Sari Swears Podcast: A Trial Debrief with Nate Cobb

I’m joined by special guest Nate Cobb, a New Mexico-based trial lawyer who used to say, “I don’t need that mindset stuff.”

Until a case forced him to find out the hard way that mindset isn’t optional — it’s EVERYTHING.

In this episode, Nate breaks down a recent case that settled mid-trial for $17.5 million and exactly what made the difference when the pressure was on.

We talk about:

👉🏽 Why ignoring mindset almost cost him the case
👉🏽 How owning the number changed negotiations
👉🏽 Why trusting the jury matters more than fighting the defense
👉🏽 The moment he knew the case had shifted (and the defense knew it too)

If you’ve ever told yourself “I’ll focus on mindset later”, this episode is for YOU.

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari

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➡️Listen on the website

➡️Watch on Youtube

“I went from operating out of fear and reaction to realizing that the only reason my practice felt overwhelming was because I made it that way. Coaching didn’t just change how I tried cases — it changed how I thought, how I showed up, and how much I actually enjoyed my work. Mindset isn’t extra. It’s the foundation.”
nate cobb

TRANSCRIPTION

Nate Cobb:

I went from being the person where I don't think I need that. I don't want that, to I have talked to so many people about it. Find something, someone, a system that works for you and get a coach. Because we have stressful professions, even my friends who aren't lawyers, but have other professional jobs. It is absolutely transformational.

Sari de la Motte:

You're listening to Sari de la Motte on the Sari de la Mottes podcast. Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Sari de la Mottes. Today we have two special guests. Well, Coach K is not that special.

Kevin:

Ish.

Sari de la Motte:

You hang out here every so often.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Sari de la Motte:

Coach K's with us and we also have H2H crew member, Nate Cobb, who's here to talk about a very recent ... Well, not very recent, a very big, but somewhat recent win. It didn't actually go to verdict, but it was a great settlement in the middle of trial and we've been wanting to podcast for a while. So I'm glad that we finally made this work. Welcome, Nate.

Nate Cobb:

Thank you very much. It's really exciting to be here. I feel like now I've made it. I feel good.

Sari de la Motte:

You've made it. This is the top, really. I agree with you, this is.

Nate Cobb:

All joking aside, it really is. It really is an honor to be asked to be on here and thank you guys for having me. It's great.

Sari de la Motte:

Of course. Thank you. And you just said that you probably listen to all of my podcasts so it'll be fun to have one that you are on. That'll be great.

Nate Cobb:

Yeah.

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah.

Sari de la Motte:

So we'll explain a little bit more about why Coach K is here, but first let's learn a little bit about you. So tell us where you're located and what your practice looks like.

Nate Cobb:

Sure. I am a solo practitioner in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I do catastrophic injury, wrongful death work, obviously on the plaintiff's side. Actually, I've practiced my entire career in Albuquerque. I started off the first eight years of my career as a defense attorney. Did that. And then in-

Sari de la Motte:

What was that like?

Nate Cobb:

There's the goods and I learned a lot.

Sari de la Motte:

Yes.

Nate Cobb:

Got a lot of interesting work. But genuinely it became very frustrating to work on that side for many reasons. And in 2017, I made the decision long planned at that point to just go out on my own. I was lucky enough ... My paralegal, who's now my paralegal and office manager, Zoe, came with me and she was integral to making the whole thing work. But it was a dive into the deep end. And it's been a really exciting, invigorating, sometimes terrifying process. And you guys fit into a lot of the progression of that.

Sari de la Motte:

Yay. I can't wait to talk about that. Is it just you and your paralegal now?

Nate Cobb:

I have two paralegals. Zoe Rivera is my office manager, key utility infielder, paralegal. And then Rose, she's a paralegal also who has some other duties, but I'm the only attorney.

Sari de la Motte:

You're the only attorney. Okay. And you're down there in Randi McGinn-land in Albuquerque?

Nate Cobb:

Yeah. I could throw a rock two or three times and arrive at the hallowed grounds of Randi's office.

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, very cool. And I finally learned how to spell Albuquerque sending her-

Kevin:

It's a tough one.

Sari de la Motte:

It is a tough one. Yeah. Yeah. So before we go into this amazing settlement that you got in the middle of trial, let's talk about how you came to H2H.

Nate Cobb:

Sure. I was trying to remember, I think it was around '22 is when I started. And I had always been one of those people where it's like, I don't need to do CLEs or training or whatever, and I know I have the requirements, but whatever, I'll just check it off at the end of the year. And around that time I started making the decision that's not going to cut it. I'm not doing enough for myself. I'm not doing enough for my clients. However good I am, I need to be better. And so I think I tracked it all down. I had started listening to some trial practice podcasts, and then Jody Moore was on a ... I'm going to forget his name, but it was The Jury Thinks What podcast. And so I listened to-

Sari de la Motte:

Is that Saul Gruber?

