Satisfied with being an average trial attorney? This isn't the podcast for you.
Welcome to Trial Lawyers University (TLU), the ultimate playbook for lawyers that want to achieve trial immortality. Hosted by TLU founder and veteran trial attorney Dan Ambrose, this power-packed podcast features in-depth interviews with Top Ranked Trial Lawyers, including Brian Panish, Keith Mitnik, Joe Fried, Zoe Littlepage, Rex Parris, John Romano, Sach Oliver, Jakob Norman, Dino Colombo, Lloyd Bell, Chris Finney, David Christensen, and more. In each episode, you’ll gain invaluable trial insights, strategies, and tactics directly from the titans of trial.
Ready to join the group that continues to dominate the trial world? Register for our live conferences and boot camps at triallawyersuniversity.com. And while you are waiting for the main event, jumpstart your journey to victory now by going to TLUonDemand.com for instant access to live lectures, case analysis, skills training videos, expert depositions, jury selection, transcripts, pleadings, and more strategic insight to apply to every stage of litigation! Access is limited to attorneys for plaintiffs and criminal defendants. To begin your journey, all you need is a web browser.
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The Business Blind Spot Lawyers Have with Andrew Pickett & Jenn Gore
Episode 129
Tuesday, October 27, 2026 • Duration 41:18
Four years ago, Jenn Gore came to Trial Lawyers University running a volume pre-lit firm in Atlanta, looking to build up its litigation department. Since then, she grew Atlanta Personal Injury into one of the largest female-owned firms in the country, sold it to Sweet James, and left firm ownership to coach lawyers full-time. Back at TLU in Huntington Beach, Jenn reunites with guest host Andrew Pickett, one of her first coaching clients. Their conversation turns to a blind spot she sees again and again: brilliant trial lawyers who struggle to run a business. Tune in to hear why Jenn says owning a firm comes with a fiduciary duty to be a good business owner.
After meeting Dan Ambrose through Darryl Isaacs at a mastermind, Jenn came to TLU in 2022 while running a volume pre-lit firm in Atlanta, eager to build up its litigation department.
Building a personal brand gave Jenn an asset that outlasted the sale of her firm Atlanta Personal Injury, and she explains why every owner should build one.
In her coaching, Jenn pushes owners to get visibility into six areas of their firm, plus one wild card factor that no two firms share.
Contingency practice demands what Jenn calls nerves of steel, and she breaks down the financial realities that make it such a hard business to run.
Looking ahead to 2030, Jenn is building out Evergreen's services, including fractional COOs who want to coach others on being the number two in command.
Who are you using as an unqualified therapist? Jenn poses that question to people who avoid therapy, then shares why she is now exploring EMDR.
Owning a firm brings duties beyond the courtroom, and Jen has blunt advice for trial lawyers who only want to try cases.
Built For The Fight – The Long Road to Becoming a Top Trucking Lawyer and Securing a $96.75 Million Settlement
Episode 128
Thursday, October 22, 2026 • Duration 55:30
The defense blamed a 16-year-old mother for the crash that left her 10-month-old daughter paralyzed from the chest down. But Joe Camerlengo of The Truck Accident Law Firm saw it differently: Would a jury blame her, or the truck driver who had driven 29 of the previous 31 hours? Joe and his team turned down $90 million before settling just shy of $100 million the Friday before trial. A former insurance defense lawyer who now exclusively handles trucking cases, Joe joins host Dan Ambrose to explain how they valued the case and stood by that valuation. He also shares how “clean language” can turn a truck driver into a damages witness and why intensive client prep can increase case value.
