop. I don't think it's necessarily natural. Though I say that and I'm like, our whole lives are made of storytelling, right? When you see your best friend, you're like, what did you do today? You know, and you tell a story. So then it's like, how do you make your storytelling more compelling? There's elements that make a great story. You need a beginning, a middle, and an end. You also need a theme. Give you an example. One of I think the best themes in our industry that we can tell is the David and Goliath story, right? So little old David has to go up against Goliath, and you have to continually present the whole story of your case in that theme through that lens so that the jury understands that your little client is battling this massive thing on the other side. It's really about like putting your client into the shoes of David and making the jury understand that the other side is Goliath. And that's particularly easy when you're going against a company. It's not so easy when you've got, you know, just two different, if we're talking about a car crash, if you've got two different regular old drivers. So then in that case, you might look for a different theme.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

You know, that's those cases are so hard. I I mean what's kind of funny. So I mean, we our firm, we had a great result last week. It was against a corporate defendant, very proud. But what has gone somewhat unnoticed is that two weeks before that, we had it at a, I think, a better result because it was against an individual car crash defendant. And like I lose most of those cases, like almost always, because at the end of the day, like, how do you tell this story? There's no David v. Goliath when you're dealing with the car crash involving the sweet old lady who hit your client, right? Like, so what do you do? What we did in that case, and it worked, is we were very upfront and said, We wish we weren't here. The defendant is a good person. We have no reason to think any differently, and by no means are do we ever even or do we hope or even want to imply that this person is a bad person or meant any ill will to our client. Why are we here then? We're here because something happened that shouldn't have happened, somebody was hurt who shouldn't have been hurt, and this is the opportunity that our client has to get full and fair value that recognizes what was taken from them. For whatever reason it worked, but I'll tell you, Amy, like most of those cases, I lose.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

It's so hard. I think you, you know, you almost have to come up with exactly what you guys did. So if you know that you've got a defendant, an individual that is very likable, that's gonna be a problem for you. So you identify that early, right? And then you figure out how are we gonna tell this story so that we're not making them out necessarily to be the bad guy. It was just an accident, right? You sort of have to frame your story in that we're not trying to punish this person, we're just trying to get justice for our client that was injured. And those are, in my opinion, also, Sharif, the hardest. I tried one in Shenandoah County that I lost. And I think it's because I think everyone on the jury was putting themselves in the defendant's shoes instead of the plaintiff's shoes. And I don't have a fantastic answer for how you prevent that from happening.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Oh, I don't know. I have a very good friend in California who is a fantastic trial lawyer, and he's told me time and again, he says, I am more impressed with the person who can get a six-figure or even a high five-figure result on a soft tissue individual defendant car wreck case than I am on the person who's gonna get a million dollars on a wrongful death case. And I agree with him because they're so freaking hard. Yeah, they are definitely hard. Well, let's go back to the story. Uh so you're talking about the themes in David v. Goliath, which I agree with you is an I mean, if that a theme exists in your case, it's an amazing one to tell a story about, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:23

Yeah, that is like a classic. And I I mean there's other great themes. I think each case is different. So it's hard to like just throw out like, oh, this is a great theme, like this is a great thing. But when you get your case, it's never too early to start talking about theming. What's been suggested to me a couple of times is tell the story to your friends and family and then say, what did you get out of that? And then have them tell you back what they heard or tell you the story of your case. And it'll start to kind of become clearer, like what parts are sticking out to everyday regular people. I tell my parents the stories of my cases. I just finished up a case where a gentleman that I absolutely adored as a client was drugged by a delivery truck for between 35 and 45 feet in his wheelchair. How did that happen? Yeah, driver didn't see him. Uh, isn't that wild? And he got drugged underneath the right front tire of the delivery driver 35 to 40 feet. Uh-huh. Yeah, there were gouge marks in the road. He was lucky to survive that, but then he only lived a year because he ended up having to have three surgeries during that year. Actually, the polytraumatic injuries really over the course of the year caused his death. And so when we presented that story to the insurance company, what we did was we said, this is either a survival action or it's a wrongful death, and we're ready to present it both ways to the jury. But I mean, there's so many interesting things about that case. You could have taken like any number of themes, but I mean, when I told that story, no one could get over that. How does that happen? Right. So that probably was going to be the theme. How does this happen? The driver said that he thought that his agent dropped out. It just doesn't make any sense. If your engine drops out, do you keep driving or do you like stop immediately, get out, and check? So I think how did this happen is a great thing for that case.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah. Now I agree. And then also to see how the defense responds to that and then what you can do to counter that, right? Like that's wild.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Yeah. Well, and then like I think if if you're talking about like a drunk driving case, it's a series of decisions that led us here today, right? And so you talk about choices, decisions, and choices, and every case has a few nuggets that you could theme from. And when I can't figure out what my theme is, I tell the story to other people and have them tell it back to me. And then it starts to become clear.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

And my understanding is you guys also do focus groups and stuff as well, correct?