Nate Cobb:

Saul. Yeah.

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah. Okay.

Nate Cobb:

I don't think that podcast exists anymore. But in any event, I found her and then through some connections of just listening to what she had said, I found you, which was perfect because at that point I had pretty good experience of training or whatever in trial work generally, but nobody does voir dire. Nobody. And so it was this. It was like, holy shit. And I can say that.

Sari de la Motte:

Sari swears and so does Nate, come to find out.

Nate Cobb:

It was something that nobody wanted to talk about, that nobody's good at. I had been second chair on some trials earlier in my career and first chair on a few, and it was always like, "What do you do? How do you do it?" And so I found your podcast first, and then I found the Playground and I was teetering on should I, shouldn't I? I think I filled out a form. And so then I started getting emails saying, "Come on." And I remember-

Sari de la Motte:

Get your ass in here.

Nate Cobb:

Well, I sent a response to what I assumed would be an automated inbox saying, "Yeah, probably not this one, but maybe the next one, whatever. I'm just too scared." And then I got an email back directly from Sari. I think you said, "What the fuck are you doing? Get your ass in here. You won't regret it." And so I'm like, "Well, shit. Okay."

Sari de la Motte:

People do what Sari tells them to do apparently.

Nate Cobb:

Well, there's more of that. There's going to be a bit of a theme there.

Sari de la Motte:

Okay. I like it already.

Nate Cobb:

Dove in, started doing the H2H Playground and just the trial. It was great. After having grown up as a lawyer in a firm and then spent a few years on my own, the collaboration aspect and just being able to spitball and bounce ideas off other people who wanted to spitball and bounce ideas with you, it was great. And then by happenstance, you guys came out here. I think you were doing something with Randi's office, and there was a meet and greet that the great Felice Rael set up. And so it's like, okay, great, let's go. Let's go to El Pinto and do this.

Sari de la Motte:

Because apparently that was the place you had to go when you're in Albuquerque, is Al Pinto.

Kevin:

I like it. Good food.

Nate Cobb:

Yeah. The true OGs of Albuquerque will tell you it's a tourist place, and it is, but whatever. It's great. It's pretty. They have margaritas.

Sari de la Motte:

We had lots of margaritas. I do remember that.

Nate Cobb:

But that turned into, I got a chance to chat with you, Sari, at that dinner. I don't remember exactly what it was, but we got into a conversation about imposter syndrome, which I know from your recent podcast is not the right term to use, and it should be something else. But we started talking about that and you just snapped and said, "Kevin's got a coaching spot open, go do it." And so I thought now it's another step because I'm also one of those people where it's like, "I don't need to do ... That's nonsense." Blah, blah, blah. "I can handle this myself." Woefully incorrect. But that then led to me connecting with Kevin. And I think from that he and I were talking about it yesterday in a coaching session, but I think I started doing that in July of '23 which just so happens to coincidentally coincide to win this case that we're here about today. When I got it, I got it in July of '23 also.

But I went from being the person where I don't think I need that. I don't want that so I have talked to so many people about it. Find something, someone, a system that works for you and get a coach because we have stressful professions, even my friends who aren't lawyers, but have other professional jobs, it is absolutely transformational. And so the composite or combination of finding a spot to collaborate on the trial practice and then really getting to ... I can't say enough good things about Kevin, and I'm so happy that he's here. I didn't know he was going to be here.

Kevin:

I can't say enough good things about Nate.

Sari de la Motte:

See, I need somebody to say good things about him so then I don't have to.

Kevin:

Yeah. Keep talking, Nate. It'll really get me out of the doghouse.

Nate Cobb:

But where I was then, which was all good, it was fine in '23, but from there, just the building of those things, and I'm sure we'll get into details about it, or we can talk about it, but it has been instrumental in moving what was a successful practice that I had going in '23 into a practice that I really, truly enjoy.

Sari de la Motte:

I love hearing that. Because I know one thing that Kevin will never put up with, and neither will I, which is a client who says, "Well, it's fine. Life is fine. My practice is fine."

Kevin:

It's meh.

Sari de la Motte:

And I think that's one of the things that ... You bring up something that's so ... We see it all the time, which is mindset, I don't need that. I don't need a coach. That's a great add-on, but it's not essential. And then people either hire a coach or they go through my mastermind program and I'm their coach, and they're like, "Oh my God, mastermind is everything." Sorry, "mindset is everything". Most of my masterminds at the end of the year with me, I'll say, "What was the biggest learning?" And it's never trial skills, although they learned a shit ton of trial skills. It's always, oh my God, the mindset. It's changed everything. It's changed absolutely everything. Talk a little bit more about that, Nate, because I think this is really important. What was it that you were resisting and what was it about coaching that actually turned it around? It sounds like your whole practice is different now.

