Season 8 – Episode 4: You Stand on the Side of the Right w/Special Guest Michael Takla

I recently sat down with Mike Takla on the Bad Law, Worse Facts podcast, and we went deep.

🗣️We talked bias.

🗣️We talked voir dire.

🗣️We talked WHY so many attorneys are afraid to ask for the damn money.

And of course, I shared what I’ve been teaching inside the H2H Playground, at Command the Courtroom, and our upcoming Damages Masterclass — including one of my favorite tools: the Funnel Method.

If you’ve ever struggled to confidently talk about damages, if you’re still letting the defense set the tone in voir dire, or if you’re stuck prepping your trial the week before (don’t lie, I see you), you NEED to hear this.

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari 💖

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“Most attorneys believe the juror is your enemy. That’s why I wrote the whole book. We’re scared of them, we think they’re going to screw us over. But what plaintiff attorneys forget to their detriment is that you stand on the side of the right. In most cases the defense is covering up, trying to get away with something. And when you remember that, you realize jurors aren’t against you—they’re actually biased for you. You just haven’t uncovered the principles that connect them to your case yet.”

sari de la motte

TRANSCRIPTION

Michael:

Okay. Welcome to Bad Law, Worse Facts. I'm your host, Michael Takla. We got 

Sari:

back on. 

Sari:

How are you doing today? 

Sari:

I'm good. I'm very good. I was making fun of you for your podcast background not being as cool as mine. So, you know. 

Michael:

Yeah, I'm going to now have to invest a lot more. And the thing is, it's like I'm doing this at home when I'm podcasting. And the problem is that I have all this Star Wars stuff. So legitimately, there's like, may, well, it's kind of blurred out. There's some holes here and there that I take off most of it. But maybe I should just leave it up. I don't know. I just realized I didn't take it away. I have like an A 

Sari:

Why? Yeah, leave up that nerdy shit. I love it. I love it. Yeah. 

Michael:

Mandalorian in the back over there, that's where my alma mater that I like custom got. And so I probably should take that down too. 

Sari:

Nice. Nice. Star Wars and Mandalorian and all that stuff is the only kind of sci-fi I can get into. all about. Actually, isn't that funny? I'm wearing my Fight Like a Girl shirt today. How random is that? Yeah. 

Michael:

Meh. yeah. That's awesome. So you used to be H2H, right? That used to be kind of like from hostage to hero. Okay. See, I just, I immediately said it cause that's what everybody knows it as. it's, that's funny. 

Sari:

hostage to hero. hostage to hero. Yeah, the podcast. Right? So that's why we changed it from Hostage to Hero because nobody says that. You know, our fans came up with H2H, you are the number two. And so when we were rebranding the podcast in terms of look and we have a new intro song and we thought, do you want to keep Hostage to Hero? And we thought, nah, it doesn't really fit anymore. So we went to Sorry Swear's, like the website. 

Michael:

Yeah. 

Michael:

I like that. I like that a lot. Again, I think it's very on brand. You know, I discussed it in the intro, but again, Hostage Hero has really, really helped me, especially early on in my career when I read that book, I was like, that's it. Like I need to work on these things. You know, though, it makes you think about things that you don't think about. Like I like that you had those pictures about how you have to stand and do all that. And like, I work on it. I sometimes have to pinch myself a lot because I'm trying to hold a certain posture. 

Sari:

Thank you. Thank you. 

Sari:

Yay! 

Michael:

Anyways, but that's all we're here for. 

Sari:

Well that means you're not breathing. So you gotta breathe, buddy. None of this is gonna work unless you're breathing. 

Michael:

Yes, yeah. I try, I try. I try to do everything. But what I want to talk to you about today is a couple of things. First, when I saw you in Las Vegas at the trial lawyers university, I was extremely impressed with your presentation. There were other presentations that were good, but I thought not only were you just engaging, but what you discussed was something I think a lot of us overlook. And I actually went, rewatched it, because they have trial lawyer university on demand, and looked at it for a case that I was going to try and ended up going to trial for. And one of the things that you really discussed is kind of the funnel method. But before we get to the funnel method, one of the things that I thought was very important was talking about bias. 

Sari:

Mm-hmm. 

Michael:

And so, you know, I saw one of my friends who posted this clip of him. He was like doing a fake board hire and he's like discussing it, but it was kind of like just him showing it to Instagram followers. And he's like, jury is a deselection process. I'm trying to find people who are going to come into this with no bias, who are going to say, you know, I just have a clean slate. And I was like, that is, yeah, I was like, that's garbage. 

Sari:

Yeah. 

