Season 8 – Episode 27: Should You Be Spending MORE Time on Defense Points With Special Guest Chrissy Hagen

One of our H2H™ crew members, Chrissy Hagen, recently tried a medical malpractice case that resulted in a defense verdict.

After trial, she reached out with a great question:

Should we be spending MORE time addressing defense points during trial?

In this episode, we talk through:

👉🏽 The med mal case involving a delayed prostate cancer diagnosis
👉🏽 What Chrissy heard from jurors after the verdict
👉🏽 Why some jurors admitted they “flipped” during deliberations
👉🏽 The concept of defensive attribution and how it shows up in trials
👉🏽 And the bigger lesson: WHY framing matters more than time spent on defense points

As we dug into the case, something important emerged.

The real issue in this case wasn’t just the delayed diagnosis.

It was agency.

A doctor making a decision for a patient instead of giving that patient the information needed to make the decision themselves.

And when you find the real piss-off point for jurors, everything about how you frame the case can change.

If you’ve ever walked out of a courtroom wondering what happened in that verdict room, this episode is for you. 

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari

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“One of the most valuable parts of the experience was talking to the jurors afterwards. Hearing how they processed the case and what influenced their decision-making really made me rethink how certain issues are framed during trial.”

chrissy hagen

Transcription

Sari de la Motte:

So it's not about how much time you spend on it, I think it's about how it's framed. You're absolutely right. And finding that piss-off point for the jurors, which it's not okay for anybody to play God, and then really pulling that theme through.

You're listening to Sari swear on the Sari Swears podcast. Well, welcome, everyone, to another episode of Sari Swears. I'm very, very excited to have a guest with me today, one of our H2H crew members. Chrissy Hagen is here and we're going to talk through her last trial, which actually did end up becoming a defense verdict. And I've heard from so many of you that are like, "Why do you only have people who win on your thing? I thought you were all about losing." I'm not all about losing, but I am all about that there really isn't a loss. It's on the jury what they decide. And so Chrissy had some questions for me after the defense verdict in her case, and I invited her to come on and she was so gracious to be here. So welcome, Chrissy.

Chrissy Hagen:

Thank you so much. Really excited to be on.

Sari de la Motte:

Awesome. Okay. So before we get going into the case and the things that happened and the questions, tell us a little bit about you. You're based in Michigan, is that correct?

Chrissy Hagen:

I am. I'm based in Michigan. I'm an attorney at Olsman Mackenzie Peacock, and I handle personal injury cases, mostly trucking and premises liability. This was actually a med mal case that I helped my coworker with, so it was her case, she worked it up, but I got to do voir dire and some directs and an expert and learned a whole lot. And it was really fun. It wasn't the outcome we wanted, but I got to implement H2H voir dire method and had some questions after talking with the jurors.

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah. I love that. It's kind of funny. It's like when people recognize that you're an H2H or they're like, "Oh, you do voir dire then." I guess that's kind of what we're known for, is the voir dire process. And as we know, med mal cases, or maybe not everybody, not of all of our listeners know, are notoriously hard to win. I was working with one of my mastermind clients and I said, and I haven't figured out what to do about this yet, but, "I think jurors get really curiously frustrated because they don't understand what's happening. So they're like, 'Why are we here? If the doctor was supposed to do this thing and they didn't do this thing, then why are we involved? It seems cut and dried.'"

And then they learn, "Well, one side says the doctor was supposed to do this thing and didn't do the thing." And the other side says, "The doctor didn't need to do that thing and they're fine." And so now the jurors feel like they are in the midst of an argument that involves people above their pay grade. They're kind of like, "I need to figure out this medical thing? I don't know. You guys are the experts," and I think they tend to just "nope out".

So we know that in our med mal cases, I think the last time I looked, the win rate was 27%. So about a quarter of the time we are getting plaintiff verdicts there. And so, first of all, I want to say congratulations for trying this case because I think we need to try these cases even though they are notoriously difficult to try. So I absolutely want to acknowledge you and the fact that you did try this case.

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah, thank you so much.

Sari de la Motte:

So why don't you give us a little overview of it?

