The Wall Came Tumbling Down: $15 Million Wrongful Death Verdict

Voice Over (: 00:00

The most dangerous place you can be as a trial lawyer is to think you've got it figured out. I'm still trying to get better. I still have the passion for it. I believe in it. Everyone can learn to do what I do. And yet there's a group here that continues to get extraordinary verdict. Trial Lawyers University is revolutionizing educating lawyers to be better trial lawyers. It's been invaluable to me. Trial Lawyers University, where the Titans come to train, produced and powered by LawPods.

Dan Ambrose (: 00:33

All right. Well, we got Al Foeckler back from the frozen state of Wisconsin. And if you've never been to Wisconsin, the best time to go is December

(: 00:44

For

(: 00:44

The Wisconsin Association of Justice, because there's nothing to do there except freeze and it's cold. And people are like, "Oh." I'm like, "Damn, it's cold." And then they're like, "You're from Michigan. Why are you complaining?" I'm like, "Because I'm from Michigan. There's a reason I don't live there because I'm very susceptible to cold weather, Al, but-

Al Foeckler (: 00:59

We work in December. That's what December's about.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:02

No, it was great because nobody wants to be outside because you can't be because you'll freeze to death. So it was a really good showing at the Wisconsin Association of Justice. I get the privilege speaking in a few different places around the country, but a solid group of trial lawyers out there in Wisconsin. Surprising that we'd have the Wisconsin, such a cheesy place, but they're there.

Al Foeckler (: 01:24

Yes. We appreciated having you.

Dan Ambrose (: 01:26

Thanks, Al. Well, Al, you recently a little while ago got a nice big eight figure verdict for $15 million on a wrongful death case. And you worked real hard on that case and you put all your effort and retooled yourself and you came to bootcamp and we worked on it and that was great. But before we talk about that, we just finished a two-day workshop on witness preparation and direct examination out here in Hermosa Beach. So what were your big takeaways? Because you'd done a little bit of this stuff before and you actually utilized it in your trial, the methodology that you learned when you came to bootcamp last year, but now we got a little bit more learning. So what are your new takeaways?

Al Foeckler (: 02:10

Well, number one, it's intense and grueling. I mean, it is real work. We don't just get together and hang out. At the beach. Yeah. I mean, it's awesome being here, by the way. It's a beautiful house. The polar

Dan Ambrose (: 02:23

Bear dive yesterday though.

Al Foeckler (: 02:25

We did a polar bear dive yesterday. Yeah. But I mean, we put in a lot of work. You've got to kind of put all of your preconceived notions about yourself and your skills aside and be willing to learn new things and accept criticisms where it's needed so you can grow and get better. But I'm telling you- It's

Dan Ambrose (: 02:43

Called feedback, Al, feedback.

Al Foeckler (: 02:45

Feedback. Yeah, learning. But no, it was a great ... It was wonderful because I was here in the fall as part of the bigger bootcamp and learned a lot of the witness prep and direct and put it into practice in my practice. But now the last two days. In my trial. Yeah. Right. But the last two days to do a really deeper dive into it has been even more meaningful because you start to understand and see the patterns and what it's really meant for and setting up the scenes and being able to move through the scenes and learn a lot.

Dan Ambrose (: 03:21

Right. And understand that the importance and challenge of getting a witness to transport, to get them to go back in time and space to relive an event. But even after they can do that, but we'll have to coach them to get past all of their repression of their experience that we have to talk to them about and they have to be able to share with the jury and just relive in front of the jury for the

Al Foeckler (: 03:44

Jury

Dan Ambrose (: 03:44

To really experience it and really to provide full value for what was taken from the people we represent. So that's the challenge. And then getting that to smoothly flow into a question and answer format so that the lawyer's really listening and understanding the concept of dividing a story into different scenes and kind of make sure that we work with the witness to move the scene along and then-

Al Foeckler (: 04:11

And just getting rid of bad habits. I think it's natural that a lot of people will say," Well, what happened next? "For instance.

Dan Ambrose (: 04:19

Or how'd that make you feel?

Al Foeckler (: 04:21

The

Dan Ambrose (: 04:21

Worst question in the world.

Al Foeckler (: 04:22

So what happened next? Well, you learn that that's really not a good question because then you're literally asking for the next thing that happened as opposed to- Next moment in time. Right. The next moment as opposed to the next section of the story that you want the witness to talk about. And that's kind of stuff where you're like, without knowing that, without learning that, I would've made that mistake forever.

