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[00:00:01] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast, a podcast where we help you easily transition from law school student into your professional career as an attorney, a subject that is not taught in law school and where they often expect you to get that education when you join a law firm, but a law firm expects that you already know how to do that.
[00:00:23] Scott Benton: So we have decided to fill that gap. We’re also here to make the practice of law fun, a message that doesn’t always get communicated, but all of this information that we’re providing you is certainly going to help make your career as an attorney fun and it should be fun. Today we’re going to answer the question of how do you tell the story of your case.
[00:00:45] Scott Benton: How do you tell the story of your case?
[00:00:47] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] Now, when you first meet a client that’s often during the initial consultation with them and what you have in front of you or maybe some notes that were taken during the intake session is something that happens when a potential client calls up a law firm and talks to somebody and they discuss whether or not there is a case that is viable or not.
[00:01:59] Scott Benton: So you have some [00:02:00] supporting documentation, maybe there’s a red fin report on a property that’s involved in the case, or the client might have brought in some other official documentation like a birth certificate, or there might be some wills, or some other trust or court documentation that you’re looking at that you have in your hands, but at that point you really don’t have enough to tell the story of the case.
[00:02:24] Scott Benton: A compelling. story that you could turn to somebody and just start telling them the story about this particular case that you’re working on, you’re still in a part of the process where you are collecting case facts and what you need to refine and position the story that eventually it’s going to become the foundation of what you build your case from.
[00:02:49] Scott Benton: And it’s going to help you frame your case. And really how you cast your characters in your story. And beyond that, how you come up with your case [00:03:00] strategies. But it all starts with that story. So the story needs to have a cohesive narrative that’s Got to be ideally compelling and easy to tell.
[00:03:10] Scott Benton: Now, sometimes with all the complexities and details that you’re going to get surrounding a case in the case facts that the client is going to be telling you about, that’s not always really easy to do to tell a compelling story. But here you are sitting in front of the client with a part of the story, but not all of the story.
[00:03:29] Scott Benton: You don’t have all of the story yet, and you’re not going to start to dig deep. into the recesses of their memories. You’re going to do that once you understand where you are in the story and where you need to go. So now you’re going to go deep into that narrative and as deep as it takes you.
[00:03:47] Scott Benton: And it’s certainly going to be deeper than what was disclosed during the intake session. So those notes that you have, that’s going to be really a broad overview. Now those are valuable and you have to have them to really understand [00:04:00] the Maybe the big steps of the story, but now you want to get granular.
[00:04:04] Scott Benton: Now you want to get down to the actual story beats. So the entire key at this point is, of course, to get the case facts and only the facts. That’s from an old TV show. It’s a reference. Now, it doesn’t really matter what facts you get, not at this point. So you want to get them all. Now you’re going to have facts that are going to seem highly relevant to the case.
[00:04:24] Scott Benton: But you’re also going to get facts that seem totally irrelevant. But whatever facts come in, you don’t want to discount any of, anything. None of them. Because inside of even discounted facts, the ones that you’ve ignored or you think they’re irrelevant, those are some, sometimes we call those background facts.
[00:04:43] Scott Benton: So in the law firm that I work for, we call those background facts. Because they’re facts that really aren’t going to apply to the law, you’re not going to present them in court, no one’s going to know about them except you and your client. But they are still important to your case and you’re going to find opportunities [00:05:00] inside even those background facts and in the facts, the ones that you are going to use in a court, let’s say, and all of them, they’re going to provide important story beats or sometimes like plot reversals that you might end up incorporating into your narrative that you’re working on.
[00:05:17] Scott Benton: This is why we often say that you want to go three levels deep into the story. Not just all the surface stuff. You really want to get into the feelings and even what people, what the aromas were when somebody was going through a particular incident. What they heard or what they felt. or The five senses you want to incorporate those because that’s helping you drill down deep into those three levels.
[00:05:41] Scott Benton: Maybe you can go beyond three levels, but you want to get down deep and you want to do that through that sort of sensory information. And what did you hear? And what did that food taste like? What was the drink? What was that experience and you want to do that for a couple reasons.
[00:05:55] Scott Benton: First, you want to completely exhaust the client. By [00:06:00] having them just dump absolutely everything out onto the table, so to speak, about the case, because that sort of, that mind dump that they’re doing, that just thoroughly deep cleanses their brain, there’s nothing left when they’re done telling you the story.
[00:06:17] Scott Benton: And you want to do that, you want that mind dump, that deep mind dump, because now there’s a vacuum. And there’s an old saying that nature hates a vacuum. So it’s going to allow more information to come back in to fill that vacuum. It allows them to fill up that space with new information and new memories and new items about the case that you’re working on.
