Advanced Deposition Training with Author and Inventor of the “Miller Mousetrap,” Phillip Miller

Voice Over (: 00:00

The most dangerous place you can be as a trial lawyer is to think you've got it figured out.

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I'm still trying to get better. I still have the passion for it. I believe in it.

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Everyone can learn to do what I do. And yet there's a group here that continues to get extraordinary verdicts. Trial Lawyers University is revolutionizing educating lawyers to be better trial lawyers. It's been invaluable to me.

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Trial Lawyers University, where the Titans come to train, produced and powered by LawPods.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:33

So Phillip, your time is spent these days really no longer practicing law, but working as a consultant with some of the top trial lawyers in the country.

Phillip Miller (: 00:44

Yeah, it's a great career change. I started actually doing trial consulting about 1999, and it just kind of grew in terms of being a bigger and bigger, large, bigger, bigger piece of my practice so that now that's just really all I do. And I get to work with, because I've known people over the years that we've established trust and shared information. And so they invite me to help work on their cases. And so I get to work with really good lawyers on really good cases.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:15

Like Satch Oliver and Eddie Serambola and Melissa Scartelli. Yeah.

Phillip Miller (: 01:22

Robin Wishart.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:23

Robert Wishhart.

Phillip Miller (: 01:24

Yeah. Wishheart. Joe Camerlingo.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:26

Joe Cameroango.

Phillip Miller (: 01:29

And it's just really smart lawyers with really good cases and I'm fortunate to get to work on.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:34

Dave Christensen, a buddy of mine from Detroit. Oh yeah, absolutely. He's coming out here and people like Sagisha Ked, just to name a few. One of my good friends who also happens to be a rockstar for trial lawyer, who's also teaching two lectures and doing a full day TBI masterclass here at TLU, which he did last year to very strong reviews. And it's just so great to have the best of the best come to teach at TLU. But besides doing the consulting, you're still a student in the game because you've done my bootcamp twice, my trial performance skills bootcamps. And even because of the intellectual you are, you had to even write almost like a thesis on what you learned. So tell us about what you learned from participating in my stuff.

Phillip Miller (: 02:19

So a lot of what Dan talks about, the underlying aspects of it are all about gesture and the effectiveness of gesture and voice and tone and pace and all that kind of stuff. All nonverbal stuff for the most part.

Dan Ambrose (: 02:29

Nonverbal.

Phillip Miller (: 02:29

And so I did some research and then I wrote a paper for Dan and which I think he's got on his website about these-

Dan Ambrose (: 02:36

I'm Dan, by the way. I don't know why we're talking about Dan and the third person, but just case maybe I'm the Dan you're talking

Phillip Miller (: 02:40

About. The Dan. The Dance.

Dan Ambrose (: 02:41

Okay.

Phillip Miller (: 02:42

Just making

Dan Ambrose (: 02:42

Sure.

Phillip Miller (: 02:43

And so the paper really was the scientific underpinnings for the effectiveness in terms of persuasion when you use gestures versus no gestures and eye contact and how much eye contact can you do before it becomes uncomfortable and counterproductive and all those kinds of things. And there's great social- I

Dan Ambrose (: 02:58

Call it getting weird,

Phillip Miller (: 02:59

But- Yeah. There's great social science research and all that kind of stuff. So the paper is really about saying, "Here's why all that stuff works and here's the independent social science research that says why it works or doesn't work and why." And so that was the first paper. And the second paper I did was this whole thing about experiential learning. So experiential learning is what Dan emphasizes constantly, which is getting on your feet and actually doing the thing. So you can sit and take notes all day long, but then you can't do it. And so it's great to take notes and have an idea, okay, here's the context for the behavior I need to model and adapt. But until you actually get up and do it, you're never going to be able to integrate it into your style and your practice. And so that's experiential learning as opposed to just, I guess, didactic learning where you're just sitting and trying to take notes and understand what the speaker's talking about.

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Even if they're great teachers-

Dan Ambrose (: 03:55

Great teachers.