Dan Ambrose (: 04:45

Or how did that make you feel, which could be the worst question in the whole world because if a person's feeling it and they're crying in front of you and you say," So when you learn about your son's death, how does it make you feel? "It confuses them because they're thinking," Can't you read my emotion because we can all read it?

Al Foeckler (: 04:59

"I mean, just for the listeners, I think a lot of people think like, " Ooh, that's the money question. "It's going to be like, " I'm going to build to this dramatic moment and be like, and how did that make you feel? "And what you learn is that if you have to ask that question, you haven't done your job to get the witness right because the jury should know how the person felt without you having asked that question. Well,

Dan Ambrose (: 05:23

They should be feeling it too because feelings are contagious. And if you ask somebody, the only time anybody ever talks about their feelings or describes them is when they're actually not feeling them

Al Foeckler (: 05:33

Correct

Dan Ambrose (: 05:33

We want to be understood. And so that's why when a witness says," Oh, it was really scary or I was really sad. I was really surprised. "It's because they're not feeling it so they're just remembering and it takes practice, takes skill, but it's truly one of the most overlooked skills to develop, especially in young lawyers because people are like, " Oh, when she start learning these things, "and when you start doing it, I'm like, " As soon as you meet your client for the first time, if you're in the interview process and you're taking the time to visualize everything they're telling you, well, you're going to be in perfect rapport with them and you're going to really be able to understand and really understand their experience and that understanding, that bonding goes a long way in that relationship

Al Foeckler (: 06:16

Because- Well, not only that, I mean, there's a real practical point of it is that look, in Wisconsin, for example, we have a $350,000 adult wrongful cap, wrongful death cap and a $500,000 child wrongful death cap. So value in our cases come through the pain and suffering, the emotional non-economic damage parts of cases. If you can't convey that to the jury and you're asking people, how did that make you feel? And the jury's not actually feeling it. They're just being told it's the difference between potentially a six figure verdict versus a seven figure verdict or an eight figure verdict because if you can get the jurors to feel it, that's where you get your damage number from.

Dan Ambrose (: 07:02

Certainly can't hurt. It can only help.

Al Foeckler (: 07:04

It can

Dan Ambrose (: 07:04

Only help. All right. So last year you came to a bootcamp and we worked on this wall collapse case for this nice older lady that you represented back in Wisconsin. So let's talk a little bit about that case. So what was that case about?

Al Foeckler (: 07:24

So back during COVID in 2020, it's a senior living center with three levels and there's an underground parking garage and on each side of the parking garage is an eight foot retaining wall to the left of the parking garage, the big garage door and an eight foot retaining wall on the right. On the left side, there was a service door where people, instead of using the big garage door to get in and out, they could come just through a regular door and above that regular door was the balcony of one of the units. So it was used because during COVID they shut down the smoking area that seniors usually went to. This is a senior living center. It's not a nursing home, it's for 55 plus seniors.

Dan Ambrose (: 08:11

I could go stay there

Al Foeckler (: 08:12

Sometimes for a few months at time,

Dan Ambrose (: 08:14

Have some friends to hang out with,

Al Foeckler (: 08:16

Maybe

Dan Ambrose (: 08:17

Smoke some cigs out.

Al Foeckler (: 08:18

I wasn't going

Dan Ambrose (: 08:19

There. It raining. Oh, that's great though. Hey, as you get older, it's hard to make new friends. And if you have to live in a senior living center to have some camaraderie, well, you know what? I'll have people to play backgammon with all day and maybe some chess and some could be ... It's a good way. And I like the fact that it's freezing cold there too.

Al Foeckler (: 08:36

Because this was covered by this balcony, the area was used for residents that smoked a lot because that day, the day that this incident happened, it was raining. So my client goes to go down there to smoke with one of her friends and she has a walker and the walker has a seat. So she positions the walk. She comes outside, positions the walker in a corner, smokes a cigarette with her friend, friend leaves and she has another cigarette. Well, while-

Dan Ambrose (: 09:07

That was a bad choice on her part.

Al Foeckler (: 09:08

While she's sitting there, that eight foot retaining wall next to her collapsed on top of her, completely buried her alive and it wasn't discovered until the maintenance guy showed up. The maintenance people get a call that a tree fell down and he's like, "Well, I'll come deal with it on Monday because this was a Sunday." Then residents are discovered that this wall had fallen. So he drives down. We had body cam footage of the police. I mean, these bricks weighed 82 pounds each, the bricks of the retaining wall and the police are pulling these bricks off of her and they first expose her head and she's got a Green Bay Packer sweatshirt on. She's got a yellow hood pulled down over her face and she's still pinned underneath it and they're pulling more bricks off of her and exposing more of her and mangled fingers.

