Sach Oliver - The Magic of Dressed Rehearsals: Preparing to Win & Processing Loss

Voice over (: 00:00

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Dan Ambrose (: 00:30

All right. Well, Howdy Sach, we got our good buddy Sach Oliver back in the Saddle here on the TLU podcast and Sach and I just spent a little bit of time together down in San Diego at the TBI Med-legal conference. It was a wonderful time. Wonderful people down there. Sach, this is not about the TBI med-legal. This is about what's going on with you. I know you recently had a trial that I came down was part of your dress rehearsals and I know you're ranched for the future of the depositions our trial program is moving along because when I was there about six months ago, was making great progress. And finally, you got a whole bunch of new content that you and our good friend, Joe Fried, and also in conjunction with her also good friend Philip Miller are going to be teaching this year at TLU Beach.

(: 01:09

So how does that sound?

Sach Oliver (: 01:11

I can't wait, Dan. I'm glad to be here. Thanks for hosting me.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:13

All right. So a few months back, I think it was November, you had a trial on a trucking case and I know that case is under appeal, but if you could just kind of give us a little context for the case and talk about your preparation for it and start there.

Sach Oliver (: 01:27

Sure, absolutely. Well, first we were just blessed to be brought into this case by co-counsel to represent a beautiful family, Hurtado family, our Tatovat family. And that case, we originally brought in the case because it was a trucking case. That's what we do, that's our specialty. However, throughout the process, the trucking company resolved their case for policy limits and then that left a secondary or third defendant, which was the construction zone company where or near where the wreck occurred. And so this case moved forward against the construction zone company and that's what the trial was about.

Dan Ambrose (: 02:06

All right. So I know the week prior to going to trial, no matter where the venue is, you do a dress rehearsal and you were kind enough to give myself and a few other of my friends like Mike Bryant and let's see, Chris Hammons from Arkansas, Oklahoma came down. Our friend Parish Collins is a local fellow. So give us a chance to come in and sit in on that. So give us a little process of the dress rehearsal and how you go about it and why you do it.

Sach Oliver (: 02:32

Well, we do a tremendous amount of jury research way before the dress rehearsals and we did that in this case. So we knew the risks involved with going into this case because of what our verdicts had been showing and jury research had been showing. However, what you're talking about specifically is generally within two weeks before the trial starts, we do a dress rehearsal and that's our MO, that's what we do. And we do it over two days. And in this case, because of traveling, we went ahead and just went to the jurisdiction, which is in New Mexico where we're going to be trying the case and we went about a week early and so that we did our dress rehearsals the week before trial started. That way we can settle into our hotel rooms, get into our new home while we're in the trial in a different state and different jurisdiction.

(: 03:17

So that's what we did here. But basically we bring in I think about 36 people on day one and we do a full jury selection process and we follow the precise methodology that the judge has told us is what the real jury selection's going to be. And it turned out to be very accurate and true in this case. So we did that on day one. The best part about the reason we do it for two days is even though we've done this many times, even though we've practiced many times, when you stand up and you do your jury selection on people in that specific jury demographics in that very venue, you learn that certain questions don't come out right or my phrasing is improper or you just got to practice it. And then people have to talk. And what happens a lot of times is I find that while we intended this question to uncover this particular bias, the question was so bad, even though it looked great, it took people down a completely different route and we had either a bad discussion or a discussion that didn't give us value for the time spent.

(: 04:20

So I have yet to do a day one dress rehearsal. We didn't overhaul it that evening. And that's what we did in this case, as you know, Dan, but we did day one dress rehearsal of jury selection and then we go in and we do a full blown opening statement to which the jury consultants do a breakdown with the mock jury afterwards just to make sure that we don't have any confusion or clarifications needed. We then make any changes that we need to make and then we do it again the next day. You hear me say the phrase, and I've said it on your podcast, I've said it at TLU and anywhere else that I've spoken, we prepared a confidence. How is it that I can be so confident on the day of trial and people come and watch us in the courtroom and they just like, "How are you so confident?

(: 05:00

How do you do that? How do you not use any notes?" Well, you should have come to dress rehearsals where I look like a clown. You should have come watched me at the three focus groups where I did it the first time and did have my notes and was kind of clumsy and getting my way through the process. Yeah, by the time I stand out in front of the jury, I've done it 17 times. I'm good to go. I want you to do dress rehearsals of some sort. They don't have to be as big and fancy as what we do. They could be to your grandma and grandpa. I mean, do it somewhere somehow. The cheapest dress rehearsal you could do is that standup mirror right there because if you're not comfortable in your own clothes with yourself, you're not going to be comfortable in your own clothes with somebody, a bunch of strangers.

(: 05:39

And so if I can't give my opening statement to that mirror and be comfortable with me, I sure don't need to leave this office, but I'm telling you I can do it right there for free at a bare minimum, do your dress rehearsal with you in your mirror.

