Episode 13: Conversation with Amy Pardieck (Trial Consultants)

Amy Pardieck:

I get brought in, ideally early in a case and we will possibly do a focus group that can be used as a guide for discovery. You know, there are comments from the focus jurors that if you and I had worked on this case for the next five years, we wouldn’t have come up with, and actually that’s the whole point of doing them, right? That they come up with things that we don’t.

David Craig – Host:

I’m really excited to have Amy Pardieck as our guest. Amy is a nationally renowned trial consultant. She is the owner of Perceptual Litigation, and she has years of experience working as a trial consultant all over this entire country. She is one of the top trial consultants and she has worked with some of the best lawyers on some of the biggest cases throughout the United States. This is After the Crash.

David Craig – Host:

I’m attorney David Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of the law firm of Craig, Kelley, and Faultless. I’ve represented people who have been seriously injured or who have had a family member killed in a semi or other big truck wreck for over 30 years. Following the wreck, their lives are chaos. Often, they don’t even know enough about the process to ask the right questions. It is my goal to empower you by providing you with the information you need to protect yourself and your family. In each and every episode, I will interview top experts and professionals that are involved in truck wreck cases. This is After the Crash. 

David Craig – Host:

Welcome, Amy.

Amy Pardieck:

Thank you. It’s an honor to be here.

David Craig – Host:

As you know, I started this podcast so that ordinary people that had questions about the process could go to the podcast and learn something. I think a lot of folks don’t know what a trial consultant is, they have no idea. They may have seen something on television, or they may have seen something in a movie, but they really don’t understand what is a trial consultant? Why is my lawyer hiring a trial consultant? and is it worth the money and the investment? So today, I’d like to enlighten folks on the area of trial consultants. So, maybe, why don’t we start off with just telling us what is a trial consultant?

What Is a Trial Consultant?

Amy Pardieck:

So, a trial consultant assists lawyers in different aspects of the trial. It can be preparing the case for trial or during trial and even after trial conducting post-verdict interviews. I think of the trial consultant as being sort of the people expert in the practice of law. The lawyers, like you David, are the expert in the legal part of it and the legalities, which can be consuming. Trial consultants are often sort of the experts on the jurors’ perspective or the lay perspective on cases because as you know, facts don’t usually speak for themselves, and everybody can see the same thing very differently. Some people will say that a truck was driving fast, and other people might see that speed as slow or normal. So, the trial consultant brings in the different perspectives, specifically the jurors’ perspectives. I think of us as sort of a bridge between the jurors and the law or the legal side of it.

David Craig – Host:

Well, I think that it’s extraordinarily important for people to understand that lawyers spend a lot of time becoming lawyers. They go to law school, they learn about the law, they learn to think in a certain way. I know when I have my young trial lawyers, it takes me time to make them unthink a way. I think law is a hard thing, it’s hard for us to keep up, and there is a lot there but no part of law school or very little of law school actually focuses on juries or ordinary people and how they think. So, I think there is a big difference between the way the lawyer thinks and the way a trial consultant thinks.

Amy Pardieck:

It’s shocking for me sometimes to be brought in on a case, and the attorneys have had no training on jury selection or no training on jury decision making or basic communication skills. Actually, I think sometimes law school unlearns basic communication skills that law students don’t end with, and they come out, and there’s just so much that you all have to stay on top of. The laws are ever changing and the content part of it. I feel it is so consuming for you all. I mean, we all have only so much bandwidth, right? So, sometimes it’s helpful for you all to delegate to a trial consultant doing some jury research, focus groups, or mock trials to get to know the lay perspective. Then, bringing that into jury selection and identifying what grounds the jurors might have or experiences that they might have that are particularly relevant to a case or make sitting on this case particularly difficult for a specific juror.

David Craig – Host:

How does one become a trial consultant? I know that I’ve listened to and read, and I study more today than I ever did even when I was in law school. Maybe I didn’t study as well as I should have in law school, but I’ve seen lots of different types of jury consultants with lots of different backgrounds. So how does one become a jury consultant?

How to Become a Jury or Trial Consultant?

Amy Pardieck:

That is so true. It’s becoming a more popular profession, and actually the more trials I assist with, it’s more common that the other side has a trial consultant as well.  There is a professional organization called the American Society of Trial Consultants. You don’t have to qualify to become a trial consultant. There are no specific licensing procedures or anything like that, but the professional organization provides standards that trial consultants who are members follow. You don’t have to be a member of it to be a trial consultant, but I recommend working with a trial consultant who is because it does provide some baseline standards that are important for us to follow. There are approximately 500 trial consultants, I believe, in the country.

Amy Pardieck:

We come from all different backgrounds. There are some who are lawyers. My background is in clinical psychology. I worked as a family therapist before becoming a trial consultant. There are trial consultants with acting backgrounds, communication backgrounds, business backgrounds, human relations, or business public relations backgrounds. There is the whole gamut, and I think the point of that is that we all bring in a different perspective that is useful to the attorney clients we work with, and ultimately useful to the jurors. I mean, our job is to assist the jurors in doing their jobs. I think most trial consultants come to trial consulting from another profession. There is a huge learning curve to becoming a trial consultant. It’s not the kind of thing that you can get in to out of undergraduate school or even graduate school and just jump in.

Amy Pardieck:

So, I worked as an intern at a trial consulting firm for several years and then became an associate trial consultant. I then kind of worked my way through collecting experience to being able to stand on my own two feet and work on my own as a solo practitioner. Most full-time trial consultants do have some sort of path that they’ve taken to get to where we are at this point.

David Craig – Host:

Out of curiosity, what was it that caused you to have that interest, to go into trial consulting?