(: 10:01

And then at one point she lifts up and you see this on the body cam. She lifts up and she pulls her hood back and you see her mango bloody face. I mean, one eye's completely swollen shut. There's blood dripping out of her mouth. This side of her head just has blood pouring down it and it ends up that she was buried underneath there, literally buried alive for two to two and a half hours and she survived that and then they dig her out, they get her to Frater level one trauma hospital and she died later that night from the injury. So we had about four, four and a half hours of pain and suffering damage in that case. And that's really what it was about. What are those four, four and a half hours worth? Because like I told you, wrongful death, there were two adult children that was capped at 350 and there's an interesting part of that story as well.

Dan Ambrose (: 10:52

Well, I think everybody's dying to know the interesting part that you baited us in there. If I won't be much of an interview where the guy says an interesting part of the story, I'm not asking them what the interesting part. So what's the interesting part, Al?

Al Foeckler (: 11:03

So there's this 350 cap and we ran big data on this case and we had a lot of information and knew kind of what we thought the value would come in and the defense wasn't anywhere near it so we were going to be trying the case. Well, about six weeks before the trial we get an offer of settlement or an offer of judgment from the defense basically saying they'll pay 176 to adult daughter, 176,000 to adult son. So if you add those together, it's 352 with our 350 cap, we could never beat it which would mean that they would recover some of their costs in the case if we pursued that claim. And of course we're like, well, they pulled one over us because we're not going to give up that, because if we accept that, the kids can't testify, which means the kids aren't testifying to how great mom was, how much they missed her, tears coming down, crying.

(: 12:01

So we're like, "Well, they pulled one over on us." So then I leave and I go to Jury Ball Vegas and I'm sitting there and I tried the case by the way with my partner, Brett Estein, who's brilliant and amazing and he's going to be at TLU. You can hear him speak with me talking about this verdict.

Dan Ambrose (: 12:16

That's why people will be there

Al Foeckler (: 12:17

To hear Brett

Dan Ambrose (: 12:18

Speak.

Al Foeckler (: 12:18

I'm going to

Dan Ambrose (: 12:18

Be

Al Foeckler (: 12:19

There. Yeah, right. No. We

Dan Ambrose (: 12:21

Have the brilliant guy.

Al Foeckler (: 12:22

I'm sitting at the conference and it's just I'm so pissed. I'm like, "I can't believe we're in this crazy situation where we're literally going to win but have to pay some of their costs." And it wouldn't be a lot, but it was just bugging me. I text Brett and I'm like, "How do we know we're right? Let's run another study." And he's like, "You want to run another study because you're at the jury ball conference." And I'm like, no, I've said, look, maybe we're wrong, maybe conventional wisdom is wrong, maybe it doesn't affect the verdict if we get rid of those claims, which seems a little bit unheard of. So I walk over to John Campbell, I said, "John, I've got six days to accept this offer, because in Wisconsin you have 10 days to accept it. " I said, "Can you rerun the study and run it with the kids' wrongful death claim and without it?

(: 13:09

" And he said, "Absolutely. We can get it. We can get the results back." Well, it came back that if we took those claims out, it just about doubled the pain and suffering damage of Judy, the woman who died. So it went from a prediction of around an $8 million verdict to just over about a 15.9 is what the prediction was for the verdict.

(: 13:38

So we accepted it. I mean, it's to the point where John's like, even if they weren't offering you the money to pay for it, just get rid of that claim. You're going to do better because you have to understand in Wisconsin, the jury is told in a jury instruction, you can give whatever you want to the kids for the wrongful death of mom, but the law caps it at 350. And I mean, think about that. When a juror is sitting there and they're like, "Well, the law in Wisconsin caps recovery at 350, the pain of suffering can't be worth all that much, relative to 350." So we got rid of that claim and ended up being a $15 million verdict.

Dan Ambrose (: 14:14

TLU On Demand is the library for trial. You catch everything you missed over the last six years and we've collected all the pleadings, transcripts, and PowerPoints for all these cases and presentations from Las Vegas, New York, and from right here at Tepasea and it's an app for your phone and there's a Dan GPT feature on the desktop so you can search the entire database for exactly what you're looking for when you need it. If you're not a subscriber, you can call me on my cell phone or text me 248-808-3130 and I will send you a 30-day comp code so you can try it at no risk and then finally you will see what you've been missing out on for all these years Prior to trial you ran big data and you had it twice and that's how you got it twice at your valuation. Then what else did you do pretrial that you think really-

Al Foeckler (: 15:09

Well, a huge difference is, and this was post going to the bootcamp with you because we talked a lot about this case, you and I, you were nice enough to talk and help with the opening and we worked on the opening at bootcamp as far as building the scene and really setting up like this is the eight foot retaining wall here, here's eight foot, it's three stories and you helped me really build that out and opening. And then two things. Number one is that you were really on me saying, "What's your practice schedule?" And I'm like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "You're like, you got to practice all this shit. You got to have a schedule of when all you're going to do. " So Brett and I sat down and we never prepared for a trial more than we did for this one.

