In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Jay Madeshwaran discusses Eve, a breakthrough legal AI transforming how plaintiff lawyers manage cases. He shares how Eve rapidly analyzes medical records and legal documents with high accuracy, streamlines legal workflows, and helps attorneys focus more on strategy and client service. We also explore how Eve prioritizes data security, reduces AI errors, and is designed specifically for the legal profession.
-
174 – Amy Hall – Elevating Your Case with Visual Trial Strategy
Host Michael Cowen welcomes back visual trial strategist Amy Hall for a discussion about her work helping lawyers connect with juries through visual displays. As she explains, people remember more of what they see than what they just hear – which makes visuals an important tactic in the courtroom. Her strategy focuses on guiding her clients to distill a case so that they display only important points on visual elements like timelines.
Michael and Malorie welcome listener questions for a new “Ask Michael and Malorie Anything” feature. To submit a question, email Michael.
Featured Guest
Name: Amy Hall
About: Amy is a visual trial strategist with over 18 years of experience helping trial lawyers create compelling visual presentations. Her background in graphic design and experience across various industries, including the gambling industry, gave her unique insights into decision-making, emotions, and attention that she now applies to litigation strategy.
Company: Visual Trial Strategy | Trial Strategy Academy
Connect: LinkedIn
Episode Highlights
[04:18] Visual Trial Strategy Defined: Understanding that people are visual creatures, this strategy distills a case in a way that helps jurors connect with it.
[08:33] Pictorial Superiority Concept: It means, simply, that people remember what they see a lot more than they remember what they hear.
[14:14] Distill! One of the first things Amy asks her lawyer clients to do is prepare a two-page neutral statement on the case. When they complain that the case is too complex to be distilled into two pages, she says: “Keep trying.”
[19:08] Common Visuals: The formula is the “shot across the bow” and should be the first exhibit shown, Amy says. She also describes this suite of three exhibits: the anchor, link, and payoff.
[23:59] Battle of the Experts: Expert testimony should always be accompanied with visuals, Amy says, and she never lets an expert bring their own exhibit.
[28:12] Open-Ended Questions: Lawyers often fear asking jurors open-ended questions. Amy is “obsessed” with them because, she says, jurors will love a lawyer who gives them the freedom to come to their own conclusions.
[34:48] Timelines: They’re important because they represent the plaintiff’s history and the defendant’s decisions. But Amy cautions that timelines must simplify the information so the jury is not confused.
[37:39] At the Beginning: That’s when the plaintiff’s lawyer should start developing their visual strategy. “If you start that process, you are going to eliminate a lot of blind alleys,” Amy says.
[42:16] Five Hours a Day: Amy prefers to work with her clients in blocks – five hours a day for four consecutive days – because distilling a case takes sustained time and energy.
[46:58] AI: Amy welcomes exciting, powerful new technology, but she notes that visual trial strategy is tied to a technology that’s been locked in place for some 25,000 years: the human brain.
Connect with Trial Lawyer Nation
☑️ Follow us on X, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
☑️ Subscribe to Trial Lawyer Nation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
In this popular and award-winning podcast for trial lawyers, noteworthy author, sought-after speaker, and renowned trial lawyer, Michael Cowen explores critical topics distinctive to the legal profession with some of the biggest names in the industry – specifically focused on developing extremely efficient law practices, securing a competitive edge in the industry, and wildly excelling in the courtroom.
Produced and Sponsored by LawPods.
-
119 – Sonia Rodriguez – The Balancing Act: Running A Law Firm And Practicing Law
Two of the most difficult career paths are running your own business and practicing as a trial lawyer. They both take time, energy, commitment, and exceptional ability in your craft. However, when running your own law firm, you’re tasked with doing both. It can be easy to mismanage the business side or let your abilities as an attorney waiver when one takes control of the other. So how do you balance the two for an exceptional law practice?