Amy Pardieck:

Well, I’ve always been interested in the law. Actually, I’m the only person in my immediate family who is not a lawyer.  Both of my parents are attorneys, and my siblings are attorneys. I always toyed with going to law school, but I like the people part of the law. I loved going to trials with my parents as a child and observing and being a gofer. I knew that I was not cut out for the library research aspect of the law. That’s a big part, especially for young lawyers. Everybody has to go through sort of that evolution to become a trial lawyer. I knew that this wasn’t for me. When I became aware of trial consulting, it was just a perfect fit of my interest in people and decision making, what motivates people, and also my interest in the courtroom and the legal aspect of it.

Amy Pardieck:

I actually lucked out. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time when I became a trial consultant, because I was called in to do witness prep with a witness who was having anxiety attacks over testifying in court and a lot was hinging on this witness’ testimony. With my background in clinical psychology and family therapy, I was brought in to work with this witness and help deal with the anxiety aspect of it. Then, I was there in trial and asked, what did I think about this, that and the other thing, and what were my observations.  The trial consulting firm was in Atlanta and happened to need more assistance with other things. I just kind of grew into filling that spot which has been a perfect fit, and I’ve been doing this for over 20 years.  It’s hard to imagine.

David Craig – Host:

So, if somebody has been in or their family has been in a catastrophic event, and they have a lawsuit or a claim, and their lawyer recommends that they hire a trial consultant, and I always talk to my clients about it, because it is an investment. I look at it as not a cost, but more of an investment in their case and they ask me questions about it. They don’t know sometimes even what to ask. How is one to determine whether they have a good trial consultant?  There are people out there right now, quite frankly, that are hanging their shingle out and holding themselves out as trial consultants who don’t have the experience that you have or that any of the great trial consultants have. I’m just curious, and I’ve seen them.

David Craig – Host:

Sometimes, I’m excited when I google the defense trial consultant because I go, “Oh my goodness, we got a really good chance now, because that person really is not qualified.” So, how do you know a good trial consultant versus a bad trial consultant?

How Do You Know a Good Trial Consultant Versus a Bad One?

Amy Pardieck:

So, I would interview them like you do anybody else who you’re wanting to work with and hiring to do a job and ask about references, their track record, publications, how long they’ve been doing this, and common-sense questions such as what you can do for me and see how they respond to it. I think that there is a personal aspect to it too. It has to be a good fit. There are a lot of cases where we will work pretty intensely with the attorneys and with the witnesses, the attorney’s clients and their witnesses. So, the personalities have to mesh, and if there’s not a good feeling around that, then it’s probably not going to work out as well as it could.

David Craig – Host:

I think having someone with your level of experience certainly helps. I mean, I would assume over the years, you’ve been doing it for what, 20 years or over.

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah.

David Craig – Host:

You’ve gained a lot of insight by doing that. Isn’t that true?

Amy Pardieck:

Absolutely, I also grow with each case and each trial team that I work with and learn more and learn more from my other trial consultant colleagues who I work with. I think it was really important when I started out.  I started out as an intern and then as an associate. I had really the best mentors in the world. I mentored with Andy Sheldon and DeAnn Sinrich in Atlanta and then with Eric Oliver up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and have had the wonderful opportunity to work with Katherine James and David Ball in Artemis. I think we all get better when we work together and can learn from each other.

David Craig – Host:

I know, I’m a better trial lawyer today than I was when I started. I had to start on little trials and had to get in a courtroom and try cases. Sometimes, I learned the hard way but you’re always learning. I hope to be a better trial lawyer 10 years from today than I am now. So, it is one of those things that the more experience you have, the more things you’ve seen, the more you realize, I think that maybe you don’t know everything, and that there is a lot to learn.

Amy Pardieck:

Well, one of the biggest teachers for me, David, is working with lawyers like you. I learned so much from you and your experience and when you identify areas where I can be of assistance. I’m not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be a lawyer, and so you kind of fill in that background for me. The better the lawyers are, who I work with, the better it makes me. So, it is a privilege to work with lawyers with your experience. One of the best teachers for me was my dad starting out. I think the first trial I observed of his. I was 10 years old, sitting in the back of the courtroom. I had a Nancy Drew book sitting next to me, and I was told to read. It was called the Secret Locket, and I was told to read my book and not make a peep. I think that I just happened to be able to go there because it was a snow day.

Amy Pardieck:

I wasn’t able to go to school, and so I was sent to the back of the courtroom in Jackson County, Indiana, but I didn’t read a page of that book. Even at the age of 10, I was just so fascinated, and it was such a learning experience.  I have vivid memories of that and that still influences how I work with lawyers today. One of them is my dad, and he was the same person in the courtroom as he was and still is, sitting at the dinner table, eating ice cream after dinner. His voice sounded the same, his demeanor sounded the same, and the jurors could feel that and see that he was the real thing. So, that’s one of the lessons I carry with me. I think that’s important for the jurors to experience and you’re the same, I experience you the same way David.

Amy Pardieck:

You’re the same person in the courtroom as you are when we run into each other on the sidewalk and we’re just catching up for a few minutes. I think that’s what makes some of the great lawyers really great. It’s one of the qualities.

David Craig – Host:

For those who don’t know, her dad is Roger Pardieck, one of the best trial lawyers I’ve ever seen, and we all learned a lot from him over the years. He was one of those just kind enough to share, whether it’s on a listserv or whether it’s a seminar, or whatever. I always loved working with and listening to Roger. So, you had a great mentor and a great teacher.

Amy Pardieck:

I did. Absolutely. The same was with my mom. She had a family law practice.  It was kind of a different perspective, but in her day being a female lawyer, it had its challenges in a small town. So, I got to learn a lot from her as well, which is also very beneficial, when we’re working at cases.