Dan Ambrose (: 05:52

TLU Hunt and Beach is going to be the greatest trial lawyers event in history. It all starts off on Tuesday, June 2nd with a dinner hosted by Finch at the L'Orea. We're buying it out and the pool area around it for our 300 of our closest friends. Wednesday we're just doing workshops. We got Ben Rabinowitz and Mike Kelly doing expert cross. We got Philip Miller, Ed Saranboli teaching advanced deposition and we got six more workshops besides that. But if you're not interested in training that day that afternoon, you can go out with Ted B. Wacker and go for the first annual TLU golf tournament or racing go- karts with Kurt Zehner or playing pickleball with Supio. That evening we got the opening party. We got the lobby lounge at night with ping pong, foosball, DJ and open bar and then Thursday, Friday and Saturday we got five lecture tracks, eight workshop tracks, full breakfast for everybody every morning on the ocean lawn for 700 people, great lunches every day.

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This is our fifth year at the Pasaya with the food's amazing. Ask anybody who's got the best food on the conference tour. It's TLU. Then Thursday night, we're buying out the Laraya and the tree house above it and doing a party hosted by Supio that's going to be an 80s tracksuit party. Friday night we're having the first ever Sach Oliver Wild West party. Sach is bringing 500 pounds of Angus beef. We're going to be grilling out. We're going to have a mechanical bowl. It's going to be a great time. Lots of new friends being made. And finally on Saturday, we're closing out the socializing with the I pray ski adult swim pool party. That's on Saturday night. Finally, but that's edit though. Sunday morning we're starting with connections and a great meal and we're ending it. Sunday morning we're having brunch with Scott Frost from the Frost Law Group hosting our brunch on Sunday morning.

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So we're beginning with an ending with community and great learning. So TLU Huntington Beach, June 2nd through 7th. Be there. We'll see you.

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At the bare minimum, but I think it's good to do with at least a group the size of your jurors so you can practice giving chunks of the content to different jurors practice, making sure you involve all your jurors to talk to everybody, practice your eye contact, practice your cadence when you're up in front of people, practice your breathing when you're up in front of people because that tension and stress that we all experience when we stand up in front of a group affects our breathing. If our breathing's affected, so is our chemistry and our tightness, ability to relax and be confident. And I've heard it said that the greatest improvement in any performance is between the first attempt and the second. So you got to do it at least once. I mean, people do their shit in front of a jury for the first time like, "Wow, I get to feel authentic." I'm like, "Oh yeah, it's going to be authentic, piece of poo-poo is what it's going to be most likely." Because if they don't practice, then they're not a practiced person.

(: 08:44

And so they're not just going to magnesiumly be imbued with the Holy Spirit when they stand up there in front of a jury and tell their story for their first time. I'm with you on the practice. Some people might say, "Dan, you're an overpracticer." That might be true, but I'm practicing until I'm confident. But despite all the work, all the research, all the practice, everything you put in, this trial did not, against this defendant did not go your way. And I know that this verdict is under appeal and I don't want to talk about the details, but I really want to talk to you about how you process a loss and if it's evolved at all from when you were younger, because then I know when you have success and then you have a loss, it feels differently. So if you tell us a little bit about that.

Sach Oliver (: 09:23

Sure, absolutely. Well, one, if you're truly a trial lawyer, that means you're in the courtroom and you've been doing it for any period of time. Part of the process is loss and how to deal with it. Now we don't want that to happen. We don't want it to happen very often. There's no doubt about that. We want to win all the time. That's what we want on behalf of our clients. But the reality is that loss is part of the process. And you're correct, Dan. The way I used to process loss in my 20s versus the way I do it now in my 40s is completely different. The first thing that I want to share about that process is before the verdict is read out loud and your mindset in my opinion, this is just my opinion, it's so important. I have a belief system of personal abandonment and absolute trust.

(: 10:06

And so I have gotten out there in this humble, abiding truth. We are prepared to confidence, we are prepared and we have a relationship with our clients where we're doing this together. Everyone's on the same page and we're moving forward and we as a team are willing to accept the jury's verdict. That's so powerful. Now it's important that you have that mindset in the process and going through it and that you're doing everything you can to win, but if you really believe in personal abandonment and absolute trust, the result is not going to define who you are. Yes, the result does define consequences for your client or financials issues or policy, public policy issues, but it does not define who you are as an individual or a person, your heart, for example, your soul. And so that's my mindset. If that's true, and I'll just share with you that the test here is that when you go through loss, when you have the mindset of personal abandonment, absolute trust and you get a big victory, it's just fantastic.