[00:06:41] Scott Benton: And a lot of times that’s where the real meat and potatoes, the rice and couscous of the case are going to materialize. That’s where they can be found. Or maybe at least As far as your case is concerned it’s really going to start taking shape that story and you’re going to, you’re going to begin to see [00:07:00] additional possible case strategies and directions that are going to begin to emerge because you’ve had your client completely empty their mind.
[00:07:08] Scott Benton: New information has come in. They’ve given you that as well. And now all kinds of possibilities open up. So once that’s done now. Now you finally have all the building blocks you need to put your story’s narrative together. It’s really just a matter of sitting there and fitting the puzzle pieces together until the picture of your story, it starts to come into focus and emerge.
[00:07:33] Scott Benton: Now you can start to construct the story arc and you can begin to include the different functions and motivations of the various characters inside of your story or the people who inhabit this landscape so that you can illustrate a tale of injustice or graft or coercion or deception or whatever.
[00:07:54] Scott Benton: Whatever you need to build your story engine and you need to use that story engine to [00:08:00] navigate the setup and the payoff of your argument and ultimately win and achieve your client’s legal objectives. But it all starts with gathering those case facts and digging down deep three layers into your client’s story and Capturing just really as many of those facts as you possibly can.
[00:08:18] Scott Benton: So you want to do that. And it’s not always easy. Hopefully you’ve built a relationship with your client. Hopefully you have that instant rapport thing going. Those are skills you want to develop if you haven’t already done so. There’s a great book you can start with called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
[00:08:34] Scott Benton: There’s another book called Instant Rapport. That’s really helpful. But you want to be able to create that bond quickly and quickly. With your client so that they will do this mind dumping kind of process with you and clear out their mind. But they’re really probably only going to do that if they have a foundation of trust with you.
[00:08:52] Scott Benton: And you need to figure out how to do that and do that quickly. Instant rapport. So what you want to do while you’re [00:09:00] gathering all these case facts, you want to ask open ended questions. You want to say things like, tell me a little bit more about that. You want to keep your client remembering details, exhausting their brain empty in and out completely.
[00:09:11] Scott Benton: So they have room to remember new material, new facts that just really weren’t previously acceptable until you’ve cleared their mind. So as you work with the building blocks of your client’s story, which you now have with this multitude of case facts, you’re going to start to find that certain themes and patterns begin to emerge, which don’t really always come right away.
[00:09:36] Scott Benton: Like in the beginning with intake notes or something like that, Especially with those surface level storylines, you just, that’s all you have in the beginning. It’s much different when you’ve gone through this process. You have a depth of story material to work with.
[00:09:50] Scott Benton: And it’s another reason you want to spend as much time as you can on this part of the process. Just digging, going deeper and deeper. It’s not until you almost [00:10:00] have the story done that you will really begin to see these patterns and these themes. Really, it’s not until the end when you’ve done all the work.
[00:10:08] Scott Benton: So don’t expect that to happen. At the front. So as a side note, by the way, if you really want to get better at storytelling, if you want to develop that skill, I can tell you that there are any number of books out there that all contain just several golden nuggets of wisdom that are going to help you understand All the storytelling traditions.
[00:10:30] Scott Benton: So there’s like the classic five part structure. Those are like Shakespeare plays. There’s the three part structure, which you’re probably more used to with movies, for instance. There’s also there’s also the one act structure, which you want to be familiar with. These are all different sort of storytelling structures that you can learn about.
[00:10:49] Scott Benton: that are going to help you build your ability to tell a better story. There’s this old cliche, who knows if it’s even true or not, but it’s the person who tells the best story wins. I think there’s [00:11:00] actually a book title with that name. You don’t even need to read that book.
[00:11:03] Scott Benton: You just need to know that concept, the person with the best story wins. That’s gonna be very beneficial. Learning Storycraft is something that you should spend a little bit of time on. It’s gonna help you gather your story facts, put them in order, and really build that narrative, which you want to get really good at.
[00:11:21] Scott Benton: I hope that’s been helpful. My name is Scott Batten, I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much. for tuning in. Now, if you like this information that you’re getting from us and you want to get an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom 2 courtroom dot com.
[00:11:38] Scott Benton: You can put in your contact information. When we release a new episode, we will send you a message that says this new episode is available. Here’s the link. And if you do like this material, of course, you can help us out. You can share, and subscribe. If you want to stay on top of our newest episodes, we hope you’ll join us for the next Classroom 2 courtroom podcast episode [00:12:00] and until then we also hope you’ll join us in our mission of making the world a better place, one client at a time.
[00:12:07] Scott Benton: Thank you so much. Take care.
