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[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practice of law fun. Now today, we’re going to take a look at when you’re in trial.
[00:00:22] Scott Benton: If you’re still a law student, that might be a while from now, but we’re going to take a look at when you’re in trial and whether you’re winning, losing, or you’re disengaged from that trial and what that means.
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[00:01:23] Scott Benton: First, we’re going to assume that you’re a new attorney and this might even be your first trial, or it might be your third trial, your fifth trial.
[00:01:31] Scott Benton: And as we’ve heard from several litigation attorneys who have, let’s say, 50 or more trials behind them, the fear that you experience during your first trial, it’s the same fear that you experience on your 50th trial. The difference is that you know how to navigate. the whole trial process, even though that fear is present and you clearly have a lot more experience to draw from as well as a vocabulary of options, if you will, you’re gonna make that fear [00:02:00] factor of being in trial and going into a courtroom so that it doesn’t contain you or stop you or block you in any way.
[00:02:07] Scott Benton: You actually end up using that energy to energize you to bring in much more concentration, you are able to transition that fear state into a positive benefit for you. But for the sake of this conversation, we’re going to address the three engagement levels that you, as a new attorney, let’s say it’s your first or third trial, that you as a new attorney might find yourself in during a trial.
[00:02:31] Scott Benton: We’re going to look a little closer at each one of those engagements, let’s call them. Those three engagement levels during a trial are that you’re either going to be winning the trial, you’re going to be losing the trial, or you’re just simply going to be disengaged from the trial. Now, if you’re winning the case, then you’re going to walk away from the courthouse feeling absolutely great.
[00:02:52] Scott Benton: A trial can often be likened to a rollercoaster ride. And when you win, then coming out of the courthouse is, [00:03:00] it’s exhilarating. You got in there, you presented your case, and you were ultimately successful because in trials, as you probably know, there’s a winner and there’s a loser. It’s like a boxing match.
[00:03:12] Scott Benton: You won, your client won, chances are you’re going to get a pretty good online review. Now one thing to keep in mind is that you want to make sure you’re celebrating that win because it’s important to inject a healthy burst of positive energy into the firm’s overall working climate. And wins, when you win a case, it accomplishes exactly that.
[00:03:33] Scott Benton: But you also want to make sure that you’re learning from that trial experience. You’re always learning. You’re always in a state of acquiring new information. You’re a perpetual student throughout your entire life. Winning trials ultimately makes you a better, more experienced attorney. So you want to be sure that you’re walking away from a trial that you’ve won with a wealth of valuable lessons that you take with you into future trials. [00:04:00] It’s also going to inform the legal services that you perform for your future cases that you’re working on. And it could make you a lot more efficient at your work. Just the more experience you have, the better you get. Now these are often easy lessons to learn from because you won the case. You’re going to have a positive association with those lessons.
[00:04:20] Scott Benton: Now, what if you’re losing your case? What if you’re in court and you’re losing your case? Statistically speaking, inevitably, this is just going to happen no matter how hard you work on the case and no matter how hard you prep for it. Eventually, in theory, you’re going to find yourself losing, but I know that you’re not going to back away easily.
[00:04:40] Scott Benton: And you’re not going to go down without a fight, so you’re going to give it everything you’ve got until the case is closed and you leave the courthouse. Interestingly, trial attorneys who have been in this position and they’ve lost cases, they tell us that the walk out of the courthouse, even with a loss, is still an exhilarating experience because of the [00:05:00] nature of the rollercoaster ride.
[00:05:02] Scott Benton: That a trial is for them that they’ve gone on. And even though you lose a trial, don’t forget there’s still an enormous amount of value for you to take away from it. Just like the wins that you celebrated when you won a case, you also want to celebrate the losses. Why? You want to celebrate losses because you want to learn the lessons those lost trials still have to teach you.
[00:05:26] Scott Benton: Yes, it might be painful that you lose a trial, but don’t miss the value that you get from them. You’re going to fight as hard as you can, but if you do lose, don’t forget to take the lessons with you. So just like you did with the trials that you won, you want to sit down and think about the lessons that you learned.
[00:05:44] Scott Benton: You want to add those experiences to your trial vocabulary. Let the cases you lose inform your work moving forward because this is how you grow and become a powerhouse attorney. So don’t miss that opportunity. Now the [00:06:00] last position you might find yourself in during a trial is in a state of disengagement. Disengagement is where you’re not fully plugged into the case and you’re looking for opportunities really to punt the case and kick the can down the road to either buy more time or even eventually to hand the case over to another attorney who’s going to do the work instead of you.
[00:06:20] Scott Benton: Much of the time, if you find yourself in a state of disengagement, it points to a fear response that you’re having and that you’re in more or less a fear state. So you’re not there really fighting for your client. Of the three responses you have during the trial, which are winning, losing, and disengagement is the least favorable response and it’s the least helpful to you.
[00:06:43] Scott Benton: So you’ve got to have a way to get yourself back in the ring. If you win, then great, you’re an excellent attorney. If you lose, then that’s also great, because you’re fully engaged and you’re fully fighting, and you’re going to become a better and tougher attorney from that experience.
[00:06:58] Scott Benton: But if you’re disengaged and you’re [00:07:00] stuck in the frozen fear response, then you need a way out. And we’ll talk about this in a little bit more detail on other episodes of this podcast. But you must take action. The key to getting out of disengagement is to do the thing you fear and push through it. It’s like that old saying about eating a frog first thing each morning.
[00:07:19] Scott Benton: If you eat a frog first thing, and do the thing that you fear the most, then the rest of the day is going to be easy. Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain. There’s a lot of ways to say the same thing. You just need to choose one of them that works for you.
[00:07:34] Scott Benton: If you’re fearful of calling a client, for instance, then get on the phone immediately and call that client. If you’re fearful of taking a deposition in preparation for the trial that you’re working on, then maybe do several depositions on your other cases to simply push through that block.
[00:07:49] Scott Benton: But one way or the other, if you’re stuck in disengagement, you definitely want to work towards engagement so that you get yourself back up and that you get back in the ring and that you keep [00:08:00] fighting. You want to activate.
[00:08:03] Scott Benton: My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for watching this episode. If you’re finding this to be valuable information and you’d like to receive an alert every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website.
[00:08:16] Scott Benton: Our website is classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two. courtroom dot com. You can leave us your contact information there and we will send out an alert. So that you know a new episode is available. Don’t forget to share and subscribe. And we hope you’ll join us on our next episode of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast.
[00:08:34] Scott Benton: And we also hope you’ll join us in the meantime of making the world a better place one client at a time. Thank you so much.
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