Sari:

Mm. 

Sari:

Good luck with that. 

Michael:

I mean, maybe you say that. I don't even think you say that, to be honest with you. But I thought that was just pure unadulterated garbage. So I wanted people, personal injury attorneys, to hear what your spiel is about how juries come in with bias. 

Sari:

Well, yeah, I mean, I think all people have bias in jurors included. And not only can we find neutral people, we can't do that, right? Because everybody's gonna have an opinion on everything, especially in today's day and age, everybody absolutely has an opinion about everything. But I would also say that we don't want that. We don't want clean, sanitized jurors that have no thoughts about anything. You I think this is why plaintiff law is so, plaintiff attorneys have such a hard job is because you have to do something that's very difficult, which is you have to motivate jurors to act. Now, the easiest thing to do for any human is to leave things as they are, right? So what you're trying to do is to motivate people to do something, to enact change, to create something in the lives of their communities and of course for our plaintiff. And so you're not going to get there with people who are sitting on the sidelines going, don't know, one way the other. Now, of course, they shouldn't have, you know, thoughts about facts that they haven't heard yet, right? Obviously, that's the fairness that the judge wants and that we, of course, want. But what I also tell my plaintiff attorney clients is that most jurors are biased, yes, but they're biased for you. They just don't know it yet. You have a weird look on your face. So yeah, what do you think about that? 

Michael:

It's hard to say that they're biased for you. It's tough for me to swallow. It's a tough pill. It is because when you say they're biased for you, I'm thinking Texas jurors, don't really, mean, Harris County is okay, but when I go to middle Montgomery County or something like that, it's ultra conservative. It's ultra conservative. I think, no, I have to be very careful. I'm thinking. 

Sari:

Yeah. 

Sari:

Well, I think that... 

Michael:

cause, you know, for cause strikes, you have to think about these things. So to hear that and say, Hey, no, no, no. 

Sari:

yeah. Don't get me started on cause strikes, right? Those are like, it's the new dick measuring contest, verdict measuring contest. Cause strikes are right behind that, right? In my last trial, I got 15 people off. Got people off. See, it even fits the metaphor. So if that's your only goal in in voir dire, you're missing the fucking point. And by the way, Texas is a great place to try cases. I mean, I work with clients all over the United States. I mean, you know, Colorado only gets 20 minutes of Wadir. New Jersey doesn't even have Wadir. You know, caps and all the things. So in general, Texas is a great place to try cases. In fact, I was just there last week in San Antonio for Sattler. But the reason I say that, and I think the reason why, let's start with the reason why it's a hard pill to swallow, is most attorneys believe that the juror is your enemy. I mean, that's why I wrote the whole book, right? 

Michael:

Sure. Yeah, I understand right. 

Sari:

Is that, you know, I'll ask my audiences, who's the enemy at trial? And they'll be like the jurors, right? We're scared of them. They're the ones that are going to fuck us over all of the things. And there's one thing that I think most plaintiff attorneys forget to their detriment. And that is that you stand on the side of the right. The defense doesn't have that. In most of our cases, the defense is trying to get away with something. In most of our cases, the defense is trying to cover up something. They're lying. They betray their client if it's insurance. All of the things. And I'm not saying that to make y'all feel good. I'm saying it because I think you're missing it. And it's such a huge thing. When you think about it, lots of people go, H2H, it's inclusive, dear. No, no, no, no. We don't do things like, we accept everyone. What we call it is principle-centered, voir dire, meaning every plane of case is based on principles. And what are principles? Principles are universal truths, right? 99 % of people believe them. For example, if you go outside when it's raining, as it does here in Oregon quite a bit, you may get wet. Nobody's gonna argue with that. 

Michael:

Right. 

Sari:

That was one of our principles. The defense isn't going to argue with that. It's the truth, right? It's fundamentally true. And so when you think about what most plaintiff cases are about, they are about families. They are about things lost that we all love as humans. They are about lying. They are about betrayal. They are about covering up. They're about trying to get away with something. 99 % of people in the world do believe that lying is wrong. They believe that you should, if you hurt somebody, you should make up for it, conservatives included, right? Those are our rule followers. And so I think what we end up doing is we hear all the things that defense is gonna say, and then our whole case becomes a way to defend the defenses. And I just had somebody here at one of our Command the Courtroom events, and... 

Michael:

Right. 