(: 11:09

But the true test of your heart is when you go through loss. And that's what happened here in this case. We got a defense verdict in this case after the jury deliberated for, I don't know, five, seven hours. And so it's crazy to be a complete peace, but I was at complete peace with it. I talked to Dan about it I think the next day and of course all my friends about it the next day. Dino called me. Dino Colombo called me and he prayed over me that day, 35 minutes after the verdict. And what's amazing about it is the peace that I had with his personal abandonment and absolute trust because this verdict, the result does not define who we are. You got to remember that when you win big too, because that turns into a lot of ego, but it also applies when you lose as well and get a defense verdict like I just did.

(: 11:52

So I'd say that's it is that searching for the peace and the loss. Now I immediately go to the learning process and now I've lived long enough. When I was in my 20s and somebody said what I'm about to say to you, it just ticked me off. Oh, it made me so frustrated. But I've noticed my mentors all been older than me, my father, my grandfathers, they've all said this to me over and over and over and you know what it is. It's a cliche now, but cliches make great country songs, right? You learn more from your losses than your victories. You've heard it, hadn't you? When I was in my 20s, that ticked me off like, "Well, I'm never going to lose." Here I am 45 years old and it is such an absolute truth. And of course, this is in James one about trials and tribulations, you're supposed to be thankful and look forward to trials and tribulations.

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When you've lived long enough and you have lived through trials and tribulations and you can look back on your career or your life as I can and say, "Oh my gosh, the learning and the growth from that loss or that trial or tribulation and how it made me grow and the fruits that have been positive, the fruits of the spirit that came out of it have now flourished and taken off in ways that I never could have dreamed." So that's what I started focusing on. What is the learning? What am I supposed to learn from this process of through the loss? And so I immediately created a memo. I started writing everything down and I categorized my learnings from strategy to depositions to trial preparation to the business side of it. Should we have handled something differently on the business side of the case because every case has got two sides, business side, litigation side.

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I did a deep dive analysis with my business team on the business side of the case. Then I met with the other lawyers involved, I met with my team, I met with our jury consultant and of course we did a breakdown with the clients. Well, when you do that and you do it systematically and you've got a piece about yourself that we're going to learn, that while we do not enjoy this loss, this loss will make us better. And when you categorize it and you list out, here's six things we could have done better at the strategy level. Here's six things we could have done better at the deposition level. Here's six things we could have done better at the expert level. Here's six things we could have done better at the trial execution level. Here's six things we could have been have done better at the jury research level.

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Here's three things I should have done differently in opening statement. Here's two things I should have done better in closing argument and man, I should have done this completely different and gone with my gut instinct at jury selection because I had gut instincts that I ignored or I let consultants talk me out of. And so I'm just actually motivated by this. I can't wait to go try another case. I've got six more trials this year that I just, I can't wait to get back in there because I have already implemented our already wonderful methodology that's generated unbelievable results for clients all over the country and now it's gotten better because of this loss. And that's what you can probably feel it and hear it from me, Dan. I'm motivated. And I'll tell you something else. And I look back now and I was talking to Ryan Scott, my law partner of 20 years, been with me the entire time.

(: 15:06

But you can go back and look at our losses and we know when they were 2015 I think was 2013 was my last defense verdict. So here we are, 2025 defense verdict. And you go back and some of the best blessings have been within that one year after those losses. And I'll just share with you, we had one of those happen this week. We had an 18 wheeler case in Oregon where the policy limits were 15.5 million and I know other lawyers may have done this many times. It was my first time to get 10 million over insurance limits this week for a single injury victim on a personal injury case in Oregon. And I'll tell you that's our third result similar to that this year since that defense verdict. And so you take that loss and you turn it into energy, you turn it into momentum and we're already having a banner year, maybe the best year of our firm's career this year, 2026.

(: 16:04

There you go, Dan.

Dan Ambrose (: 16:05

All right, Sach. Thank you for that insight. And I think that there's a lot of truth in it because personal, like all this shit, they didn't go well. It doesn't go just perfectly exposed to. And then all the rethinking and for myself, the retooling I have to do to make sure that that shit never happens again. And if it does, at least I don't make the same mistakes twice. At least I learned from it. So that's important. That's important. Last time we visited, I just got back from that new ranch you're building out there in Southern, I don't know, southeast, south, whatever it is, Missouri. That borders in the nice Arkansas. It's not too far from Rogers where your office is at. Still a pony ride as they say in Arkansas. So tell us how that ranch is coming along and when we expect to be ready to be operational for the depositions our trial, Missouri style, whatever you want to call it.

Sach Oliver (: 16:49

Ranch style. So our ranch is God's hands on it, Dan, because I'd like you to see it soon from when you were here last to where it is now is unbelievable. We're building, for those of you who don't know, we're building a prayer and educational retreat center on our cattle ranch and we are also expanding our cattle operation. And so we're building all of our Angus Ranch headquarters. And then my wife and children, we're building a new home on our ranch and so that construction is underway. But our prayer retreat and educational retreat has got two cabins that are log cabins, kind of old style log cabins that are roofed in, windows, roof, it's all in. They're going to be finished within the next three months. We've already started on two more cabins where the first floor is done and they'll be done in six months and then the fifth cabin will get started in the next month and it'll be finished also in about six months.