Nate Cobb:

Absolutely. It is going from something that is fear-based and reactive, which is I think where I came from. I don't need that because I didn't want to look at things to fix. I didn't want to put in ... I'm really good at this, blah, blah, blah. I've never been accused of lacking confidence or anything of that nature, but that was very much posturing. It was a realization of, let's get in and change this stuff, change the way I think about approach to certainly professional elements. That's obviously the key or the core component in what I was working on with Kevin, but that expands to everything else. And I think distilling it down is you look at the big muckety muck national level people ... Keith Mitnik or Nick Rawley or all of those guys. And I have CVN or whichever where you can watch-

Sari de la Motte:

Court View Network.

Nate Cobb:

You look at the stuff they do and there's not any huge magician.

Sari de la Motte:

Right. You expect it's going to be this hugely charismatic thing. And don't get me wrong, they can have their moments, but yes.

Nate Cobb:

They are good, but not in a way where ... It's not Little League and Major League. It's just a woman or a man up there talking. I've watched Randi McGinn stuff. I've watched Nick Rawley stuff, Mitnik, whoever, and it is very much, they just have a command of the courtroom to use a little product placement there for you. But they have a command that is very much just compelling. It's not anything in particular, that's probably why I'm struggling to come up with it. But what was missing for me between where I was and what I was doing was mindset, a thousand percent. I went from feeling like I was a slave to my calendar, a slave to all of this stuff that was always going to go wrong and we got to protect against it and make sure we don't mess it up. And I've got to be here until six or seven in the evening and then on Saturday or whatever, to realize that the only reason that was that way is because I made it that way.

Sari de la Motte:

That's right.

Nate Cobb:

And it flows into all the other pieces of just getting up. You said that people often talk about its mindset, not trial practice stuff, but it's the base, it's the foundation.

Sari de la Motte:

That's right.

Nate Cobb:

It's so ignored because it is or it can be seen as woo-woo, fancy pants, whatever you want to call it, but it really is like, how are you going to do it if you're not comfortable and good with yourself first?

Sari de la Motte:

That's right. And you mentioned that nobody would accuse you of not having confidence, but people have accused you of not having flip charts, as you did point out in our call earlier today in the crew. Kevin, what would you say about the growth that you've seen in lots of clients without sharing intimate details, but how coaching can affect this kind of change that we've seen innate?

Kevin:

Well, I think so much of it is ... It starts with awareness. We talk about concepts and things like the saboteur, which is that limiting belief hype man of the amygdala that really wants to hijack things to keep you small so that you don't take risks. And you're in a job that is at such high risk all the time or most of the time, and your brain is constantly trying to keep you safe, constantly trying to keep you from things, but you're doing it anyway. So if you don't have the mindset, tools and skills and the awareness around it, then you just push through and it's really exhausting and it can really, really tear you down. And you can have chronic pain, you can have all kinds of issues from it and just feel like shit all the time because you're just pushing through. Now, you may show up in a certain way in court, you might have certain results, but what about your experience? What's your life like? What is it like to do these things?

Sari de la Motte:

Exactly.

Kevin:

And being able to be able to really fully live your life, for lack of a better way to put it.

Sari de la Motte:

Well, I think too, people tend to think of coaching like, "Oh, it's going to be like therapy and I'm going to have to talk about my deepest, darkest thoughts." And of course there's times that maybe that is appropriate. But what I always say about coaching is it helps you become a better observer of yourself. So you bring a topic and you're like, "I want to look at why I'm such a slave to my calendar," for example, which is a big one with trial attorneys. And instead of the coach solving that problem for you, they're like, "Well, why are you a slave to your calendar?" And then it makes you think, "Well, I don't know because of this." "Well, why are you there at 6:00 and let's look at that and what's driving that." And so your coach shows up as this mirror of, "Here's what I'm hearing you say. Is that correct?" And you look at that and you go, "Actually, yeah, why am I doing that?" And so you end up solving your own problems. Cydia, one of our early coaches at H2H always called herself a professional question asker. That's really what great coaching is that the clients themselves are going to come to all the great stuff. You're just poking around and asking all these questions to get them thinking, "Yeah, why am I doing that?"

If you're a longtime 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 courtroom masterclass sessions put the H2H method into action and 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 de la Motte:

Now, seats are limited. These are small group, high impact courtroom sessions, not an auditorium full of board 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.

Kevin:

Well, and the approach of a coach, it's asking questions, but you get to know your client in a way that you can also see where those roadblocks are coming back up and you can just articulate what you're seeing, but it's not a referee, but it's a way of just having their big agenda in mind always that they don't-

Sari de la Motte:

And making connections.

