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Scott Benton: Hey everyone, it’s Scott Benton. I am the host of the classroom2courtroom podcast. How are you? This is a podcast dedicated to legal students and those who have just graduated law school, those who are taking the bar, those who have passed the bar, and those who are looking for their first job in the legal arena as an attorney.
We’re here to make. practicing law, not only fun and easy, but it’s something that is serving as a resource for you to go back to over and over again, because there’s a lot of concepts that we’re talking about that may be beneficial to you as you get started in your career. The premise here is that law school and the bar prep courses do not teach you how to practice law.
They have their own agendas. They’re trying to get you to graduate law school or pass the bar, but no one is really teaching you Out there, how to practice laws and attorney. So that’s a gap that we decided we would try and fill. And hopefully this is [00:01:00] valuable information to you so that when you do start your first job as an attorney, you already have a very good idea of what you need to do.
In terms of the practice of law, the business side of law. Now you’ve been taught the law side of law, but most people have not been taught the business side of law, how to practice law. And that is what the classroom to courtroom podcast is here to accomplish for you. So the question that we’re going to tackle today is why is a declaration such a powerful legal tool? Why is a declaration such a powerful legal tool for you? Something that you’re clearly going to want to know about and you’re going to want to use if you’re working with clients, especially if you’re in litigation.
Scott Benton: But first, let’s define what a declaration is for those who don’t know. Now, if you’re in law school, chances are you know what a declaration are, but maybe you haven’t taken the declaration class, if there is a declaration class, or it hasn’t appeared in your coursework yet and you don’t exactly know what it is, or maybe it’s just been kind of a [00:02:00] vague notion.
So let’s define that term right away and See if we can kind of move forward on why this is such a powerful legal tool for you. Something that you’re going to want to keep in your toolbox, in your legal quiver. And you’re going to want to use, especially when you’re working with clients. So declaration is this, a client is going to show up and they’re going to tell you all about their case.
You’re going to maybe take 10 or 15 minutes to learn about what’s happening with them, why they’re hiring you, and you’re going to write down all your notes. Maybe they’re just like bullet points once the client has left and they’ve retained you. The first thing you’re going to want to do is put together this declaration.
And it’s basically a it’s recapping what they’ve told you. It’s a narrative form of the case as they understand it, as they have presented it to you. It’s their story. It’s their declaration of what has happened. And it’s recorded on paper. And there’s several reasons why you want to do this. You want to Write their story down on this declaration, and then you want to send it to them and [00:03:00] have them sign it either in person or, you know, write, that you want to mail it to him, have him send it back to you want to have send it to them to have them sign it electronically.
You want to get them to sign even under penalty of perjury. If you want to, you can have them signed an under penalty of perjury. But the idea is you want to get them to sign that declaration to agree that yes, that is my story. That is how I understand it. That is, what took place. As far as I’m concerned, that is now their declaration.
Now, is that declaration something that you file in the court in the case of litigation where you’re going to have a hearing or a trial? The answer is no, no, this doesn’t get filed with the court. In most cases, occasionally they do get filed with the court, but in most cases a, declaration is not there for the court.
A declaration is there between, You as the attorney and your client who has retained you. It is so that you understand the nature of the issue that they’re hiring you to solve as their attorney. Now, client [00:04:00] declaration, it’s going to form the very foundation of that case. It’s going to give you the baseline that you’re going to need so that you know what all of the activities are that you’re going to have to accomplish. In fact, this declaration is going to inform you in terms of what the next steps are for that case.
So you’re going to go to your to do list for that case. Based on this declaration, you’re going to write down all of those items, all of those tasks that you’re now going to need to complete based on that client declaration. Now the declaration is also extremely valuable because they are going to give you events that took place.
They’re going to give you dates on which those events took place. They’re going to give you, you might even ask them like, well, were there any witnesses? And they might even tell you. Something like, well, yes, there were witnesses there. There were 20 people at this party that this thing took place at. And so you’re going to want to record all those names, as many as you can.