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We have some unbelievably talented architects that Walter Jennings, and if any of you happen to know anything about architectural, there's a famous architect named Frank Lloyd Wright. Surely if you don't know about Frank Lloyd Wright, please Google him, read about him, go experience his work. It can. It is art and structure and it's beautiful. My wife and I have followed and enjoyed Frank Lloyd Wright for years now. I've been to multiple of his homes. Well, Frank Lloyd Wright and his protege was Faye Jones and Faye Jones started doing these glass chapels and my wife has just been fascinated with Glass Chapel since she was a little girl. And whenever I asked Cody to marry me on Easter Sunday, 2006, she says yes. And she tells me she wants to get married in the Glass Chapel and she wants to get married in a Glass Chapel where the architect was Fay Jones.

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And so we did that. I wanted her dreams to come true. We got married in a beautiful Glass Chapel in Bella Vista, Arkansas, where it was the architectural designed by Faye Jones. She's just loved these Glass Chapels since. And so it was just put on my heart to build her Glass Chapel on this ranch. Well, Faye Jones and Frank Lloyd Wright have passed away, but their descendants, Faye Jones architectural firm was passed on down to his partner, Maurice Jennings, who now unfortunately has passed away. And his son, Walter Jennings, is inherited this amazing architectural firm in history that's passed down from the greatest architects ever. And so Walter Jennings has designed the Glass Chapel for the Oliver Angus Ranch that I'm dedicating to my wife, Cody, and she's in the process of naming. We have a draft out there right now and it's called Secret Place Chapel of Psalm 91.

(: 19:22

And they're also designing our event center. So for example, when we have a depositions our trial ranch experience next year, where would we all get together for the lecture part of it? It would be in the event center or where we all come together to sit down to have a sit down dinner. It'd be the event center. They got the red dirt pad done for the event center last week. I think those two things will start soon. And then the rest of the ranch, it is going up. They're pouring concrete for our indoor barn, our indoor facility, riding facility this week. And our home, the foundation got poured last week. They're going up with block this week. We'll start framing our home. It's about three weeks out. So a lot of exciting things going on, Dan.

Dan Ambrose (: 20:02

It's so great when you see a vision come together and day by day, and I know you're probably out there probably once or twice a week, keeping an eye on things, just enjoying the experience of watching a dream become concretized and you can actually walk through and touch it. So that's always exciting. Before that excitement starts, there's an excitement happening in Southern California. It's plenty to be specifically and that's called TLU Beach. And this is our fifth time doing it at the Passaic Hotel. And I think you've been present for the previous two times. Is that correct? Maybe three times, because I know that two years ago in 2024, something came up with your family couldn't make it, but you were there last year.

Sach Oliver (: 20:39

How many years have you done it, Dan?

Dan Ambrose (: 20:41

Four previously.

Sach Oliver (: 20:42

Four. I've missed one. I've been there for three then. The only one I missed, Reesa got into a cheerleading accident the night before we're supposed to leave and come out there and I wasn't able to come. But I've been to the other three and I've said this to you, but I want to say it to everybody. I travel the country and I love it. I love teaching. I'm passionate. I think I'm called to do it and I enjoy it. And I have spoken like Johnny Cash. I've been everywhere, man. TLU Huntington Beach is the single best teaching seminar I've ever attended. It is. And what Dan has created and been able to maintain and sustain is really unprecedented. The energy, the commitment to education, but then it's so much fun and the community Dan creates. Well, for example, my wife, I have to kind of drag her to lawyer events.

(: 21:29

She's coming to Huntington Beach. She's been, this will be her third time and we're bringing our children and each one of our kids are bringing two friends. Just to kind of tell you the energy of fun and excitement and community. And I'll tell you something else that I love and I love competition, but I get excited about the quality of speakers all at the same time. I mean, I love the fact that there's competition in a way. I know it's not true competition, but it is for the attendees. Am I going to go listen to the best lawyer in the world, Brian Panish? Or am I going to go listen to Joe Fried? Or am I going to go listen to Philip Miller? Who am I going to go? They're all there. That's how awesome the thing is. And that's why the TLU Live is an amazing asset.

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You just got to have it because there's no pressure. You can just get all of it later on through TLU Live. So I'm excited about Huntington Beach this year, you can tell.

Dan Ambrose (: 22:16

Me too. It's TLU On Demand.

Sach Oliver (: 22:18

TLU On Demand. Sorry, Dan.