Sari:

He said, I just don't get it. I had this one issue that I really knew was gonna be a problem for the jury. And so I Voir Dired on, mean, that's pretty much my whole Voir Dire was on it. And then a huge part of my opening was on it. And I even spent like a ton of time enclosing it. And then he stopped himself and he went, And I said, yeah, what you talk about, you make important. That was the defense's point. And what did you do? You just like throwing a party for it and putting it in big lights. And we're like, pay attention to these jurors. And this is what we do, right? Out of fear. We're like, my God, this is a scary issue. So let me spend all this time on it. Instead of finding out what the principles are in your case, focusing your voir dire and everything else on those principles and letting the defense hang themselves. So that's why I say the jurors are biased for you because 99 % of people believe in principles. That's why they are principles. And all plaintiff cases are principle based. You just haven't found them yet because you're wasting your time on the defenses case. 

Michael:

So that kind of brings me to something I did in my last trial. I wanted to see what you thought about it in terms of the funnel method. And then we can talk about principles with this funnel method as you scored. 

Sari:

Right. That's the point of it. 

Michael:

So this wasn't per se a principle, but I used the final method in this way. So in Texas, we tend to send clients to providers so that the providers can see them. If the person's not injured, the person's not injured. If the person is, the provider can see them under what's called a letter of protection. Didn't hide that, never hid that in litigation. I don't hide that in any of my cases, to be honest with you. I think the jury should know. There were a lot of issues, but that was one of them and I wanted to make this pretty quick because there were so many other issues. And so I started thinking, that's when I saw your on demand thing, speech and it reminded me of when I was there, what you spoke about. And I was like, you know what? The quickest way to do this and dispel this issue that's going to be a problem at trial is just to get jurors who have dealt with this issue before, have that kind of dissipation. And so. I went and I went up and one of the questions I asked is who has been involved in a car accident and half the room, if not more, raised their hand. Who here hired an attorney as a result of a car collision? I mean, half of that raised their hand. And who here was injured and hired an attorney? You know, they raised their hand. So then I picked one of them. Said, when did it happen? said, 20 years ago. I was okay, 20 years ago. You hire an attorney. Did that attorney send you medical treatment? He did. And did you go and seek those medical doctors? Did you go and see them? I did. And did they help you? They helped me a lot. What was your treatment? I went to chiropractic therapy. I went to MRIs. And I got some injections. Are you still having pain today? I am. And does it bother you? It does. Does it affect your daily life? It affects my daily life. If the defense at any point in time were to say that that injury was a sprain strain, would you find that ridiculous in your case? Yeah, I would find that ridiculous. And did you think you were faking your injuries because a lawyer requested that you go to this place? No, not at all. Thank you, Jordan, or whatever. I didn't even bring it up afterwards. And that's kind of what I did. So you tell me how I did and how I can make it better. 

Michael:

what you think I've kind of messed up on trying to do that funnel. 

Sari:

Okay, so that's not a funnel is the first thing I will say. Alright, so when we talk about a funnel method, a funnel method always has a principle, a plaintiff principle that you're driving to. That's why we use the, you know, the thing. It's like here's where we're going. And not only here's where we're going, it's here's what we want the juror to tell us. Right? So. 

Michael:

Sure. Sure. 

Michael:

Yeah. 

Sari:

We start in our voir dire process by asking you to make a list of all of your fears, right? What are all of your fears in this case? And that's defense points, that's things that keep you up at night, things you're worried that jurors think about. So the fear here obviously was what? Tell me what the fear was in this particular case. 

Michael:

that they think because I, yeah, yeah, because I think I sent the client somewhere that he's faking his injuries. 

Sari:

Not even him, it's that you, that greedy lawyer, right, is going or sending him over here to write up the bill, right? Run up the bill, because I'm gonna send him over here and he's gonna say he has all these things. So yeah, there's a faking component too, but it's like, he didn't go to the doctor by himself. The lawyer sent him, that means this, right? So we start there. So then I say, okay, if that's one of our fears in the case, what would have to fly out of a juror's mouth for you to be like, this is no longer a fear. Like this would fix this issue. So what would a juror think about you sending someone to a doctor? What's your favorite thing that they could say? 

Michael:

I don't know, maybe that is. 

Sari:

In other words, what do they want them to believe about that? 

Michael:

That should happen because you know people don't know where to go and I do it every day so it's very understandable or in fact I would probably ask my attorney something like that. 

Sari:

Yeah, so like when I'm thinking something like when a lawsuit is brought, right, we want to bring as much information to the jury as possible so that they can determine what's going on. And part of that is what are the injuries if there are any injuries? I mean, I'm assuming there's injuries. That's why we're here, right? So that's one thing we'd want to think, right? This is a fact-finding mission. There's nothing wrong with that as long as the 

Michael:

Right. 