Kevin:

Making connections saying, "Well, did you see this over here and that?"

Sari de la Motte:

Oh, I don't think coaching gets really good until you've been coaching with the same coach for two or three years because then they really know and then you're like, "Isn't it the same?" And you're like, "Dammit. It is the same."

Kevin:

I won't share any details, but we're coaching with Nate, we just decided we're in the honing phase. And to get to that point is a lot of fun in coaching. It really is.

Sari de la Motte:

Well, we love mindset coaching. I'm so glad that that made such a huge impact on you Nate and we'll probably talk more about it, but let's get to the actual case. Just for our listeners, we can't talk about policy limits or names, but we can talk about other things. So tell us a little bit about this case and what you were up against.

Nate Cobb:

Sure. So this comes out of a July 2023, just as with most things we deal with, just a tragedy. It was a collision between a semi-truck and my client who was on a motorcycle. And the simple facts are my client, he's 27, a father of, at that time, a two-year-old son. And he was one of those guys where he never really found his place or his purpose as far as a career until truly just a month before this happened.

Sari de la Motte:

Oh my goodness.

Nate Cobb:

He'd gotten on with a union doing construction work, and he found it through a member of his church, and he finally found this compulsion of, "I have to make a life for my son that will elevate him over and above where I came from." Because he had lots of struggles and lots of hardship, and he had found this job and he was on his way to work. And he is driving down a boulevard road here in Albuquerque, and a semi-truck is in a residential street, which there's reasons and stories behind it. But doesn't see him, pulls right out in front of him. My client ... Elijah, is his name. He tries to miss the semi-truck, but doesn't. Runs into the side of the semi-truck and he unfortunately lost his life right there at the scene.

Sari de la Motte:

My goodness.

Nate Cobb:

And it seems like an open and shut case. You got a guy at a stop sign, got a guy with no stop sign, no stoplight. But what was the sticking point and really became a strength, honestly, is the semi-truck has a camera facing forward and a camera facing the driver. And of course, in each one, you can see a little bit down the road. You can see other traffic. You never see the motorcycle. The collision happened right around sunrise at about 10:00 until 6:00 in the morning, so it was dusky, not dark, but you never see the motorcycle. You see other cars, you see other headlights, you don't see the motorcycle. And I can get into why that is, but-

Sari de la Motte:

I'm assuming the defense is using that to their advantage. Just you telling the facts of the case, I've been doing this for so many years, I'm like, okay, so we have a motorcyclist, that's not good. There's always so much prejudice against motorcyclists. And we have death. Death cases. Well, what's money going to do when somebody's dying? But now you're adding this extra wrinkle. So how was the defense using this as you couldn't see them or see the motorcyclist?

Nate Cobb:

Their entire case up through all of discovery, through all of the experts and through trial was, if we can't see him on the video, how's our guy supposed to see him when he is sitting there?

Sari de la Motte:

That's what I figured.

Nate Cobb:

And he's on a motorcycle. And of course it was a sport bike type motorcycle. And another little piece in New Mexico, you're required to have an endorsement on your license to ride a motorcycle and my guy doesn't have it. And so there's-

Sari de la Motte:

You don't have to contribute in New Mexico.

Nate Cobb:

We're pure comparative fault. There's no hard line at which we lose. Crazy jurisdictions that I've found out about working-

Sari de la Motte:

North Carolina.

Nate Cobb:

It's a pure comparative fault. So if it's 99, one, either way, that's the way it comes out. But their case was that our guy looked left and then he looked right. What else is he supposed to do? This motorcycle slammed out, came out and hit him. I was convinced for a long time, it's like you get the video and it's just there's so much nothing on there. I'm like, it has to be edited. Some conspiracy theory. To be clear, there's no evidence that it was. And quite frankly, I don't think it was. The short of it is there's a bunch of crap to the left of where this semi's parked. I drove through this intersection myself probably 50 times over the course of the case, and it's very hard to see, but he knew that. The driver was actually coming from his house, the motorcycle. Or excuse me, the semi-driver. He knew it's a dangerous intersection. He knew it's a tough intersection.

And what happened is obviously the camera moves with the semi-truck and it moves in such a way that at the beginning, the motorcycle is blocked by this other ... There's a tree, there's a sign, there's a building, there's cars. It's blocked by that at the beginning. And then as it moves, there's that A pillar that comes down right here of the semi-cab and he's behind that. There's one frame in I think 140 frames of the video that I found where you can see pixels of where Elijah is. And it just-

Sari de la Motte:

So-

Nate Cobb:

Go ahead.

Sari de la Motte:

Talk to me about how H2H helped you prepare this case.