And one of the reasons you’re going to want to do that is because on your to do list, getting [00:05:00] declarations from all of those witnesses is something that you’re also going to want to do. That’s, very valuable information to have. One of the reasons that’s very valuable information to have is because at some point, if you’re in a trial, instead of calling 20 witnesses to the stand, for instance, you’re going to have all those declarations, in which case the opposing side is just going to stipulate to them because if all of these witnesses are corroborating the version of the story that your client has told in their declaration and their testimony, Getting your client on the witness stand and you have all of these declarations that say essentially the same thing, the opposing party is going to stipulate and accept that was the way that the events took place because you’ve got 20 witnesses.
It’s sort of a waste of time to bring 20 witnesses onto the stand and have them repeat the same story over and over and over and over and over again, although that does happen, that does happen from time to time, but it’s really in nobody’s best interest. It’s just going to be [00:06:00] very, very repetitive and unnecessary.
Now, another reason that you want to have a declaration is because sometimes between the client retaining you and hiring you as their attorney and you creating this declaration that they sign and that client being on the witness stand, it could be that several months from now, Sometimes even a year or more have passed, and they don’t necessarily remember the story in which they told it to you several months or a year or more than a year ago.
So in order to prepare your client to take the witness stand, it’s very easy to just take out that declaration that you created. And give it to them to refresh their memory. Memories fade. They fade pretty quickly. They fade pretty easily. And sometimes there’s nuance and there are details that the client has already kind of started to have forgotten or they’re fading or they don’t remember how they connect [00:07:00] necessarily, but.
But hopefully you’ve put that story together in a very tight and compelling manner such that they can go back to it, read over the declaration, and then take the witness stand, and they are going to stick to that story, that original story that they told. So that becomes very, very helpful. In the case of any of the witnesses that you’re also going to bring to the witness stand that you also those 20 witnesses that you went and got declarations from as well, then you bring those people into the courtroom.
You can also now you have their declarations. Remember, these are not court file documents. You’re going to give them their declaration. Maybe it’s been several months for the witnesses too, and they’ve forgotten many of the details and nuances of the case. They can read over that declaration. Now they’re prepared.
To go up on the stand. So this is a very, very valuable, very valuable document to have for many reasons and why you want to make sure that you’re including sometimes just multiple declarations on each of your cases for your clients and the witnesses and anybody else. Sometimes they’re hostile [00:08:00] witnesses.
Sometimes they name people that don’t want to give you a testimony, but you can always compel them to provide you with a declaration. In terms of how they saw the events now the other thing that may happen when it comes to declarations and why it’s a valuable tool for you, especially initially, but really throughout the time that you are working on this case is that It’s very easy with a declaration to tell if your client who has hired you as their attorney is essentially lying to you, or maybe they’re just not telling you everything because a lot of times people can be may be embarrassed by or even ashamed of their behavior and they don’t want to include that in their version of the story but you as the attorney it’s important that you have that information and those details that they’re just sort of leaving out they’re kind of leaving that out of their version of the story because of just their personal feelings of like their knee jerk reactions that happened or [00:09:00] Things that they said that they regret saying and wish they could take back and they can’t so that all that stuff that detail often gets left out and sometimes clients are just flat out lying to you.
So, What’s helpful is that you complete the declaration and you’re asking them to sign the declaration and a lot of times they’re not going to sign the declaration. And that’s when you sort of know something’s not quite right. So you need to go back to them and you need to get back into the story and you know you need to start digging and asking all of the questions.
You want to go three layers deep into their story to really get to all of that detail. Detail everything. It’s possible. You haven’t really built up a level of trust with this client yet. Sometimes that client attorney relationship takes a while before the client will really open up to you. And so it’s very important that you learn how there’s something called instant rapport.
You want to learn how to provide instant rapport to your clients and really connect with them quickly. Some people are easier to connect with than others, but if you [00:10:00] can’t connect with them right away, then you need to work on building that relationship until you are at a point with your client where they just, they Finally, open up to you and give you all of those details, all of those little nuances that took place and that can then go into the declaration.