Sari:

The doctor is reputable. So first we think of what do we want the jury to believe? What would save us is kind of how we think about it. Is there anything else that would save you in that scenario? I mean, did this person go and see a doctor, never see a doctor? Like what happened here to why you sent them? 

Michael:

Right. Sure. 

Michael:

I've never seen a doctor for neck or back pain. No, but mean contact Yeah, never, you know perfectly healthy You know and Just didn't know who to see when they when they contacted said they're having issues. I was like, well, there's lots of places and go take a look, you know 

Sari:

They had never seen a doctor. Yeah, okay. 

Sari:

So they needed it, they were having pain and they didn't know why. I mean, they thought it was from this thing, but they didn't know like a doctor hadn't said the causation piece, right? Because this happened, it's, know, smash this and that's causing this. They just knew this thing happened and now I have pain. Yes? Okay, so let's make it even simpler. So if you're here working with me, which you kind of are, so now I see what you're trying to do here is get this free advice, but here it is, right? So. 

Michael:

Right. 

Sari:

So if you're working with me, I would say let's make it even simpler. So our plaintiff principle is, you know, when we have pain, we go to the doctor to see what's wrong. Right? If someone has pain, then they often go to a doctor to see what's wrong. Okay? I mean, no more about your case. But let's just play with that one. So your first question was the right question. Who here has, I don't know if I would even do a car crash. Who here's ever had pain? For any reason. Right. Everybody raises their hand. And then it's something like, and what did you do to figure out where that pain was coming from? And some people might say, well, I was, I tripped, so I knew what it was from. We didn't go to a doctor? No. Why not? I pretty much knew what it was, right? Why did it happen? How about some of the rest of you? Did any of you go to the doctor? Why'd you go? Well, 

Michael:

Right. 

Sari:

I kind of knew why I had the pain, but I wanted to see if there's something I could do to make it better. So you're kind of getting in the air that some people go to the doctor and some people don't, right? Because your guys didn't go to the doctor. Now, then you might say if someone's... Right? And then you might say something like, well, if somebody's bringing a lawsuit and they haven't gone to the doctor, but the jury needs to know... 

Michael:

Yeah. So far, way better than what I did. 

Sari:

Whether or not this person is injured, what would you expect? I expect them to go to the doctor, right? Is the answer you'd get, right? What's important about that? Well, because the doctor can tell the jury if there's something actually wrong with them or if this crash actually caused it, right? So now we're there, right? So we're at our principle. They've said it, maybe not in exact words, we've written it, but they've basically said people go to the doctor to find out what's wrong with them. And that's especially true if you're in a case, you know, a jury case. The jury needs that information. And now we bring up the defense point. We're gonna do it in what we call the devil's advocate voice. Because every time in H2H that we talk about a defense point, we make it sound ridiculous. Every time. I'm never gonna sound normal when doing a defense point, right? So I might say something like, yeah, but what if the lawyer sent them? Then they're just out for the month. Then they're faking, right? And we just say it out loud and you would be amazed at what happens. The jurors go no for a couple reasons. One, we never do a devil's advocate until they've all said, no, no, no, you go to the doctor to get information basically, right? That's why you go to a doctor. And CLD, I don't do a lot with influence because I don't think you need influence when you're on the plaintiff's side, because you stand on the side of the right. I'm gonna keep reminding you of that. know, truth doesn't need shininess. It just needs to be shown. 

Michael:

Right. 

Sari:

Truth just needs to be shown. But CLD &E, know, grandfather influence, does say that when people make a public commitment, right, they say something in front of a bunch of other people, they're likely to stick to that, right? It's a credibility issue. It's an integrity issue. So you've got the whole panel going, yeah, you go to the doctor to get information about why you're feeling bad. They've all said that, right? Agreeing with it, nodding with it. And then you go, yeah, but if a lawyer sends that person, then they're faking it, right? And they'll, because they just said no, they'll be like, no, that's not necessarily true. Say more. Well, just because the lawyer said it doesn't mean that it's, they're faking. Really? Same way. I'm telling you, we get the best stuff out of the devil's advocate question, but you have to make it sound kind of , yeah, but, it always starts with a yeah, but. 

Sari:

They didn't go to the doctor until the lawyer told them, then they're faking, right? They have to be faking. And it's kind of scary. People are like, my God, I can't say that. Well, yeah, I don't suggest you say it like that. Well, if somebody goes to the doctor only when their lawyer tells them to go, then they're faking, right? Now I sound reasonable. I'm using my normal sorry voice. But if I'm like, yeah, but if they do this, I'm telling you, they're like, no, that's not okay. 