(: 15:54

I did my opening numerous times in front of staff and lawyers in my office. We did direct examinations of our witnesses live, practiced them. We had our experts come in and do practice rounds with that and that was all due to you being on my ass you have to practice this. The first time you do your opening, those words need to come out of your mouth, not just when you're giving it to the jury. So we put a lot of time in as far as that goes.

Dan Ambrose (: 16:22

And you kept your practice boards up permanently in one of your offices or your conference room. So you always had the faces of the juror boards up so you could just go and practice without anybody ... So just so everybody knows when you do bootcamp, you get about seven juror boards that's pictures of people's faces on them. Some of them you might recognize and-

Al Foeckler (: 16:44

I sent you a picture because I had them set up in a room and I would keep them there and I would go in there and literally like you are practicing making eye contact with people and moving, you know what I mean? And making sure that you're actually ... Because I will admit it, I mean, I've tried a lot of cases, had success, but until you practice it and you're conscious of it, I honestly would look at a jury as almost like a blob. I would look at the jury, but I wasn't actually making eye contact. You know what I mean? After going through the bootcamp, having those boards and practicing it, when I was doing my work in the courtroom, I was literally making eye contact with people as I went through and did it.

Dan Ambrose (: 17:25

Makes a big difference that eye contact.

Al Foeckler (: 17:26

Huge. People talk

Dan Ambrose (: 17:27

About it, but people still don't train themselves to do it

Al Foeckler (: 17:30

And

Dan Ambrose (: 17:31

They suffer the consequences of it.

Al Foeckler (: 17:35

And the other part of that with the bootcamp and learning, building the scene and building it out, I was able to come back to it in closing and that was the beautiful part of it because the way I set up the scene in the courtroom, that service door that I said she came out and positioned her walker, the way I built the scene in the courtroom to the right of the jury my left was there was the door that the jurors went in and out every day. I come up in closing and I said, "Look, that door that you came in and out every day, that's the door that Judy came out. " And then we had gotten the walker in the evidence, mangled, muddy walker. And in my closing argument then, actually in rebuttal, I positioned the walker next to that service door, the juror door that they went in and out of and I was able to talk to the jurors and actually then in rebuttal I did the man in the black suit closing, literally talking to the empty chair with the jurors right here and I'm talking to the juror- The empty walker?

(: 18:44

... to the empty walker and I'm giving the man a black suit saying like, "Judy, this is a briefcase with $40 million in it, but in exchange for that, you're going to have this wall next to you. It's going to come down and you're going to be buried alive for four hours and there's going to be testimony and there's going to be ... The medical examiner is going to talk about how when the medical examiner did the examination of you that she touched your face and you could feel the bones underneath your skin move. So I'm giving this and I'm talking to this walker and there's part of me that's doing it and I'm so into it. But then there was part of my brain like, I wonder if I look like a weird dude sitting there talking to this walker." But it was really effective because it brought that scene literally right next to the jurors.

(: 19:39

I mean, they were there. They were in it and that was all stuff that I learned and worked on with you as far as putting the opening together.

Dan Ambrose (: 19:48

Where did this trial take place? What county?

Al Foeckler (: 19:51

So it was in Ozaki County, very, very conservative county in Wisconsin. So if you ever are a political junkie and you watch national news, a lot of times elections, national elections come down to Wisconsin and where Wisconsin is going to go and they talk about the wow counties, Waukesha, Ozaki, Washington, WOW, Washington, Ozaki, Washington, because those are the three most conservative counties in Wisconsin. And so this was the, oh, this was Ozaki County. So walking into Ozaki County and telling the jury that it was worth $40 million was completely unheard of. I mean, people thought I was crazy. He goes,

Dan Ambrose (: 20:32

"Crazy Al Fechler."

