The Event of the Year: Trial Lawyers University’s 2022 Conference
Every lawyer should continue learning, improving, and honing their skills. What’s on the calendar to help you level up this year?
Get ready for one of the most anticipated events of 2022: Trial Lawyers University’s Live Vegas 2022 conference.
Dan Ambrose is here to share all of the details, from dates, to speakers, to connection opportunities, with plenty of chances to learn, have fun, and express gratitude to your fellow lawyers.
The TLU event is going to feature six lecture tracks and 24 different breakout rooms with over 50 top-ranked trial lawyers in the nation, including Joseph Fried, Rex Parris, and Brian Panish. This conference allows you to choose your own learning track and soak up everything you can from some of the leading experts in the field.
Listen to this episode of The Judd Shaw Way Podcast with Judd Shaw featuring Dan Ambrose, Co-founder of Trojan Horse Method. Dan shares everything you need to know about the Trial Lawyers University conference, the exciting events that are taking place at the conference, and why attending events like this is valuable for your law career.
In this episode:
- [0:36] Judd Shaw introduces his guest, Dan Ambrose
- [0:50] Dan talks about the big Trial Lawyers University event coming up in October
- [3:15] How Trial Lawyers University fosters community, joy, and gratitude
- [6:04] The three legs to a conference: learning, Having fun, and networking
- [7:49] Dan shares the details of the Trial Lawyers University conference
- [11:30] The work that Dan put into this upcoming conference
Transcript
Welcome to the show. I’m your host Judd Shaw, and I have a special guest on, Dan Ambrose, Trial Lawyers University. Dan, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Judd.
Let’s get to it. Huge event this October, TLU. Tell us about it.
Well, I’ve been going to conferences for 25 years. I remember going and we always say, “Hey, I learn one new thing, one nugget, it’s worth it.” And about eight years ago or so, I started my own conferences, little tiny workshops, though, maybe 15, 20 people called Trojan Horse Method. But I would go to a lot of conferences because I needed to meet lawyers to tell them about my program. And every time I’d go to conference, so many things they do there, I was just so disappointed. I’m like, “Why did they do this? Why do they do this?” And then when I started my own conferences, I had the chance to fix everything that I didn’t like about other people’s. And TLU Vegas, that is the culmination of my entire life’s work of learning and trying to spread knowledge for trial lawyers.
You have over 50 of some of the greatest litigators, the star legends in the country there.
That’s correct. I mean, we’ve got Joe Fried, John Romano, Keith Mitnick.
The list just goes on and on.
Brian Panish, Rahul Ravipudi, Rex Parris, Khail Parris, Roger Dodd, Sean Claggett, Randi McGinn, Zoe Littlepage.
And the format, you have presentations, but then there are going to be amazing really in-depth breakout sessions.
That’s correct. So we’re going to have six lecture tracks that are going to be those types of presentations where people like Phil Miller who wrote a book on a subject like focus groups and depositions will be teaching on that topic. Mark Kosieradzki, he’s written three books on elder abuse, deposition obstruction and 30(b)(6)s, so he’s going to be teaching two different lectures that are three hours each. So basically people who are the foremost experts in their field will be dropping that knowledge. But when you give somebody three hours-
Incredible.
… they have a responsibility to teach a lot because if somebody’s giving them that much of their time, and the great thing is these people are teachers. They’re not just great trial lawyers, but they’re great. And there’s a difference between a teacher and a trial lawyer. And sometimes it overlaps, but sometimes it doesn’t. But these people are really there to teach, to help transform people’s lives.
It’s just incredible how much they pay it forward. They just give back to raise the plaintiff bar.
Well, that is really so true. I think maybe the pandemic had something to do with it. People were alone and people realized how much we need each other, how much we need community, how much we need to be around other people to find our happiness. And for so many of us, giving breeds the joy. Things that give me great joy are when somebody calls me up as a criminal defense lawyer and they use some of my voir dires or some of my cross examinations that I shared with them and they’re like, “Dude, I got a not guilty. This guy’s at home with his family now instead of locked in a jail cell this Christmas.
Right, right.
I mean those things mean so much to me. Or somebody that’s a plaintiff’s lawyer when they tell me about a great verdict they got and how much of the stuff that they used that they learned in the Trial Lawyers University either in person conference last year or even from all the webinars that we have and how they just put it into practice on their own cases.
We all identify wealth in different ways. And one way is course is money. We all want money. And I tell you, if you don’t want to be rich in America, well you’re just not a capitalist. Because if you get rich, that means you created that much value for others. But another currency that I think that trial lawyers really exchange in is the feeling of good. That when you do for others and you get no money, you just get the gratitude. That means so much.
All boats rise, right?
Right.