Michael:

Yeah. 

Sari:

And we do that with lots of things. Think of 18 Wheeler cases, right? Who here's ever shared the road with an 18 Wheeler? Everybody's hand goes up. What was that like? My God, it's frightening. What's so scary about it? They're so much bigger and you're smaller. And so what would you expect in terms of training? Let's say training was an issue in your case. I would expect them to train. I would expect them to do that. Okay, what could happen if they don't do that? People could get killed. Yeah, but trucking companies, know, those drivers have a CDL. That's a special license. They don't need to do anything else, right? Let's say that's a defense point. See, I don't, we never funnel a defense point. It's always a plaintiff principle. So the plaintiff principle in that one is trucking companies need to train their drivers. And why? Because these trucks can cause so much damage. Now the defense point is, hey, they had a CDL, that's enough. I'm making that up. I'm just saying, let's say. So we always do that after the jury has said yes, we would expect them to train. Then and only then do we go, yeah, but they have a CDL. That's enough, right? And right in that moment, the jury solves all your problem. like, no, that's not, why? Why isn't that enough? Well, because X, Y, Z and all this great stuff comes out. So that's where you went wrong, my friend, is that you had like a ton of questions that were kind of defense based, even said the defense at some point. I just want to get all the plaintiff principles in the air. Yeah, we believe that hospitals should monitor. Yeah, we believe that trucking companies should train. Yeah, we believe that people who own a business should keep the sidewalks clear of tripping hazards. Yes, yes, yes. People say, that's so simple though, sorry, really? want them to say this simple thing? Yeah, because when they say the simple thing, 

Michael:

Yeah. 

Michael:

yeah. 

Sari:

It's like, this is so simple. They could have just monitored. They could have just trained. could have looked. None of this would have happened. And so then the jury figures out your liability problems too. They're telling you. You always say that there's two questions every plaintiff case has to answer or you're going to get a defense verdict. And the first one was, how could this have been avoided? So boom, there it is. So you're like, what would you expect? And they're like, We didn't expect training. Jury just solved that for me. All right. That's how this was avoided. And the second question is how can money help? Right. You have to have some really good damages funnels too, which by the way, we have a damages two day command of the courtroom in our brand new mock courtroom here in Portland coming up in October. So any of your listeners or you want to come, you should. It's a. 

Michael:

Tell me more about that. 

Sari:

sariswears.com/damages. And so for two days, we're gonna play with how to talk about damages in voir dire day one. I mean, you'll be up on your feet, doing my price versus value funnel method. And then on day two, we're gonna talk about how to talk about damages in the opening. It's gonna be great, only 12 attorneys coming, small groups, working with me, hands on. You should come. Yeah. 

Michael:

That's huge. That's huge because that's even, I think that's something personally I have a little bit of a tough time with in damages and not so much the questions, although questions always can be better, but just kind of engaging jurors with that. I always feel like there's so much more I can do every single time, right? no, I don't think we do. 

Sari:

Yeah, and we don't spend enough time on damages, I find. And a lot of attorneys are like, my damages game is not great. And so that's why we came up with this. We've had the courtroom in April and I just was like, hey, let's try a two day seminar, sold out in six hours. So we've done three since then, all of them sold out. And then everyone kept saying, please do damages. So we're really going to focus on damages. And we've got a whole way of how we talk to jurors about damages in what year. It's probably the most scripted thing we have. We don't script hardly anything, but it's a step-by-step process. So that's our price versus value piece, and we do a lot with that. But yeah, that's the second question. So it's like, this have been avoided? And how can money help? You got those two things, you're pretty golden. It sounds simple, but as we know, it's kind of difficult to answer those questions. 

Michael:

It's really hard. You can, I very rarely meet people who are good at both. I know people who are just great liars, can get a verdict no matter what. I'll be honest with you, I think I kind of fall in that realm. I think even in the toughest case, I'll probably get a verdict in favor of our client if the facts are relatively there. But I've always personally struggled with damages and that's. 

Sari:

Well, yeah, I think that's true too. lot of attorneys say I can win on liability all day, but my verdicts aren't as high as I think they should be. Right. And so I think there's this, because damages isn't as sexy, right? If we've got a piss off point, right? If we've got bad actors and we're like, yeah, liability all day long. And I love liability, do not get me wrong. But in order to do damages well, you really need to be 

Michael:

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. 

Sari:

kind of coming out of your lawyer skin, both in that part in voir dire and in opening and closing, and really bringing more of your humanness forward. That's where we get damages, is when we can really kind of say, folks, this is what this is really about. And that's, I think, a lot of us don't want to go there. So that's why we're spending two days on it. October 16 and 17, yeah. 

