Menu
Sayed et al. v. Helmbright, Collin County, Texas – Charles Bennett Trial Lawyer
Ilya Lerma : Chuck, what would make you think it’s a good idea to step into a case less than one week before trial, and think you could do an amazing job or actually increase value?
Charles Bennett: I’m Crazy? Well, the lawyer that brought it to me is a good friend of mine, and he’s a really good lawyer. But he hadn’t tried a case in a while. At first, the idea was for us to kind of do the case together. But then as we got into it, we decided that I would do more and more because he sensed that the way I was doing things was dramatically different than what he’d ever done.
And this was the first time that I had done a trial from beginning to end with just me. In the past, I’d always had co-counsel, and we’d always split roles. And there were always issues where, for example I would do voir dire and opening and my co-counsel would do closing, and it was kind of mismatched. They didn’t know the structure, and they didn’t know what I was doing. It was kind of competing tactics in the courtroom that I didn’t think led well for success.
So in this case I got to do everything the way I wanted to do it, and I thought it worked out great when everything came together at the end.
Ilya Lerma: Yeah, obviously. You just trounced their last pre-trial offer. What was the final result?
Charles Bennett: The total verdict for both plaintiffs was $445,000. And they actually raised the offer right before trial to a little over 19,000. Although he was permanently hurt, my client did not have significant amounts of past meds –– for an ER bill, 3 months of chiropractic care, 3 visits to an orthopedic, and an MRI –– all of which I non-suited right before voir dire. And then we went through voir dire and voir dire went fantastic. I had a room full of conservative jurors in a conservative county that were explaining to me and telling me how lawsuits were needed for holding people accountable. They kept saying, “You got to do what you got to do and hold people accountable, even if it involves a lawsuit.”
And so I had them kind of really understanding things from the beginning. And I think that the defense lawyer, when she got up in voir dire after I sat down and she goes –– “Who here thinks that someone can be at fault for a crash, but not be negligent?” –– that didn’t go over well.
So the adjuster calls us after voir dire and asks us for a new demand. They were obviously feeling a little bit of pressure. And we ended up with the $325,000 verdict for my plaintiff and the other co-plaintiff got 120,000 for his verdict. A fantastic result, especially with the amount of medical care and that it had stopped in 2017.
Ilya Lerma: So it’s an incredible result when you put those additional facts on it. What is it the Justice College did for this case? How do you explain to people how it enhances value?
Charles Bennett: You know, we try to explain this a lot. And you and me and Alejandro, and all the consultants within Justice College, Kyle [Sherman], Brett [Turnbull], and Jamie [Holland], we all kind of sit around say “How do we explain this in a way that other people can get it?” We understand it because we live it every day. But how do we explain this?
And I think what’s come to me lately is, it’s about perspective and context. Perspective is where do we want the jury looking, at the plaintiff or the defense? And then context is, what do we want the jury seeing when they look in the direction we want?
So for example, negative attribution from psychology teaches us that anywhere humans are focused, they’re going to break down the way that person is acting. So if the jury looks at the defense, they’re going to negatively attribute towards the defense and go, “They shouldn’t have done that.”
So we want the Jury looking at the defense. But then what kind of world do we want them seeing is the context. And that’s where the accountability – responsibility comes in. If you go to any of those jurors that were in that room in voir dire and you say, just blanket statement when you first meet, “What do you think about lawsuits?” They’re gonna say, “I hate lawsuits. Lawsuits are bad. Plaintiff’s lawyers like you increase insurance and make things harder and more expensive for all of us.”
But if you give them the context of “What do we do, when somebody hurts one of us and refuses to be responsible? What do we do?” Then all of them to a person would understand, “you got to hold them accountable.” And that’s because they have the context.
Ilya Lerma: Did the lawyers that you were working with notice the shift in the case after you came in and structured it and worked your magic?
Charles Bennett: Well, I changed a lot. I settled out a couple of plaintiffs and I non-suited certain things. So there was a big change in that week from when I started to kind of what the case was at trial. But I think the biggest proof of an effect was the lawyer for the co-plaintiff, who didn’t know me at all before this –– we met at the beginning of trial, right before voir dire. He was sitting there next to me, and he wanted to go first the whole trial. And he went first for voir dire. And then I got up. And after I finished he came over and said, “Okay, you’re going first the whole trial.” And he’s a very experienced trial lawyer. He’s a very smart guy, and he’s had a bunch of good results at trial.
