[00:00:00]
[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I am the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from law school student in law school into your professional career after you pass the bar as an attorney and where we make the practice of law fun. And today we’re gonna answer the question of why should I dig three levels down?
[00:00:29] Scott Benton: Why should I dig three levels down? Why should I bother?
[00:00:32] Scott Benton: [00:01:00] Okay What are we even talking about here? Let’s set the stage before we try and get into that question. Now, first of all, since I work for a trust and probate law firm, we’re going to put this fictionalized scenario together that takes place in a trust and probate law firm.
[00:01:36] Scott Benton: Law firm because that’s what I know working in a trust and probate law firm But it’s still gonna apply to any law firm that works with clients and then second for con and for context We’re gonna establish that we’re talking about gathering case facts. So if you’ve been an ardent listener of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast, you probably already know that we’ve talked about gathering case [00:02:00] facts on several podcast episodes.
[00:02:02] Scott Benton: We’re probably going to talk about them a lot in future podcast episodes. And if you’re not an ardent listener, what are you waiting for? Come on. I mean, We’re teaching you everything you need to know to practice law as an attorney. which is a subject that is not taught in law school. It’s why we’re here.
[00:02:18] Scott Benton: It’s why the Courtroom 2 Classroom podcast even exists. It’s here because this stuff is priceless. So take advantage of it.
[00:02:25] Scott Benton: In our fictionalized scenario, we have a client in a trust and probate law firm that’s meeting with an attorney. Now the attorney is now working for the client to help the client achieve their legal objectives. Now here, the prospect, they had called in for the first time.
[00:02:42] Scott Benton: They spoke to an intake department. That’s usually what happens. And the intake department, that person was taking down all the basic information about This case that the potential client or the prospect called up about and the intake person determined that this looked [00:03:00] like a pretty good case that was going to be viable.
[00:03:03] Scott Benton: And so they set up an appointment with the prospect, the potential new client with an attorney. And on that day, the attorney met with that potential client and this is their initial consultation now. So the attorney is going to ask much more probing questions. The potential client is not the client, they haven’t hired the firm or the attorney yet.
[00:03:26] Scott Benton: The attorney in this initial consultation, those are usually short, maybe a half an hour, sometimes longer depending on the complexity, but the attorney is going to ask more Complex questions, are more, they’re going to go a little deeper. They’re still at the first level, but the the attorney is still trying to determine if this is a viable case.
[00:03:48] Scott Benton: And let’s say in this fictionalized example, that of course this is definitely a case that we can help you with. The prospect agrees with the attorney and the attorney is hired, the firm is hired to [00:04:00] represent the client. Now the client, they’ve signed the CSA, that’s the client services agreement and they take out their credit card, they make their initial trust account deposit, and now they are an official client of that law firm, and now the attorney is officially representing that client.
[00:04:18] Scott Benton: The attorney is going to sit down, and they’re going to come up with a list of follow up questions. Now, in their next meeting, the attorney is going to begin asking probably a long series of open ended questions and what the attorney is doing is they’re mining the client for absolutely as much information as they possibly can to produce case facts until the client, they simply get to a point where they literally have nothing more to say.
[00:04:47] Scott Benton: They’ve said everything probably three times. Where there’s just nothing more to contribute, there are no new ideas. So now that we understand where the case is at this point in the process, we can [00:05:00] really better understand the idea that we’re talking about, which is digging three levels down.
[00:05:05] Scott Benton: Now in this example, where the attorney is now meeting with a client for a deep dive exploration into the client’s story, this is the point in time where they’re going to start to go down into those three levels and get that deep. Into the case. But you’re going to ask the question, but why? Why? What’s the point?
[00:05:23] Scott Benton: Why go three levels deep there? Really, do we need to go this deep into a case? Aren’t the case facts they’ve already gotten on all of these other meetings enough? There’s really a few good reasons why. So let’s start with the first. The first reason is that you’re going to need them.
[00:05:37] Scott Benton: As many case facts as possible. And one way to do that is to ask as many questions as you can until like we’ve seen, the client is just has no more to contribute. And what happens at that point is that they’ve completely emptied out their brain. It’s just there’s just empty space in their brain. So you’re gonna have a number of just valuable case facts that came out from [00:06:00] that and just purging out all just years sometimes of information they’ve held in their brains, and you also have all the intake notes.
