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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey, everyone. Scott Benton here. I am the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. How are you? We are here to help you easily transition from law school student into a professional attorney and start your career and where we even make the practice of law fun. So go figure. Today, we’re going to answer the question of which facts are most important to a client.
[00:00:30] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] So which facts are most important to a client? In order to figure that out, we’re going to set the stage. We’re going to paint a little scenario so that we can understand which case facts we’re actually talking about. So let’s say that a new potential client calls your law firm and they want to inquire about your legal services that you offer.
[00:01:39] Scott Benton: Now someone from your firm, it’s usually an intake person, they’re going to talk to the potential new client as the potential new client. Pours out the story and the intake person is furiously writing their notes down, trying to capture everything that the potential new client is talking about in order to better evaluate.
[00:01:59] Scott Benton: Well, [00:02:00] attorney well, even the client, the intake person, sometimes the intake person isn’t an attorney. They can determine, that person can determine if this is going to be a viable case, if there’s value to the case, and if there’s a pretty good chance of winning that case. So the potential new client, they take, let’s say, 30 minutes or so to just, they get all those facts on the table about their case.
[00:02:20] Scott Benton: And by the time that conversation is over, the person who took the intake notes they’re literally looking at this just massive jumble of information. of case facts on their paper. Somehow they’re gonna have to get all of that organized. Now inside that jumble of case facts, there are going to be many case facts that apply to the law.
[00:02:41] Scott Benton: They apply to the eventual strategy that you’re going to come up with, assuming that the potential new client, becomes a client, they hire you. And those case facts, some of them are eventually going to be seen by the court and the opposing counsel. Now, besides those more obvious case facts, the ones that are [00:03:00] gonna pertain to the law, there are also case facts that really have no direct connection to the law.
[00:03:07] Scott Benton: And most likely, they’re not going to be seen by a judge or Considered in a hearing. So now, let’s just say that you’ve determined that this case, it’s a viable case and that there’s enough value and you’re pretty sure that you’re gonna win the case. Your client is gonna be walking away with a new monetary reward if they hire you.
[00:03:27] Scott Benton: And this is exactly what you tell us the potential new client who obviously likes what they hear. And right there in the office, they’re gonna sign that C. S. A. They’re gonna make that initial financial contribute that deposit and you are now up and running. You are now representing this potential new client who’s now a new client and you are their attorney.
[00:03:47] Scott Benton: So You sit down and now you’re going to go even deeper. Now we like to say you want to go three levels deeper, but you want to collect as much additional case facts as you possibly can. And so you’re going [00:04:00] to do that. It’s going to be deeper, much deeper than that initial consultation conversation that you’re going to have.
[00:04:06] Scott Benton: And by the time this conversation is over, you’re going to feel like you have everything you need right in front of you to get this case going. And through your, of course, expert relationship building skills and the bond that you’ve been able to create with your new client, they’ve really started to open up to you and they’re disclosing all kinds of case facts that apply to the law and case facts that really don’t apply to the law.
[00:04:33] Scott Benton: Now, there’s going to be a tendency, you as the attorney, you’re going to have this tendency to immediately want to jump up and go directly to the law, you’re going to look at all the case facts and take the ones, only the ones that pertain to the law and you’re going to go straight to the law.
[00:04:48] Scott Benton: And. You’re going to abandon all of the other case facts that really don’t pertain to the law. Those are just going to get left behind on the table. And the case facts that do pertain to the law, [00:05:00] those are coming with you. And you’re going to go straight to the law and see how you can use them. Now, at this point you want to remember, you want to take a breath.
[00:05:06] Scott Benton: You want to remember that you’re working with your client. And you don’t want to lose sight of which out of all of those case facts that you have are the most important to your client. So you might think that your client is going to care about the same facts that you care about, that the opposing counsel cares about and that the judge is going to care about because those facts, as we’ve learned, those can be aligned with the law and you’re going to use those the best that you can to help you win your case.
[00:05:40] Scott Benton: But If you make that assumption that case facts pertaining to the law are what your client cares about most, you’re going to be wrong. In most examples, your clients aren’t going to be attorneys, and they’re not going to know the difference between facts that pertain to the law and facts that don’t pertain to the law.
[00:05:59] Scott Benton: To them, [00:06:00] facts is facts. And remember, the clients, they’re human beings. They have feelings. They have emotions. And for the most part Chances are that the case facts that are most important to them are going to be facts that don’t pertain to the law. So then, do you need to be aware of the most important facts to the client?
[00:06:20] Scott Benton: Now, because people have feelings and emotions, This is what drives most of their decision making. In fact, it’s the same reason they called your firm in the first place. It’s going to be the same feelings and emotions that will cause them to continue to pay for your legal services. Now that doesn’t mean that they don’t care about the facts that pertain to the law, the ones that are going to show up in a hearing, but the case facts that Lean more towards the client’s emotional core are going to be the facts that they care about most.
[00:06:54] Scott Benton: And some of those facts could be, maybe they want to get a child, or I don’t know, a grandchild through [00:07:00] college. And so the money that they would walk away with, case is going to provide them with enough money to get their child or grandchild through college through school. Maybe they need money for their mother’s ongoing health care expenses, or maybe they need some home renter renovations that are very dire.
[00:07:18] Scott Benton: Maybe they want to travel around the world while they still can. Whatever. Those are the big sort of case whys or the client whys. Why did you call this law firm? Why do you want to engage our services? And it’s going to be those case facts that aren’t really grounded in the world of law that are going to be often times used.
[00:07:40] Scott Benton: Most important facts to your client and you want to be very aware of those because none of those more background case facts would become part of the case and they’d likely not appear anywhere in a courtroom. But for the client, those are by far the most important case facts that you really, you’re [00:08:00] not going to be able to ignore them.
[00:08:01] Scott Benton: Now you’re going to need to know with case facts. that you can use them in a courtroom. You need to know which ones can be used in a courtroom and which ones that you really want to keep concealed and really only talk about them with your client, such as, traveling around the world, that kind of thing.
[00:08:20] Scott Benton: Those are conversations that you’re going to just have with the client. And that’s about as far as those conversations go. You want to leave those conversations out of any other Courtroom conversations or conversations with really anybody else, because if you’re having those conversations only with your client, what that does is it continually reminds them of why they are here working with you and what the work is.
[00:08:49] Scott Benton: that you’re doing together and you want to keep them in that emotional center space that they’re in that why space. Why did I call this law firm? Why [00:09:00] did I engage these legal services? They engage these legal services because of the case facts that do not pertain to the law. Generally, sometimes they pertain to the law, but for the most part, you’re gonna find that they probably don’t because those more emotional case facts.
[00:09:15] Scott Benton: So I hope that’s been helpful, and I hope that’s been informative. My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Now, if you like the material that we’re presenting in this series and you’d like to receive an alert every time we put out a new episode, of this podcast.
[00:09:30] Scott Benton: You can go to our website. Our website is classroom to courtroom dot com. That’s classroom. The number two courtroom dot com. You can put in your contact information and you’ll receive an alert whenever we put out a new episode. And if you do like this material, don’t forget to share, and subscribe.
[00:09:48] Scott Benton: If you’d like to stay on top of all of our newest episodes, then that’s the best way to do that. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place one client at a time. [00:10:00] Thank you so much.
