As a competitive athlete, Dirk J. Derrick, Esq. never wanted his opponent to have leverage over him. “Somebody having leverage on you of size or speed – it's not a fun place to be in.” As a lawyer – he still doesn’t. So his firm, Derrick Law Firm, developed a focus group service. Speaking with Pearl Carey, on the firm's professional staff, Dirk discusses how the service has transformed the firm’s approach to building cases, selecting evidence, and achieving real value for clients.
Dirk Derrick (00:00):
Welcome to The Legal Truth, the podcast created to provide you general legal information about South Carolina law, lawyers, and the legal process, and hopefully prevent you from being surprised by the unexpected. We will answer many of the questions I've been asked during the past 35 years about South Carolina personal injury claims and workers' compensation claims. We will also discuss existing laws and proposed changes in the law and how they affect you. My name is Dirk Derrick. I'm the founder of the Derrick Law Firm and I'm your host.
Voiceover (00:35):
Please see required ethics disclaimers in show notes.
Pearl Carey (00:42):
Hi everyone, and welcome back to The Legal Truth Podcast. I'm your host, Pearl, and I'm here with my co-host, Dirk Derrick. And today we are discussing the truth about what we've learned from focus group participants.
(00:52):
Thanks so much for being here with me today, Dirk.
Dirk Derrick (00:54):
Thank you for being here. That's people who have come through our focus group service. So we've been able to see what people think about the parties and the issues and the facts and the damages that we see every day.
Pearl Carey (01:06):
When you began focus grouping individual cases, how did that change your approach?
Dirk Derrick (01:11):
Well, before that, we always did big cases. We'd focus group it. Go hire a videographer, go rent some rooms at a convention center, spend 30, $40,000, bring people in, videotape them. Got good information. Built this office in Conway and got it finished in 2018, put a courtroom in it so we could give that service to more of our clients. And what led to it is I got tired of our clients saying, "Should I settle my case? Is that a fair offer?"
(01:42):
The truth is we didn't know what the value of cases were. I think we were in what I call the insurance matrix, where we were evaluating cases based upon what insurance companies would voluntarily pay versus what the real value of the case was. Insurance companies had the leverage on us and our clients, the leverage of time. They could drag it out. The longer they could drag it out, the less money a client would take because they'd just get tired of it, get worn down. They had the leverage of money. They would spend money and hold the money away from the client and they had the leverage of uncertainty. You never know what a jury's going to do. And I just got tired of them having leverage on me.
(02:25):
When I used to compete in athleletics, somebody having leverage on you of size or speed, it's not a fun place to be in. And I hated it that insurance company was holding leverage on top of my clients. And so I hat the real value of cases were. So I wanted to start focus grouping cases, doing mock juries, doing jury research to find out what the community thought the value of different kinds of cases were. That's our system change.
Pearl Carey (02:51):
Absolutely. Walk me through a focus group night. How does it work? How are the cases presented?
Dirk Derrick (02:58):
People sign up to serve on our focus group right now. Once they fill out that questionnaire, they go on a list. And depending on what county they're in or what we need at a particular time, when we have a need for that county, we'll reach out to them and say, "Hey, can you serve on this night or on this day?" They will hear a case. We'll have an attorney present both sides of a case. When the case is presented to them, they will then give us their individual opinions about how they would decide.
Pearl Carey (03:26):
What are some common gaps that jurors point out in a case presentation?
Dirk Derrick (03:29):
They don't want to hear stuff. They want to see stuff. They want to see everything. They want to see imaging. They want to see everything. So that was a gap that they pointed out.
Pearl Carey (03:40):
I know that you mentioned having doctors as witnesses can be really important. What are some other types of information that can help jurors find clarity in a focus group?
Dirk Derrick (03:49):
I think clarity comes from the total package of evidence. And like I say, they want to see everything.
Pearl Carey (03:54):
So what you're saying is that it can be different depending on the case and that it helps guide jurors as time goes on with different focus groups?
Dirk Derrick (04:00):
Absolutely. Nobody wants to sue anybody. And the truth is the people we have to sue, they don't want to get sued. Nobody wants to sue. Nobody wants to get sued. The problem is the mechanism to determine the validity of the claim and the value of the claim lies at the end of this long litigation process. And now we've tried to take that litigation process and speed it up by showing everyone involved in the case what these people think earlier on to limit the length of a litigation or prevent litigation altogether, but you'll never have certainty. You'll have ranges of values.