In episode 119, Michael Cowen speaks with Sonia Rodriguez, his fellow Partner & Trial Lawyer at Cowen, Rodriguez and Peacock PC about how they run their law firm. On this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael and Sonia discuss balancing being great lawyers and running a great firm, hiring and coaching decisions, how team building can impact the success of your efforts, taking the right cases at the right time, and much more.
Featured Guest
Name: Sonia Rodriguez
About: Sonia Rodriguez is a native of San Antonio. She graduated from Burbank High School then completed undergraduate studies at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. In 1999, Sonia received a Juris Doctorate degree from St. Mary’s University School of Law, in San Antonio, Texas, where she served as an editor and a co-founder of The Scholar: St. Mary’s Law Review on Minority Issues. Since then, Sonia has represented individuals and families who have been injured or have lost loved ones due to the negligence of others. Sonia’s commitment to serving her community through honest and fair legal representation was inspired by her father, a passionate labor organizer and her mother, a hard-working and loyal former paralegal.
Company: Partner And Trial Lawyer, Cowen | Rodriguez | Peacock
Connect: Linkedin
Key Points
Top takeaways from this episode
- Your law firm is a business. Is it healthy? Reminder that a law firm is a business. It’s important that you periodically gauge where your firm stands on its goals for growth, quality, income, and other goals you may have set to ensure it’s running the way you envision it.
- How to manage your new team members from the business and law sides of the firm. Managing a team is a skill. It’s imperative that you hire team members from both the business and law side of the firm that fit your firm’s culture, quality, and vision. That also means that as the firm grows, your team members may not grow with it whether from their decision or yours. You must communicate the past, present, and future of your firm to your team so that you can all work together as smoothly as possible.
- How to balance running a law firm and practicing law by hiring exceptional team members. You’re not going to enjoy or thrive in every section of running a law firm. The key to balancing the things you enjoy and the things you don’t is hiring exceptional team members to handle things like marketing, advertising, human resources, etc.
Episode Highlights
[02:19] Evaluate Your Business Health: Keep an eye on what works and what does not in your law firm
[09:15] Creating Systems Of Accountability In Your Business: As you are looking to manage your business health, also gauge your personal and team accountability.
[13:56] Keeping up with a drastically changing job market: How Michael and Sonia have kept up with their team’s needs with a changing job market.
[26:49] Managing your team, especially with new lawyers: When working with a team, learning to adjust behaviors and expectations is imperative for a healthy team culture.
[38:09] How to balance being an exceptional lawyer with an exceptional law practice: Although your time is eaten up by running a law firm business, there are many methods and practices that you can apply to balance the law firm with practicing law yourself.
[42:24] Best practices for coaching team members: It can be difficult telling a team member you don’t like what they do, but by using radical candor you can help a team member be better for them and for the rest of the team.
[40:32] Hiring for the things you don’t want to do: One of the keys to balance is to hire a great team to handle the business side of a law firm so you can focus on the practice side.
Connect with Trial Lawyer Nation
☑️ Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn.
☑️ Subscribe to Trial Lawyer Nation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
In this popular and award-winning podcast for trial lawyers, noteworthy author, sought-after speaker, and renowned trial lawyer, Michael Cowen explores critical topics distinctive to the legal profession with some of the biggest names in the industry – specifically focused on developing extremely efficient law practices, securing a competitive edge in the industry, and wildly excelling in the courtroom.
Produced and Sponsored by LawPods.
-
158 – Malorie Peacock – A Case is About the Jurors: Winning a Tough Wrongful Death Case
In trial, you have to be ready and just accept the fact that things are never going to be perfect. They’re never going to go the way you planned it.
In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen and Malorie Peacock share their strategies (as well as the hiccups they overcame) from their recent $4M verdict on a trucking wrongful death case, where only 10% of the fault was put on their client for rear-ending a tractor trailer. They detail how they “armed their experts” so that the jury wasn’t skeptical of expert testimony in this expert-heavy case. They also share how they successfully minimized comparative fault, and how they presented damages in a way that made an emotional impact. The episode wraps up with a discussion on the value of the healing aspect of the trial process for clients.