SPEAKER_03 36:04

Yeah. Oh yeah. Almost every case we do focus groups almost regardless of size, because one of the things that can get difficult is how do you value an injury? I think valuing a life, it's almost an impossible task, right? Because there is no number that's going to bring that person back. So the only way to like get an idea of like what a jury would give, which is really what valuation is. That's all it is. It's like, what would a jury give you? I think you have to do focus groups. And we do them a number of different ways. Sometimes we just do like internal firm uh where we send it out to like the members of our firm. Sometimes we will bring pizza in and have a pizza party. Sometimes we hire a company to do a focus group and they recruit jurors from like our particular jurisdiction that the case is filed in. So we do them a bunch of different ways, sometimes in person, obviously. And you guys do focus groups, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Yeah, funny enough, I'm actually we're in about an hour, we're gonna go do three of them. So um, there's a group in Richmond called the Rec Room, and they this is unsolicited. So, Rec Room, I hope you're listening, and I hope you give us a discount next time because uh you're about to get a free sponsorship here. But uh no, they do a fantastic job. They're not focused on legal, their main focus is marketing agencies, and so they have a facility with focus group rooms. So, like the room we'll be in tonight, I'll be in a conference room with eight jurors, and there's a what is that, the one-way glass from an observation room, and my team and some of our paralegals will be in there and they'll be watching, and and it's just it's incredible, and so it's so cool. So it's a lot of fun. It's like watching a jury deliberate, right? Like, have you seen and I'm sure this is a dumb question, but you've seen the movie 12 Angry Men, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Yeah, even the black and white version of that movie is incredible. I mean, because you're like you're watching a jury and like how they're coming to these decisions and the different tensions and conflict. It's so cool. But that said, I mean, with focus groups, it's also very difficult to stay neutral. Like, I need to make sure before I walk into that focus group tonight that I play a role in which the mock jurors do not think that I'm one of the attorneys. And I also have to remind myself that like it's not my job for my case to win. In fact, I want my case to lose tonight because I want to know what all the issues are. But yeah, I agree with you. You can learn so much from these focus groups, they can help immensely.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

Yeah. And Sharif, I don't know if you would agree with me on this, but like I find that in addition to the valuation, which is extremely helpful to us as we move forward with like, you know, maybe a mediation, or even if we're just trying to get a demand out and we need to know kind of where the jurors would fall, I find out the weaknesses of our case, right? So where do they get hung up? I mean, I have never had a focus group, like not yet to this day, where I didn't learn a massive weakness in my case that I had a blind spot for or didn't analyze enough to really get to like the meat of it. Every time you walk away from a focus group, you're like, we have to do X. We have to prepare for this, we have to do that, you know, whatever. There's no substitute for a focus group, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

You know, the case that we had last week where we got the good result, and we focus grouped that case because we were very concerned about damages. Could we show proof causation? Did this case have value? And the focus group told us without question, without hesitation, that the case had massive value. It was that focus group, that one-hour deal that led to us going the distance with that case, which is which is insane, right? I mean, an incredible tool. And you are not the first and certainly will not be the last person to get on this podcast and say, focus group, focus group, focus group. Because it's just it's so important. It really, really is.

SPEAKER_03 39:59

Yeah, I think you are doing your client a disservice if you're not focus grouping your cases. I don't know how you figure out what the value is because each case is different, right? I mean, we all have experience. We all can say, oh, on this case we got X or this case we got Y. But there's differences enough and sufficient enough that I think it does change the valuation.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Well, and you know what? I mean, the way that we value cases or the insurance adjusters value cases is not how necessarily regular people value cases. Oh, you know what I mean? Yeah. This whole like multiplier thing of like you're supposed to like a juror doesn't walk into the courthouse and go, hmm, am I gonna do two times, three times, or four times the medical bills today, right? Like it's right because it doesn't make sense, right?

SPEAKER_03 40:41

It doesn't make any sense yet.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

It doesn't make any sense. I actually I would love I think I heard that the whole three times multiplier thing came, and I don't know if this is true, but I think it was like the thought was well, a third goes to the client, a third goes to the law firm, and a third goes to like the lien holders. And so maybe that's where it came from. But if we take a step back and we think like medical bills, I mean, if we break down the Virginia model jury instruction on damages 9.0 or oh oh, whatever it is, there's like 16, I think, different elements if you actually break it out, and only like four of them are actual like special damages or actual like hard numbers.

SPEAKER_03 41:19

Like hard bills, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Yeah, right. And so the remaining 12 aren't. And for whatever reason, our industry has decided that an amount that an administrative professional at a medical facility chooses to charge a patient, that that patient had no clue what they were buying, right, in some way demonstrates the value of an entire personal injury case. And it just doesn't. Now, granted, I'm sure there are people who can say, well, there's there it's correlation, and to some extent that's true. If someone's in the hospital for a month and they have a lot more bills, then chances are it's a more serious injury, right? But it's fascinating to me how we as a profession has kind of just adopted that model. But there are also lawyers who are pushing back, which is good.

