Sari Swears Podcast: Every Closing Needs These 8 Ingredients

Hot take: Closing is NOT your last chance to re-argue the evidence.

By the time you stand up, jurors are overloaded, stressed, and terrified of getting it wrong. And piling on more facts? That’s not helping.

Closing has one job 👉 empower the jury to act.

In this week’s Sari Swears podcast 🎙️, I break down the 8 ingredients every closing needs — what you can do to calm a juror's brain attack and empower them to fight for your client.

We’re talking:

🚨 Why themes beat facts at the end
🚨 The part most lawyers skip (and shouldn’t)
🚨 How to turn jurors from hostages into heroes

If your closing feels heavy, forced, or flat… this might be why.

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari

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“The purpose of closing is not to re-argue the evidence or shove more facts into jurors’ brains. At that point, they’re already overloaded. The real purpose of closing is to empower the jury to take action — to give them structure, tools, and confidence so they know exactly how to do their job and trust themselves enough to do it.”
sari de la motte

TRANSCRIPTION

People over profit, right? It's almost always a money thing. So it's not always going to be that theme, but having a theme that you can really deliver to jurors in your closing to help kind of encapsulate everything that they've learned up to this point is absolutely essential in closing statements.

You're listening to Sari swear, on the Sari Swears podcast.

Well welcome everyone to another episode of Sari Swears. Today we are talking about the eight ingredients that every closing needs. We have a brand new closing template that I just taught in a three-part series in the H-to-H Playground, but you have to get in the Playground if you want to watch that training. There's three of them actually. SariSwears.com/play if you want to go sign up.

But in the new template, I show you how to create what we're calling the "should hook," how to talk to jurors about their three responsibilities. Mm-hmm, I know what those are. How to speak to the struggle that jurors are having in closing. The three components for a kick-ass rebuttal argument and how to end your closing with maximum punch.

I also talk about the various damage models that are out there and when to use them, but unfortunately I cannot go into depth into a lot of these content pieces now in the podcast, because we're now getting motions and limiting. It's rare, I will say that, against some of the things, which means I've made it, right? We can't talk about expectations and voir dire, which is ridiculous. I remember when I first started and I used to see people like Don Keenan or David Ball saying, "You have to sign this thing, that you're a plaintiff attorney." And I was like, that's ridiculous, but now I get it. We want to make sure that this information stays in the right hands.

Don't worry, I'm still going to give you great information, but I will say that all my best stuff is over in the playground, so you're going to want to get over there. However, when I was looking at how to prepare my new closing template, even back when I was doing the first closing template that came through, but this time particularly, I wanted to rework it. I went and I looked for closing templates and guess what? There aren't any. They do not exist.

And most books that talk about closing, it's a very small part, just kind of like voir dire, and it's very fluid, closing's very fluid. You have to watch what's happening over trial and put it together. And what I will say is, closing is not as fluid as you think. A majority of it can be written ahead of time. In fact, I really believe that the H-to-H method lets you see into the future just starting with our voir dire method.

We know already what the jurors were going to say, from the questions that we ask. And when they say them, you guys are all like mind blown. Oh my God, sorry. They said exactly what you said they were going to say. Well, yeah, because isn't that your rule in cross-exam? Like don't ask a question you don't know the answer to. We're doing that also in voir dire.

So, there are many, many things that you can know and prepare ahead of time, but what I shared in that training, there's several trainings, but when I was working with my crew on closing last quarter, is that not every case is going to need all of the ingredients in my brand new closing template. But I will share and I shared with them, I'm going to share it with you. In fact, today what I'm sharing with you, if we have crew members listening, is a little tiny bit different than what I shared. Because I thought through it a little bit more and I refined it, as I do.

Today, I'm going to share with you the eight ingredients that every closing needs. And so that's how I closed out the training last year or... Well, I guess it was last year, when the crew said, look, not every case needs the entire template, but these are the eight things that absolutely every closing needs, and that's what I want to share with you today.

So before we talk about that, let's talk about the SCARF model. Now, if you've been listening for a while, you know that the SCARF model is a brain science model that talks about how we either reward or attack the brain in these five factors. So status is the first one, where you have high status in a group. The brain thinks that's great. If we have low status, the brain views that as an attack.

We have certainty about whatever we're doing. That means that's good. The brain likes that. But if we don't have certainty, the brain doesn't like that.

Autonomy, we want to be able to move about freely and make our own decisions. If we don't have that, the brain doesn't like it, but if we do, that's a reward for the brain.

Relatedness, the more we know people that we're doing the thing with, the better the brain likes that. And if we don't know the people, the worse the brain likes it, doesn't like it at all.

And fairness, which is the last one, which is if we perceive that we are being treated fairly, the brain views that as a reward. But if we perceive that we're being treated unfairly, whether we even are or not, the brain views that as an attack.