Don’t miss out! Big Rig Bootcamp takes place on July 12, 2024 in San Antonio, Texas. Register at bigrigbootcamp.com.
Featured Guest
Name: Malorie J Peacock
About: Malorie J Peacock is a Partner at Cowen Rodriguez Peacock. She was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas and received her J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. During her time with Cowen Rodriguez Peacock, Malorie has worked on numerous commercial vehicle, trucking, and wrongful death cases. Malorie brings close attention to detail, commitment to finding safety issues and areas of neglect, continued utilization of technology and cutting-edge visuals in cases, along with a sincere passion to help those who have been hurt, to each and every case.
Company: Cowen Rodriguez Peacock
Connect: LinkedIn
Episode Highlights
[02:18] 30,000-Foot View of the Case: A driver of an 18 wheeler ran over something in a roadway that disconnected her airlines to her braking system in her truck. The driver panicked and stopped her vehicle on a major highway in Dallas at 10pm at night. Michael and Malorie’s client’s son didn’t see her in the roadway, and unfortunately, ran into her and died.
[07:15] Rehearsing Jury Selection and Opening Statement: In order to be seamless and avoid using a bunch of notes, you have to practice, says Malorie. Michael explains how they used the rehearsals to test their advocacy. Did people understand them? Was their story persuasive? Was their theory convincing? These rehearsals were right before trial and separate from the focus groups they did on the case.
[10:39] Challenges in Jury Selection: Due to the Court’s orders, Michael and Malorie couldn’t talk about the facts of the case and they couldn’t even say it was a trucking case or a wrongful death case. The judge was also still following COVID restrictions, so with social distancing between jurors and Michael and Malorie speaking from a podium, it was difficult to connect with jurors. However, they pivoted their strategy and made it work.
[21:05] The First Witness: Michael and Malorie called the defendant driver first. “We couldn’t call her a liar,” says Michael. “The jury needed to, through the course of the trial, come to their own conclusion that she was not telling the truth.”
[24:52] Strategy for an Expert-Intense Case: With all the expert testimony, Michael and Malorie didn’t want the jury to think ‘well, they’re just saying whatever they want because they paid them.’ To avoid that, Michael and Malorie armed their experts with anchors and testing.
[27:15] Demonstrating Airbrake Function: Michael and Malorie did their own testing where they got an 18 wheeler with a tractor and a trailer, and they pulled an airbrake when it was going 50-something miles per hour to show that it would not just make the truck immediately come to a stop, contrary to the defense’s story.
[31:54] Motivating the Jury to Award Damages: Malorie explains how you want enough witnesses to tell your story, but not so much that it’s emotionally exhausting for the jury, because if you exhaust the jury then they get annoyed with you.
[39:53] Comparative Fault Argument: Michael shares his unique approach of comparing the time each party had in the accident, which helped minimize their client’s percentage of fault.
[42:08] Damages Presentation: Malorie vividly describes her method of illustrating damages by physically tearing a picture of the deceased, to symbolize the persistent pain experienced by the parents.
[44:43] The Healing Aspect of Trial: Michael and Malorie touch on the healing aspect of the trial for the client, emphasizing the importance of clients being heard and validated.
Connect with Trial Lawyer Nation
☑️ Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn.
☑️ Subscribe to Trial Lawyer Nation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and YouTube.
In this popular and award-winning podcast for trial lawyers, noteworthy author, sought-after speaker, and renowned trial lawyer, Michael Cowen explores critical topics distinctive to the legal profession with some of the biggest names in the industry – specifically focused on developing extremely efficient law practices, securing a competitive edge in the industry, and wildly excelling in the courtroom.
Produced and Sponsored by LawPods.