David Craig – Host:

I do think it’s important for people and their lawyers to be who they are. I sat through a trial once where one of my associates or one of my attorneys was trying the case, and this is years and years ago, but I was hearing my stuff. I was like they were using my stuff that I use in trial. I’m like, “No, don’t use it because it’s not you. It’s not you,” and jurors are really good of detecting when you’re being fake. Whoever you are, be who you are!

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah.

David Craig – Host:

Sometimes, again, we’re not trained necessarily that way, and some people are not comfortable, kind of opening up as to who they are, and they feel a little bit more vulnerable. I find that jurors like that in people. They like humans.

Amy Pardieck:

For sure. When you can laugh at something funny or you’re serious when it’s something serious, when you dare to be expressive in the courtroom, I think that’s important and it’s a little bit of a balancing act, right? Because our job is also still to provide the jurors the information, they need in a way they need it, so that they can make the right decision about the case. If somebody happens to be a clown, that probably needs to be dialed back a little bit in the courtroom, or if somebody has a big personality and tends to be kind of a bulldozer, then that is something that needs to be dialed back in the courtroom.  It’s a balancing act, but that’s part of our job is to identify those things that the jurors need so that they can do their job. It is the same with the witnesses.

David Craig – Host:

Let’s talk a little bit about when someone uses a trial consultant. I know from my own experience that there are different times and different ways, but when is somebody brought in and when should somebody be brought in?

When Should You Bring a Trial Consultant into a Case?

Amy Pardieck:

Ideally, I get brought in early in a case, and we will possibly do a focus group that can be used as a guide for discovery. Sometimes we even do focus groups before a case is filed, so that the attorneys can decide if they want to file this case or if they want to maybe use the feedback from the focus group to handle it differently. So, the earlier the better from my perspective but the reality is I don’t always get brought in early and it can be further along when people might be preparing for depositions or settlement, mediation, or trial preparation. That is probably when I’m brought in the most is when the attorneys and their clients when the heat gets turned up. I think sometimes the thought is to save the expense, until we really need it, when in fact, my experience is more often than not that the earlier I’m brought in can actually save expenses because we can identify sometimes what experts are really needed.

Amy Pardieck:

Sometimes we identify experts or witnesses that aren’t needed, so you don’t have to spend money chasing down some rabbit trails that may not be necessary. It kind of runs the full gamut. Actually, sometimes, I’m brought in after a case is already over. I’ll do post-verdict interviews, or I’ve even done focus groups on cases that are already over because the attorneys want to learn a little bit more insight into what happened in the courtroom and make decisions about.  Do we want to take more of these cases, or do we not want to take more of these cases?  There are sometimes decisions made after trial is over that can influence bringing me in.

David Craig – Host:

I know I’ve had opportunity to work with you at different stages, and I think probably the most helpful was when we brought you in to do focus groups before we even decided to file a lawsuit. I think it’s really important for the folks that are listening, the clients, is to know that we know the law, but we don’t necessarily know how people are going to perceive this case. I think the most dangerous thing that any of us can do is to assume that we know. Sometimes, the more we do things, the more we start to think that we know how people are going to react, and that really is dangerous. It’s always eye opening to me. I’ve never sat through a focus group where I didn’t learn something. The earlier I learned that, the more helpful I can be.  Let’s talk a little bit about getting involved early, and why that is so important.

Getting a Trial Consultant Involved Early in a Case

Amy Pardieck:

I do focus groups almost every week, or actually right now. I am doing them every week.  I do so many, and I kind of start out with the expectation that I’ve heard it all and I can’t be surprised by anything somebody says, but I’m constantly learning new things every single time. There are comments from the focus jurors that if you and I had worked on this case, for the next five years, that we wouldn’t have come up with and actually that’s the whole point of doing them, right? They come up with things that we don’t. Not all focus groups are created equal either. Maybe we talk about that a minute, because there are all kinds of focus groups, and it’s not one size fits all. They have different purposes. They have different benefits. They can have some disadvantages if they’re not done properly.

Amy Pardieck:

I think it’s really important when working with a trial consultant that you identify what we want to accomplish with this focus group, and then choose the right format to accomplish your goals. There are some trial consultants who do only one standard format, and that’s it for all purposes no matter what. That I would be a little bit concerned about because like I said, doing a focus group to decide whether to file a case or as a guide for discovery is a completely different animal than doing a focus group for trial preparation and honing your presentation when the facts have already been developed.

David Craig – Host:

I think that’s a good point, I think some folks may not even know what a focus group is. So why don’t you just kind of explain to us what a focus group is? I mean, I know there are different types, maybe just touch briefly on those?

What Are Focus Groups?

Amy Pardieck:

Right, so the two big, sort of different types.  One is where they’re called either concept or narrative focus groups where small amounts of information are given to people who look and sound like jurors typically from the trial venue. Then, we get feedback from them, usually verbally but the feedback can also be in writing when they fill out written questionnaires. We will give them a little information about the case and ask them what is their impression, what are their experiences with the information that is being presented to them, because the research says, so it’s got to be true, right? At least the research says that jurors spend 80% of their time in the deliberation room discussing their own personal experiences.

Amy Pardieck:

So, to do our jobs, we need to find out what people’s personal experiences are with the different aspects of the case. Whether it’s a trucking case, what people’s experiences with semi-trucks, driving on ice, or people’s personal experiences driving West into the sun at sunset. There’s a whole myriad of different things that people have personal experiences with that apply to these cases from the liability standpoint of it. Then, also in terms of damages, what are people’s personal experiences with chiropractors if the injured person treated with a chiropractor or with brain injuries if the plaintiff has a brain injury. Different sort of constellations of facts trigger different experiences that jurors might have and what those mean to this case.