Now, we talk about the SCARF model quite a bit in voir dire because I use that model to train my clients to understand that the juror's brain is under attack when they come in the door. Y'all talk about, "Well, they're so hard to talk to, it's just like trying to break through ice."

Well, yeah, their brain is under attack, right? They don't want to be there. They can't choose not to be there. They don't know what the process is. They don't know how long it is. They feel like they're being treated unfairly. All of the things, we're attacking their brain.

But I always bring the SCARF model back when I'm talking about closing because it is back when we get to closing. Hopefully, if you follow the H-to-H voir dire, you have calmed the jurors' brain down by doing that H-to-H voir dire. But unfortunately the nature of trial is that, at this moment before you give your closing statement, before they go into the verdict room, the attack is back. Well, let's take a look at that.

So in terms of status, now their status is at an all-time high, but the attack part is that's a lot of pressure. They're on deck now it's up to them to finish this thing.

Certainty. Now they have tons of information where before they had no information, but they have too much information. They're overwhelmed with information.

Autonomy. Now they have autonomy, they're going to make the decision. Nobody can force them to vote one way or the other, but they don't have you anymore. And if you've been doing your job up to this point, you've really become their leader.

Relatedness. They might know each other a little better, hopefully if you've formed the group in voir dire, but they haven't worked together yet. And that creates a brain attack. Like, what if I sound stupid when I'm sharing things? What if we don't agree? How's this all going to work?

And then fairness, this is the biggest brain attack of all, because that is their actual job is to decide what is fair. But how do they do it? They have no idea.

So, when we're thinking about closing statements, and I asked this question to my crew last quarter, I said, "What is the purpose of closing?" Because I have found that most attorneys either subconsciously or consciously believe it's one of these two things. So the first one is, it's a chance to review all the evidence, make sure that jurors really got it. This is your one last chance to shove it in their brain. And unfortunately, that is not, one, the purpose of closing, but two, even possible. They are overloaded at this point. Nothing you are going to do here is going to make a huge difference in terms of that piece. And if you've been following the voir dire method, the opening method all the way through closing, you will have done things like repeating. I have a whole podcast on that. Go back and look on that on how, are you repeating yourself? Maybe you should. How we can make information, especially verbal information, easier for jurors to digest.

But at this point, it's too late. There's nothing you're going to be able to do here. And in fact, you're going to probably hurt your cause by doing a boring, droning on reviewing of the evidence. They are not persuadable even though you want to hope that they are. This is why we start way back in voir dire.

If you're a long-time listener, you've probably heard me say, practice makes progress, and what better way to practice than with a fellow group of trial attorneys in person and with me, our two-day, Command The Courtroom masterclass sessions, put the H-to-H method into action, I'm there every step of the way with live coaching and feedback and finish mama fierceness. Here's what Kent had to say about our masterclass.

Kent:

Out of every program I've been to, I've taken good points away. But out of this program, everything I've learned has been new, and has been something I can implement on day one into my practice and into my next trial. And I feel a greater comfort than I've ever felt before walking into a courtroom and getting to speak with my friends in the voir dire panel.

Sari:

Now, seats are limited. These are small group, high impact courtroom sessions, not an auditorium full of bored attorneys and dull lectures. If you want to change the way you go to trial and turn your practice into progress, visit SariSwears.com/masterclass to register for a 2026 class today. That's SariSwears.com/masterclass.

Now, here's what we say the true purpose of closing is. The true purpose of closing is to empower your client to take action for their communities and for your client. I'm sorry, empower the jury to take action for their communities and your client. That's what we believe that the purpose of opening is.

So, with that in mind, there are eight components whether you use, and of course my template brings all of these together, but whether you use my template or anybody else's template or you're not even... Well, anybody else... There is no other template, or you're just trying to put it together on your own. I don't know why you do that when I've got it ready for you, but these are the eight pieces that you need, the ingredients that you can put together to have a terrific closing.

So the first ingredient is opening. Yeah. So what I mean by that is, you have to bring back what you said in the opening again, remember that I just said that repeating pieces is huge. That creates a reward for the brain because it's familiar. The more we repeat things, the more familiar they become, especially in cases where there's lots of unfamiliar language and terms and concepts. The more that we repeat, I don't mean repeat it 72 times, you know what I mean? Doing it strategically, the more familiar it becomes, the more familiar something is in terms of the brain, the more safe it is. So what we're going to want to do here, is kind of give the impression of, "Hey, I did what I said I was going to do."

So you told them, at least if you're doing an H-to-H opening, in the opening that here's how this could have been avoided. And so now you're going to go back to that. Remind them that there was a way to avoid what happened in this case, and now connect that together with how the defendant chose not to do those things. Always, always, always, if you can, make it a choice, even if it's like, well, but they didn't have a policy. Well, they chose not to have one. They chose not to put the time or money or effort into that. Make it a choice that is so much easier for jurors to get around.