Phillip Miller (: 03:56

And you may, for example, I can talk about the mousetrap, but until you actually get up and try it yourself, you can't say, you're not going to be able to do it.

Dan Ambrose (: 04:03

Right.You're not going to have the confidence and the comfort to do it in trial or in deposition under live fire.

Phillip Miller (: 04:09

Right. So the second paper is on experiential learning. And that's part of what we're trying to do at what Dan's always doing. Part of what we're trying to integrate into our deposition skills is not just specific techniques, but are things you can do in terms of gesture to help an eye contact, to help control the witness during a deposition and connect with the witness in a way that might not otherwise be possible. So some of the things we know about, and we'll talk about our mirroring, which is very simple, but just getting people to accept that mirroring is an effective way to connect with the clients is to some people it's like, "Are you kidding?" No, no. Not

Dan Ambrose (: 04:46

Kidding.

Phillip Miller (: 04:46

No, no. It's easy to do. You should do it, but if you haven't practiced it and haven't thought about it, you're not going to do it. So we'll talk about mirroring and that's part of the practice that we'll try to get people to walk through because it's like if you learn how to mirror, things are going to change in terms of your relationship with that witness.

Dan Ambrose (: 05:03

That's critical. That's critical. So Phillip, we're getting all geared up now. We're going to just a few weeks away from TLU Beach and you're a frequent flyer at TLU Beach. I think it might have been almost maybe at every one, but if not, definitely the last three years, maybe to make it the first year once we expanded a little bit beyond our first footprint in 2022 and started having multiple tracks and multiple workshops. But you go to a lot of conferences and so I have to ask you which one's your favorite, but what are your favorite things about TLU Beach?

Phillip Miller (: 05:34

I think it's got a rich, robust set of speakers and content that no matter what you're interested in, there's somebody there who's going to be talking about something who knows what they're doing, that's gotten a great result perhaps, but just a rich, robust content for just about anybody. The second thing is, it's not drinking water from a fire hose in the way that many programs are. There's some programs that just go on too long for too many hours with too few breaks so that you're just brain dead at the end of the day. And TLU has a forced agenda, which initially I kind of resisted because it's like you go for an hour and you break for 15 minutes every time. It's like, wait a minute, I got another 15 minutes of good stuff here. No, you break at an hour and you have 15 minutes so people can kind of clear their heads, meet with the vendors, talk to one another, connect with other people.

Dan Ambrose (: 06:22

Go to the bathroom. It's always kind of important during a conference or maybe send an email so that whatever's pressing on their brain they can get rid of.

Phillip Miller (: 06:29

And then second thing is the social aspects of it are just really unmatched in terms of you are connecting with people more during the day than you would in another program because you're not just constantly sitting there drinking water from the fire hose, but also you're meeting with people on breaks, you're working in smaller groups and then there's- Workshops. There's just a great social event every night with, it might be- The

Dan Ambrose (: 06:50

80s track suit pool party that we're

Phillip Miller (: 06:52

Having. It may be wearing some silly costume.

Dan Ambrose (: 06:54

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's not silly.

Phillip Miller (: 06:57

By the way, I have to wear one myself because my wife Carla loves to wear costumes.

Dan Ambrose (: 07:01

I know. It makes me thank God Carla is the fun one in the

Phillip Miller (: 07:04

Group. She's the fun one of the person. She's already picked out her costumes for June and then there's a band and very often the band, people will get up and sing with the band, including Dan.

Dan Ambrose (: 07:12

Live band, karaoke is kind of my thing. I'm

Phillip Miller (: 07:14

Not suggesting you hang out for Dan singing.

Dan Ambrose (: 07:16

Summer even.

Phillip Miller (: 07:16

Singing with the band.

Dan Ambrose (: 07:17

Train bomb from nowhere. That's the gang.

Phillip Miller (: 07:20

But the answer is there's great singers that get up there and sing with the band, have a good time. Not named

Dan Ambrose (: 07:23

Dan, but other people who actually have some talent

Phillip Miller (: 07:26

Who

Dan Ambrose (: 07:26

Maybe thought about being a professional singer, but decide to become a lawyer instead.