The Gray Questions: How Sharif Gray Wins Million-Dollar Verdicts in Cases Other Lawyers Turn Down
Episode 127
Thursday, October 22, 2026 • Duration 39:37
The city’s best offer was $50,000 for a case most lawyers wouldn’t take. Sharif Gray’s team represented a homeless client who had spent 17 years in prison and gone at least six months without treatment after a library railing gave way behind him — and persuaded the jury to award $2 million. A former Army JAG now practicing at Gray Broughton Injury Law, Sharif joins host Dan Ambrose to explain the four questions his firm uses to build difficult cases. Drawing on that verdict and a $20 million result for a 13-year-old dragged at a psychiatric facility, he shows how disciplined case framing and getting your reps in the courtroom can accelerate a trial lawyer’s growth.
☑️ TLU On Demand Instant access to live lectures, case analysis, and skills training videos
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Hunting Discomfort in Life with Sterling Hawkins
Episode 126
Wednesday, October 21, 2026 • Duration 36:16
In his early twenties, Sterling Hawkins and his father sold the company they built to a Silicon Valley group and raised over $550 million. When the housing market collapsed, so did the company, and Sterling went from a penthouse to his parents' house. At rock bottom, he chose to turn toward discomfort. Now the bestselling author of Hunting Discomfort and creator of No Matter What Adventures, Sterling joins host Dan Ambrose as the first non-lawyer guest on Trial Lawyers University. He shares how discomfort is a muscle that can be exercised and explains how to take that first step with a “no matter what” commitment. Tune in for insights on how a pattern interrupt can reignite a lawyer's spark.
Kurt Zaner - Slaying Dragons Daily in Life and Law
Episode 125
Monday, October 5, 2026 • Duration 56:58
Nine jurors blamed Kurt Zaner's client, a homeless man sleeping under a trailer, not the truck driver who ran him over. Still, when Kurt visited him afterwards, the man was as happy as if he'd won $10 million because someone had finally fought for him. That spirit drives Dragon Slayers, the listserv that Kurt, a Colorado trial lawyer and TLU instructor, built with inspiration from a fantasy author. Members share wins, raw losses, and referrals, guided by ideals like putting the journey before the destination and accepting that some clients cannot be saved. Tune in as Kurt tells host Dan Ambrose what AI still can't do on cross and how befriending defense counsel can mean less fight back.
Eric Oliver - Can you tell the STORY INSIDE your case?
Episode 124
Saturday, September 26, 2026 • Duration 59:47
About half of any jury pool arrives assuming the game is rigged, and trial consultant Eric Oliver says you can't deny it. In his 41st year working with trial attorneys, Eric joins host Dan Ambrose to preview his new book, Assuming It to Be True, which tackles two hurdles jurors bring into the courtroom: unspoken assumptions and impaired attention. Eric explains why lawyers should approach every case as if it were a punitive case and frame damages as the deserved consequences of the defendant's wrongful conduct. Tune in to hear how the name you give the defendants can make their wrongdoing look worse, and how too much good evidence once cost a case against a cigarette company.
What We Got From the TLU Performance Skills Bootcamp
Episode 123
Monday, September 21, 2026 • Duration 53:18
According to host Dan Ambrose, now is the "greatest time ever to become a trial lawyer" because all the strategy is out there. Fresh off his 59th five-day bootcamp, the TLU founder debriefs four working trial lawyers who came in frustrated by inconsistent verdicts, out-of-state competitors landing nine-figure results, and ingrained habits like rushing through openings. Using a truck versus motorcycle wrongful death case to practice opening statements and performance skills, they drilled the fundamentals that carry across every aspect of trial, from pace and breath to micro-connecting with jurors and creating space so a scene comes alive. Tune in to find out how mastering control of yourself can help deliver more impact in the courtroom.
Fresh off bootcamp number 59, Dan explains that the same core skills of eye contact, hand movement, and voice control carry across all aspects of trial.
Seven, Eight-Figure Verdicts. Nine Figure Settlement. So Why Attend Trial Skills Boot Camp?