Amy Pardieck:

So, that’s what we aim to find out with the focus groups, and I started out saying there’s a narrative concept time where we give the focus jurors just a little bit of information. We give them a little bit of information and time and get feedback from them on that. Then, there’s an adversarial focus group where each party is represented by an attorney. Here, they present adversarial presentations, and the presentations could be just the opening statements, or we could spend a whole day and there could be adversarial presentations of the openings, of the evidence, and of the closings. Then, the people will be divided up into deliberation groups and actually go deliberate the case to a verdict at the end of the day. When we do that, we’d like to have at least three different deliberation groups.

Amy Pardieck:

Oftentimes, those deliberation groups will come back with different verdicts which can be very informative to us, and what are the common denominators between those verdicts and what are the differences. Finding out how they each arrive at their different verdicts can be really informative.

David Craig – Host:

I can imagine that. I mean, you get to do these all over the country. So, I would imagine that you could have the exact same fact pattern in one state and one county, and you could probably go to a different county in the same state and have a different result and certainly a different state in the Union, you would have a different result. So, you could have the same thing, but people’s perception of those same facts are different, depending on where they live.

Amy Pardieck:

That is why we really aim to do the focus groups and mock trials in the trial venue, if we can. The only reason we wouldn’t do it in the trial venue is if the trial venue is too small, and we don’t want to risk confidentiality issues with people finding out that this is taking place. We don’t want to risk contaminating the jury pool or something like that.  Then, we will go to a different county and match the demographics of the trial venue with the focus jurors who we recruit from a different county.

David Craig – Host:

I know that you and I worked together on a case in a Union City. It was a heavily predominantly Union County, and we had a case where a semi driver was driving on ice and was clearly violating the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, clearly violating the Indiana CDL Manual, and clearly violating the state law. He was talking on his cell phone from the point he picked up his load until this wreck happened which was like over an hour. He was talking to his girlfriend, and he was just distracted. He had slid through one intersection, and then he slid through another one, and hits my client. Then, he cusses on the phone while he’s talking to his girlfriend, and he calls my client a derogatory name.  I thought, my gosh, everybody is going to hate this truck driver.

David Craig – Host:

I know from trying cases that I would like to have some responsibility shifted to the company, because the company hires this person, and they trained this person. They are responsible for this person, but I thought, if there is ever a time when they are not going to blame the company and they are going to blame this guy in this particular case, and I was wrong. Your father’s group showed me that. Anyway, my wife will tell you that I’m wrong a lot, but I just couldn’t believe how they stuck up for this person.

Amy Pardieck:

Well, they were worried about him, right? They were worried about if there would be a verdict against him that it could have an effect on his future employment opportunities, and that the company might have been putting pressure under him.  There could have been consequences if he hadn’t met the deadline or the time when he was supposed to deliver the load. The focusers were putting themselves in his shoes, and they were worried about him and sticking up for him.

David Craig – Host:

We shifted our focus to the company. I remember people saying, “Well, my husband works over here at the factory and if he doesn’t show up no matter what the weather is, they’ll fire him and replace him with someone else, and then how’s he going to provide for our family?” So, it was very enlightening to me to hear that. So, people who are listening, it gives the lawyer some guidance then.  If I go try that case without knowing that fact and try to make this guy look bad, because I believed that he was bad, he was dangerously driving. I could have really hurt my client’s case, unintentionally, by not knowing how people in that county would perceive these facts. That’s a perfect example I think of why lawyers should, and clients should, allow their lawyers to do these type of studies, focus groups.

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah, we really didn’t see that coming because there were so many violations that he had that it seemed just like a slam dunk. One of those things that you just take for granted that this is an open and shut case. It was eye opening and, fortunately, we did the focus group early enough that you were able to shift the focus in discovery and not be blindsided by it.

David Craig – Host:

We’ve done that now where we’ve got cases that are huge cases, they’re multimillion dollar cases. Those are going to take a long time to process for the most part. It’s going to take a while for us to get from the beginning to the trial or settlement. What we’ve done is we start off from the very beginning, because I want to know, right in the very beginning, “Okay, how do people just perceive these facts,” and then that guides us into our discovery like you mentioned drafting discovery. Drafting the kind of the focus of the case and then our intent is once we gather some information, I assume, then that’s a good time to go back and try another focus group to see if we have some new stuff, what does this do to it? Do you do multiple ones?

Amy Pardieck:

We have done that. We have done multiple ones. I think the most focus groups I did on one case was six focus groups, but that’s unusual, and it was a really, really difficult case. Unfortunately, it paid off in that case but part of it too is first of all, you’re so smart to be asking the questions. I think that that speaks so highly of you that you’re interested in the different perspectives. The other thing is it gives us an opportunity for the attorneys who don’t have much experience in the courtroom to develop presentation skills. Basically, to practice and especially after COVID, I know most attorneys have been out of the courtroom for quite some time, and it’s like with anything that you want to do well, you can hone those skills and practice. It’s interesting because sometimes I experience that the most experienced attorneys, like you, are the ones who want to practice the most and get better and maximize your skill level and your potential, and you seem to benefit the most from it.

David Craig – Host:

I mean, I send all of our associate attorneys out to the best trial lawyers in the country. Whether it’s Lemir or whether it’s Mitnick or whoever, whenever they’re running seminars, I send them out there, and I go because we want to be better. I think when you don’t want to get better then maybe you want to hang it up, because I think that we have so much to learn. That’s what I love about working with trial consultants is because they focus on what we should focus on, which is ultimately my job is to get the best result for my client to make the most positive difference in my clients’ lives.  For me to do that, I have to know, and jurors change, times change, and so what worked five years ago, may not work today. So, you can be an extraordinarily successful trial lawyer, and have been very fortunate and walking in and out of courtrooms and then, all of a sudden, it changes and you’re not successful. If you’re not keeping up and you’re not using trial consultants, how in the world would you know that?