Chrissy Hagen:

Sure. Yeah. And to your point, I think med mal cases are notoriously difficult because they can almost always, on the other side, say it came down to medical judgment.

Sari de la Motte:

Yes.

Chrissy Hagen:

And in this case, it was particularly frustrating because they deflected the whole time as to all of these things that this urologist was doing while ignoring the elephant in the room, which was that none of these things he was doing was diagnostic for cancer. And that was our whole point. So ours was a delay in diagnosing prostate cancer. Our client was 70, around 70 years old, when we say that he should have been given the option to have a prostate biopsy. He was 76 at the time at trial.

And essentially what happened is he'd been treating this urologist for years and years and years. Every time her went in, his urologist measured his PSA levels, so prostate-specific antigen levels. And it is standard of care that if that number's over 4, it's considered elevated and you need to do more digging investigation. And so a lot of my voir dire centered around investigation and what you'd expect a doctor to do and things like that.

And in this case, the doctor never said, "Hey, your PSA is above 4. It's concerning," or, "This is a cancer risk." It wasn't documented anywhere in the records. And in August of 2021, his PSA level was 11. Fast-forward to June of 2022, and it was 28, and that's when the doctor decided to order a biopsy or even offer him a biopsy. And it turns out he has stage 4 of prostate cancer. And we had an oncologist expert testify that if he would've done the biopsy back in 2021 when it was at 11, which is already high, it was high the whole time, but that was abnormally high, that it would've been stage 1 and confined to the prostate and very curable at that point.

Sari de la Motte:

And so nearly three times the level of what they say you should be communicating. Was the doctor not looking at the numbers? What was the answer for... I mean, did he see the 4 and then the 11 and just ignore it? Or did he not see the 4 and the 11 and he only saw the 27? What was happening there?

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah, that's a great question because what happened, what the doctor says, is he was pretty sure it was benign prostate hyperplasia or basically just he has an enlarged prostate and that's the reason for this elevated PSA. He never ever once mentioned to our client, "Hey, this could also be prostate cancer. And because you're an African American male, you have a 1 in 6 chance of having prostate cancer."

And instead, the doctor just thought internally, "I'm pretty sure this is what it is. I'll just keep coming back. I'll just take a look. We'll do the wait-and-see approach. And I'm pretty sure it's all his urinary stuff that's going on, so I'll give him a UroCuff, I'll do the ultrasound, I'll do the cystoscopy." And so that's what the defense focused on is that this was a very caring doctor, he was doing all these things, but we tried to emphasize that doesn't really mean anything when we're talking about cancer because none of those things are diagnostic of cancer. Only a biopsy is.

Sari de la Motte:

And he never communicated to the plaintiff that his numbers were high.

Chrissy Hagen:

Correct.

Sari de la Motte:

Were those things that the plaintiff could have gone and looked at himself?

Chrissy Hagen:

I mean, he could have. I don't think really any of us look at our medical records.

Sari de la Motte:

Right.

Chrissy Hagen:

And even if he had, it's a number. He doesn't know, in context, what that means or that it's alarming if it's above a certain amount unless his doctor tells him, which he never did. And our client testified if he would've been offered the biopsy and told about how high this risk was back in 2021, he absolutely would've proceeded with that. He was never given that choice.

Sari de la Motte:

So this doctor was kind of playing God, it seems like. "I know what's best. I don't need to tell him." It reminds me, I just read... Oh, who was that guy that was all about segregating the schools back in the '50s? And his wife got cancer, and because he couldn't run again, he wanted her to run again. And he didn't tell her that she had cancer because that was the thing back in the day. The husband could know that the medical. I was just incensed. For some reason, that just came up in my brain when you talked about this, about this is really taking away the autonomy and the agency of the Plaintiff themselves. So let's talk about voir dire because that is kind of a huge part. I wouldn't say kind of, it is a huge part. It's central to everything we do in H2H. So what did you voir dire on?