Al Foeckler (: 20:34

Got to be able to do it, man. You got to be able to do it. I mean, look, you have to believe in the number, and I did. I mean, one of the big struggles, and I'm going to talk about this in TLU Beach in June, is that the question of when do you tell the jury the value of your case, right? So do you do it in voir dire? Do you do it in opening? Do you wait until closing? And I was committed to doing it in opening. One of my partners was upset about that and said, "You can't do it in opening. You haven't built up the credibility to do it. The jury's going to laugh at you. " And I really went through a tough time, a struggle of doing it and I did it in opening. Thankfully, I did it. So I mean, after the case or after the trial, the foreman called me up, the foreperson called me up and he said, "Look, Al, I want you to know that when you asked for $40 million in opening, I had to do everything I could not to laugh out loud." It's like, literally, I almost laughed out loud.

(: 21:38

And he said, "But like you said, once you heard the evidence, once we saw the evidence, you would understand why that's the value of the case. And I can tell you that I was one of four jurors that walked back into that room that wanted to give $40 million or more.

(: 21:56

And that doesn't happen if you wait until closing because jurors are, they're using that lens to evaluate the case. And I think that if you don't give them number upfront, they're going to see this case and they're going to be ... A typical Exhauck County jury is going to be, oh, this is a big case, this is terrible. This is a $3 million case or maybe a $5 million case. And then I get up and closing and ask for $40 million. I think at that point, I think that's when you lose the credibility after you built it up the whole trial.

Dan Ambrose (: 22:29

Might be too late.

Al Foeckler (: 22:30

Yeah.

Dan Ambrose (: 22:30

All right. And so in this trial, what was voir dire like? How much time did they give

Al Foeckler (: 22:35

You? See, in Wisconsin, it's completely open. So there's no limits. I was able to ask a ton of questions. Voir dire was great. I mean, that's something that I've never felt completely comfortable with, but I've gotten more comfortable over the years and I was pretty comfortable as far as this voir dire goes. I was feeling pretty good and the jurors were being pretty open and you just have to accept because we could ask any questions that you wanted, you just have to ... It's okay if people are telling you you're full of shit or that they don't want to give you the money. You want to hear it, right? Yeah. And because you want to deal with it and get rid of those jurors. So voir dire wasn't an issue.

Dan Ambrose (: 23:19

So in opening, you had some challenges though, PowerPoint challenges?

Al Foeckler (: 23:27

Opening went pretty smooth. I mean, there was ...

Dan Ambrose (: 23:31

Let's be closing. I'm thinking about what you took here. Didn't you get some visual taken away that

Al Foeckler (: 23:35

You

Dan Ambrose (: 23:36

Wanted to use?

Al Foeckler (: 23:37

Oh, no, you're right. Okay. So pretrial. So what we had was our genius thing, you're right and this was during bootcamp, I showed you pictures of it. We had recreated the eight foot retaining wall on a huge canvas and we had a stand built because we wanted the jurors to see what this big retaining wall would look like and the scale of it and then be able to put the walker next to it and the judge said, no, we couldn't use it. And he's like, " I don't want that in my courtroom. It's way too big. I don't want to deal with that. You're not going to be able to use it. "So that was even building out the scene then from what I learned from you was even more important because instead of having that there, I was using space to build it and build it out for the jury.

(: 24:34

It actually was over here the way I was building it out.

Dan Ambrose (: 24:37

All right. So fortunately your ability to create space and create illusions came in handy when you couldn't use your actual demonstrative?

Al Foeckler (: 24:45

Correct.

Dan Ambrose (: 24:46

All right.

Al Foeckler (: 24:47

Yeah. I forgot about that part. We actually called that, we called it the big beautiful exhibit is what we call it because it was huge and unfortunately it wasn't allowed.

Dan Ambrose (: 24:58

All right. Well, Al, you end up getting a $15 million verdict and the only thing better than getting a $15 million verdict is what?

Al Foeckler (: 25:05

Getting paid.

Dan Ambrose (: 25:06

Getting paid on a $15 million

Al Foeckler (: 25:07

Verdict. Yeah. Thankfully we thought it was going to get appealed and they decided not to appeal and yeah, that was good.

Dan Ambrose (: 25:14

I bet it was good.

Al Foeckler (: 25:15

It was good. I bet

Dan Ambrose (: 25:16

Your whole law firm was paid.

Al Foeckler (: 25:17

A lot of work. Lot of credit, by the way, to Brett Eckstein, my partner.

Dan Ambrose (: 25:21

Everybody knows that Al.

Al Foeckler (: 25:22

When

Dan Ambrose (: 25:22

Everybody's listening to this podcast, they understand Brett Extein, Brett gets a lot of credit.

Al Foeckler (: 25:27

Absolutely.