SPEAKER_03 42:00

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I I sort of love like the whole idea of not even putting in the medical bills, but then on the flip side, it is such a risk to not put in any hard number because then the jury's just like, well, what do we do? Right? Like we don't have a hard number. Though I do tend to agree, I think the defense industry calls it anchoring. And I do believe, especially in cases where we've got small amounts of bills, all you're doing is anchoring a low verdict, like giving them something to hang their hat on. Whereas, like, if you focus more on like, ladies and gentlemen, this isn't about the bills. This isn't about medical bills. We're not even gonna show you what the medical bills are because those aren't the thing that we're focused on. This was a case all about inconvenience, right? Then you go back to your theming, like how are we gonna theme this case? So this case has nothing to do with the lack of thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in treatment, but really it's about the fact that this person was a dentist and couldn't do his work for a seven-month period. I don't know, whatever. I'm just making stuff up.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

No, no, no, you're right. And then not only just the lost wages aspect of it, but but let's talk about that. Was the person who dreamed of being a dentist? It was a person who spent who knows how many years becoming a dentist. That wasn't just his job, it was his identity, right? He exactly he was Mr. Dentist, whatever, right? And right now he's waking up every day and he can't go do what he spent most of his life preparing to do. What is the value of that, right?

SPEAKER_03 43:24

Man, how many times do we miss the client's loss of identity? It is a huge item of damages. I tried a case, I think that one was in gosh, where was that? Frederick County, maybe. And my client had a shoulder injury, and so he could no longer hold a shotgun, which is crazy, right? And you're like, okay, well, that's like you can't do one activity. But that activity was like his whole social life. It was so much a part of his life and his identity that, like, by talking about that and talking about what the loss of that meant, meaning he couldn't go hunting with his buddies anymore, they would call him and be like, Hey, do you just want to come along with us, even though we know you can't shoot? No, because it was depressing to him. Yeah, right. So it was like, so you just keep plugging away at these ideas that are like, Yes, it looks like one activity to the outsider, but like to him, it's so much more. And I think that that's like another thing that we really sometimes I think as plaintiff's attorneys, we overlook is a loss of activity. One activity in your life can mean a totally different social way of going about your life, and that's unfair.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah, no, and that's yeah, and that's where the value of this work is. That's why it can be such so purposeful and so rewarding. Well, this has been a lot of fun. I've got one more question for you. Is that all right?

SPEAKER_03 44:45

Okay, ready.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

All right, if you could go back in time, and this is my favorite question, if you could go back in time to when you first started out your career, and you can pick whether it was when you got into journalism, whether you when you got into law, knowing what you know now, what would you tell yourself?

SPEAKER_03 45:01

I'm gonna answer with regard to when I first became a lawyer because I had so much fear. I was just so afraid of messing up, of saying something dumb, of going into court and a judge asking me a question that I couldn't answer. And I would tell myself, just do it, right? Judges are humans, opposing counsel are human. And I think if you keep that in mind when you're a you know a baby lawyer, that everybody started and we all remember what it was like, and I would never take advantage of a brand new attorney. In fact, I'd probably help them out. And so I think what I would tell my younger lawyer self is don't be afraid, just go and try, do the best you can. You're gonna figure it out as you go, and that's why they call it the practice of law. It's not perfection, it's practice.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Right, that's right. And we have malpractice insurance, so it's great. But uh joking. I'm joking. No, no, no. That's great advice. And just to piggyback off that, I mean, I think that's equally applicable to even people who've been doing this for some time, right? I mean, you have to be able to push through that fear because if you don't have some level of fear, then you don't care, right? And so there's a healthy level, but but no, I I I agree completely. Get out there and and make it happen. Uh, I think young lawyers, especially, and hopefully I'm still one of them, I hope, is uh they have a lot more to offer than they may realize.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Yep, and there isn't that much separating them between the person with gray hair, he's been doing it for 40 years, especially when we're talking about trial work in front of a jury. I mean, there's some, but it's not maybe as big of a gap as they may they may think it is.

SPEAKER_03 46:43

Yeah, yeah. And let that fear be your motivator. I worked really hard as a young lawyer because of all that fear.

SPEAKER_01 46:51

Absolutely. Well, Amy, this has been a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing you and your firm here in the near future. I'm sure we'll be in touch. So thank you. It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 47:01

Thanks so much, Sharif. This has been really fun.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Thanks for listening to Courtroom Stories and Tactics by RVA trial lawyers, hosted by Sharif Gray and Nial Abuzaki. Please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or any major podcast platform. Together, we're building a tribe of trial lawyers to remind the world what human life is truly worth. One verdict at a time.