Episode 122
Thursday, July 23, 2026 • Duration 59:00
After 26 years trying cases, and several scheduled attempts he never followed through on, Sagi Shaked finally attended a Trial Lawyers University bootcamp, inspired partly by his son Tomer, an incoming Georgetown Law student who trained alongside him. In this conversation with host Dan Ambrose, Sagi shares what he took from five days of training: mastering the rhythm and hand placement of cross-examination, building visual space and illusion of movement, and practicing witness prep that helps a witness relive, rather than recall, an event. He also explains how he applies these lessons to building traumatic brain injury cases, distinguishing them from routine orthopedic claims. Tune in for insights on cross-examination, courtroom visuals, and witness prep.
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TLU Claude Bootcamp with Stephen King and HMK's Shemia Fagan
Episode 121
Saturday, July 11, 2026 • Duration 01:48:10
From failed minister to car salesman to Oregon Secretary of State,Shemia Fagan has taken one of the more unconventional roads to plaintiff employment law. Now managing partner of six HKM Employment Attorneys offices and running over 200 active cases as the sole attorney on her team, Shemia joins guest hostStephen King and her partnerMatthew Westerbeck to show how she does it: with Claude. Together they walk through a practical framework for trial lawyers — using the acronym TRIAL — covering AI-driven triage, research, intake review, advocacy prep, and continuous learning. Tune in for concrete strategies on email automation, judge simulation, deposition prep, and how AI frees lawyers to focus on the human skills no machine can replace.
Trial Mindset: Reframe. Reaffirm. Reawaken. With Przemek Lubecki and Michael Cowen
Episode 120
Friday, June 26, 2026 • Duration 48:03
Depression. Insecurity. Seven-figure verdicts that didn't feel like enough. Michael Cowen — national trucking lawyer, trial veteran with 130+ cases, and host of his own podcast — had achieved the kind of success most lawyers dream about, and it still wasn't working for him psychologically. The turning point came when he stopped chasing a specific result and started trusting the process. In this conversation with guest host Przemek Lubecki, recorded live at TLU Huntington Beach 2026, Michael opens up about the mindset overhaul that unlocked eight-figure verdicts, the mantra he still repeats while waiting for a judge to take the bench, and the firm-wide case review system he uses to prevent his lawyers from undersettling cases.
Raised by a nurse and a brick and block mason after his father was killed in Vietnam, Joe lived in a tent twice: once by choice and once after his family lost everything.
Seven years at one of State Farm's largest outside defense firms trained Joe to believe that soft tissue injuries didn't exist — until his own crash left him with one.
Joe’s first tractor trailer case, the death of a 19-year-old on a county road, ended with a national trucking company agreeing never to run double trailers on Florida county roads again.
Borrowed from psychology, Joe explains that the clean language style of questioning draws out what witnesses would rather not describe, and how he’s made it work over Zoom and through an interpreter.
Rather than crucify the truck driver, Joe asks permission to save the crash for the end of the deposition, a show of respect that gets the driver to draw the damages picture.
The same injury that makes a $1 million car wreck case can make a $5 or $10 million trucking case, Joe says, if you do the trucking case right and get to the aggravated liability issues.
Joe's witness prep runs at least three full days, moving from learning the client's story to a hard cross, and then building them back up with themes that can answer any attack.
Clients who testify with all five senses let jurors picture their own homes and families. That shared common experience, according to Joe, is how these cases are won big.
Attending TLU Vegas on a scholarship in 2022 opened Sharif's eyes to what was possible in personal injury law, sending him home with more than 20 takeaways for his colleagues.
Why does Sharif's firm hire former criminal lawyers? They already know the hard stuff, from taking a witness to getting in front of a jury, and can learn civil procedure in about three to six months.
AI is here to stay, according to Sharif, whose firm uses Eve for medical records, demands, drafting, and legal research, though he questions whether he'd want AI feedback while he's in trial.
Sharif's firm builds its cases on four "Gray questions," a framework the team applies at almost every phase of case workup and trial presentation.