Dan Ambrose (: 25:28

Absolutely. Absolutely. If you want to master your trial presentation skills in the areas of witness prep and direct, cross examination, your performance skills, that's opening statement and closing argument and voir dire or jury selection, you need to learn the best practices and you can right here at the TLU Beach House in Hermosa Beach and we're collaborating with some of the greatest trial lawyers like Joe Fried and Joe Camerolingo on Trucking, Satch Oliver on depositions our trial and then with great trial consultants like Eric Oliver who's going to help with case story and David Clark and Shemek Lubecki teach you the dark arts to help you put your cases together. Combine that, helping you get the right story with the great trial performance and presentation skills and that's a recipe for much greater results. So join us right here at the TLU Beach House. To get the full schedule, go to triallawyersuniversity.com.

(: 26:32

We'll see you here. And one of the things you'll be talking about here at TLU Beach, which you're coming to for the second time, which we all know what many people say is the greatest conference ever. Of course, I'm biased about it because let's see, it's my Magnum Opus. It's something that I've been working on creating for many years and it's the fifth year in a row at the same hotel and so-

Al Foeckler (: 26:58

Great. ... say is awesome.

Dan Ambrose (: 27:00

Yes. We have it dialed in at a level both educationally with five lecture tracks and eight workshop tracks. So with some of the greatest trial lawyers in the country coming from far as ways New York, Florida, obviously California, but Georgia, Arkansas, pretty much everywhere. I mean, it's amazing how many different states that people are coming to teach from. But on top of that, because my goal when I do a conference, I have one singular goal and that's the people that come that they make more money at the end of the day because it's great to have fun, it's great to have camaraderie, but if we're not making more money and we're not doing a better job to take care of our families but also our clients, because this is what civil justice is about money, that's what it comes down to, then I'm not doing my job.

(: 27:49

And so we make more money by getting better on the cases, getting better strategy, better ways to put the case together, present the case, but also by building a bigger community of trial lawyers around us who can A, help us, mentor us, the people that are the rock stars, the freeds, the panish, the rallies, the Satch Olivers, getting to know those people so we have a connection with them. So if we have a challenge and we're not sure how to face it, we can call them up and they'll actually take the time and talk to us and help us,

(: 28:17

But also to have collaborators, right? Somebody maybe has a case in Wisconsin, wants to collaborate with you or somebody has a wall collapse in case maybe it's in California or Texas and they're like, "Hey, Al just got a great job where they have the similar type of tough law with these caps and say, how did Al get around it? " And they can call you and ask you and pick your brain about it. Or sometimes it's really a lot more fun to work on cases with our friends because doing a trial by yourself is a lonely, draining, exhausting experience. Whereas if you put together a little power group, well, now it can be fun because

Al Foeckler (: 28:49

You're

Dan Ambrose (: 28:50

Creating something. And so along those lines, we have a dinner party on Tuesday night hosted by, that's why I got my Finch jacket on there if everybody can see my friend Varage and Bita from Finch. So we're going to have a dinner party for every Tuesday night. Our buddy, Eddie Sarinbois taking people out to surf camp earlier Tuesday, Supio's got pickleball on Tuesday and Wednesday. Zaner's taking people out, go- kart racing on Wednesday, Ted Wacker's taking people golfing at his country club, monarch country club. So we got all this social stuff going on beforehand and then we got a full breakfast for everybody every morning, a full lunch for everybody every day and food trucks and live music. We're going to have our first 80 tracksuit dinner party hosted by Supio followed by the first ever 80s tracksuit pool party. That's right folks. You heard me right.

(: 29:42

Pool party just like an animal house in John Belugi. A pool party. But anyways, and we're going to have Satch Oliver Wild West party on Friday. Satche's bringing 500 pounds of olivagos beef. We got a mechanical bull, we got wood fire grills. Then finally Saturday night ski rooftop. I shouldn't say finally because Because then Sunday we're going to have brunch hosted by our buddy Scott Frost. So you see, we have all this going on socially and fun wise and learning wise, but what are you teaching Al?

Al Foeckler (: 30:09

So I'm teaching three or I have three presentations. One, Brett and I are going to do a deep dive in the wall collapse case and talk about the challenges that we had with that, how we got around the challenges, how we developed, how we got a $15 million verdict in a conservative jurisdiction.

Dan Ambrose (: 30:26

In Ozaku.

Al Foeckler (: 30:27

In Ozaki.

Dan Ambrose (: 30:28

Ozaki.

Al Foeckler (: 30:29

Ozaki.

Dan Ambrose (: 30:29

Get it right.

