FHTH Ep #258 - Trial Lawyering is a Craft

Can you believe we've hit the finale of Season 6?!?

And let me tell you.

We are ending it with a BANG!

(Not just because I had a little accident a few episodes ago. 💩🫣)

We are wrapping up in June because I'm taking the entire month of July off.

Now, let's dive into today's hot topic.

What if the H2H Method DOESN’T work?

*cue shock* 😱

I got an email asking me to talk to someone who tried my method at trial and it backfired.

My response?

Absolutely NOT.

Tune in to find out why. 👇🏽

Xo,
Sari

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“This work is hard. Trial lawyering is a craft. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes blood and sweat and failure and success and then more failure and a shit ton of practice before you get any good at it. So my question to you is, do you want to spend the years, I'm talking years, that it takes to get really, really good at this? Or do you want to spend that time trying every new method, reading every new book, getting distracted by the shiny new toy? I'm going to suggest that we get to fucking work. It does not have to be the H2H method. I don't care what it is that you're committing to. All I want you to do is to commit to it and stop going to trial and trying the thing once and being like, "This thing doesn't work. So onto the next." This is a craft.”
sari de la motte

episode 258 transcription

Well, welcome to the explosive finale of Season 6. And no, I'm not saying that just because I shit my pants several episodes ago. We are ending this in June because I take the month of July off, and I think you should too. So I'm taking away my podcast so you'll have nothing to stay and work for and you will go and actually take a vacation for once in your goddamn life. So go and take a vacation. I'll be back in August with brand new episodes then, but we're going to go dark for the month of July. In the meantime, if you would go give us a review, we surely would love that wherever you listen to your podcast.

All right. Well, today we are talking about what if the method doesn't work. I got an email. Oh my gosh. Okay, so I got this email that said... I'm not going to tell you the relationship between the two parties, but it said, "Would you talk to this other person that used to listen to your podcast but now used the things that you teach in your program at trial and it backfired and they're like off the sorry train and not listen to the podcast anymore and would you go and talk to them?" And I was like, no, I fucking won't. Yeah, that's what I do, is I set aside time in my schedule every week to just track down people who don't like me anymore to tell them that they should like me. No. But I'm going to get a podcast out of it, so what I decided to do is talk about this concept of what to do when this or any other method doesn't work.

So let's talk first about what I mean by work.

I did a podcast a month or so ago where I talked about how to decide whether any method you're using "works." And the gist of that was there is no scientific way to actually determine whether or not a program works, a method works because we don't have the access, first of all, to the jury deliberations. That's not something we can do here in the United States. We aren't have blind... What is that? Studies? We don't have control groups. We don't have a way to separate all the factors to know whether it was the actual method that won or lost the case or whether it was something the attorney did to win or lose the case.

There's just no scientific way to determine whether or not a particular trial method works or doesn't.

I mean, the way y'all have been doing it is somebody says, "Well, tons of people are winning bazillions of dollars in verdicts with this method. So that means it's working." But keep in mind that you're not hearing from the people who have used said method, whatever it is, about the times that they lose. So that in itself is not as scientific as we would like or as they would like you to think.

So I think the way you are defining whether a method works or not is, does it produce a win. And so again, as I have said before, any method can help you win or lose at trial including H2H. All right? So let's start with that. Now, what I want to talk about in today's podcast is the real issue that we're talking about because I think the way y'all are handling this, and it came to mind when I got this email about this person used your method and it backfired, so you need to go talk to them, here is the issue. And that is you cannot learn the H2H method. Let's use that as an example.

You cannot learn the H2H method from a fucking podcast or even from buying my H2H fundamentals course, which is for sale on my website and try it once. This shit takes practice.

Now, I'm sorry, and you know I love you. This is coming from your Finnish mama, who loves you more than maybe even your own mother, okay? Let me go out on a limb. I love the hell out of you. I've dedicated my whole life to helping you, but y'all are the only industry that I can think of that expects lightning in a bottle. You pick up a book and you expect it after one read to change your entire law practice. And if it doesn't, "Well, fuck that book. Onto the next one."