So one component of your closing has to be something that harkens back to opening. And again, that's why we create a really sticky opening. We don't want big monologues of what you said in the opening. That's not what I mean. I mean, bring back the... Remember how we talked about this was avoidable. They chose not to do those things. So that's one component I think you absolutely have to have.

The second component that you have to have in any closing for it to be successful in my mind, is a theme. Now, you probably, hopefully, have already had a theme that you even started back in opening, but I think it really comes together here. And what you're really doing in this piece is kind of saying, again, not in these words, but here's what this case is really about. Now, the reason why the theme is so important, particularly in closing, is because, due to the overwhelming amount of information, we need something simple that pulls it all together. They've got facts and figures and names and dates, and that just overloads the brain. They need a container, something that they can put that in to make sense of all of the things.

So for example, one theme that has worked particularly in nursing home cases, but in many of our plaintiff cases, is people over profit, right? It's almost always a money thing. So it's not always going to be that theme, but having a theme that you can really deliver to jurors in your closing to help kind of encapsulate everything that they've learned up to this point, is absolutely essential in closing statements.

All right. The third piece that you need in any closing are rules. And I do not mean the rules, the way you, and of course I often think about rules in the legal world, which is, here are the rules that they broke. That's not what I mean. When I say rules. I mean rules of engagement, i.e., here's how this all works. I have said many times that I hate learning new games. People will be at somebody's house and they're like, "Let's play a game." I'm like, "Oh my God," I've gotten better in my older age. I'm thinking I'm softening. But before I didn't love it. I feel like this piece of hair is just jingling if you're watching, it's just jingling in the non-existent air in this room.

But it's just, I immediately get like, "Oh my God, I don't want to learn the rules." Like, if I don't know how to play something... So here, they don't have an option. They have to play the game, so to speak. And so you must go over the rules. And so, that's basically, here's what's going to happen now. Here's how you're going to work with each other. Here's what you can consider. Here's what you can't consider. It's basically laying the groundwork for how they do the job as a juror.

What does that job look like? What can they do? What can't they do? What's their objective? How do they get there? All of the things. It's the rules of engagement. And in fact, when I taught on this in the crew last quarter, this was the one piece that most of the attorneys said, "I'd never thought about doing that. I never thought about taking the time in my closing statement to talk through the job of a juror." And I was like, to me, that's essential. If I don't know how to do the job. Anything else you tell me is not going to make any difference. You can argue all day long until you're blue in the face about why you should win. But if I don't know how to get there, if I don't know what the rules of the game are, then we're not even going to move the game piece. I'm just going to nope out, we don't want that from our jurors.

Now, closely related is the fourth component or ingredient that I think every closing should have, which is, are the tools. So you have the rules, here's how you do your job and here's what's allowed and what's not allowed, and here's who you're going to be working with and let me give you a tour of the building, all the things. And then there's the tool. So if you're a plumber, you're going to get, I don't know, things plumbers use, plungers, I don't know. I guess they have more things than plungers, but plungers and a socket wrench. I don't even know the names of tools. Or if you are an electrician, oh, I'm going to know more about electricity. You know what I'm saying? Every job comes with tools. So here you have to give them their tools.

Now, the obvious tools off the bat are the jury instructions. Those are a great tool for jurors. Look, here's some instructions about how to do the things. Here's a tool. If you have come up with a question about what this means, or how you should work with this one particular piece, it's right here. The judge is going to give you this. This is going to help you. Here's a tool for you. Verdict form. Here's what this means, and this is a tool. This is going to guide you on what decisions you need to make and what questions you need to answer.

You're going to have each other to work with. So lean on each other, lean on your experience. Let me define these terms for you. There's more tools, you're defining things for them. If you need help, you can send a note to the judge.

All of those things, it's really important that you remember, the point of closing is to empower our jurors to act. Don't skip these two pieces. This is arming them. This is part of the empowerment piece. It's not just about arguing and trying to persuade. Here are the things you need to do your job. So that's what I mean by tools.

Okay, I don't know what number we're on, five, I guess. So five. Obviously you have to have a piece of money. So, basically this one is, here's how we came up with the number, and why it is just. So that's where you can look at the different damages models. As I said, we took kind of a tour through the various damages models out there. H-to-H has a brand new pillar method for talking about non-economic damages, which I think, quite frankly, is quite amazing. But here's where you really break it down.

They need this piece. So you don't just get to say the number and run away. You have to walk them through why that number, and why it is the right number. So there has to be a piece of money, obviously. Not just stating the number, but really walking them through your experience of coming up with a number, and how they can take those same tools to come up with the number in the verdict room. It could be bigger, it could be smaller.