Michael:

It's October 16 and 17th. I gotta pull this, well I'll do it off there, but I need to pull this up. I do this, I need to check my schedule. 

Sari:

Mm-hmm. 

Sari:

Yeah, and you can expense it to a case. Bring your own case and we'll play with it. 

Michael:

I've got one in January, so maybe I can do it. I'm pretty excited about that one. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. Well, we'll see. So far, it's going. So. 

Sari:

yeah. Cool. 

Sari:

Yay. Well, that's the other thing, too, is that y'all wait until you have a case to actually, you know, people call me. I think they don't do it as much anymore because I keep yelling at them not to, but, hey, I got a trial in two weeks. Can you help me? And I'm like, no, motherfucker, what are you doing calling me two weeks before? You know, what I will hear from most of my clients now are they're like, my God, I'm going to start way early. We're talking like a year early because you can't just shove all that in two weeks prior. You've got to be putting in the time and working on your arguments. In general, I found that so many, like I always say, unless we're talking about a car crash, most plaintiff cases are systemic failures. And we can use a lot of the same principles just applied to the case. So the more that you're practicing and working with these things, the easier that prep becomes instead of trying to shove it all in two weeks or two days before trial. That's not good. 

Michael:

I think it's also tough because, to kind of go back to your book, you also talk about how you're supposed to stand, how you're supposed to do these things. If you're not practicing that actively, it's a problem. 

Sari:

That's right. I have a podcast coming out in a couple, maybe a month from now on practicing because I've continually heard that now that we're doing these in-persons with our new mock courtroom is, you know, what are you taking from this? What are you learning? And almost everybody likes the importance of practice and we just don't do it, right? Which is so funny because when you think about it, like we think, well, because I'm in trial that often, well, You know, most musicians practice hundreds of thousands of hours more than they're ever performing. Most athletes practice way more than they'll ever play in a game. And this is really where the rubber meets the road because as I talk about in the book, you know, your non-verbal communication, how you're communicating non-verbally will have a bigger impact than your words. In fact, we know that if there's a mismatch between what you're saying and what you're actually doing, the listener will always go with what you're doing over the words every single time. so, yes, don't, you know, people come out here and I am like, now don't freak out. You've learned all these cool non-verbal skills and they're like, oh my, now I have 37 more ways to fuck up my case. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I want you to think about this as 37 new tools that you can use, but these tools take practice. There's no easy way here. I think people wanna go to, let's even say a two day seminar of mine and they're, I could watch them really hard on themselves. Like, this is so awkward. I don't know if I'm doing it right. And I'm like, oh, did you expect to get this in two days? Like, fuck you. It took me like five years, 20 years now. But when I first started to really get good at what I was doing and you expect to learn this in two days, come on now. You gotta be willing to go on that journey of self growth. It doesn't happen in two days. That practice has to be ongoing even when you leave here. 

Michael:

yes. 

Michael:

Yeah, I have a friend of mine who's trying his first case and he's like, how do I just go up there and just do how you do like the opening and just kind of like going through these movements and doing that stuff? I was like, well, have you written your opening? He's like, I'm working on it. I'm like, man, it is a few days before trial. You can't just be working on it. It's got to be prepped. It's not how it works. The other thing is, you know, people talk about, know, Mike, you have like this podcast, it's going really well, blah, blah. 

Sari:

You can't just shove it in. Yeah. way earlier. 

Michael:

What made you start? I had two reasons. One, I noticed I say a lot. And so I wanted to work on that. And you know, I catch myself sometimes doing it still, but it's getting better. Two, I wanted to speak to people like you and others that are doing this at a very high level, seeing what's going on and getting the plaintiff better, better. I want to get in front of them and I want to hear and steal some of this stuff, right? So. 

Sari:

Right? Free advice. told you I have your number. Absolutely. There it is. Now I'm happy to help. I mean, I'm going to love a fair play of attorneys. I say that all the time. I just love y'all. And I think it's because, you again, because you stand on the side of the right. I mean, especially now where we are in the world, I just think that trial lawyers are literally one of the few things standing between us and utter chaos. You know, as Rick Friedman says, you guys stand for human values over corporate values. 

Michael:

So. 

Sari:

and at such important work and I feel so honored to be on that journey with you because your job is hard. It's a huge mind fuck, which is why we talk about mindset stuff a lot over here. In any of our two days, we talk about, hey, you can't do any of these things with your hands and your voice and all of that when you really believe that the jury is your enemy and that they are looking to fuck you. You've got to get in a different head space and that with the skills is what's gonna help you and the practice really does a good job and trial. You can't be afraid and then just put on this non-verbal skills stuff. It doesn't work that way. You've gotta get in a head space that says, stand on the side of the right. 