Pearl Carey (04:35):
So how do you use focus groups to think about the value of a specific case without relying on the insurance company's interpretation of how much the case is worth?
Dirk Derrick (04:45):
Yeah, like I said, before we had focus groups, we were evaluating cases based on what insurance companies would voluntarily pay. There's not enough trials. No one attorney's going to do enough trials to determine his or her presentation models trying these cases over and over, what's the average verdict he's going to get on this. Cases are different. They're like human beings. Got different parties, different issues, different facts. Credibility of the parties are different. The doctors testifying are different. It's different in every case.
(05:17):
So there's really nothing you can look at and say, "Well, Joe Blow down the street got $150,000 for a case just like mine. So my case is worth $150,000." But what we were doing and what a lot of attorneys do, and they still do now, is they look at a service and they look at settlement values and they see the average... It goes to 10 lawyers who've got settlements for this type of injury over the last year, and he goes to what they settled for. That's the settlement value. That's what an insurance company voluntarily paid. That's not what a jury said the case was worth. And so we're away from that. I don't care what they voluntarily pay.
Pearl Carey (05:53):
Absolutely. So it gives clients more of an option and it doesn't leave them beholden to the one number that the insurance company puts out there?
Dirk Derrick (06:00):
Absolutely not. Where they've lost money in the past is somebody offers them $500,000. And in the past they would have said, "Is that a good offer?" And $500,000 can help them a lot right now. They're going through a lot of stuff. In the past, they would say, "Dirk, is that a good offer?" Well, it's half a million dollars, but you never know what a jury's going to do. And we now focus it and that case is worth $900,000. So now I can show a client that and it empowers the plaintiff to drive on to say no because they have data to support their decision to say no. We know what the real value is and we no longer have to settle for what the insurance companies claim their computers tell them it's worth.
(06:41):
Well, that's taking care of medical bills. That's taking care of life changes. That's taking care of future medical expenses that they wouldn't have otherwise had they settled for one third of the real value of the case. So it has empowered us by empowering our clients to see the real value. We no longer set expectations for clients. We show them the data and they can do whatever they want to do. If they want us to move forward, we move forward. If they want to settle, we settle, but we can show them data.
Pearl Carey (07:15):
After listening to focus group participants, what surprised you the most?
Dirk Derrick (07:20):
The biggest surprise I've had in the whole focus group thing is how serious the participants take serving on a focus group. One concern is you pay people money, we pay people $25 an hour, come serve. Will they take it seriously? Are they coming and just get a check, that kind of stuff? It's amazing how serious they take it. They latch a hole to it. And I'm telling you, it has shocked me how serious they take it.
Pearl Carey (07:45):
Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Dirk, and telling me all the very exciting things that are happening with the focus group service. And thank you so much to all of our listeners for tuning into this episode of the Legal True Podcast.
Voiceover (08:02):
Thank you for joining us on the Legal Truth Podcast. If you have questions that you would like answered on a future episode, please send them to thelegaltruth@derricklawfirm.com. If you would like to speak to us directly, call us at 843-248-7486. If you find the podcast valuable, please leave us a five-star review and share The Legal Truth with your neighbor, friend, or family member who is seeking reliable information about a South Carolina personal injury or workers' compensation claim.
(08:32):
Dirk J. Derrick of the Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers is responsible for the production of this podcast, located at 901 North Main Street, Conway, South Carolina.
(08:43):
Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers has included the information on this podcast as a service to the general public. Use of this podcast and any related materials does not in any manner constitute an attorney-client relationship between Derrick Law Firm Injury Lawyers and the user. While the information on this podcast is about legal issues, it is not intended as legal advice and should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your particular state. Anyone seeking specific legal advice or assistance should retain an attorney. Any prior results mentioned do not guarantee a similar outcome. The content reflects the personal views and opinions of the participants in the podcast and are not intended as endorsements of any views or products. This podcast could contain inaccuracies. The information contained in this podcast does not constitute legal advice and is not guaranteed to be correct, complete, or up-to-date as laws continue to change.
(09:26):
In this podcast, you'll hear information about focus groups. Please note that not all of the firm's cases are presented to a focus group. Additionally, when speaking about juries or jurors in relation to a focus group, we are speaking of focus group participants and not actual trial juries or jurors.