Nate Cobb:

So two big things. And there's a little bit of burying a lead here because if you watch the front video, the video out the front, there's a car right here that's passing in the other lanes when the collision happens. And in the police report, this woman gives a statement and she was really a hero of the case. There's many reasons why. But I just went out and tracked her down. Because the police said she didn't see the collision. I'm thinking, how is that possible? And so early on ... And there was another attorney working on this case also who represented some family members, Ron Archibeque, who is an absolutely fantastic attorney here in Albuquerque. And early on it was, we just took her recorded statement with a court reporter. We weren't going to wait for the other side. We talked to her. Yes, I saw the motorcycle. Yes, he had his light on. No, he wasn't speeding. The truck just pulled out right in front of him. And so I don't know what he could have done. And so we went out, took her recorded statement with a court reporter and gave it to them right away and said, "What are we doing here? Why are we fighting?" It seems very clear. But their strategy was to just, "How are you ever going to get away from this video?"

Sari de la Motte:

Not being seen on the video. They were hanging their hats on that.

Nate Cobb:

And where it came into H2H is whatever you give time to, you give life to.

Sari de la Motte:

Yes.

Nate Cobb:

And that and owning your number are the two biggest pieces of H2H that really made the result of this trial possible.

Sari de la Motte:

So talk about giving time and making it important. I preach that all the time.

Nate Cobb:

Yes. And it's so hard not to do it because you want to say, "Here's why their theory is wrong and here's why that doesn't matter. And here's how I explain." And we just ignored it. Yes, he's not on the video. So what?

Sari de la Motte:

So what?

Nate Cobb:

Here's Christie, the witness who was there, who says his light was on, who says he was in the middle of the lane where he should be, who says he was not speeding. So don't talk to me about what's on or not on the video. And if we hadn't had or if I hadn't had just the assurance that ... It doesn't have to be perfect. If he's on the video, great, but he's not and there's a reason why. And I don't care that he's not on the video because I know where he was. I can prove where he was. I can prove what he was doing. And so show the video all you want. And that flows into, I think one of the biggest points of the program is trusting the jury, trusting them that they weren't going to fall for that crap, that they were going to understand this is not an invisible motorcycle.

Sari de la Motte:

I was like, did he just manifest it with thin air?

Nate Cobb:

Honestly. That-

Sari de la Motte:

How was that even a defense point? Well, he's not on the video, so he doesn't exist until he does. Yeah.

Nate Cobb:

They very surly thought-

Sari de la Motte:

He's dropped from a helicopter.

Nate Cobb:

That we would buckle under the pressure of that.

Sari de la Motte:

That. That's right. That's all they've got is to try to fuck with you.

Nate Cobb:

Yeah. They want to put bricks in our boat to try and weigh us down. And they thought that was more than enough to where eventually we would blink and falter and come apart at some point.

Sari de la Motte:

So talk about owning your number. What was important about that?

Nate Cobb:

So one of the things that we had is my client essentially is Elijah's son who at the time was, I want to say two years old. He might've just turned three and his mother. She and Elijah were no longer together, but they were co-parenting. And then there was ... Owning the number, let me go in a little bit to Elijah's story because it was one of those where I initially talked to Elijah's father who was also a plaintiff. He was represented by Ron Archibeque along with some other family members. And when we got the initial story of Elijah, it was, if 60% of this is true, we're going to be very good. And you understand the story from the grieving family. Yes, there is that, but how are we going to be able to prove and establish this? It got better the more people I talked to about Elijah. Everybody loved this guy.

Sari de la Motte:

Okay. I just want to pause you for just a minute because there's a theme I keep hearing, which is you went out and talked to that woman instead of waiting for discovery. Every person we keep talking to ... You're just on the hunt. You're out there getting the information and talking to people, which I know absolutely drives up the number because you're digging in.

Nate Cobb:

That's where the value of this case came from.

Sari de la Motte:

Yes.

Nate Cobb:

We, myself, Ron, we went out and did the work and dug up the information. It's as simple as making phone calls. I just got the police report, dialed the witness's phone number, talked to her, and there it is. That solves that problem of him not being on the video. Here's a completely unconnected party who's going to tell you what happened and we went out and did that. An interesting piece of it is they never deposed her. They never talked to her. They never called her. And they tried to of course-

Sari de la Motte:

Of course they don't want to talk to her.

Nate Cobb:

But it was going out and finding the story that we were going to tell that was going to be compelling to the jury if they did things wrong because there really wasn't an incendiary fact with ... The driver wasn't drunk.

Sari de la Motte:

He didn't have a off piss off point.