Michael:

Yeah, one of the things that you're speaking of I kind of had a little bit of an issue with is that one of the jury trial I just had in Bordaer, there was a defense attorney actually on the case, sorry, in the panel. I noticed that not only is the defense attorney, but he works for insurance companies actively. so. 

Sari:

Wow. 

Michael:

I asked him, do you think he'd be fair and impartial with the defense? He's like, oh, absolutely. And he gave me a wink. And I was like, oh, man. Oh, man. OK. And so he was nice about it. He actually came up to the judge after. He's like, look, I've got depositions. I've got the stuff. If none of them have struck me, which they should, I'd like to leave. And he left. 

Sari:

Yeah. Well, that's my least favorite question. Do you think you could be fair? Everyone's going to be like, yes or no, if they want to leave, right? It's a throwaway question. It brings to mind the name of your podcast, Bad Law, Worst Facts. We're so afraid of the bad answer, right? I've just seen people when they're out here working in our mock courtroom, we bring in juries and we play with them too. And they get a bad answer and it's just like, 

Michael:

Sure. 

Sari:

freeze, what do do with that? And I'm like, that's such good news for you. There's so many things we can do with a quote unquote bad, I don't think there is such a thing as a bad answer. mean, one, it shows us who our people are not, right? But two, we can use that person to form the group, we can make them an outlier, all the new group dynamics stuff that I love. There's nothing to be afraid of . And so, now, in our voir dire today, those have been very popular. We have a whole session where we're like, okay, worst answer ever that you could get. Let's try it. And we just try practicing how to handle bad, quote unquote, bad answers. And they really do leave going, you're right. There is no bad answer. My uncle, you know, got his leg blown off in Vietnam. Nobody gave him any money, right? That's a scary answer for most plaintiff attorneys. And I say, right? I was like, that's a great, that's a great answer. 

Michael:

That escalated very quickly. Yeah 

Sari:

Here's how you handle it. Isn't it terrible how we treat our veterans in this country? How's your uncle? Is he OK? And it just is amazing how it just flips the juror like they're trying to like to go to you. And you're just like, nothing's going to throw me off. Thank you for sharing about that. Can you tell me how your uncle struggles not having a leg? Boom, now I'm in my damages argument. I can get damages out of this guy. Yeah, I'm gonna strike him. He's not gonna be for all my team, but I can use anything. And I think we forget that, right? He has something valuable to share. He has an uncle without a leg. My thing is with somebody who has lost a leg, I'm gonna use that guy. Even though he's quite bad for me, there's still great stuff there. We don't need to be scared. You stand on the side of the right. That should be the name of this podcast episode. That's so important. Yeah. 

Michael:

I like that. I'm not going to probably write that down, actually. And it's kind of , for me, kind of the closing, that's one of the things that's always been tough for me is that I have to constantly remind myself of that. we even earlier, that's a big pill to swallow, right? And I'm like, yes, it is. Because sometimes I think the jurors are not going to realize that. I'm asking for money. For them, that's a tough sell. 

Sari:

Yes. 

Sari:

It's tough for anybody, right? You're not supposed to talk about money and sex and politics and religion, right? And that's the other thing we do a lot in the H2H Playground, which is our online program, is we have this whole money course. Because if you don't deal with your money shit, you're not going to ever get big verdicts. You got to be so proud to stand there and ask for $100 million, for example. And there's things you can do there too. I've heard attorneys say, we're asking you for $100 million. It's like, you're not asking them. It's not coming out of their fucking pockets. Stop saying you're asking the jury. We're asking you, right? We're asking you to return a verdict in the amount of $100 million. But you got to get so, that's why the mindset is so huge. You got to get so ingrained. And I am standing on the side of the right. I am standing for this person who was harmed by this corporation or this bad action, right? And that there's nothing wrong with allowing money to make up for things that we can't fix, right? And I want to talk about that. And you go in there as the leader of saying, it's OK to talk about money. And that's what our price versus value thing is. Because yours will be awarded economics all day long, right? Because what's money for? Money buys things. That's what it does. So economics makes sense. You're going to show me your receipt? I get that. You're going to show me a bill? I understand that. But then non-economics is always the problem. That's where we leave money on the table. And that's why we talk a lot about how there's a totally different way to talk about that. Right? Economics are things that come with a price tag. Non-economics are things that have value, but don't come with a price tag. And you have to talk about that very differently than over here. But it's all about the mindset. If you're scared, my God, we're asking you, you know, that's going to be all over the jury. You got to come in there like ball swinging and be like, this is what this case is worth. I got to tell you one story. quickly about mindset. So I had an attorney come up and the same thing, fear about the jury. And I said, what do you want to believe instead? He said, what do you mean? I said, if you could just make it up. This was actually true. What would you choose to believe about the jury? And he said that they love me. And I said, great. We're going to play with that the whole time you're here. So every time we see, I'm like, jury loves you. He's like, the jury loves me. The jury loves you. He went home. He sent me emails. I was preparing for trial. Signed every single one of them. The jury loves me. So we went to trial. 