Al Foeckler (: 30:31

So that's the first presentation. Then I'm doing a presentation on building your scene to build your damages. So I'm going to actually teach what you teach as far as building out a scene in your opening statement so that you can properly build it for the jury. And as part of that, I will say that I'm also going to talk about that question that I talked about earlier is when is the best time to make the ask or state the value of the case? And I'm going to also officially disclose what I learned in Madrid at Jury Ball just in April where they've done a study now with 1300 jurors as far as when is the best time to do that number. So I'm going to talk about that during that presentation as well. Then the last presentation I'm doing with you.

Dan Ambrose (: 31:22

Wow. That's probably been a really great one.

Al Foeckler (: 31:24

Yeah. I'm excited for

Dan Ambrose (: 31:25

It.

Al Foeckler (: 31:25

Hopefully people will come. You know

Dan Ambrose (: 31:27

What? I'm

Al Foeckler (: 31:28

Hoping

Dan Ambrose (: 31:28

It'd be a draw because I have trouble getting a crowd.

Al Foeckler (: 31:31

But we're going to do witness prep. And direct examination. So we're going to do a deeper dive and introduce people to doing a witness prep that transports the witness back into a memory so that they're not only describing it, they're back in it and they're reliving it basically. Reliving it. Yeah. So they can describe it correctly to the jurors when you ultimately then get your direct examination set up and we'll talk about in direct examination how you're going to have scenes that develop from this witness prep and how you move through them. I don't want to say quickly, but efficiently.

Dan Ambrose (: 32:07

Efficiently.

Al Foeckler (: 32:08

Right. Efficiently. The story's not dragging because you don't want to bore jurors, but you want to get the information out and you want to move through these scenes so that the jurors are hearing and they're not only being told things, but they're feeling the things that the witness is feeling at the time because the witness is able to transport back on the stand and help convey those emotions with not just words, but with the way they're feeling, the way they're looking, emotional congruency, how their face looks. Those are all things that we'll talk about during that presentation.

Dan Ambrose (: 32:41

All right and you got some workshops.

Al Foeckler (: 32:42

And then doing one workshop again where I'm going to work with people on, I call it Black Hat Justice Opening. But again, this is going to be teaching, building out the scene and people are going to bring cases there and we're going to work on building out the scene. This is just how you and I worked on building out the scene of the senior living center. They can bring cases. We'll build out the scene of a car accident. We'll build out the scene of whatever so that they have part of their opening ready to go if they've got a trial coming up so that we can work through that and put that on.

Dan Ambrose (: 33:18

August 24th through 28th, Satch Oliver has come all the way from Arkansas to right here to Hermosa Beach to TLU Beach House. We're going to be teaching a five-day depositions our trial bootcamp. You're going to be working on your cases. Satchel's going to be working with you on your cases. So not only are you going to transform your case, but at the end of the day, it becomes a case expense because your case is going to get that much better. This program's limited to 10 participants. So if you want to come get registered today, we'll see you right here. And Al, I know you also are a TLU on demand subscriber and

Al Foeckler (: 34:03

Utilized

Dan Ambrose (: 34:04

That a bit and getting ready for trial. So how's TLU On Demand helped you become the eight figure trial lawyer that you sit here today?

Al Foeckler (: 34:13

It's invaluable. I mean, if you want practical just trial technique advice, there's that. If you want specific type of cases and how people work through different cases, whether it's a TBI or whether it's an auto case or anything, you can search on TLU on demand and it's there. You're going to find it and you're going to learn from the best people in the country who are teaching on this and get the information. And then not only that, then you know who to contact. Like you said, then you can watch it, get information, reach out to that person. They're more than willing to talk and offer help.

Dan Ambrose (: 34:50

Because it's also an app for your phone so you can use it anytime, anywhere.

Al Foeckler (: 34:55

I listen to it with my car. I mean, because it's an app so you can throw on an episode or not an episode, a presentation and listen to it while you're driving. So it's super convenient. Instead, you don't have to just watch the videos. You can just listen to them while you're driving.

Dan Ambrose (: 35:10

And a lot of people do that and it's probably 89% of the value.

(: 35:15

Obviously you want to be watching a video and driving, that would be dangerous, but you just kind of glance a little bit, have it in the background. You can always know when to rewind and watch a part again if you have to actually see the visual. And we also, with the subscription, also we get the file cloud folder that has all the pleadings, transcripts and PowerPoints for all these cases so you can see how Raleigh does a deposition or how Panish does his jury selection and all of his challenges for cause because he's in a trial right now and in the first two days he got like 65 challenges for costs

Al Foeckler (: 35:47

Because

Dan Ambrose (: 35:48

It's a double wrongful death of two children. And he's like, "Ambrose, these people, a lot of them, they think it's blood money when you ask me. " He's like, "It's amazing. I got to get rid of these people. " I'm like, "I know because it's so great to be able to hang out with people like the Panishs and the Freeds and Olivers are going to actually be at the conference and you get to know them because you're having breakfast, lunch and dinner with them and they're all so friendly. The vast majority of the people in this business are very kind, good people. You got your few super prima donnas that are somewhat unbearable that think that they're better than everybody else, but we all know who they are. I think it would be kind of lonely if you know.