Nate Cobb:

They hired him and rehired him for some reasons that were pretty questionable. But at the end of the day, what we had is just a beautiful person, really, truly. Just a great father, great son, great friend, great church member. And we stacked up person after person after person who was going to be able to come up there. We actually had an issue at trial with trimming it down of who can we fit in to tell this story? And it ended up being his father and his sister, the member of the church who got him his job and worked with him. And then another one of his friends who he also knew from church. And so we had his story. And it wasn't just a 27-year-old who died and that's sad. It was, let me tell you what the community lost. Let me tell you what [inaudible 00:32:27] lost. Let me tell you what his coworkers and employer lost. And most importantly, let me tell you what his father, his sisters, his brother and his son, what they lost in all of this.

Sari de la Motte:

So is your number evolving as you're having these conversations? What's your process in coming to the right number?

Nate Cobb:

It really was an instance where I got to a range pretty early and the range was, I think this case is worth 35 to 50 million. That's where I came down to. We can put the story together that backs that up. And realizing there may be room for disagreement. They may say, "We don't quite agree with you," or they may say you're undershooting it. But from fairly early on, 35 to 50 was a number that I felt very confident about. And I know that's a range of numbers. But I felt confident we were going to be able to prove that at trial.

Sari de la Motte:

And so what does that mean when you say your own number to people who may be not familiar with what we're talking about there?

Nate Cobb:

I think the best way I can give ... So it is when you stand up and say a number in front of the jury, if you don't believe it, don't say it, first of all.

Sari de la Motte:

That's right.

Nate Cobb:

Because they will see right through you. And it applied in this case throughout litigation, throughout discovery, because where I started answering your question is that this wasn't a family who had a hunger to go try the case. It was a tragedy that they wanted to be able to move on from. And so it wasn't somebody who goes, "I want this painted everywhere." They were mad. They were, but there was a lot of hesitance to go to trial. And really what we had and what I had in particular was just a superstar of a client in the child's mom. And she was steely-eyed and just steadfast in ... We came up with a plan and then we stuck to it. And the owner number came from what we did early on, I talked with them about, here's how we can go about it, here's what we can do. And there was a certain amount of the litigation and the trial, which was really, really putting pressure and stress on the family.

Sari de la Motte:

As it does.

Nate Cobb:

And so we came up with a plan and said, "We are going to give the defendants a chance to get out of this early and we don't need to say 50 million forever or we go to trial." Some of the early negotiations I'll stay a little bit away from, but we gave them a number that was way, way, way less. And we said, "This makes sense for our clients. This makes sense for you guys, and we are going to give you one chance to do this." And because what I told them is it's very difficult to put a number out there without creating a ceiling. If you put a number out there and say, "We'll accept whatever, $10," they're going to try and use that against us. And so what we do is be clear with them. We would like to resolve this without a trial, but if you don't take it, we're not going to give it back to you. We're not going to come back. And so we did that. We gave them a number that made a lot of sense and they not only said no, but they said, "We're not paying you anything." They said zero. How's that?

Sari de la Motte:

Those are the best cases to take to trial.

Nate Cobb:

And so it was like, okay. But there was a lot of building the relationship with the client to where I told them, "I don't think this will happen. I think we're going to have a resolution, but if it doesn't, we need to be ready. We do not panic because we know that they are the ones who messed up." It wasn't us. It's them.

Sari de la Motte:

So I have to ask. I have to ask. Did you do an H2H voir dire? Because you said this settled halfway through trial, so there was a voir dire happening. Yeah.

Nate Cobb:

Yes. So voir dire, it's one of those ... It was good, but that's one piece that I look back on and I'm like, I could have done it too and ... It got scrambled. The short of it. We did get some group dynamic. We got some people talking for good and bad, and we got statements from the jury pool as far as, listen, the trucking company's job isn't just to drive the trucks, it's to drive the truck safely.

Sari de la Motte:

Nice.

Nate Cobb:

There was some amount of group formation, but if I had a mulligan for the trial ... I did an H2H opening and we can do that. And it came back, it wasn't perfect, it wasn't my favorite, but it was okay. I didn't spend any time-

Sari de la Motte:

That's right. It doesn't need to be perfect. And you keep getting better every time you use it. Yeah. You can't be like, "Well, it wasn't perfect when I just learned it." So good on you. And so what I'm curious about is why settle in the middle of trial? Why not take it all the way to verdict?

Nate Cobb:

So what came out is ... So we had two real distinct rounds of negotiation or three actually. One was early that we chose. One was at mediation where they tried to pay us the number that we said we would settle for and we said no. And that comes back-

Sari de la Motte:

Good for you.

Nate Cobb:

... To own your number. And we said, how about roughly $10 million? We'll give you that chance. And they said no again. And then we got right up to trial and ... Christy Childers, I've got to give her credit. She was very helpful in this case. She's a H2H member, extraordinaire, et cetera. And she had said, and I knew they're going to throw big numbers at you. And they did because right before trial, they came back and they said, okay, well, how about $10 million?