It’s also the fact that you have created an ability to … It’s beyond networking. I’ve been to a TLU event here, and there’s a conference going on with Trial Lawyers College and the fact that everybody, there’s a reputation that the PI firms, bigger firms, they’re trying to eat each other. Billboard after billboard, they’re competing with each other. They’re sharks. And then you come to one of these events and you realize that is such a stereotype. These are a group of bright individuals that are really trying to help each other because they’re fighting for the same cause. They’re fighting against the same enemy. It’s eye-opening about how much people really just are here to give back to each other.
That’s so true. But just so we’re really clear that this is not the Trial Lawyers College, this is Trial Lawyers University. Because that’s a very different organization. But folks here really are into giving back and it really is about community. Let’s be honest, what trial lawyer doesn’t want to be brought into a great case? I mean, we all do for the challenge, for the fun. And who doesn’t want to make money? I mean, like I said, I want the world to be a greater place, but I’m also a capitalist. I want to be rich, like everybody else. I just have a different vehicle.
You go to TLU event and you’ve created an ability for also connections to happen.
I look at conferences that there’s three legs to a conference. One is learning. You want to learn things that transform your lives to help you become a better trial or do better for your clients. Two is having fun. I mean, we work so damn hard. This is such a hard job. The mental drain and the weight of having so much responsibility and so much organization, it’s a lot. So we get a chance to have fun, especially with our colleagues. But then there’s the third aspect of networking, of making new friends from around the country. Because the older you get, we’re pretty close to the same age, the harder it is to make friends. I mean, we don’t have the time to spend with people. Everybody’s got their own very distinct personality and it takes time to be with somebody and doing things to create a friendship.
That’s what TLU, I think we really work on doing, is creating those opportunities to create natural friendships. One of the things we do is we do the breakout groups where these small group workshops with a great trial and maybe eight students and they have two Zoom meetups before their actual conference. So that way, they start to get to know each other, start to work on the projects, get invested in what they’re doing. But another thing I ask everybody to do that comes is to write a personal bio to tell everybody who’s coming, who they are, where they came from, what their interests are, what jobs they had before they became a trial lawyer. And people can share whatever they want or they don’t have to share anything at all, but the people that do share, my goal is that we all have so much in common, we just don’t know it. And if we just identify the things earlier, it makes it easy to become friends with people, because we all want to have more friends.
The event at October 2022, Wynn Hotel, right?
No, it’s October 26th through 29th.
2022, right?
Right. It’s at the Mandalay Bay. We have the entire third floor of the convention center.
Hold on. I want to start over on that one. So, TLU Vegas. It’s at the end of October this year, right? Wynn Hotel.
Apparently you have trouble with the English language.
Yes.
I said Mandalay Bay.
Mandalay Bay?
Mandalay Bay.
Shit, I made the wrong fucking reservation.
Oh, that’s all right. I’m sure you can still get your full money back.
TLU at the end of-
I know you’ll be at the Four Seasons connected to the Mandalay Bay. You’re like, I can’t … You know what? You know me well.
TLU at the end of October this year, Mandalay Bay. What are the dates?
October 26th to 29th.
Okay. How do you sign up?
You go to triallawyersuniversity.com. There’s a menu. Hit TLU live or you can go directly to TLUlive.com.
Okay. And room blocks at the Mandalay?
We’ve got a great room block. We’ve got about 300 rooms. I think it’s about 165 a night. So, we got a tremendous price. You can stay at the Mandalay Bay or at the Delano, which is connected. It’s the same price for the rooms. It’s a great hotel. It’s like a city within itself.
What’s the overall event look like?
Well, we’re going to have six lecture tracks. Joe Fried is going to run, he’s helping put together the trucking track and he’s getting his greatest trucking lawyers from around the country to not only just do lecture presentation, but they’re going to do multiple workshops because I have 24 breakout group workshop rooms. So during the entire three days of the event, the 27th, the 28th, the 29th, in the morning, the afternoon, every day will be a three and a half hour workshop. There are going to be 24 of those going on simultaneously, which is so exciting because that’s what we’re doing here. Everybody’s just getting so much out of the small group work because they have the interaction with a great lawyer and working on their cases or working on certain issues and just being in the small group, getting up and presenting.
Like I said, we have six lecture tracks, 24 breakout rooms. We’re going to have a med mal dedicated track. Rex Parris is going to have a Parris trial track. Rex Parris is a genius of a lawyer and there’s so many great lawyers that work around him, like Bruce Schechter, Khail Parris, Alex Wheeler, Jason Fowler, and they’re going to presenting on the Parris trial college track, both lectures and workshops because they’re right now doing a workshop, Bruce Schechter and Eric Wilson on negative space. This deposition methodology they created just every … I mean people subscribe to TLU on demand just so they can watch those videos on negative space. A lot people call me and say, “I do this negative space stuff too. This expert totally changed the dimension of the case.” I’m like, “That’s so awesome.” So, we’ve got six lecture tracks, 24 breakout rooms, I think probably have between 800 and 1000 people.