Dan Ambrose (: 22:20

That's the library for trials. That's okay, Seth, because you got about 50 hours of content that were there from the last several years of teaching at my various conferences because I record them all and various webinars. But this year I know every year that you teach with us, you and Joe Freed get together either at your place or at his place, but get together in person for a couple days to kind of work on what you guys want to share this year. And so you guys got to kick our program off Thursday morning from 9:00 to 12:30. And so tell us what have you and Joe got for all the folks coming to TLU and folks that say, "Oh, I've heard Sachab or somebody say," I heard Sat speak before. "I'm like, " Pardon my language, but what the after does that do with anything?

(: 22:57

"So why? You think he's going to do the same thing he did before at TLU Beach? You're out of your mind. So what's that first three hours kicking off Thursday morning look like with a Joe and Sach show?

Sach Oliver (: 23:05

So Joe Fried and I are doing a program on Thursday we've never done before. We have spoken at TLUs together for I think five years in a row. For two years, we focused on negotiations. For two years, we focused on just depositions, depositions, depositions. And one year we did the speed trial this year, and I'll tell you, this is based on feedback. We've been getting requests from lawyers from across the country to break down the most common tractor trailer cases in America. And so Joe and I are breaking down every aspect, hour one, the beginning, the discovery phase, the how to get started, hour two, the depositions phase, how to take great depositions, hour three, the trial phase. Okay, that's how we're going to do it, but it's on failure to yield cases. It's on improper turn cases, it's on speeding cases and improper lookout cases, the most common cases.

(: 24:01

So we've been getting a lot of feedback. If you've seen me speak before, you'll know that I am blessed beyond measure to work on extremely reckless, culpable, catastrophic cases. And so I'll play video clips of the guys drunk, on drugs, watching porno going through a construction zone, right? I'm working on those cases. Well, I've been getting a lot of feedback. "Hey man, you got an improper lookout case example. I don't have any cases where the guy's on fentanyl, cocaine and watching a porno going through a construction zone. So Joe and I are going to deliver because yes, we do get those cases. And so we're going to break down your common, ordinary, everyday tractor trailer case. I just can't believe I get to do it with Joe Freed. I mean, Joe Freed is the tractor trailer pioneer. That's it. That's it. You don't have to say anymore.

(: 24:49

He's at the beginning and he's in the prime of his life still doing it. I'm just thankful he's my dear friend and mentor and is willing to do this with me. So you get Joe Freed and whatever I can offer together at the same time breaking down these cases. I'll just tell you, we're just blessed because we get great results even on these ordinary cases that may not have all these crazy facts or mad factors that I show so often. I'm just excited to be doing that with Joe and you're right. Joe and I have already gotten together. We've kind of broken it down. We'll spend more time together between now and June to get it to narrow down some more, but it'll be fantastic.

Orlando Castroverde (: 25:26

I'm Orlando Castroverde. I've been a subscriber to TLU On Demand ever since the start. Anytime I listen to a particular episode that's relevant to a case that I'm working on right away, I'm sharing it with my team saying," Hey, you got to listen to this. "If you want to be the best trial lawyer that you can be, sign up for TLU on demand today.

Dan Ambrose (: 25:47

Great. And then on Friday, Joe speaking separately for three hours on Friday morning and so are you. And so on Friday morning when it's the Sach Oliver, you don't have Joe to prop you up that Friday. So you're going to have to be there on your own, Sat. So what have you got for Sach to deliver? Solo, seen Joe Fried.

Sach Oliver (: 26:07

I hope I can deliver. I hope we can do it and I like it. Well, I want you to come out and see us. I will tell you, it's going to be something unique and different. I am going to spend the first third of Friday on how to train witnesses to get the video clip. Now this is going to be very subtle. It's not in the book. I didn't put any of this in the book. I'll tell you, it might be in the next book. We've started drafting depositions our trial too, but it's not in the book out there now. And it is all of the subtle steps that I take to build witnesses up to open up the window of truth. And it's got to do with relationship building. It's got to do with tone. It's got to do with how we train an animal.

(: 26:52

So I'm going to bring a lot of horse training techniques. I'm going to show some video clips of rip our border collie and how we use those same training techniques to train or lift up and motivate a witness, our adversary to tell the truth. So I'm going to be spending quite a bit of time on the background and the first third of depositions are trial. The second third of depositions are trial. I'm going to be showing some of the single best video clips that have been the value drivers of some of the largest cases that we've worked on and then break down and digest the how and why it happened. And so people have to see what success looks like in a video clip. And that's what I want to show is like, here is the best 30 second video clip in a $75 million case.

(: 27:38

Here is the single best video clip in a $50 million case. Here's the single best video clip in a $25 million case. Now, how and why did that happen? And break it down. And I've never done it like that before. I've never done it like that. You get to come experience it, see it, and you can push back on me. You may not have thought. You may want to know why is that the clip that drove the most value in the case, either with the jury or the insurance company, either one. We're going to break it down. In my third hour, Dan has asked me to do something I've never done before at a lawyer event so you talk about new and it's talking about money, something I've never heard taught before at a lawyer event. Maybe it has. I just don't know about it.