You buy an on-demand seminar and you expect at your very next trial that you're going to win. And all I have to ask you is what the actual fuck? Right? This is watching a YouTube video on how to sing like a pop star and then expecting to wake the next morning and be Taylor fucking Swift. It does not work that way.

Here's what I really want you to get. Trial lawyering is a craft, and yet so few of you treat it like the craft that it is and you're like, "Yes I do." No. You don't. You, for example, you'll not pay for personal development unless you can expense it to a case. Sound familiar? You won't attend a seminar unless you get CLE credit. You won't get training unless your boss pays for it. So you buy the books and the DVDs and you go to the weekend seminar and you try it once and it doesn't work. And then you complain that your tiny bit of effort didn't result in some big ass win. I'm sorry, but y'all aren't hungry. That is the problem. You are not hungry. You've gotten lazy. You want made-for-you packaged magic with little expense and even less effort. I'm putting it down today. That's what you expect.

Now look, I think that my amazing... I think I'm amazing. I think that my method is amazing, but even my method is not going to work without time and practice because that is what mastery takes. I don't care what you're trying to master. It takes time and it takes practice. So you can read my book or any other book, try it once and then declare it doesn't work and continue on your merry way and you're going to keep doing that with every fucking thing. There is no such thing as lightning in a bottle because this is a craft. There's not one key ingredient that is hidden from you and someone's going to show it to you and then everything is going to make sense all of a sudden.

If that's what you think that this work is about, find a different line of work that is not how this works. Period. Y'all aren't fucking hungry. When I think about it, and I don't mean this...You know I'm all about work-life balance. I'm not talking about when we're talking about being hungry, that we're talking about working 88 hours a week. I'm talking about if it's not something that is immediately delivered to you on a silver platter in terms of learning now, I'm talking if you guys work hard in every other area, then you just say forget it, and you're onto the next thing.

Now think about my story. And I went to this nonverbal communication training not because I wanted to, but because my mentor told me to. And at the time, $450 for a week-long seminar was both a lot of money and a lot of time that I did not have, but you do what your mentor says. And so I go to this training. I'm thinking it's going to be all the body language stuff, and it's none of that. It's all about how to become a better presenter, how to work with group dynamics, how to coach people, and I was totally like, "This is what I want to do." I was literally on my way y'all to go get a doctorate in teaching piano because my degrees are in music. And in that moment I was like, "Whatever this is, I want to do this" because I really think through decisions very well. No, I normally do actually, but I was struck. I was like, "This is what I want to do."

So I go up to the guy who's teaching, which is Michael Grinder. He is the brother of John Grinder. And John Grinder of Grinder and Bandler are the people who came up with NLP, which I know y'all love. I'm not really into NLP and this wasn't really about NLP. They use some of those things, but basically guys are a big deal. And so I'm two days into the training and I go up to him on the third day and I said, "This is amazing. How do I do what you do? How do I get trained to do this and work with people like you do?" And he said, "Well, are you a classroom teacher?" And I said, "No, I teach at the university level. I'm a grad teaching assistant, but I don't teach in the schools." He's like, "Well, that's the only people I train."

Now I had a choice at that moment. I could have been like, "Well, bummer, I guess I'm not going to do that. Onward to..." I was going to go to Oklahoma, y'all. There's some of you that live in Oklahoma and I love you, so I don't mean to talk about Oklahoma. But I'm just telling you, this was the length I was going to go to get this doctorate. And I could have just been like, "You know what? That was a weird blip, forget it." But I did not take no for an answer because I knew there was something here that I wanted to do.

And so I went home that night and I looked at his website and I saw where he was going to be because he had it, "In September, I'll be here. And in October I'll be there," in all over the country, Minnesota, different places. The next day I came up and I said, "I noticed that you're going to be in X, Y, Z over the next couple of months. If I come on my own dime to where you are, would you allow me to observe you?" And he says, "Sure." Now again, I didn't have enough money basically to even pay for this training, but I, over the next year, put these programs on a credit card, my airline tickets, and I would go and I would watch him and then I would take him out to dinner and I'd ask him all the questions I came up for me until I had trained myself. I didn't have the money, nobody was paying for it. I just knew that I wanted this training. Maybe I could have even found it somewhere else, but I knew I wanted it from him and so I fucking got it.

