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Understanding Grief in Legal Advocacy with Lauren Hoffman of Simon Law Group · Justice Team Podcast

• 0:00
  Bob: Welcome to this episode of the Justice Team Podcast on the Justice Team Network. Today we're going to be talking to the grief counselor, attorney Lauren Hoffman, who is going to share with us some of her personal experience, how us out there can better connect with our clients, how they can understand.
• 0:01
  Bob: And law students out there listening, one of the big damage awards that you do get in jury trials is what we call general damages, which is pain, suffering, anxiety. Grief is one of the categories, especially in California that can specifically be awarded. Well, Lauren Hoffman, thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me.
• 0:02
  Lauren: And it was due to a negligent driver who was not wearing her prescription glasses at the time. And she sideswiped him. Um, and then his helmet actually broke. So when he fell down, he didn't even have a helmet to, was he
• 0:03
  Lauren: Oh, gosh. Well, first and foremost, I think we have to remember that it's such a privilege to get to walk through a season of grief with clients. Like, it's a huge deal, and I think a lot of times as lawyers, we're so rushed. Like, we have so many things to do that the last thing we're thinking of when we have discovery due is, Oh, I want to be my, my client's counselor.
• 0:04
  Bob: It's, it's a, it's an inconvenience when the lawyer, when the client is sharing with them all the problems that they're having. I mean, how is it a personality thing? How do we better get over that? I mean, can we use processes or Email texts that do it. Like what are some suggestions you can give us?
• 0:05
  Bob: Yes. It's the same service we should be giving our clients. Yes. Um, and, and like, I do think it's important whenever we're documenting. You know, because we're representing a lot of folks, we can't get that information lost. Yeah. So how are you using that so that a year, two years later when the case finally gets to trial that you don't forget about those early conversations that you've had with the client?
• 0:06
  Lauren: And even the small things like, especially when it comes to home visits and like making sure that you're taking a look at what's around you. And even just seeing the small things that, you know, have made it hard on your client. Um, whatever it may be.
• 0:07
  Lauren: And I think it's one of those things where. And a lot of times you're not necessarily thinking about that in the stage of litigation. You know, you're not thinking about, okay, this is really important for trial, because you're not thinking from a trial perspective when you're doing discovery, but, um, I work with attorney Savi Fisher and he talks all the time about how important it is that we're constantly thinking about trial.
• 0:08
  Bob: professionals that they can use to go through their grief counseling and Because lawyers always ask me like, you know, I have a wrongful death case Should I send them to like this high paid psychologist? Like what are some things that you think we could be doing for our clients? Um, that are when you're not the grief counselor
• 0:09
  Bob: com. We're not, they don't sponsor the show, but like we use Ease to deliver marijuana here in California. I guess. Real quick, Siri, can you send me a reminder in 10 minutes to order some E's Cannabis products so I can sleep at night? Sorry, I had it reminded me.
• 0:10
  Bob: So is that an edible? Because an ed, not edible, editable, editable document, whereas the story changes, it's like writing a movie script, right?
• 0:11
  Bob: Yeah. And one thing, you know, when we talk about medical professionals for our clients, my personal preference. Is rather than go to that normally retained psychologist is to have somebody go to a true therapist of, you know, somebody, I always think about what a, what would a person do if they went through and lost a loved one, they go to church, they go through the church therapist, they would go to the local therapist, somebody that they can talk to, and just my experience being a trial lawyer is, it's very powerful when you have a person that comes in, that's not this polished psychologist that went to Yale and has all this fancy things like, no, they're just in the community.