Six is a choice. You have to show them the consequences of the decision they're about to make. So this is where we tell the two future stories, kind of like choosing your own adventure. So we say, "Let me tell you the story about a jury that decides to help and decides not to help." And this is where you can deal with things like, where you maybe are worried that they're going to say, "He has a wife, she can take care of him."

I mean that's in sickness and health. Why should we give any money? So in your future story of a jury that chooses not to help, you might say that and you say this jury thought, "Hey, he has a wife," and you say the exact thing that you're afraid they might be thinking. And so, what happens is the wife dies, and now what happens is he's put in a nursing home... Right? You can make it up. You say, "I'm trying to tell you a story," but this is potential. None of us know how long we're going to live.

And then you tell the story about an actual jury that helped and how that person was able to get back on their feet and live a meaningful life. You really need to show them what's at stake here. I think Nick Rowley does the two future stories. I can't remember exactly where I got it from, but I think it's so beautiful to be able to concretely show the jury, this is what you're up against, this or this.

Do you want to not help and hope that the wife stays healthy and lives long enough? Or do you want to do this, and have them pay for what they did, and make sure no matter what happens that he's taken care of? So there's this piece about really getting clear about what the choice is in front of jurors.

We tend to think, just check this box and that's what this means, and check that box. It's not real. You have to show them the potential consequences of their decision. It's like when we talk to our kids, and they come to us with a problem. I know I do this with my daughter, and we'd talk it over and we say, "Okay, well what are your choices?"

"Well, I could do this."

"All right. And if you did that, what could potentially happen? If you did the other thing, what could potentially happen?" We play it out to see what might happen as a consequence of our decisions.

All right. Seven is to empower, right? So what I mean here is the whole closing, as I said, is about empowering, but this is where we really, maybe I should have named it encourage, but this is where you get to do the, you can do this, piece. And you're the perfect people to do this, and this is what we call the power of jury speech. I've heard a variety of power of jury speeches and every single one I've heard has moved me in some way. They're just so beautiful when you really talk about the judicial system and how it uses normal everyday people and the beauty in that, and how they may feel that they are not prepared to do that, but they are the perfect, absolute perfect people to do that. Don't skip this part. They need to hear that from you, that you believe that they can in fact do this.

The final piece is what I call release. You actually, in closing, have to let go both verbally and energetically. I like saying to the jury, "I'm limited. I cannot take this any further. My part of this journey is over, and I'm now giving it to you, and you literally have gestures of giving. I'm leaving the plaintiff in your hands." Make them feel that burden. You can actually carry gestures right before when you're encouraging them. You won't want to have palms down saying, "You guys can do this. I know you can do it." But here you have this like, I'm giving him up to you.

But once you do that, however you close out your voir dire, you have to release it both verbally, here's what I mean by energetically. You have to let it go. You cannot, once they go back in the verdict room, be twisting and turning and worrying and gnawing your fingernails off, and whatever it may be. Randy McGinn goes and takes a nap. Other people go and take a walk. But you have to absolutely release it.

I will tell you that the juries can feel, and we're going to talk in our next podcast about energy, but they can feel the energy that you're worrying about them and that goes against everything that you just told them, "I trust you. I am leaving the plaintiff in your hands. I know you can do this," but if you're outside, then going, I don't know if they can do it," they will feel that. Read it, accept it. You don't want that.

When they walk into that verdict room, bless them on their journey, continually send them good juju that they can do it. You know they can do it. You've got to actually release. I've told the story before. It's in the book, actually, about the first day. My nephew got his driver's license and my sister happened to be up here in Oregon because they live in California, and all day she was so worried that he was going to get in a crash. She kept saying, "He's going to crash. I know he's going to get in a crash. I know he's going to get in a crash." And lo and behold, we were having family dinner that night and there was a call from her son and yep, he got in a crash and totaled his car. He was fine. The car was totaled.

I just have to think that there's some connection, even from Oregon down to California, that he felt that weight of her expectations.

And that allowed him to take his eye off the ball. I don't know, but send them good thoughts. Send them good thoughts, release it. It's good for you too. You've done your part. There's nothing more you can do. So give yourself a pat on the back. Whatever they come back with is on them, not on you. Now, I'll end with this. None of this will do you any good if you don't trust the jury. This isn't a play that we're putting on. These aren't lies that we're telling ourselves or the jury. H2H method works only. Let me say this clearly, it only works if you trust the jury. You have to trust that most juries, or jurors, let's use the individuals, want to do the right thing. They do. I see it all the time.

They are not your enemy. They are hostages. Somebody wrote a book on that. And here, right at this moment, they can become heroes, I think somebody wrote a book on that too, if you let them.

I hope that helps. Get in the crew. Talk to you next week.

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 a real coaching community and strategies to actually grow your practice. Head to SariSwears.com/play and get enrolled. Until next time.