But I think he could just sense that there was something going on, there was a connection with the jurors, and we were moving things in the right direction together.
You know, Ilya, you talk a lot about experiencing the structure from the inside. The Structure acts as a shield and a sword. It organizes our information so that we can present it to the jury as a sword against the defense. But it also shields us against anything the defense does. And once we got into the trial, I felt like I was in a bubble with the jurors within the structure. We were moving together with it.
Ilya Lerma: It’s hard with lawyers who ask, what is Justice College? I mean, we get that question all the time. And it is difficult to explain because it’s one of those things that it’s tough to explain from the outside. But once you experience it, it changes everything. It changes your perspective. It changes your sense of effectiveness.
What are the things that you would tell plaintiff’s lawyers who have heard aboutJustice College, that are seeing other lawyers applying Justice College and getting great results? What do you tell them to help them see that this is a worthwhile investment, that this is something that, if they’re dedicated to it, it will make a difference for them. And the level of experience, whether they’re newbie, or they’ve been practicing for 30 years, really doesn’t matter once they get a handle on how to apply it. What do you say to them?
Charles Bennett: I would say that nothing the defense did over three days surprised me in that trial. I was prepared for everything they did. And in fact, the defense was mostly irrelevant throughout the trial, except that they reinforced what I was saying by what they were doing.
And that’s the power of the Structure. It’s that, it’s like they’re in quicksand. And we put them in the quicksand so the more they move, the more they struggle to try to prove their case, the worse things get for them and the worse the jury sees them.
When I got up for first closing, the jury was paying attention. They were with me. They were connected. But they were still for the most part – not moving. Just focused and still. Then the defense, when he got up for closing, he spent, half the time on liability, and the other half was like 90% the other co-plaintiff’s medical bills and 10% on my client. He told them my client deserved zero, but he was afraid if he said that the jury would split the baby and give half of what I asked for.
So when I got up for rebuttal and started through the rebuttal structure, more than half of the jurors were nodding along pretty vigorously with me. So something happened from first opening to rebuttal that I think convinced these people that everything I had said was going on the last three days was true. And I think they really, really needed to hold the defense accountable. They only deliberated for 2 hours.
Ilya Lerma: What do you think happened?
Charles Bennett: Well, the defense did not do much of an opening. It was just the, “Wait for the rest of the story” opening that we hear a lot. And the defense lawyer kept telling me throughout trial, “Just wait until my closing. That’s my bread and butter. I do the same thing every time, and it works.”
So I think what happened is that when he got up to do his closing, it was really the first time the jury had heard most of his arguments for why he thought the way he did about the case. And it fit perfectly into the structure of what I had been saying since the very beginning. I think everything clicked for the Jurors and the defense finally shed all of its sheep’s clothing to show a very sickly old wolf.
Ilya Lerma: Well, I think it’s a phenomenal result. I’m very happy for you. And I’m happy for Justice College that now that COVID restrictions have allowed some of our cases to get back to trial that our colleagues have another weapon in the arsenal to be able to finally deliver some justice on behalf of their clients. So congratulations.
Charles Bennett
Charles Bennett: Thank you. And I…you know, one more thing about your last question “What would I say to other lawyers?” as we’re coming out of a year and a half of not trying cases. A lot of people are talking about how our juries are going to react to this new kind of narrative within the country?
Justice College gave me a plan from beginning to end for how to try that case. I picked it up, and in a week, I had my voir dire, opening, closing and rebuttal. I knew exactly what I needed to prove in evidence with my witnesses. I called every witness in the whole case. I directed 5 witnesses, including our doctor, and I crossed 2 – the defendant and her daughter-in-law. I did all 7 witnesses in one day. So it was quick, efficient, and very effective.
Everything was planned out and mapped out, and nothing changed within the trial. I did not change a single thing in response to anything the defense did. From beginning to end, I knew exactly what I was going to do from the moment I stood up in voir dire. And that’s exactly what I did until I sat down at the end of rebuttal. That level of preparation and planning to me is worth its weight in gold because I don’t think any other program is that comprehensive. No other program I’ve heard of is even close to as powerful as Justice College.
Ilya Lerma: Now I’m gonna have to agree with you on that one.
To view the verdict, click here