And if I know you well, it’s not going to just be all work.
No. In the exhibit hall, I try to make the exhibit hall fun because I want people to be able to get together. So we have live music every night. We have a bar in the center of the exhibit hall that we open up at 5:00. We have eight bartenders so nobody ever waits for a cocktail at Trial Lawyers University, because that’s one thing that drives me nuts at these other conferences. I’m like, “I’ve been working my ass off my whole life and I don’t need to wait in line for half an hour and spend half the party waiting in line.” I think it’s so crazy that these conferences do that because they’re so concerned about spending money on the drinks. I’m like, if you’re going to be concerned about spending money on drinks, you shouldn’t throw a conference frankly. I mean if that’s what your concern is, just let other people handle it for you.
Right, right. Breakfast, lunch kind of deal, things of that nature.
Yeah. Here we’re going to have feed them a full breakfast, full lunch, cocktail party with appetizers.
Unbelievable. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be huge.
Whatever I do, I try to be the best at what I’m doing. I used to be a house painter. I tried to be the Michelangelo of house painters, be the best house painter there ever was. I was just a house painter. Now I put together conferences for trial lawyers. So I try to think of everything that would make a conference great, because you’ve got three participants at a conference. You’ve got the attendees. So I talked about what they want. But you’ve got the speakers. I mean, speakers want to connect with people. They want to share knowledge. They get the joy of doing that and have a great time. And then you’ve got the exhibitors. And the exhibitors, they have valuable skills and services that we need as trial lawyers. But if we don’t get an opportunity to meet folks and get to know folks, they’re not going to get any business because we’re all in the trust business.
Clients trust us with their lives. We hire a vendor, we hire a court reporter company, we hire a graphics person. We trust them that they’re going to make a good stenography or a great exhibit. We’ve got a lot of the line. Our clients trust us with their lives.
I’ve got to tell you, Dan, I will say bluntly, that if there is a trial lawyer out there and they don’t sign up for TLU Vegas, they’re doing their client an injustice. They are leaving something on the table, whether it be money, quality of representation, client service. They are doing their client a disservice by not being at TLU Vegas. It’s that big.
I appreciate you saying that, Judd. I hope you’re having a great time at the first PSBR Trial College. I love this event. I try to make every event better than the one that preceded it. We did the Parris Trial College about three months ago and it was great. It was the best event ever been to.
The relationships that I’ve made, the knowledge that I’ve gained, the ideas that are popping in my … It’s almost too much.
It’s so exciting, isn’t it?
It’s so exciting.
But to know it’s all here for us.
I love it.
You know what I’m saying? It’s all here.
I love it.
It’s only going to get better.
I love it.
Because now we even have a better community of people that contribute and everybody’s important. People thank me for these conferences. I’m like, “I appreciate your gratitude, but the reality is without you, without people that want to learn, that people want to grow, people that want to connect, it doesn’t work.” Doesn’t matter how nice a hotel is, how great the food is, without people that want to participate, none of it matters.
Well, I still thank you. I thank you for allowing me to even be a part of it. I thank you for coming on my show. I thank you for letting me know about Vegas. I am signed up. I can’t wait to see you there. Dan Ambrose, you are a beautiful human being.
Thanks, Judd. I appreciate it. All right, man. Take care.
🎙️ Meet Your Host 🎙️
Name: Judd B. Shaw
What he does: Judd founded Judd Shaw Injury Law (JSIL) and serves as the firm’s Brand Chief. He founded the firm on the premise that clients come first. Over the years, the success he attained for his clients helped JSIL grow significantly. Judd’s clients are not just another number to him or his law firm.
Company: Judd Shaw Injury Law
Words of wisdom: “At Judd Shaw Injury Law, it’s all about high-quality representation and excellence in client service. Our clients are counting on us to win and the stakes are high. Our endless pursuit for awesomeness through our core values, the ability to WOW our clients, is in our DNA.”
🎙️ Featured Guest 🎙️
Name: Dan Ambrose
Short Bio: Dan is the Co-founder of Trojan Horse Method. He started out as a criminal defense lawyer in Detroit, Michigan, attending programs such as the National Criminal Defense College, Western Trial Advocacy Institute, and Gerry Spence’s Trial Lawyer’s College. Through 20 years of practice, Dan developed a unique method to help trial lawyers master their skills. With the Trojan Horse workshops, Dan helps lawyers hone both their trial skills and technical skills in a small group setting.
Company: Trojan Horse Method — Trial Lawyers University
Connect: LinkedIn
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