Amy Pardieck:

One of the things that worries me most is when attorneys say, “I want to do it this way because that’s the way I did it in my last case.” Well, maybe that applies to this one and can work just as well, but maybe not. We need to figure it out because different strategies apply at different times. It is so true that juror attitudes are evolving, and it is important to kind of have a read on where they are, particularly how they apply to your case. Juror attitudes have been affected enormously by COVID. Some people are just so over it that they don’t want to hear another sob story about somebody being injured or laid up.  They can’t handle it, and other people, because of their COVID experience have become more sensitized to somebody who is injured, laid up, and has mobility issues or limitations that they didn’t have before.

Amy Pardieck:

Then, there’s everything in between, it’s not an either or an or. I think we are all enormously influenced by social media and by politics, our work situations, the economy, and so forth. All of those things play a role in how jurors make decisions. They can’t help it. We can’t leave our attitudes and our opinions and our experiences in the car like a cell phone. They come into the courtroom with the jurors or into the focus groups with the focus jurors, and they go into the deliberation room with the jurors. We cannot siphon those out. Having a feeling of what those are and how they are influencing jurors’ decisions about your case, it makes a difference. Really, it makes a difference in terms of how we present the case so it’s meaningful to the jurors, how the lawyers work it up, and even maybe how confident sometimes lawyers feel in the courtroom.

Amy Pardieck:

When we have done our homework, when we have done the jury research and have a feeling for what attitudes we can anticipate and what role they’re going to play, then the lawyers kind of know how to adapt to that and adjust to it, rather than kind of just be guessing out of nowhere.

David Craig – Host:

From my perspective, I don’t know how you try cases without it, certainly significant cases. I mean, I spent over 35 years learning to be a trial lawyer and studying and reading. I only know how to really try one area which is personal injury. I would not be as effective in a criminal case, and I would not be as effective in a divorce case or any other type of case because all my resources, all my ability, all my reading, all my studying, and everything is done in this area. Now, there are these folks out there called trial consultants. All their focus and energy are spent on how lawyers can put on a better trial and how can they be a better communicator. So, why wouldn’t you go use these folks? So, if you’re a client, you’re out there and you’re wondering, it is silly not to because there is a difference between the lawyers. If you hired a divorce lawyer to handle your truck wreck case, I would have the opinion that that’s a tough challenge for that lawyer.

David Craig – Host:

If you hire a truck lawyer to handle a truck case, that’s a step the right direction.  if they really have tried these cases, and they know how to do them, but they can only do so much. I’ve tried cases in Missouri., and that is different than trying a case in Indianapolis. The most recent one that we were going to bring you in was Bowling Green, Kentucky, where only 25% of the people have been vaccinated. I was worried. What does that mean? In the court, we didn’t have to wear masks, and I was worried because I have no idea what it feels like to live in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  Whether you are in St. Louis or wherever you are at, people are different. That is where you help us realize the difference and how do we effectively communicate with these folks. 

Amy Pardieck:

I think we talked about that applying to focus groups and trial presentation. I think it applies just as much to preparing your witnesses to testify in court as well. Just like you talked about us with learning the focus jurors’ attitudes about the defendant truck driver, they were way different than we anticipated. That happens too with your witnesses. Sometimes the lawyers will really like their client, and just be convinced that everybody is going to like this client because this person is so lovable. I was working with someone, and part of the reason people liked her so much is that she smiled all the time. That’s the first impression, when somebody smiles all the time, I mean, people seem to like that person.

Amy Pardieck:

The smile was a cover up for pain, insecurity, and nervousness, and dealing with the injuries that she had dealt with. So, she wasn’t all smiles but that was just the first impression. So, when we were working together and able to identify, what’s going on with this smile? What else is there? What’s behind that? That was the real stuff. It was important for the plaintiff lawyer to bring that out, when that plaintiff was on the stand, so the jurors knew what the smile meant, and they knew what was behind it and what else was going on with that person. At the focus group, we show just a short video clip of this plaintiff, and it was the smiley version, and it made the injuries seem kind of superficial and minimized them, but it wasn’t the real story. The jurors need to know the real deal, and we all have coping mechanisms.

Amy Pardieck:

I mean, I give this woman credit for smiling her way through her pain in some way. I mean, that was a coping mechanism that worked for her in her real life and got her through. It just, it was important that it wasn’t misinterpreted or misunderstood, and for people to know what it really meant.

David Craig – Host:

For the folks that are listening that aren’t familiar with what we do, witness preparation is something that we do because a lawyer that doesn’t prepare their witnesses is not doing their job. People say this all the time… that witness preparation is preparing somebody to be fake. It doesn’t mean you prepare people to lie. It’s just like what Amy just talked about, that you need to know more, how this person thinks, and the story is behind the witness.  I want to make sure again, because people don’t know, and we see so much stuff on television that is just sometimes is really unethical.  What I see in movies or on TV is not what we’re talking about. Talk a little bit more how you work with and prepare witnesses.