Al Foeckler (: 36:27

That's not typical. That's not been my tip, but yeah, there are some. There are some.

Dan Ambrose (: 36:31

There are

Al Foeckler (: 36:31

Some,

Dan Ambrose (: 36:32

But we ask ... But we recognize with people, we generally tend not to invite them because there's not really

Al Foeckler (: 36:36

The

Dan Ambrose (: 36:37

Energy we're looking for at TLU.

Al Foeckler (: 36:39

We've got friendly and

Dan Ambrose (: 36:40

Inclusive energy.

Al Foeckler (: 36:41

The other thing I'm going to launch at TLU Beach this summer is lawyersinthearna.com, which is going to be a plaintiff's only newsletter that I'm going to put together with just different experiences that I've had, different lessons that I've learned from you, for example, and talk about different trial skills or maybe war stories. But also I think one of the other things that I really like to do, usually at the end of most of my discussions is I like to give somewhat of a motivational part of the presentation because what we do is hard work and I think ultimately that, for example, identifying a purpose beyond a goal. So your goal may be, " I want to win this trial. "Of course you want to win it, but if your purpose is you want to give a voice to people that don't have a voice, that's your purpose.

(: 37:41

And you hit a rough spot in a case or you've got to stay up all night to get ready for whatever. And when you can tap into that purpose and say," I'm going to work through this because it's for something bigger. "I mean, this is literally giving a voice to a person that, but for my me being up this late, wanting to go to bed, not having the energy to do it, wouldn't have a voice and that helps. That's been my experience and you write it down and you keep it and you go back and you identify it and you work through it. Or the shit that's going on around the country now and the attack on the Seventh Amendment and jury trials and Uber and wanting to take away people's ability to have representation, that is so important and is a higher calling as far as again, what we're doing is yes, we want to win and that's our number one goal, but don't take away people's rights to have their issue in front of a jury.

(: 38:46

We see it attacks all the time, especially like in Wisconsin with our caps. Why are the old white dudes in suits from the '90s deciding how much a kid is worth in Wisconsin and saying it's $500,000? Why isn't a jury making that decision? It makes no sense. And that's part of my calling as well is to get all those bullshit laws overturned and taken away.

Dan Ambrose (: 39:12

That would be a nice thing to do, Al. You

Al Foeckler (: 39:14

Keep

Dan Ambrose (: 39:14

Working on it. So Al, if people are making the big mistake of not coming to Taylor Beach to hang out with you in person, if somebody asks to get ahold of you, what's the best way to do that?

Al Foeckler (: 39:26

Two ways. Number one, go to lawyers in the arena.com and enter to get a newsletter. It's a plaintiff's only newsletter so you'll hear from me as part of that. Or you can call me on my mobile 405-7079 or email is A and then Feckler, F as in Frank, O-E-C-K-L-E-R @C like cat-d like doglaw.com-dlaw.com.

Dan Ambrose (: 39:57

Got it, got it, got it. Oh, and a couple things. So we give law students scholarships here at TLU Beach. So if you know a law student that would like to become a plaintiff's lawyer, you should have them submit a scholarship request to come to the greatest conference ever. And if you're a lawyer and it's not for whatever reason, the tuition for the conference is stopping you from coming. Well, if you give me a call on my cell at 248, 808, 3130 and explain the situation to me, I'm pretty sure I'll be able to help you out. So because money should not stop somebody from getting better because it's a long journey and if people had the skills, they'd likely would have the money too and the community, they better chance of getting the money. So we should keep that in mind and hopefully if you're listening to this, we'll see you in about three weeks at TLU Beach.

Al Foeckler (: 40:50

Thanks for what you do, man. I know it's tough love, but-

Dan Ambrose (: 40:54

Tough love. It's all lovely.

Al Foeckler (: 40:55

It's tough love. It is. Come

Dan Ambrose (: 40:57

On. Nothing but warm and fuzzy.

Al Foeckler (: 41:00

Oh yeah. No, no, no, no. The work you do is really important. We appreciate it.

Dan Ambrose (: 41:05

All right. You got it, Al. Thanks for visiting.

Al Foeckler (: 41:07

See

Dan Ambrose (: 41:07

You soon.

Al Foeckler (: 41:08

Thanks.