[00:06:08] Scott Benton: So you have those case facts and the notes from your initial consultation, but you’re not even done at that point. You are now going one more layer down. So the way that you do that At this point, we’re going from layer one to layer two, is you’re simply going to wait, because the client, they’ve exhausted themselves.
[00:06:25] Scott Benton: Now, the way you do that is to simply wait. You’re waiting for new facts to come in from your client. Now, the reason is their mind is empty from telling you all of the case facts in the first place. And that provides an opportunity now for more facts to come in and fill that empty brain space. But there’s new connections that are going to be made to what happens is they’ve carried around for quite a long time all those initial case facts.
[00:06:52] Scott Benton: And when you have all those initial case facts just cluttering your brain, you can’t get to the case facts behind the case facts. [00:07:00] So that’s what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get to the case facts behind the case facts. But to do that, you got to empty your mind and get to those new facts that now come flooding back in.
[00:07:11] Scott Benton: And that’s when you’re going to find that there are a few golden nuggets. That are going to help you frame the story of your case. Not only that, it’s going to help you form your argument, and it’s going to help you decide on evidence that you’re going to want to put in front of a judge. So it’s going to help you decide on things like expert witnesses that you’re going to want to engage, and it’s going to help you decide on the witness declarations that you’re going to want to pursue and seek out and get.
[00:07:36] Scott Benton: By the way, so we’re at level two. This might be enough at this point. For you to really decide that you have what you need but you really should try to go for that third level, and this is going to be the hardest level. To get to and there may not be anything there, but it’s still worth checking into that third level just to see if there’s anything more there because a lot of times [00:08:00] there’s value that you couldn’t possibly expect.
[00:08:02] Scott Benton: So you want to just really again get down into that third level. How do you do that? To do that, you’re going to want to ask open ended questions, and sometimes your client is, they’re going to already have the case facts and all of those case facts and the facts behind the case facts, but they may not themselves have gone to the third level.
[00:08:24] Scott Benton: They haven’t gone three levels deep. So that’s your opportunity to start asking questions that are again, open ended, such as, and then what happened? Or maybe something like, you know what these are. You can say what did they say? Or okay, what did they do after you told them that?
[00:08:42] Scott Benton: You can say things like that. You can say things like, okay, tell me more about that day you were out on the boat. Or, who was at the party, that time at that party when you were told that you were getting half. of the entire estate by your father. Who was there? These are open ended questions. So [00:09:00] reaching that critical third level down, it’s going to give you so much information that you’re going to be able to work with it.
[00:09:07] Scott Benton: Not only are you going to literally be able to tell the most compelling story about your case, but it’s going to affect your case strategy. You’re going to, you’re going to likely have far more information to work with and you’re also going to get plenty of background case facts. Now, background case facts that’s another subject that we talk about a lot on this podcast.
[00:09:29] Scott Benton: Background case facts, they don’t necessarily point to the law, but it’s still extremely valuable information to have. And those background case facts are not going to generally end up in a courtroom. They’re not going to end up in front of a judge. Opposing counsel is not going to see those background facts.
[00:09:47] Scott Benton: Those are for you and your client to know. A lot of times they can involve the idea of what your client wants to spend the money on that they receive. [00:10:00] Should they win this case? Those are there’s motivations behind what people are doing generally, and these kinds of motivations are just pieces of information that don’t really apply to the law.
[00:10:11] Scott Benton: Those are going to be your background cases, and they help you understand the deeper motivations of why your clients pursuing their legal objectives in the first place. And so for you as the attorney, those are really important because they’re going to help you in cementing a bonded relationship between you and your client.
[00:10:30] Scott Benton: So I hope that’s helpful. I hope it’s useful and interesting information and answering the question of why go three levels down? Why go three levels down when it comes to gathering case facts? My name is Scott Betten. I’m the host of the Classroom the Courtroom podcast.
[00:10:45] Scott Benton: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. And if you like this material and you wanna receive an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website. Our website is classroom 2 courtroom.com. You can put in your contact information, we’ll send you an alert whenever [00:11:00] we put together a new.
[00:11:01] Scott Benton: One of these episodes. and if you do like this material, don’t forget to share, and subscribe. It’ll help you stay on top of all of our newest episodes. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place. One client at a time. Thank you so much.