Witness Preparation

Amy Pardieck:

So, you do a great job at this. David, that is you do not, and the great trial lawyers and trial consultants don’t tell the witnesses what to say. You don’t put words in their mouths.  What you do is ask questions to get to the core of what is really going on with them or what information the jurors need. Sometimes, the plaintiffs don’t know themselves; if they’re depressed, for example, if they’ve been depressed after the wreck and they weren’t before the wreck. Sometimes they haven’t been put in a position to put words to that and identify what is really triggering it, and we have to put words to it, so the jurors and the judge can understand what’s going on. Really, that process is just spending time and asking the hard questions, and listening, really listening to what they’re saying and working to understand it.

Amy Pardieck:

I think lawyers are brilliant wordsmiths and words are your tools. So, dialing that back and really being in listening mode when you’re working with the witnesses is one of the things that many of us can learn from you, David, because that’s one of the things that you’re exceptional at.

David Craig – Host:

I love the time that I get to spend with witnesses. I love going to my clients’ houses and meeting people and going to the witnesses’ houses and meeting people. I learned so much more about people when I get to see them in their environment rather than in my environment because sometimes it doesn’t match up. You’re like, “Oh, my gosh, this is not what I thought.”

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah.

David Craig – Host:

So, I do think about listening and asking. My dad was a psychologist, your dad was a lawyer.

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah.

David Craig – Host:

My dad was a psychologist, so I have an appreciation and respect for the profession. I used to just love the fact that my dad would listen. He would just listen, and he saw the good in people. I think that helped drive me to what I do. I wasn’t smart enough to be a psychologist, so I decided I’ll be a lawyer instead. I don’t have that fancy vocabulary that you talk about, but I do like people.  I love people. I think that it helps, and some lawyers maybe don’t love people as much. That’s not their thing. They like to hang out. I hang out with anybody and everybody. I don’t hang out at the fancy golf clubs or whatever.  Nothing wrong with that, but that’s not me.  I think the less contact you have with everyday ordinary people, the worse the trial lawyer you’re going to be, and the more important it is to have people who can relate to people, and who can help you bridge that gap.

Amy Pardieck:

Well, it’s more than that with you. I agree with everything you’re saying. Absolutely, I feel like with you, you really care about the person. It’s more than doing a job. Your interactions with your clients and with the witnesses, I feel like it’s way more than just doing a job. It is caring about them and wanting to do what is absolutely the best for them, and then, ultimately for their case, as well. I think that that’s coming from a different place than just having a checklist and checking the boxes and that we have to talk about these topics. You’re going at this about what is important to this person and what are their needs. Then, not only that, but what are the judges and the jurors’ need from you and from your witnesses. I think you care about them just as much because you’re coming at this from a people perspective. I love that.

David Craig – Host:

Thank you. Let’s talk about mock trials.

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah.

David Craig – Host:

So, one of the other things trial consultants do is mock trial, so tell us a little bit about what a mock trial is, and how does that work. 

What Are Mock Trials and How Do They Work?

Amy Pardieck:

So mock trials are usually bigger, longer, fuller focus groups. So, we’ll have more deliberation groups, show video of the witnesses, have people fill out questionnaires as the day progresses, and sort of get temperature readings from the mock jurors about different stages of the trial and different witnesses. Basically, a mock trial is a Reader’s Digest version, if you will, of the trial.  It is just kind of a truncated version of the trial. Those can last all day. They can last three days. The other thing sometimes that you’ll see trial consultants work with are shadow juries where they’ll have jurors in the courtroom who are observing. So, there’s the jury in the jury box but sometimes some trials have shadow juries where people will be brought in to observe the trial.

Amy Pardieck:

Then, the trial consultant will debrief the shadow jurors in the evenings to get their feedback on what they understood, what their impressions were, and those usually happen in cases that are pretty technical and complicated. Some patent cases or accounting cases, where we’re really concerned about this is meaningful to those of us without that background.  

David Craig – Host:

Have you ever been in a trial where both sides have shadow jurors?

Amy Pardieck:

I have not. I have not.

David Craig – Host:

That would be fascinating to me.

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah, I am involved in more and more trials where both sides have trial consultants. That’s becoming almost standard, especially in the larger trials.  That’s becoming more common, and I tend to see some of the same trial consultants in trials, repeatedly, and we wave at each other.

David Craig – Host:

I know one of the other things that trial consultants help us with is our exhibits and what evidence we want to present, not only in document form but in testimony form. I think that’s helpful. Clients tell me all the time when they hire me is that this is a simple case and here are all the facts. Young attorneys are not necessarily young in age, but young in experience. They have a tendency to want to put in all the evidence, and if it’s relevant, “I’m going to put it all in.” I’m always working with my other attorneys, and it’s like, “No, no, no. Do you really need this fact? Do you need that fact?” Actually, yesterday, I was telling my partner, “That fact, I know it’s relevant, but it’s not helpful.” So, tell us a little bit about your role in doing that.

Knowing What Evidence and Facts to Present

Amy Pardieck:

Well, sometimes what’s relevant to the attorneys and from the legal perspective is not relevant at all to the jurors. So, we have to sort that out because I’ve had that experience too that a lot of attorneys think the more facts, the better. However, if you look at it just from a factual perspective, all the facts can drown the jurors. The jurors get lost in all of the details and can’t see the forest for the trees. That’s definitely a sorting process of what do we need, and it’s not just we, it’s actually what do the jurors need. That’s the question. What do the jurors need to do their job in this case? I can guarantee you, there’s a huge difference between what the jurors need and what many attorneys think they need. Definitely, focus groups and mock trials can help us sort that out.

Amy Pardieck:

Also just asking the question, what do the jurors need? What, of all of this information, furthers the ball without us getting lost in the weeds because all of our attention spans are shrinking. That’s part of this age of technology and sort of instant gratification. We can go on Google and have an answer in a second, and we’re inundated with all of this input and so, we have to be cognizant of how much attention and bandwidth, so to speak, the jurors are going to give us and cater to that, so we don’t lose them in the process.  We need jurors who are going to be engaged with us throughout the trial. Jurors get really impatient when they’re hearing the same thing over and over again. They get really impatient with redundancy and the risk is they’re just going to tune out, and then we haven’t done our jobs.