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But I'm going to break down and I'm going to teach money methods and they're simple but very effective. Money methodology. What is money and how do we use money in our lives and our businesses? And I don't really want to go into too much of that now because Dan and I spent an hour on it, the last podcast that we did. So it's out there. I'm just going to go really deep with specific examples and open it up for questions because I want you to do so. I got asked by a group of friends to do this presentation recently in a small group and I did it and there was an hour and a half of questions when I got done. It rocked everybody's world. Dan can share his testimony of how our money talk and methodology that my grandfather and my father taught me has affected him.

(: 29:02

And then I'm going to roll that into business building. I want to visit with you all about how the Oliver Law Firm was created and built and what are the founding blocks of the business side of how we do what we do. How do you create a practice where you have 25 mega cases across the country? I'm glad to share with that. And I don't claim to ever be an expert. All I can do is share, here's how we did it. Here's the failures, here's the successes and go from there. And that's what we are going to talk about. But I will tell you this, I'll be truthful and vulnerable. So if you want to ask me a question, get ready for those two types of responses.

Dan Ambrose (: 29:37

Earlier you mentioned when we were talking about the loss in New Mexico, you guys got together and talked about the business side of the case. Can you kind of share what you mean when you talk about the business side of a case?

Sach Oliver (: 29:50

For example, you've got the budget side and then you have the whether or not to move forward or not evaluation of the case. And so the reason When we got brought into the case was the trucking case and the broker liability case, Dan. And this family, they're just beautiful, wonderful people and there were three deaths. It was tragic. The damages are horrific and they're beautiful. Just great hearts. Well, we got policy limits from trucking company and the judge kicked to the broker liability case. So all of a sudden there's this evaluation is, should our firm stay in this case? The reason we got invited to the party is no longer here. And so that becomes a business breakdown. We had a meeting and decided, "Hey, we've gone this far down the mountain with this family. And even though that's not what we were brought into and this is the third target defendant, we made the decision to continue forward, obviously.

(: 30:43

And so you have to go back then and reevaluate that business decision, which I don't care at all to share with you the results. In that reevaluation, I decided even though I knew we got a defense verdict, I would do it again. I would've made the same decision again. This family deserved our representation and just because we had been successful in one part of the case, I still believe in my heart there was negligence on the construction company and there was a tragedy and death here. And so if I had to do it over again, I would make the same decision moving forward. Also, it's something that's so important that you just got to be real with yourself and listening. But you can ask my wife, Cody, I had a great time trying that case. I loved it. I was having so much fun. And then of course, that week after you get a defense verdict, everybody's calling you like, "Oh, oh, oh." I was kind of like, "I'd go do it again.

(: 31:27

I'd go do it again." That was great. And so I know I played baseball growing up and you know about baseball, even kids would play 40 games in the summertime. Well, I don't care how good you are, you play 40 games, you're going to lose at least 10, sometimes 20. But even when we would lose, we loved it. We loved the game of baseball and that's how we are as trial lawyers, at least I hope that's where your heart is as trial lawyers.

Dan Ambrose (: 31:51

Well, if you know anything about me and you've been coming to my programs for a while, you know one thing is for sure that I'm in a vicious competition with myself and what I did before because I know, or at least I believe, maybe I don't know, but I believe that people that come to TLU, they know TLU Beach that they have expectations of me to somehow impress them or blow their mind as the experience that they have passes what they previously experienced. And so along those lines, what we've re-engineered this year is, well, from an education standpoint, we have a fifth lecture track this year called the Case Analysis Track. So all the folks have been coming to TLU, been doing the bootcamps, been training on demand, that went out there and had the courage to step into the arena and maybe it's their second or third trial and they stepped in and they prepped and they did the work and they trained and they did their focus.

(: 32:40

They did and they got their seven figure verdict or even a six figure verdict that's a multiple, a mega multiple of what was offered. So I'm really excited about that because I think it's really great for people to see these up and coming trial lawyers and to be inspired by them because if you or Joe Fried or Brian Panish or Nick Riley do something, that's one thing. But if Michael Stevenson or Joe Blow down the road who's never had a seven figure verdict, but has the courage to work their ass up, put their money on the line, put their line, go to trial and get a verdict, well, I think that's something that should share about. So we got that fifth track of lecture coming, but from a organizational and networking, because I think people come to TLU, they go to conferences for really for one main reason and that is to make more money.

(: 33:23

And we make more money by getting smarter on our cases, getting better strategy on our cases. And that's why listening to lectures like you, but they also get better on their performance of the case. So doing the workshops, doing the on the feet training, like my coaches are teaching small group, five person workshops for three and a half hours on witness prep and direct, cross, jury selection, and of course performance skills are the opening statement and closing argument. Now we're using one of Joe Fried's trucking cases and a Google map to teach the performance skills of presentation. But from a social and networking aspect, I think is very important. Well, of course we're going to be doing the personal bios this year as we've done all in the past so that people kind of get to know each other a litle bit. But Tuesday night, June 2nd, we bought out the L'Oreal, which is the restaurant at the Fasea and the pool area.