Sari:

I get a call and I said, well, how'd I go? And he said, sorry, the jury loves me. First eight figure verdict, $10 million. He's gone on to get more eight figure after eight figure after eight figure. And I keep going on Facebook, seeing this shit. And I'm like in his comments going, dude, I'm getting a little tired of telling you how much the jury loves you. And he keeps saying, that's the one thing that changed everything. When he really started believing that they loved him, he acted differently. And look, his results are showing that that's true. Go in there thinking they hate you and they will. I'll tell you that much. 

Michael:

going there kind of , I wouldn't say fearless, but maybe fearless, just feel confident and know that they're gonna like you. What are you worried about? 

Sari:

And even if they don't like you, you stand on the side of the right. They don't have to like you. But you're standing on the right side. Believe in that. 

Michael:

How does one get involved with you? What are some, I know there's levels to getting involved with you in terms of ... 

Sari:

I'm married, so I need to come out and say that first. So I can't get involved with you in a sexual way, although I do sexually harass my male clients, because I'm like, it's about fucking time y'all got a little taste of that. So you can go to sariswears.com forward slash H2H, like the letter H on the number two, H2H shit. And that's where you can sign up and you can choose. You can be like, I want to hear about your podcast or I want to hear about upcoming things or I want to, you know. whatever you want to hear about, don't have to get all of our emails, you can choose. That's a great place to start. But these two days, like I said, are very popular because you can put them into a case, you bring a case and work on it for two days with me. But the H2H Playground is really where we have our community that we're constantly practicing. That's why I created it. I'm like, y'all don't practice enough. So we have this community that's practicing all the time. And I'm there every single week coaching and teaching. And so if you go to sarisquares.com forward slash play, P-L-A-Y, that's how you can learn about that. Yeah. 

Michael:

That's fantastic and I definitely recommend it for everybody. Just this time alone, I promise you when I put this on air, people are going to text me constantly about how this was fantastic and they're probably going to all change and do it. And I mean it because when I went to the TLU on, sorry, TLU Vegas, I was like, man, I got to write this down. I have to make sure I rewatch this later. And lo and behold, I've probably watched it like 10 times by now. 

Sari:

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's great. And I will say, this is one thing I will say is the funnel method is our newest, I mean, it's not new, but you know, the book was in 2019 and it's not in the book. So if you want to be learning all of my newer things, you have to be in the crew or, you know, hanging out with us in some way. It's not, that stuff's not in the book. And I think it's, I think it's some of my best stuff is my new boy dear method. Even though it's not new, it's not in the book. 

Michael:

Sure. 

Michael:

Yeah, no. again, if you're just starting out, if you're a young attorney, definitely read Hostage to Hero Game changer. I mean it. Year two, me being a lawyer. Yeah, year two. I was like, that's it. I got to work on everything that's in here. and it's apparently, yeah, that's what I'm going to do. It's next for me. But thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. 

Sari:

It is. Now you need to join the crew though. Hello. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's gonna be great. 

Michael:

We're going to get more. We're going to get, you know, I'm very excited about this. I'm excited about what I'm going to learn with you. I'm going to sign up for everything that you have. I mean it. You guys heard it here live. It was a public pledge, public pledge. So. 

Sari:

Okay, I'm holding you to that my friend Yes, that's right public commitment. Yeah, I can't go back on it now all of your listeners are, although as we're recording this Maybe you're gonna believe that part out, but yeah, no, it'll be great. It'll be fun to hang out on the regular 

Michael:

Yeah. 

Michael:

Thank you. 

Sari:

Yeah, thanks for having me. 

Ever wish you had a place to practice your trial skills and connect with other lawyers who get it, and connect with me? Grab your seat in the H2H Playground. It's where you get real coaching, community, and strategies to actually grow your practice. Head to sariswears.com/play and get enrolled. Until next time.