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah, so I started with how we typically do an H2H crew, asking if anyone knows each other and trying to get the group formed and those sorts of initial questions. And then my funnels, the liability funnel was, "Who here has had a good experience with the doctor? Would you mind telling me about what made it a good experience?" Of course, they all said, "I felt very informed. I felt like I was given my options. She took the time to speak with me." All of these things, which were not done in our case. And I also voir dired on, "What would you expect if a test result came back and was abnormal?" And overwhelmingly, people were like, "I'd expect the doctor to call. I'd even expect that to be an in-person visit and certainly tell me about my risks, and do a further investigation." All of the things that didn't happen in our case.

But then I think the defense later flipped that to say, "Well, he did the investigation. He investigated BPH and urinary infections and all these things." So it was very misleading because even some of the experts said, "Well, the elephant in the room is that none of those test for cancer."

Sari de la Motte:

Okay. So you were getting great stuff in voir dire. They're telling you, "I would expect a doctor to communicate that to me. I would expect a doctor to run tests and tell me what my options are in treating this." And then we got a defense verdict and you talked to the jurors afterwards, because during the trial, and especially in voir dire, you were like, "Okay, they get it. They're giving us the stuff." So that was a surprise. So what did they say when you talked to them at the end of the trial?

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah. And I guess just going back to put it in context a little bit too, this was in Oakland County, Michigan, so it's one of the most affluent jurisdictions in the state, even the country. And so we knew we were going to have potentially lots of doctors and people in the healthcare field. We had focused on this case a few times, and it was actually the healthcare professionals that were good for us, especially nurses and staff, because they know how important it is to have things documented.

Sari de la Motte:

Exactly. They know how to get it right.

Chrissy Hagen:

Yes. And so we did have a nurse on our jury, and she's one of the people I spoke with after, and she was on our side from the get go. She was someone who said in voir dire, "If it's not in the records, it didn't happen." And the defense literally would show up, it was like they were gaslighting, they would show a record and be like, "Here, it clearly shows he talked about it." And it's like, "Nope, doesn't say that anywhere, but you're wanting the jury to believe that." And then they tried to walk that back and then it turned out their argument was not so much, "Here's where it said it," but, "here's where he must have said it because he was doing all these great things."

And we had two doctors on our panel that ended up being struck for cause because one worked at the same urology facility or knew someone very close that worked there actually. Another of the doctors was like, "I'm kind of picturing myself in the defendant's position," and said a bunch of other things that got him struck for cause. And then we had a physical therapist, another person on our jury. But when we talked to them, it was very frustrating because the comparative fault was never even on the verdict form. And the doctor, all the experts, every single witness testified, "Plaintiff did nothing wrong." So that wasn't even something that really entered into my mind as, "Oh, they might blame him," because what could they possibly blame him for?

But when we talked to the jury afterwards, a bunch of them were just like, "We didn't think your client was without fault." And I was like, "Tell me more." And they said, because he seemed very sophisticated, he's a very intelligent guy, he's a very positive guy, they're like, "He must have known that this was a cancer risk, and he must have known what was going on," essentially acting like he played dumb. And I was like, "Why would you expect someone to know if their doctor's not telling them?"

Sari de la Motte:

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Yes, yes. So very similar to the mock jury that we did today in the H2H crew where I formed the group, is I see a change, kind of, growing, especially med mal cases, which was today as well, in our juries, in that we can't really rely on anybody else. I see this as a shift in the United States, quite frankly, from the, "We all have this social contract to help each other out, whether it's a car crash case or med mal case," to now, "every man from himself." You can't really trust anybody and you have to look for yourself. I wanted to talk more about that.

But then once this happened, you emailed me for the reason why we're having the discussion and said, "I know that you teach that the more time and energy you spend on the defense's case, the more importance that you place on it in terms of what you're nonverbally communicating to the jury. But I'm wondering now if I should have spent more time than I did or if we should have spent more time," because you tried this with your partner, "than we did." And I said, "Well, I'm not going to answer that. Why don't you come up here and we'll talk about it on the podcast?" So that's why we're here today. So talk a little bit about that concern of yours. Looking back and playing Monday morning quarterback, there's me with the sports-y reference, hopefully that was a correct one, what would you have done differently, if anything, at all? And then let's talk through that.