Now think about that in terms of Taylor Swift, right? When she hired a vocal coach, for example. I don't know if she has, I'm assuming. Or someone to teach you how to play the guitar or any of the things. She wasn't thinking, "Well, I'm going to expense this to something." Or, "Well, who's going to pay for this?" She had a dream and she knew that her craft needed time and practice and it needed people to help her with that craft and she spent the money and it fucking paid off.

What I'm trying to say is that anybody who has become anybody, famous or not in the world, put in the work. There is no easy way to get through any of this, particularly the field that y'all are in. There's no formulas, there's no magic. I know that everybody out there wants to tell you that there is, and that's what they're selling you. They're selling you the snake oil that says, "This is the way to finally win at trial." I'm not saying everybody. There are a lot of very credible, wonderful trial consultants out there. Not everybody, but they know that those are the ones that are selling the snake oil, if they can capitalize on your fear, that they will at least get your money that first time. And then you'll go and it won't work. And it doesn't matter, they already got your money and you're onto the next thing.

This work is hard. Trial lawyering is a craft. It takes time, it takes patience, it takes blood and sweat and failure and success and then more failure and a shit ton of practice before you get any good at it. So my question to you is, do you want to spend the years, I'm talking years, that it takes to get really, really good at this? Or do you want to spend that time trying every new method, reading every new book, getting distracted by the shiny new toy? I'm going to suggest that we get to fucking work. It does not have to be the H2H method. I don't care what it is that you're committing to. All I want you to do is to commit to it and stop going to trial and trying the thing once and being like, "This thing doesn't work. So on, onto the next." This is a craft.

The people who succeed in this business are those who commit and get to fucking work. People have success off the bat with my method. Yes, there are people who are like, "I've tried it once," and they've gotten success. But most people, most people it takes time and it takes practice. And the reason for that is because all of the things that I'm asking you to do, you've never done before.

I just hired two brand new people. I was training them today and I was saying, "We are disrupting this whole industry because we are training our attorneys that it doesn't have to be hard, that doesn't have to be awkward, that doesn't have to be hatred for the jury, that they don't have to be in fear all the time and they've never heard that shit before."

So the things that I specifically in my method are asking you to do, I don't know about other methods, are asking backwards to how you have been trained, if you've even trained at all. Like in voir dire, most of you've never been trained. And so the things that I'm asking you to do are not going to come naturally. They're not going to feel like the right thing to do at first because you haven't created the neural pathway. So if you expect from my method or any other method to try it once and it works, you are not doing the work. You are looking for the quick fix ,and that does not exist in the world, but it particularly does not exist in this industry.

Again, I love my method. I think it's great. I think it's a way more fun, healthy way to try cases, but it doesn't even have to be about my method. Commit and get to work. Stop wasting your fucking time going from one thing to another and commit and get to work to whether it's my method or anybody else's because that is the craft of trial lawyering. It's time and practice and going in and getting some things wrong and trying it again and again and again until you get better and better and better and better, and now it doesn't feel so hard. But that takes time and that takes practice.

So no, the person who emailed me. I'm not going to call the person you wanted me to call or text or email them, but you can give them this podcast if that's what you desire.

I love y'all. And I know if you're in my crew and you're listening to this, you are already committed and doing the things. But just again, the big thing I want you to get from this is trial lawyering is a craft. And when you treat it that way, that is when you will see results. But when you treat it like just some kind of mystery that there's some key hidden somewhere in a rock in Ireland that you're going to have to go on this quest to get and once you get it, then everything will be easy, you're in for a sad, sorry, state of affairs. That's not how this works. Treat it like a craft. Give it the respect that it deserves and you will see the results. I love you. All right Bye-bye.

Have you ever wished that you knew what the jury was thinking? Well, grab a pen and paper because I'm about to give you instant access to a free training I created for plaintiff trial attorneys called Three Powerful Strategies to Help You Read a Juror's Mind. It's going to help you to understand what the jury is thinking, so you'll feel confident to trust them and yourself in the courtroom.

Ready for the address? Go to sariswears.com/jury. Enjoy.