Here's a question for all my lawyers out there -- if you were to receive the biggest
case of your life (you know the one that would change everything),
would you feel comfortable taking it to trial? Let's say tomorrow... Now if you
maybe hesitate or you have a little bit of fear and anxiety with that, don't
worry you're not alone. *Intro * Hi, my name is Jarrett Stone. I'm the founder of Law
Venture and I'm the owner of TexasClassActionLawyer.com. And I have to say,
I've had to answer this question a number of times during the course of my
career. In fact I've had to answer this question even before my career as a
lawyer even began -- way back to whenever I was interning at a prosecutor's office
as a law student. I vividly remember the moment when the head-honcho prosecutor
came up to me and she said, "Hey, Jarrett. I know you have all this trial-ad
experience. You've done competitions. I know you want to be in the courtroom.
Well in two days I have a trial and I'm going to give it to you if you want it.
It's yours if you want it. Just let me know!" And I remember had a
thousand thoughts that crossed my mind at that point. A lot of it was anxiety
and fear based. But, I specifically remember thinking, "okay if I can do this. If I can,
you know, really pull this off, that's gonna put me miles ahead of the
competition when it comes to time to get a job." In fact, I was told at the
prosecutor's office if I were to really nail this trial and win it I would have
a job lined up so not only did that add to the pressure but it really came down
to that single moment was I comfortable going to court going to trial in two
days based on the trial at experience in the foundation that I had I said yes I
basically put the fear aside as best as I could ended up winning and then
ultimately that's really propelled me as a lawyer because I immediately caught
the trial bug I loved it I loved the competition behind it which is totally
ironic because I'm a very introverted type of person actually being a trial
lawyer and being in the courtroom exhausts me it I mean whenever I get
home I'm exhausted but at the same time I love it and that's because ironically
I'm very competitive so I like to go head-to-head against the other side I
like to argue and try and convince a jury to
rule in my clients favor it's just fun I have an absolute blast but at the same
time it exhausts me so this isn't a natural skill set that I have but it's
something I've had to develop over the years in fact I've received coaching and
trainings from advocacy coaches from judges prosecutors family law lawyers
civil litigators and just good old-fashioned experience and over the
years I've developed a style that plays to my strengths but the only way to get
to this point was to have a solid foundation and trial advocacy without
that I wouldn't be where I am today which is I'm handling cases that are
worth over a million dollars or somewhere are worth over a hundred
million dollars I've been able to get to this point in a very very short amount
of time and that's mainly due to the fact that I
am not shy when it comes to taking big cases but I've also realized is the more
comfortable you are in the courtroom the more you're able to attract bigger cases
more complicated cases they may not be a million dollars plus they may be family
law they may be criminal cases but what I've learned over the years is that
people don't want to go to the courtroom they are actually terrified to go to the
courtroom this isn't surprising given that I don't know one to three percent
of cases actually go to trial now over the years that means that trial lawyers
are essentially becoming a dying breed but if you end up having a strong
foundation and trial advocacy that's a good thing because these skills are
becoming increasingly more rare yes some people may be able to step foot in the
courthouse but are they able to command the courtroom odds are most likely not
but this is why the lawyers with a strong trial advocacy background are
able to achieve things at a much faster rate my biggest pet peeve in the legal
industry hands down is this mentality which I used to have that a lawyer needs
to have a certain amount of trial experience or maybe a certain amount of
years of experience under the belt before they can handle bigger cases
that's just not how the world works if I were to get a call about a wrongful
death case if I were to sign up a class action
case I'm not gonna turn it away because it's too big I'm not gonna say hey uh
you may I'll take it I'll represent you but you're just not gonna get the best
representation in the courtroom because I need to have 12 more trials under my
belt then I'll be at that point in reality that's just that's just not how
it works if you can try one case you can try a hundred cases yeah there may be a
little bit of a difference in your skills increasing over those one to a
hundred trials but that growth is just gonna be extremely small compared to
having that strong foundation if you have that strong trial add foundation
your growth is gonna be exponential and that way tomorrow you can take that big
case or let's say you're at a job interview you sit down and your future
employer says hey look I have a trial docket can you take it are you
comfortable in the courtroom you don't have that foundation it's gonna be
written you're not gonna become filled in the courtroom and you probably
shouldn't take that job but at the same time if you are comfortable then it's
like yeah let's do it let's knock it out that makes you more valuable as a lawyer
and that's something I can't stress enough is you need to have that
foundation because with that foundation you can just propel yourself in your
legal career so given my own personal experiences I really want to help those
who don't have trial ad experience I want to give them that foundation so
I've decided to put an online course together I'm calling it trial at Academy
courtroom mastery and it's an online course devoted to building your trial
advocacy skills and with trial at Academy I'll take you through every
single step of trial we'll start with the end in mind because truthfully a lot
of successful trials are kind of like a GPS because you have to start with your
destination in order to know how to get there and so that's what we'll do and
then the next step it will be jury selection and I'll take you through
every phase leading up to you just having this amazing closing argument so
with this I'm super pumped and I'm super excited to show you everything trial ad
Academy has to offer so don't forget to click the button to enroll and once you
do I'll see you on the other side