Chrissy Hagen:

Sure. So I guess maybe we could have had more straightforward visuals to make it very black and white that Here's what he was supposed to do, here's what he did not do, even though we had a bunch of great visuals. We had charts showing the PSA levels were always elevated compared to what's normal. We showed the big jump in the 2021 visit and then the 2022 levels. But I guess to answer your question, looking back, it was also frustrating when I talked to the jurors that a couple of them admitted that they "flipped" and they used that term. They said, "I was for you and then I flipped because X, Y, Z." And so that made me also think-

Sari de la Motte:

Oh wait, because what's X, Y, Z? That's very important. What was X, Y, Z?

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was basically the defensive attribution stuff that we talked about. "I flipped because I believed that he had some fault in this," and, "I flipped because," it was the things we talked about, "we felt like the doctor was doing everything he could and that he must have talked about it." So a lot of these assumptions are what X, Y, Z was.

But I guess what was more frustrating for me is just to hear that they flipped. And I'm a firm believer that jurors already have their minds made up before closing, but that kind of changes my perspective on that. So maybe there was something else we could have said to really solidify liability. They deliberated for 4 hours on liability, so something was being discussed there, but they didn't get to damages, and that's what we focused on.

Sari de la Motte:

So to answer, we say that too, that jurors have made up their mind by the end of closing. I mean, they mostly made up their minds by the end of opening, which is what we know from all the anecdotal, and some research, there's very little, but you talk to most jurors and they're like, "Yeah, I kind of knew at the end of opening which way I was leaning."

And so what I would posit to you is that they did have their mind made up by closing, but they flipped in the verdict room. So it's still true that they had their mind made up, but something happened back in the verdict room to flip them. So let's dig into this a little bit and see maybe what we could have done differently, if anything. And I'm just going to start by saying there may not have been anything. Because again, when we're talking about defensive attribution, I think most trial attorneys know what that is, but for anybody listening to this who is like, "Explain it again, sorry."

Our brains are wired. You guys hear me talk about this on the podcast. Chrissy said that she's listened to every podcast, you guys, so I don't know. I've had eight seasons and nearly 500 podcasts, so that's incredible. You should get a prize for that. But I've talked on the podcast quite a bit about how our brains are wired and our brains are wired to keep us alive, and so the number one thing to keep us alive is we see something unfamiliar or we hear something dangerous and we immediately start to think, "I would've done that differently. I would've looked it up. I would've gone into MyChart and looked at the numbers and then Googled it. I would've, I would've, I would've." It's not because jurors are assholes, it's because that's how all of our brains are wired. We just are wired to think we would've done something different because it's too painful, and frankly, the brain can't deal with the fact that this could just happen to any of us.

So there's many ways that we deal with that. But I think in medical malpractice cases, for example, it's really hard for jurors because we have a scenario where we have to give up our autonomy. There's a lot of trust that has to be there to actually be treated, be operated on, be any of the things. And so it's almost too much to bear to think that that trust could be betrayed, and so our brains just don't want to go there. So first of all, it's a tough road to climb. No, that's not the right thing, but road to hoe, hill to climb, something like that. So just know that what you're doing is difficult. But where I go first is what devil's advocate questions did you have, if any?

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah. So I did have a devil's advocate question. It was right around where I asked, "Who here has ever had testing or blood work done by a doctor? And then what would you expect if an abnormal result came back? And then what can happen if a doctor doesn't do the testing required to determine if something's life-threatening?" And then I said, "Yeah, but what if the doctor's pretty sure it's not a big deal? Can they take a wait-and-see approach?" And maybe that should have been stronger.

Sari de la Motte:

What'd you get back with that one?

Chrissy Hagen:

I got good feedback. So I got things like, "It depends on how severe it is or what the risks are. The risks versus benefits should always still be discussed." So yeah, I think it worked and it got them talking for sure on what I was looking for.