Phillip Miller (: 07:30

And it's great to see someone who may have saw or heard speaking earlier in the program or you know a little bit about, and then you see them in a social setting and it just changes the kind of relationship and the connection with that person. And so that's a great thing to happen. It doesn't really happen in most other programs. Most programs are really drinking water from a fire hose. I mean, they're worried about getting the number of CLE hours they have to have. And very often the speakers are not, like for the Advanced Deposition College, we pick speakers who are good at this specific thing, which is not only doing the deposition, but being able to teach it. And so we don't really care whether they're connected to anybody organizationally or anything like that. We want good speakers who are good teachers and can deliver the content.

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So

Dan Ambrose (: 08:16

You're saying politics don't rule today at the advanced deposition at the Phillip Miller program.

Phillip Miller (: 08:20

No, no. And for the most part, I don't think it does at TLU either.

Dan Ambrose (: 08:22

No, not

Phillip Miller (: 08:23

At all. We care less. It's like we want to find people who can actually deliver content and know what they're talking about. And so the nice thing about that is a fit for the Advanced Deposition College is we don't have to deal with people who are being invited because of some reason other than they're really- They're great

Dan Ambrose (: 08:39

And they're good teacher.

Phillip Miller (: 08:40

Yeah. And so we don't want to have anybody like that. And we won't have anybody like that at TLU because there's not any external ... I hate to say there's no external control, but there's no external control over our content other than- The ambrose. Our desire to deliver content and have speakers that are going to be really well thought of and teach what's important.

Dan Ambrose (: 09:01

Well, that's an important thing to do to learn that important stuff, make a whole bunch of new friends. And when you're friends with people, it's a lot easier. Even if they're well known, famous trialers, a lot easier to pick that phone up and dial their ditches, have them answer that phone call and actually give you a little time to help you because it's a tough business and it's a lonely business, but it's a lot less lonely when you got a lot of friends. People actually care about you because the older we get, the harder it is to make friends because we just don't have the time or the commonality of interest. But at TLU, because really, if you get there on time on Tuesday afternoon and you do the surf camp with Eddie or go play pickleball, or at least by Tuesday evening and join us for the Finch Welcome Dinner, see the Finch welcome dinner right there, it's on the backs that we really appreciate their support.

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But you're going to start to make those actual friends and spend the next four days with them learning, doing activities, maybe having a track suit dinner or the Satchel Oliver Wild West party or the opera ski rooftop party or any of those things or the poker tournament every night. But whatever it is that you like to do, you're going to find people that like to do the same things. Maybe it's pickleball, but the idea is to find people with commonalities and have the time to spend with them to actually build those human connections. Because I was just actually listening to an audiobook today about the second act, like people that have great success, but maybe want to slow down, but then they feel useless. And their whole identity is part of, or their social network is from the people they know at work and their friends at work, but it shows that the higher people climb, like the CEOs, they're the most loneliest persons because they don't have friends at work because everybody's afraid of them or they're dressing people down.

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But the most important thing for the happiness is connections is having friends. Even friends like outside most people's only friends is their spouse. They don't have actual friends that are people that actually care about them. And that's what I think TLU really is too, is like it's a friend machine. It's an adult. I mean, it's because we need friends. It takes time to find them. And that way, but doing the workshops too, people join up, they find people who have commonalities like working on your deposition skills, but also meeting up by Zoom ahead of time, getting those connections ahead of time. It's just getting a little FaceTime ahead of time. And then like the personal bios, because everybody comes, writes a personal bio, who they are and the first person in addition to being the trial lawyer. And then, but those kinds of things really facilitate connections to help people make the world maybe a little smaller place and just a couple more friends and being friends with the best lawyers.

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And that's also you get so you, because I want people to make more money. You make more money by getting better at your skills, but also having a robust network of community who collaborate on cases you can call to get help with. Maybe they got a case that you specialize in or maybe they need a trial consultant and they got the biggest case in their life, not quite sure how to go about it and they need a little help or they want to train on their skills and come and do a little training at the TLU Dojo. So all those things are more possible fill up. Hey, than people that maybe aren't, for whatever reason, maybe they hate money, maybe they hate having fun, they hate beautiful weather at the beach and they're not coming to TLU. But for those people who want to get ahold of you who are making the great mistake of their life by not coming to TLU Beach, how do they find you Phillip?