(: 34:06

So we're going to have a seated dinner a lot cart for 300 people between 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM on Tuesday night so we can get to meet all of our friends that got there early. So we haven't done that before. And then Wednesday morning, we just have workshops and small group workshops in the morning. That dinner is going to be hosted for all of us by our friends at Finch and Viraj Bindo, who's the founder. Then Wednesday morning, our friend Patrick Kang from the Ace Law Group, he's hosting breakfast at the LaReya so that all the folks are doing workshops, they can call them all down with their groups in the morning, like Ben Rabinowitz and Mike Kelly do an expert cross-examination one. So that group can have breakfast together, start to really get connecting in person. And our good friends, Philip Miller at Ed Sarin Bowlier doing a depositions workshop so that group of a dozen people get breakfast together and really start connecting.

(: 34:52

And whoever's there can get breakfast. But then that afternoon for the first time we're having our first golf outing hosted by Ted B. Wacker. And so folks, I love golf. There's a lot out there. I don't care for the game myself. Takes too much time. I haven't got the patience for it to train to do whatever. It ain't fun. I don't like to be shitty at stuff. So I don't golf. But for those people that do, they got golf. They all get together and play some golf, but we still have pickleball and go- kart racing with our friend Kurt Zehner if you're not a golfer. And so the golf's going to be new that evening. We got our opening party, our lobby lounge like we've always done. So those are the things that are kind of different there. But then Thursday night we're having our social networking party kind of scene because on Thursday we're doing an 80s tracksuit party.

(: 35:31

I should have my 80s tracksuit on, but it's hosted by Supio. So we're going to have the entire restaurant and the rooftop bar above it for all of our guests. So we have like six, 700 people there and have a dinner party/e80s tracksuit part. We like to make our themes easy to do. Everybody has a tracksuit. I'm going to see if Joe Preed wear a tracksuit this year. He never gets themed for anything. You only get them for our Western party. So since we got to get Sach to dress up for our parties because that encourages others too. We're having, on Friday night, first ever Snatch Oliver Wild West party. And so we're going to be serving some unique vitals there. So what are we serving at the Sach Oliver Wild West party, Sach?

Sach Oliver (: 36:07

Oliver Angus Ranch Beef. I'm bringing 500 pounds of beef from the ranch to grill out that night. So Dan set it up for, I don't know who's grilling, but I'll be making sure they do it right. But we will be bringing the beef from our ranch for Friday night's party.

Dan Ambrose (: 36:20

So nobody has to wonder where the beef's at. Where's the beef? The beef is at the Olive Angus Ranch on its way to Huntington Beach and we're going to have a special permit and a permit to barbecue outside with real charcoal and fire because we don't do shit on grills with the Oliver Angus brand. And then we're also going to have a mechanical bowl to give it that western feel for those folks that think they can handle the bowl. So that'll be a lot of fun. And then finally, we're going to close it out on Saturday night with a opera ski adult swim pool party. We've never had a pool party because all of our party is now going to be part of the indoor outdoor pool area. So it's going to have a litle bit better atmosphere. Plus it gets a litle chilly at night sometimes in Southern California.

(: 36:57

So we're going to overcome that God's chilliness of the warmth with the indoor and the heat and the fire pit. So I'm excited about that. And then finally on Sunday, for the folks that are still here, we're having Sunday brunch. Folks of our friends, Scott Frost. So we got new connectors. And of course we've got the greatest lineup of trial lawyers between obviously you, Joe Fried, Brian Panish, Rahul Ravaputi, Nick Rowley, Maxi Shear. We got so many great lawyers coming from across the country teaching lectures and workshops. And of course, IBC missed it all. We can't see everything. That's why we record it. And so that way you can learn because a lot of times people just want them to have structured specific learning, right? And so they have a 30 deposition come up. Now they want to dig into depositions, dig into the deposition or trial stuff out of the 30 to get ready.

(: 37:41

So that's all on TLU on demand if you miss it all. But you don't want to miss TLU Beach this year because it's going to be the greatest trial. I mean, I know people say you say it every year. I'm like, and I mean it every year. And I work tirelessly to make sure that I don't talk smack and that I deliver. So that's kind of a little bit overview. It's going to have the five lecture tracks, eight workshops and it's just, I'm fired up. We're going to have a thousand people this year. We're on our way. We've got about 350 people registered. So it's going to be bonkers fun and great learning and great community. It's the biggest part of it all. So that's what we got going this year, Sach. I'm fired up. So eventually we're going to get the Sach Oliver depositions our trial TLU skills bootcamp combo like we did before.