Sari de la Motte:

So for our listeners, the devil's advocate question is the only place in voir dire that we deal with defense points. So we're always driving to our principles, our plaintiff principles, again, principals are 99% of people believe them to be true, and then once we get it, we kind of shake the tree with a devil's advocate question, which is a defense point in disguise. So, "Yeah, but can't they just use our judgment?" Or, "Yeah, but can't they..." All the things. So here's what's coming up for me is that, did you do anything on patient autonomy and how important it is to know what the doctor is telling you and make decisions on your own behalf?

Chrissy Hagen:

I don't think I had a question exactly related to that, but I remember it coming up when we were talking about the importance of things being documented and having that shared decision making with the patient. So it definitely was discussed during voir dire.

Sari de la Motte:

So I'm thinking that that might be, again, who knows, this may not have done anything, but I'm thinking that might've been a place I would've hit really hard in voir dire. So let's talk about... Before I finish my thought there, because they're so into, "well, it was on this guy, he should have done this." So I would hit that really hard because I think that would fall right into where they want to be, which is, "How important is it to have autonomy over your own medical decisions? How much would you want to know?" I'd say, "yeah, but can't the doctor just decide for you and be like, 'This is nothing. I'm just going to watch it'? Isn't that okay?" And I think the majority of any panel will be like, "Oh, hell no. I would like to know that. I would like to know that. And so that's one place that I'm thinking we could really lean into is really playing with...

Because when I'm creating or working with a client on the theme of a case, I'm always looking for the piss-off point. And so the off point here isn't... I mean, it is also bad that he didn't do anything to treat the cancer before it was stage 4. Yes. But I think the true piss-off point is that he just decided that he was going to handle this on his own and leave the patient out of it. And when you find that, that's really sticky and that's what I would've played with probably a little more than you did. I'm sure it tangentially came up. I don't know if I just made up that word. But I would've hit that straight up.

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah. I love that.

Sari de la Motte:

"Isn't that okay for them to just see and not tell you anything? I mean, you don't want to be burdened with that stuff. It's best not to know it's cancer until later."

Chrissy Hagen:

Right.

Sari de la Motte:

Reminds me of a case that I'm working on right now with one of my masterminds where a fall precipitated. She had, I don't know if it's the genes or whatnot, that she was probably going to get Alzheimer's at some point, but this fall that happened made it happen much quicker. So she got Alzheimer's way quicker than she would have. And so one of the questions that we designed in that case is, "When is the best time to get Alzheimer's?" And of course the answer is never. And then, "Well, when's the next best time?" "As late as possible." Because the jury is going to say, "Well, if she was going to get it anyway." It's a defense point. "She's just going to get it anyway, so big a fricking deal."

So we want to find the place where, again, the defense is going to say that this was due to medical judgment. But it sounds like they were talking on two sides of their mouth. That's the other place I would've played. How can they say, "He was just using his judgment," but then also say, "but he did talk to the client or the patient." Tell me a little bit about that. How were they able to get away with that?

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah. Well, that's exactly what their argument was and that's what we tried to hit home in closing. Because, actually, it didn't come up until midway through the doctor's direct, the defendant doctor's direct, that he never told him about this in this December record, the one that defense counsel had been continuing to put up on the screen and saying, "Here's where he said it." And the doctor was like, "To be clear, I never offered it until June of 2022." We're like, "Did he really just say that? That's their whole argument." And then they very quickly pivoted to, "Well, that's because he was very sure that he was doing all these things and it was benign and yada, yada, yada." So we tried to focus more on closing on the fact that there was no shared decision-making, and some of the jurors got that, it just wasn't emphasized enough apparently. But to your point, I do think maybe the piss-off point was not so much the delayed diagnosis, but the lack of shared decision-making.

Sari de la Motte:

Yes, the lack of agency.

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah.

Sari de la Motte:

Because we know if we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, it is one of the later ones. The first one is shelter and food and then belonging, but at the top is self-actualization and agency. So it's such a human desire, and especially in medical malpractice cases where people want to say, defensively, "I wouldn't have done that." Well, okay, but the only way you wouldn't have done that is if you had actually had some agency in this. So it plays into that piece that they're really wanting.