Sari de la Motte:

That is the moment of truth right there.

Nate Cobb:

Yeah. And we said, "No, we told you we weren't going ..." And this is where the owner number comes in, if we knew, we were confident that it was worth more than that.

Sari de la Motte:

Well, Nate, I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's even bigger than that because this is your reputation. So if you say, and this is the only number and we're not coming back, and then they come back with a bigger number and you're like, "Okay, fine." That, as you know, will permeate and that becomes your reputation. So I just have to say, good on you for saying, "I said it once. I mean it. Don't try me."

Kevin:

Yeah. 10 million's a big number, but you said, "Hey, I already said I'm not ..."

Sari de la Motte:

Without sharing details, but what were you seeing Nate through this time as he was preparing for this trial and all these things were ... I'm sure some of this was coming into coaching.

Kevin:

Well, from when we first started coaching until recent, what I've seen in Nate and what he focuses on has completely changed. And it's not just trial, it's his life, it's all facets. But he does not focus on the thing that's going to drag him down. And this is one of those totally great examples of that .is that you know that that's, okay, I said that, that's not the number. And you can see further than what's right in front of you. You can see the big picture instead of just going towards whatever numbers.

Sari de la Motte:

Didn't let fear win over. I'd love that.

Kevin:

You didn't. And you know you stand on the side of the right and you stood for your client and you did not budge. And I commend you. That is awesome.

Sari de la Motte:

Beautiful. So you're going to trial with a $10 million offer that was made. And so to answer my question, why did it settle?

Nate Cobb:

Because we came to a point where ... Well, the point at which it settled was after we had put on our liability witnesses and the decision point in the negotiations ... Because by this time there's people from Boston who have flown in and there's people from ... I don't know if they're from Boston or not, but East Coast who are high level people who are all trying to now get this thing done because we didn't and now we're sitting here and-

Sari de la Motte:

I love it.

Nate Cobb:

It settled. And what I told them is ... We had been up in the 40s and 50s throughout and really just saying, "Come up with a real number and then we will." And after the second day of trial, I had a conversation with my client, the child's mother, and where are you at? Where do you feel about ... This was certainly from my office, the biggest case we've done in certainly a long time, probably ever, and I want that verdict because we have everything stacked up and I want to see.

Sari de la Motte:

That's right.

Nate Cobb:

I want to put this all out there and see if it works, but where are you at?

Sari de la Motte:

But it's not about you.

Nate Cobb:

Because this is for you and for your child and for their life. And she said, "I'm not there yet, but I'm close. I do want this to be over." And so on the morning of the third day of trial, they were at 15 and we were at 20 and they had said, "15's, that's all the money we're ever going to offer. We're not going to offer anything else. If it doesn't work, then great." And my response was, of course to them, it's like, "Okay. Well, I don't know." And I had a conversation with someone on the other side that morning and I said, "Look, I'm going to start putting on friends and family members who are going to have to go up there and talk through all of this trauma and spill all of this out there and they've already been dealing with it for two years and I don't want to have to put them through that. And so if you get back to me by the middle of the day and tell me that we can meet in the middle, then we'll have a deal." Knowing that my client was ... The family didn't ... I didn't want to put them through that because it was just hideously painful.

Sari de la Motte:

Well, they never wanted to go through it. So this was still in integrity because from the beginning you said, "We can make this go away if we have the right number." And so did they meet you in the middle?

Nate Cobb:

They did. We got about midway through the morning, somebody shuffled into the courtroom and, "We have a deal." It came down to there's the me of the whole thing that wants to give the closing and wants to do-

Sari de la Motte:

Of course.

Nate Cobb:

Cross examinations of their experts were going to be phenomenal. Just all the things I really wanted to do, I didn't get to do. But at the beginning of the day, middle of the day, and end of the day, I'm there for my client not to get a verdict. And what my client wanted was the result that we had on the table and a mixed bag of pluses and minuses, but it became okay. We have a deal.

Sari de la Motte:

17.5 isn't terrible. That's pretty damn good, especially when they said, "We're not going to pay you anything."

Kevin:

Exactly.

Sari de la Motte:

Congratulations.

Kevin:

Nothing to 17.5 million is pretty fucking good.

Sari de la Motte:

I'm curious, were you able to talk to the jury?

Nate Cobb:

We got to talk to a few of them. Some didn't want to, but we talked to a few, and they weren't sure, and that was shocking. They're like, "Well, we don't know. We're not really sure." But I could tell that they were listening to what had gone on and they were taking their job very seriously. I think one of the people that certainly non-lawyers don't understand, but even lots of lawyers don't understand, excuse me, is how seriously jurors take their charge.

Sari de la Motte:

They do. Yes.

Nate Cobb:

They do all those things.

Sari de la Motte:

As I say, most jurors want to do the right thing.