Phillip Miller (: 12:21

They can just find me on the internet like almost anybody else.

Dan Ambrose (: 12:25

No way.

Phillip Miller (: 12:26

Phillip Miller. Yeah. Or my email is pmiller@seriousinjury.com. Okay. So

Dan Ambrose (: 12:33

No minor injuries, no scrapes. No, no.

Phillip Miller (: 12:35

Pmiller@. Seriousinjury.com. You sound

Dan Ambrose (: 12:39

Serious, Phillip.

Phillip Miller (: 12:40

All

Dan Ambrose (: 12:40

Right.

Phillip Miller (: 12:40

And then my telephone number is 615-394-7300. That's my cell.

Dan Ambrose (: 12:47

All right.

Phillip Miller (: 12:48

So I hate to say it, but I work all the time. I mean, I like to go on vacation, that kind of stuff, but I like to work. I like to work on interesting cases with good points. Fun, isn't it? Yeah. It's like a

Dan Ambrose (: 12:57

Challenge. It's big puzzle. We get to solve. We get to help other people solve

Phillip Miller (: 13:00

It. Yeah. I don't know what other people do, but it's like, this is great. I know.

Dan Ambrose (: 13:04

People don't like being a lawyer. I'm like, "You ain't the right kind of lawyer because this is like the greatest fucking job in the world."

Phillip Miller (: 13:09

Should be.

Dan Ambrose (: 13:09

I mean, you get to do cool shit, hang out with cool people and make money. And if you're good, you get to make good money and it's like you're not that good. You get a chance to learn to be good. And so there's nothing because especially at TLU, you see all these people that maybe you were just all students last year and so many of them are up there speaking this year because we all can do it. You just have to find somebody to help you.

Phillip Miller (: 13:32

And they've made money. You left that part out. And they've made money in the last year.

Dan Ambrose (: 13:35

Oh, I know. No, my friend that got this $12 million verdict and he got it paid too. I'm like, "How was it like to be rich?" He's like, "It's nice." I'm like, "I bet it is. Good for you. " I bet it is. I mean, I remember somebody that made a bunch of money like, "I really don't like all this money. It's pressure. You got to pay all these taxes." I'm like, "Yeah, it sucks. All these taxes you got to pay." Well, Phil, we appreciate you coming to Hermosa Beach and hanging out and bringing, especially appreciate you bringing your friend Robin, wish art with you because she has been a real pleasure to get to know and spend some time with. And we're going to see you in about just over a month because it's May 1st today. And this party starts on May 2nd for everybody who gets there for the pregame.

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How about the people that come in to do the bootcamp though? They got to be here in Hermosa Beach by the 27th and they're training right now, learning the bite, learning the fundamental skills and reading your paper on ... I'm so glad you wrote the paper because people always say, "Why? What's your support for what you're doing?" I'm like, "I've been doing it for a lot of years and it works and people got results." Yeah, but I need something theoretically written for my brain to handle that, accept it. I'd be like, "Too fucking bad." But I don't have to say anymore. I said, "Just read Phillip Miller's paper on it. He could tell you all about gestures and why they're meaningful and pacing and all this nonverbal communication." All the

Phillip Miller (: 15:00

Stuff that you wouldn't think about but makes a big difference.

Dan Ambrose (: 15:02

No, it makes a huge difference. I mean, it's like somebody says good morning. It's like, what the fuck's your problem? I said, good morning, right? All right, Phillip. Well, how about goodbye? It's great to see you and have a safe trip, Phil. I can't wait to see you. I'm my favorite guy.

Phillip Miller (: 15:13

All right.

Dan Ambrose (: 15:14

All right. Good

Phillip Miller (: 15:14

To see you.

Dan Ambrose (: 15:15

Take care,

Phillip Miller (: 15:15

Bud. Thank you.