Amy Pardieck:

So, I mean, we don’t want to put on a dog and pony show for entertainment purposes. That doesn’t serve anybody either, but we definitely need to be cognizant of attention spans and being direct and concise. It’s a balancing act because the jurors also need enough facts to be able to do their job, and I think that’s a process. So, I was editing an opening statement just a few days ago, and the first draft I got was 61 pages long. I couldn’t get through it. It just wore me out and I was like, “Oh, my God,” I had to back away from it. Then, I actually couldn’t edit it because it was just too overwhelming. So, what I ended up doing was making an outline and outlining the big topics, and then going back through the opening and identifying what in here fits into these topics and what can we dispense with.

David Craig – Host:

I know my partner is extraordinarily smart and knowledgeable at the law. When we try cases together, I’m not, and I don’t need to be because I have him. I know what I need to know.

Amy Pardieck:

So, it makes you a perfect team though.

David Craig – Host:

Yeah, and it does, and I mean, he tells me, “Here’s what you need to keep your verdict.”

Amy Pardieck:

Yes.

David Craig – Host:

So, that’s important.

Amy Pardieck:

Yes.

David Craig – Host:

You can’t lose sight of, “Okay, I just want to put on this presentation that’s persuasive and informative, but I also have to maintain”, and I’ve always been able to keep my verdicts because he’ll say, “Dave, you need this one question, and you didn’t ask it. Go back and ask it.” So, I think again, there’s a fine line. We have to present a case that a juror finds persuasive and doesn’t bore them or they get bothered.  It takes a bit, but at the same time, we do have to hit that legal criteria.

Amy Pardieck:

Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.

David Craig – Host:

 I can’t talk about jury or focus or jury consultants unless I talk about the TV show Bull.

Amy Pardieck:

Yes, good. I’m glad you’ve watched it.

David Craig – Host:

I watched it when it first came out. I didn’t want to watch it to be entertained. I wanted to watch it because I was afraid, “Okay, here’s what jurors are going to think,” I swear, I don’t know, I quit counting how many unethical violations I saw in the first episode that I watched.

Amy Pardieck:

Right, yeah.

David Craig – Host:

Can you talk about how that’s not real or is it real? Tell me a little bit about the Bull TV show, for those folks who’ve seen it.

The TV Show “Bull”

Amy Pardieck:

Well, I think it’s wonderful entertainment, but that’s kind of the extent of it. So, in the world of trial consulting, none of us have red and green flashing screens on our walls with the jurors’ faces on them bigger than life. It would be unethical to go out and chase down the jurors and follow them around and videotape them and things like that. That doesn’t happen or if it does, it should not. My main tool that I work with as a trial consultant is a notepad and a pen, unlike on Bull. So, I do get that question a lot. When people find out I’m a trial consultant, they’ll say, “Oh, that means you’re like Bull.” I’m like, I don’t even know what I can relate to from that show in real life. There isn’t much to be honest, other than it’s entertaining, and I don’t even know what to say about it.

David Craig – Host:

What other types of things do you think folks should know about trial consultants or using trial consultants that maybe we haven’t chatted or talked about?

Amy Pardieck:

I think one of the concerns people have is cost. Obviously, we have to charge for our fees, but I think that there’s a whole array of services from trial consultants. Our services can range from an hourly rate that is budget friendly to tens of thousands of dollars and everything in between. So, when I work with clients, the question is, what does the attorney in the case and the plaintiff, what do they need and how can we best go about what service serves you the best and is budget friendly or can the budget tolerate. Then, I tailor my services to that, and every trial consultant works differently. Some people don’t work that way, and some do. I think that cost doesn’t need to automatically eliminate people from engaging a trial consultant when we can tailor our services to the needs of the budget, the case, the clients, and so forth.

Amy Pardieck:

That’s an important part of it. There’s no standard.  This fee is also from trial consultant to trial consultant and can range enormously, so they’re not standardized.  You just have to call the trial consultants and find out how they charge.

David Craig – Host:

I think it’s an investment. I mean, so with the right use of a trial consultant, it’s certainly an investment in someone’s case. The question is like any type of investment, what is the best use? Ask yourself or somebody you trust to say, “Okay, what do you think we should do?”

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah.

David Craig – Host:

What’s your recommendations and how do we go about it?

Amy Pardieck:

I mean, that’s something that we’ve decided together, right? We’ll decide what do we want to accomplish? What does the case need? What do you need and then what best will serve you? That’s a joint decision. I often will make recommendations, but I don’t dictate that it needs to be X, Y, and Z. I think it’s a collaboration.

David Craig – Host:

I think folks that hire or that have a significant case, we invest money in a lot of different things, in Medivisuals. I mean, I remember when I first started, I had terrible exhibits and today, I have really good exhibits. I have animations and I have things but sometimes, I will invest thousands of dollars in something only to find out that I can’t use it because it’s not effective. You have to be willing to say, “Okay, it doesn’t really matter. I’m going to invest money in something. I’m going to try to do the best that I can and then I’m going to be willing to walk away from something if my trial consultant tells me after focus grouping it that it’s more damaging than it is helpful,” and we’ve learned that.