So one of the things in our new closing template that you know, being in the crew, that we just unveiled in the fall, and it's even come further since then, is polarizing in closing. And so polarizing, as we know from Rick Friedman's book, is mainly used in malingering cases, but I think we can really use that in closing to really drive it home saying, "Look, it cannot be both things. It's either he decided what he thought was best and left the client out of this decision, or he talked to the client and the client is lying to you and saying he didn't. It cannot be both. And as a juror, you need to pick which one. And if you pick one..."

And I always also like the two phone calls. "So after this, after you make this decision, there's going to be a phone call that's going to be made. And if you decide to find a doctor, there's going to be a phone call that says, 'We did it. We got this past them.'" And really, I feel like the closing is the place where you can really bring to the forefront that, "This is either this or this. And if you choose to find a doctor, what you're really saying with your verdict is it's okay for the doctor to play God." And that's where you get to use some of that really figurative language and really push it because that's really what he did. He decided that he knew best and he's going to play God, and when it didn't turn out right, then he's going to blame the patient or they're going to blame the patient.

Chrissy Hagen:

Right. Yeah.

Sari de la Motte:

How do you think closing went?

Chrissy Hagen:

I think it went well. Again, we probably didn't emphasize liability as much because, throughout the trial and watching all the witnesses and hearing all the testimony, it seemed just very, very repetitive that everyone agrees that this should have been done. I mean, the defense experts didn't agree, but we did get them to admit that it was reasonable to have ordered or offered a biopsy back in the year prior.

But then that had a surprising response from the jurors when we talked to them afterwards. I said, "What did you think of the defense-hired expert and how they even agreed with our position on when it should have been offered?" And instead of saying, "Yes, that helped our liability decision," which it clearly did not, they said, "Oh, we just thought that made him look so objective because he gave you some concessions and gave the other sides some concessions." I was like, "That was a pretty big concession. That's our case." But if we would've made it more about the lack of shared decision-making, that wouldn't have been such a big deal that they thought he was being objective and that that wasn't as powerful as we thought it came across.

Sari de la Motte:

And again, we're just making it up, we don't know that it would have made a decision, but I do think that it happens enough times, and you've heard it on this podcast where people, when we start a med mal case thinking this is the actual issue and the farther we get into it, we go, "This is actually the issue." And I remember Shauna Reitz and Nick Loizzi's case where we started that case with, "The residents should have sent this guy down to the ICU." That was what we were saying should have happened.

But you know in medicine when you're arguing the medicine, you're losing, in med mal cases. And what we ended up actually, and again, it was, like, 6 months of work with Jodi and all of us kind of piling onto that, it ended up being, "They should have never left these student doctors alone." And that was the winning one. And so again, sometimes we find that out before and sometimes we don't find that out until after.

But my guess is now that we've been talking through this, and you can add your thoughts to this, that that was really the key component here is the lack of agency and using some figurative language of playing God and maybe starting that in voir dire. "But isn't it okay for a doctor to play God and just be this and that?" Or even asking them, "Has anyone heard the phrase 'play God'? What does that mean? And getting them going, "Well, somebody's deciding that they're going to make decisions for somebody else." "Well, is it okay for doctors to do that? No, it's never okay."

So sometimes even, not sometimes, always, the sequencing of the questions and getting them... The one thing of influence that I do teach or mention, because I don't teach influence as you know, is CLD's public commitment. So if we get them to say it out loud, they're much less likely to go back on that. So maybe starting with that and then walking them into more of that. "But shouldn't he have done something on his own?"

Chrissy Hagen:

Right. Yeah. And I think about another thing you talk about a lot in your podcast, which is how easy it is not to take action and how inaction is so much easier. And so it got me thinking maybe I should have built up some sort of motive of why he was ordering all these tests instead of just saying, "Hey, you could get this biopsy done." And it likely was profit-driven. Obviously not a criminal case, so you don't need a motive, but I'm like, that would've helped.

