Giving the Big Bad Wolf a Friendly Face

This may come as a shock to you, but most of the companies that hire us aren’t typically viewed by jurors as the “warm and fuzzy” types. And you'd better believe the other side does everything they can to paint them as “greedy corporations,” "monstrous institutions," or the “big bad wolf” salivating as it prepares to devour yet another vulnerable plaintiff.

Most often, these descriptions of "profit-driven corporate behemoths" help to paint a David-and-Goliath struggle, pitting plaintiff vs. defendant in a battle with seemingly impossible odds.

What the other side tends to forget is that there are a lot of friendly faces behind that so-called behemoth. No matter how big the hospital or the company, the fact remains that the people who work there – especially in healthcare – chose their careers according to what they believed would help other people. Nurses, especially, certainly aren’t doing it for the money or the easy hours.

We encourage all of our clients to do everything possible to humanize the defendants, to show that they are just as vulnerable as the sympathetic family in the Day in the Life video. Pictures of smiling nurses in an opening statement PowerPoint and, even better, those same compassionate nurses sitting in the courtroom audience day after day help to make the adversarial plaintiff-defendant relationship about people vs. people rather than people vs. “The Man.”

Even more can be done when witnesses are on the stand. Asking why nurses love nursing, especially labor and delivery, has evoked some powerful responses: “I treat them all like my daughters.” The same goes for doctors, although it must be said that knowing these responses in advance is key. We still shudder a bit when we remember the ER doc who reported choosing medicine because “nothing else seemed that interesting.”

Jurors don’t want to hear about caregivers who went into medicine by default – they want to hear about a passion for patient care. Our experience has taught us that along with that enthusiasm for helping people, jurors also respond well to credentials, experience, and training.

During a trial we monitored last year, simply labeling the labor and delivery nurses as “Level III” instantly established a credibility the plaintiffs couldn’t tarnish – and believe me, they tried their hardest.

So we urge clients to make every effort to humanize your organization – no matter if it’s an insurance company, hospital, or even a major financial institution – and demonstrate that just like the plaintiffs are people with families and feelings and dreams, the people who work there - espeically those who provided care - are as well.

-Claire Luna