Amy Pardieck:

Yeah, we’ve done that with your exhibits, right? We’ve tested those at focus groups and found out how they need to be revised or what the focus jurors need to see in order to understand the injury or to understand the liability or how the wreck occurred, all of those things. A picture is worth a thousand words. Oftentimes, the focus jurors can tell us better than anybody what it is that they need to see and how they need to see it in order to make sense of things. That’s often a sorting process also because the inclination sometimes is to put together, for example, a treatment timeline and to put all of the information in there, and then people can’t sort out what the heck it says. So, we go through this distillation process with the demonstratives as well and identify what’s the message and how do we really convey that visually.  

David Craig – Host:

I think that trial consultant can save you money. Clients have no problem if I spend $10,000 or $20,000 on an animation, but if we talk to the focus group and animation is not necessary, why invest the money in it? The animation companies will tell you every time that you need an animation, and you got to have this animation. I remember, I tried a case where I had an animation and I regretted having the animation because I didn’t focus group it. There’s a tendency when you’re a young attorney that if you invest the money in it, you feel like you got to use it. The great thing about having a trial consultant in the earlier stages is that they can tell you that you don’t even need it. Sometimes a simple chart or a simple diagram may just be as effective as something that you would spend thousands of dollars on.

Amy Pardieck:

Right, the flip chart and the marker.

David Craig – Host:

Yeah. I think that’s again, on the cost side of it, I look at it as to say, if you invest in a trial consultant early, then it can save you money down the road.

Amy Pardieck:

I definitely consider myself a member of the trial team. It’s not me telling you what to do, or you telling me what you need or what has to happen. It’s a collaboration. It’s us working together to maximize the value of your case or put it on a trial in a way that can be most useful for the jurors.

David Craig – Host:

I mean, there’s times when I’ll spend 10 to 15 thousand of dollars on the front end of a case, to find out that I have no case. My clients don’t have to pay me back that money. I just lose that money. I see other lawyers, and they don’t put the money in the front end to find out that they don’t have a case. Then, it’s years later when they find out that they don’t have a case. I would rather find out the strengths and weaknesses of my case and whether I have a case or I don’t have a case on the front end. I think that’s true with the jury consultants.

Amy Pardieck:

Well, if you carry a case for years and years only to keep investing in it and find out down the road that it wasn’t worthwhile, then you’re not only investing the money upfront but you’re doing it over time, and it doesn’t really get you anywhere.

David Craig – Host:

The thing I love about working with you is how passionate you are and how you really believe in what you do.  That’s one of the things that I relate well too. I think that’s important when you’re working for someone but from doing this now for over 20 years, what do you love about it? What keeps that passion?

Amy Pardieck:

I think, one case at a time, we’re making the world a better place. That’s a big part of it. We are holding trucking companies and truck drivers accountable for violations that hurt somebody or a company, a manufacturer accountable for a product defect or a doctor accountable for medical negligence. An attorney recently said in jury selection that she was taught as a girl growing up that if you make a mistake, you apologize for it, you own it and you fix it. Doing those things makes the world a better place, and unfortunately, we have these cases because the defendants aren’t doing that. They’re not apologizing for it. They’re not owning it. They’re not fixing it. So, we have to hold them to the grindstone. So that happens, because if there’s not accountability, they can keep hurting people without any consequences.

Amy Pardieck:

So, I think that the system that we have works for the most part, not always ideally, but our job is to make it work as best it can. I think that most of the time, we do that, hopefully. That’s the goal, and it’s to make the world a better place on a larger scale but then, for each plaintiff and for each case when they’ve been injured, and the only way that they can be helped is with money. That’s the only fix or the only remedy available to them. I see it working more often than not, and sometimes with these cases, it’s not only helping the plaintiff when they receive a recovery, but I think it helps the defendants too to be held accountable and to have closure and to acknowledge it. I mean, they’re kind of forced to acknowledge the wrongdoing, and they can hopefully make better choices going forward.

Amy Pardieck:

I think it’s not just for the plaintiff that we’re doing this, but I think that there’s a lot of benefits for the defendants as well even though those might be a little bit harder to swallow.

David Craig – Host:

I appreciate everything you do for my clients and for the folks out there and throughout the country that you have had an opportunity to work for. I think there’s nothing like my clients hugging me before the verdict even comes back, before they even know what the number is, and they hugged me and thanked me with tears in their eyes saying, “Thanks for helping me tell my story.” There’s nothing like that. I mean, I can’t imagine what other profession I could be in where you have that opportunity to touch people’s lives, and I’m honored every day that I get to do that. I had a client here just recently who agreed to take half a million dollars less if the company would just change the policy and make it safer for everybody else on the roadways, on a big trucking company.

David Craig – Host:

I was so proud. I suggested it but I said, “It’s up to you. We can either get this number X or we can get Y which is a half million dollars less than X, but they have to change policies. They have to do things to make it safer for their trucks.” My client said, I’m okay with that and unfortunately, the company picked Y and we took about a half million dollars less but they’re now going to be safer. The roads are going to be safer because of my client. I would have loved to try that case. I mean, from a personal standpoint, it’s not about me. It’s about my client and what a great opportunity and what a good a feeling it is when you make the world safer. That’s what you do by helping plaintiffs win these cases or what I find is if you prepare well, and you’ve done your homework, a lot of times you don’t get to try the case.

David Craig – Host:

Thank you for everything you do. I really appreciate it. I love working with you. I know we’ll get to work a lot together in the future and thank you for taking the time to be a guest on our podcast.

Amy Pardieck:

Likewise, David. It’s an honor to work with you and to have been able to talk with you about this today. I think that the podcast is really important to get the information out there, so I appreciate that you’re doing that.

David Craig – Host:

Well, thank you very much. This is David Craig and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website, ckflaw.com or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, you can pick up my book, Semitruck Wreck, A Guide for Victims and Their Families. This is available on Amazon or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.