Sari de la Motte:

No, but I say we always do in plaintiff cases. I think you're absolutely right. And we have a whole thing that we talk about in our closing class. And so yes, I think, without it, jurors often are like, "But he didn't mean to. He's a nice guy," or whatever it may be. And also pointing that out too, if he in fact is a nice guy. Or I like saying in medical malpractice cases, nobody is saying that this doctor meant for this to happen, that he wanted Mr. So-and-So to have stage 4 prostate cancer. In his mind, he was probably doing the right thing. But what we know for sure is that, I think in these cases, cancer is the scariest thing ever." It's like, you definitely want to check that out. So it does defy a lot of, this feels like a slam dunk, and when you get a defense verdict, it reorients your world. So to go back to your original question about whether, did you spend enough time on defense points? What are you thinking now as we've been talking for a little bit?

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah, I'm thinking probably could have reframed our position and our argument a little bit differently, is one way.

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah, it's not about length. It's about reframing.

Chrissy Hagen:

Sure. Yeah.

Sari de la Motte:

Yeah. Yeah. So it's not about how much time you spend on it, I think it's about how it's framed. You're absolutely right. And finding that piss-off point for the jurors, which is, "It's not okay for anybody to play God," and then really pulling that theme through.

Well, for our listeners, I normally start with this and I forgot to ask you this. How did you come to H2H and become a crew member? I know how you became a crew member because I totally bullied you into it, but how did you come to H2H?

Chrissy Hagen:

Yeah. So ironically, I should have sent you this beforehand, but on Facebook it popped up today, we've been Facebook friends for 4 years, and the photo that showed me and you in the ice bar in Las Vegas.

Sari de la Motte:

Yes, Christie. Yeah!

Chrissy Hagen:

Yes. So that is what solidified my want to join the crew: seeing you as a speaker there and hanging out with you at the ice bar and realizing what I already knew, which is how cool you are. And I was a longtime listener of all the podcasts, as I had mentioned, so I just wanted to dig in deeper and learn more. And having gone to the H2H workshops and all of that and all the handouts that you provide us and all the time we get on our feet to actually practice, I felt way more confident giving voir dire than I ever have before.

Sari de la Motte:

I'm so glad to hear that. And I hope you really, really hear me that what you did is not a small thing. Even though the jury came back with what they came back with, they're going to have to think twice about making these decisions again. Even defense verdicts create change because you went to trial and you held their feet to the fire. And you are in the 1%. You really are. A lot of trial attorneys are not willing to do what you do. And I just really want to acknowledge you and tell you how proud I am of you and what a delight it is to have you in the crew.

Chrissy Hagen:

Thank you.

Sari de la Motte:

So I hope this helped answer some of the questions that you might've had.

Chrissy Hagen:

It did.

Sari de la Motte:

That it's not so much about the length. It's about finding the potential flip, if we're going to use that word, like flip the switch on. And here it seemed to be agency, and sometimes we don't find that out until later.

Chrissy Hagen:

Right.

Sari de la Motte:

So sometimes we can be like, "Well, that would've made a difference." We don't know. Maybe it wouldn't have. But you did good. You did good.

Chrissy Hagen:

Thank you. Yeah. Like I said, I felt way more confident going into voir dire and just making it a conversation, which is what you teach and being genuinely curious about who these people are and what their values are.

Sari de la Motte:

Well, I don't think they would've talked to you otherwise.

Chrissy Hagen:

I don't think so either.

Sari de la Motte:

They felt comfortable to come tell you, "Hey, this happened." And good for you to talk to them because sometimes, well, every time I ask, "Did you talk?" And they're, "No." So good for you to be like, "Wait, what? You've got to tell me what happened back there." I think you learn so much and your next case is totally going to benefit from it.

Chrissy Hagen:

For sure.

Sari de la Motte:

Well, thank you, Chrissy, for being here and thank you to our listeners. Well, you're all a little bit less awesome than Chrissy because she's obviously listened to all of the podcasts, but we love you all anyway, and we will see you and talk to you next week.

Thank you for listening to the very end of this episode, A+. I'm going to ask you to subscribe to the podcast. Whether you're one of the weirdos that like to watch it on YouTube or you just listen, make sure you hit that subscribe button. It helps the podcast grow and let other people find me, y'all. But don't stop there. Be sure to leave me a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We want this podcast to reach as many ears and eyes as possible. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye, everybody.