Nate Cobb:

And so it made me feel good about-

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah. You're like, "Oh, well, if you weren't sure, I'm kind of glad I took the 17.5."

Nate Cobb:

If they would've said, "We couldn't wait to give a verdict and it was going to be a zillion dollars," and then that would've sucked.

Sari de la Motte:

Right. Right. You would've gotten through it, but this is a nicer result. As we ... Go ahead.

Nate Cobb:

Where I can tell you that the H2H methodology as far as trial presentation, in my mind, no doubt won the case was opening.

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah. Say more.

Nate Cobb:

My opening was 22 minutes long.

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah.

Kevin:

Yeah. Nice.

Sari de la Motte:

We are all about under 30 around here.

Nate Cobb:

And there was some of that. We had time constraints. Our judge gave us a fairly small time constraint, which I had to split with Ron Archibeque. And so there was some of that. But it was just work and practice to take out the shaft. Christie Foster, who I'll give a shout-out to, who I met through H2H was my voice and presentation coach, and I worked with her relentlessly on it, and just got it filed down to about 25 to 27 minutes is about where I was.

And I told Kevin afterwards, I said, halfway through, I realized I wasn't keeping time and had no idea how long it had been. But by the end of sitting down, it was, I think, right at 22, 23 minutes. But it was all the pieces of just putting together, here's what matters and here's what you're going to find, what you're going to see, and here's the result that you'll be compelled towards. I have no doubt in my mind that we won the case in the opening. And the reason I'm very confident that we were going to get a good result is because the other side knew all the facts. The other side knew everything that the jury didn't get to hear, and they heard the openings, and they heard the way that all of that was communicated, and that's when the rush to get it ... That's when the movement started after they saw how we were approaching the case.

And once we were just very real with the jury ... I said, "You're not going to see him on the video. You are not going to see him." And that doesn't mean he wasn't there because that's common sense. And that's the end-

Kevin:

Not only did you own your number, you own the fact that the one thing that the defense had was who gives a shit?

Sari de la Motte:

They were afraid of it. But didn't give any attention to it. I love H2H opening. I love when it's short. Because long openings of course say, "This is really complex and confusing and it's going to take me two hours to explain it," where 22 minutes says, "This is common sense."

Kevin:

Yeah. The jury's not going to remember a lot of that anyway.

Sari de la Motte:

So as we wrap up ... It's been so fun talking with you. What would be your number one advice? I always like to ask this question to any lawyer listening right now.

Nate Cobb:

Don't be afraid to dive in. Because I certainly, and I think it's common, restricted myself from ways or means or methods to improve certainly as a lawyer, to improve as a person. And one of the things that I think I really got a hold of through working with you all is open yourself up to everyone's advice and input.

Sari de la Motte:

Collaboration is so important.

Nate Cobb:

People that are not like yourself. Because the one I went to found it ... The podcast that I really connected with from you is the one with Jody and Sara Williams. I don't think I was your target audience, 43-year-old white dude, but it was this thing of don't look for how you're going to make yourself fit into what's supposed to be accepted. Just go out there and do it.

Sari de la Motte:

That's right.

Nate Cobb:

And there's a lot more to it than just walking out there and doing it. It's really doing ... Don't be afraid to do the work and find the pieces of yourself that you're uncomfortable with or that you can improve upon because certainly I was in a spot where I ran from those and hid from those for a long time. And it wasn't really that hard to fix them. It wasn't this horrible, traumatic thing.

Sari de la Motte:

Well, I think one of the things that are coming to mind full circle moment is you do get that advice a lot. Just go out there and be yourself but I don't think most people know who they are to go back to what coaching does, makes you a better observer of yourself. So it's so much easier to go out there and be yourself when you are really digging into who that is and what that person is capable of. I think that's really the big one here.

I'm always ... I come in, I'm going to hear all the trial stuff and nearly all of these podcasts come back to mindset and how important that is. And it's been such an honor, Nate, to work with you and to watch you grow and blossom and utilize all of the different tools that we have here at H2H. And so I think your real advice is for everyone to join H2H, so I just want to correct you there. But it's just been so much fun to watch you, and I can't wait to see what you continue to do. Thank you so much.

Kevin:

Yeah. I have one question for you, Nate. Was it fun?

Nate Cobb:

It really was.

Sari de la Motte:

Yay.

Nate Cobb:

There's no question about it. And thank you guys for doing what you do because it's really important and I have a lot to be thankful for from the things I've gotten from you all and then everyone around me as a result.

Sari de la Motte:

Well, congrats again. And I want to see you out here for a command the courtroom because I want to get my hands on you, literally. That sounds really sexually harassing. Okay. Well, everybody, I hope you enjoy this episode of Sari de la Mottes. We'll 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.