(: 38:19

But our schedule is not permitting it, but maybe by June we can look at our summer, fall days where we have a few days to come to the beach. And I do want to share lastly that because of Sach is counseling on explaining the difference to me between an asset liability with a liability defined as that which costs us money every month and an asset that which makes us money every month. It gave me the confidence and courage to purchase the house that I'm sitting in right now because it was a little bit beyond my comfort zone. But then I recognized, you know what? This is not just where I live. Just like you're a ranch is not where you live. That's where you raise cattle. Well, I don't just live here. I work on cases here and there's constantly, bought a five bedroom house because I need room for all my friends, especially my trial lawyer fronts that when I come here and work on their cases and enjoy the ocean.

(: 39:03

And so it's just been great. I've been working on cases with people. People bring their cases here and we get together a few days and stay here and really work their cases up and send them off to employ what they've been working on and learning in the courtroom and building some obviously community and skills while we're here. So I don't know if I would've had the courage to purchase to do it because as people know, I'm not big on long-term commitments. I don't like mortgages and sometimes you got to get one though because my money making schools just aren't up to date yet. I still need the bank to help me out. So that was a big impact. I went from visiting you there, just having the confidence to take a step in the right direction for my life and a bigger picture. And so I appreciate that very much.

Sach Oliver (: 39:40

Awesome. Well, I'm so glad, Dan. You're doing great stuff, man. So keep it up.

Dan Ambrose (: 39:44

Well, Sash, before you go, there's one more thing that we need to talk about. That is the depositions of our trial combined with our good friend Philip Miller bootcamp that we're going to be doing August 24th through 28th in Hermosa Beach, California at the TLU Beach trial pad that may or may not be in existence, but for your guidance when it's out there, just for the record. But anyways, I'm really looking forward to this and what could people expect to learn and gain when they come to this bootcamp of ours from you?

Sach Oliver (: 40:15

Well, I think it'll be an in- depth, hands-on depositions approach. We'll teach the depositions our trial on our feet. I will work with the attendees to build a deposition outline and then implement that deposition outline on witnesses. And so there'll be a tremendous amount of role play getting on your feet. We'll also incorporate how to work with defense lawyers. So we'll have someone play the role of a defense lawyer, but we're going to go over and over and over. We will pick one of your deposition outline hits, build it together. So pick one safety issue, for example, and the specific facts on that one safety issue. We'll do a lot of prep work before we get there and try to get an outline drafted to get a timeline and outline drafted and then we'll implement that as if we're in the courtroom or in the conference room through depositions or trial style.

(: 41:03

We've done this before. Dan and I did it before and I will tell you that the feedback we got was life changing deposition results. Matter of fact, Dan and I got, we did this once before in Las Vegas and about a few months later, one of the attendees reached out to Dan and I and said, "I just got the biggest verdict of my life." A month later, somebody said I just took the best deposition of my life. I mean, the confidence that everyone had leaving the depositions bootcamp that Dan and I did last time, it motivated me, quite frankly. It got me very excited. And then when you combine what Dan teaches with our deposition methodology and this particular bootcamp is going to be a cherry on top because my mentor, who is one of the foundation fathers, the founding fathers of depositions for American jurisprudence and taught me how to do it is Philip Miller.

(: 41:51

And Philip Miller is joining Dan and I this week there at Dan's place in California. And I believe that we have the trifecta here for anyone who wants to get the best deposition hands-on training and actually do it. It's not lecture style. Actually do it. It'll be awkward. You'll have to get on your feet, you're going to have to practice it. I'll be the witness. Somebody else will be the defense lawyer. We will create obstacles and then teach you how to work through those obstacles. But at the end of the day, what you're going to get is a magnificent video clip of the truth that will make life changing results for your clients. So I think you're going to love it. Come out and see us.

Dan Ambrose (: 42:27

When you're not working with Sach and Phillip, we work with me working on your performance skills and especially the cross examination and presentation skills that we're going to use a trucking case that has a dash cam video so you can really see what happened out there in the use of a Google map. So you're doing trucking cases or any kind of vehicular cases, this training's really going to be just another cherry on top of learning the foundational skills from Sach and Philip and the case structure from Philip combined with better control of our hands and our facial expressions and stuff that you talk about pacing of your voice, stuff like that. So the witnesses want to give you the answer. They just want to come clean with you. All right. Well, I'm glad we've got that in there before you had to go Sach, and we're going to see you not too long for big time in Huntington Beach.

(: 43:08

And we got the Oliver Angus Ranch making its first debut on a big scale on Huntington Beach on a wood fire grill Friday night. So going to be a lot of mini Saches running around. Mini Sach Olivers. That's going to be worthy. It's good then we have photographers coming, so it's going to be memorable. So I look forward to it, Sach. Thanks a lot and I'll see you soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

Sach Oliver (: 43:28

We're excited. See you soon.

Voice over (: 43:31

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