And once they signed that one, then, you know, you have. Something that’s, approximately closer to the truth, something that’s much more truthful than a declaration that they’re just not going to sign. So you have all of the information that you need. Again, that declaration is going to give you all the information that you require to populate your to do list.
Take that to do list and then start knocking those tasks off. Those get billed for and you move the case forward. So you want to be careful about that. For clients that aren’t going to sign their declarations, it’s got to be a strong signal to you, whether it’s the client or the witnesses or whatever, that’s going to be a strong signal to you that they’re not quite telling you the entire story, or they may even just be flat out lying to you.
Now, lastly, there’s [00:11:00] something else that you need to be aware of when it comes to declarations. And this. does have to do with declarations but also other, parts of a case that you’re putting together for a client. Sometimes if a client, let’s say in this case says there were 20 witnesses, and then you come back to them and say, well, we’re going to have to get declarations for these 20 witnesses.
And the client says, well, I don’t want to pay for that. It’s you got to understand that it’s really never about the money. It’s not about the money. That problem. When a client comes back to you and says, well, I don’t have the money for 20 declarations. The problem is really a problem with the attorney.
And what I mean by that is the attorney has. failed to illustrate the value of the case. So it could be, for instance, that this is a case where the client stands to, has a very good chance of, walking away with a million dollars, or there’s going to be a settlement of a million dollars or more.
Something’s going to be [00:12:00] substantial. So at the moment when they don’t have that million dollars, they’re gonna, Have a more difficult time, maybe, or at least they’re going to tell you they’re going to have a more difficult time of getting the money in order to go complete those 20 declarations with the 20 witnesses, and they’re not going to want to do it.
So the failure is really at the attorney level, not communicating the value of that case and making sure that the client understands that 20 declarations, the cost for those is a drop in the bucket compared to what they’re going to walk away with at the conclusion of the case. And those 20 declarations are critically important for you to get in order to, for you to support the position of your client and increasing the chances of winning that case and walking away with that.
That million dollar settlement. So you need to, every time you talk to your client, you need to make sure that you’re communicating the value of their case. You want to sort of reiterate that and repeat that number. Million dollars, [00:13:00] million dollars, or whatever that number happens to be. Because when it comes to the expenses, of the case, paying for 20 declarations is really not going to get the pushback that you think you’re going to get.
But if they have forgotten what the value of the case is, because that’s just not communicated to them, they’re much more, they’re looking at their bank account right now, and they’re looking at their resources that are going down, or maybe they have to borrow money from, somebody, maybe their, parents or their family or friends or whoever it is.
So, that becomes a little bit more of a pain point. Sometimes it’s a big pain point, and you want to make sure that you’re staying on top of that by communicating the value of that case and for the most part, you want to do that anyway, not just where declarations are involved, but in any case where you’re working with a client, you want to make sure that you’re repeating the value of that case over and over and over again so that both you and that client understand what it is that client stands to walk away with.
Okay. So that you and the client understand what that client stands to walk away [00:14:00] with. Sometimes it can be substantial and also keep in mind that sometimes some new piece of information will come along where it will change the value of the case either up or down. There’s all kinds of twists and turns that take place during a case, whether it involves a hearing or a trial or not.
If it’s just something that’s being negotiated between two parties, there are all kinds of new developments that may come along, and that will alter the nature of the. final distribution at the end of that case. So that’s something that you want to keep in mind. So that’s a look at declarations and why they’re such a powerful tool in your legal arsenal.
I hope that was helpful. My name is Scott Benton. I am the host of the classroom2courtroom podcast. And if you’d like to be notified every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom2courtroom.Com at our website. You can put in your name and your email address.
And whenever we are. Publishing a new episode of the Classroom2Courtroom podcast, you’ll get that alert. You can come back and watch the episode and hopefully enjoy that as much as I hope you’re enjoying this [00:15:00] podcast episode. So don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe, and we hope you’ll join us on the next episode of the Classroom2Courtroom podcast, and until then, we hope that you will join us in making the world a better place.
one client at a time. Thank you so much. Take care now.