Suing the City of Richmond after its neglected library railing gave way beneath their client, Sharif's team showed jurors why the case mattered by opening with a photo of the courthouse railings they had all used.
Borrowing a concept from Joe Fried, the team tried that case around what the client's herniated discs took from him rather than the injury itself.
Sharif shares how a focus group reshaped the damages ask in another case, which produced a $20 million verdict for a 13-year-old dragged by his shirt at a psychiatric residential facility.
After selling the company he built with his father in his early twenties, Sterling went from a penthouse to his parents' house when the housing market collapsed.
Terrified of public speaking, Sterling replied to junk mail for a conference in Singapore, landed the keynote, and rehearsed for five months to get ready.
Citing University of Michigan research, Sterling explains that the brain and body process mental, emotional, and physical discomfort identically.
During the 2020 shutdown, Sterling broke out of a slump by taking on David Goggins' 4x4x48 challenge of running four miles every four hours for 48 hours.
Sterling contrasts working harder and working smarter with what he calls the real work: making what was formerly uncomfortable, comfortable.
Even very successful lawyers can lose their spark to routine, and Sterling explains how a pattern interrupt reconnects them with themselves and a community.
After realizing his talks all drew on fantasy novels, Kurt started Dragon Slayers, a listserv whose trial lawyer members stand between their clients and "dragons" like insurers and corporations, sharing wins, raw losses, and referrals.
Kurt answers Gerry Spence's warning that you can't be a great lawyer and a great father with "informed consent": consciously choosing what to sacrifice instead of defaulting to nonstop work.
Despite two years on a knee cart, Kurt still exercises daily and explains why lawyers need to stay healthy for their clients, their families, and themselves.
Kurt's firm uses Supio to write every pre-litigation demand, draft discovery, summarize depositions, and draft directs and crosses, but he credits human creativity for his most explosive cross material.
Because a case might still end in a loss, Kurt makes a point of embracing every victory, from a $50,000 settlement to winning a deposition or a motion to compel.
After passing on a workers' comp bad faith case that Sean Claggett successfully tried to a $145 million verdict in Colorado, Kurt learned to be happy that the client found the right lawyer at the right time.
For the last five years, Kurt has sincerely tried to befriend defense trial lawyers, which he says makes trials more enjoyable and has even led to case referrals.
Eric cites research showing one distracted moment can cost you a juror’s attention for an average of 23 minutes — long enough to lose half of a 45-minute opening.
Many jurors are more motivated to punish a wrongdoing defendant than to help an injured plaintiff, so Eric establishes the wrongdoing before asking jurors to value the harm.
About half of today's jury pool are "post-truth deciders" who share a fear that the people in charge don't have their interests at heart.
Using the story model of decision-making, Eric structures cases in the sequence every good story follows: the situation and characters, then the action, and then the aftermath.
In a delivery trauma case, Eric explains how simply calling the defendants "the delivery room doctors" sets up a norm that makes a largely absent supervising OB look far worse.
Most lawyers speed up on cross-examination, and Eric pinpoints the two reasons it happens.
How do you lose a case because you have too many incriminating documents? Eric shares what a Florida tobacco case taught him about good evidence backfiring.
When a client blows a deposition, Eric turns the question back on the lawyer and explains how the right preparation shapes how jurors see your client at trial.
Years ago in Iowa, Dan's mentor Dave Clark set him on this path with one idea: when you make the unconscious conscious, you become dangerous in the courtroom.
Having completed his sixth bootcamp, Johnny Bond describes the training as a layered progression where at the advanced level, cross-examination becomes a trance built with the witness.
Rick Sandoval explains why he joined the bootcamp: after nearly 30 years of practicing, he was sick of out-of-state lawyers pulling nine-figure verdicts in New Mexico.
Steven's biggest takeaway from opening statements is micro-connecting with each juror so that they feel like a participant in the trial rather than one face in a box of twelve.
After 38 years and well over a hundred trials, Sean Simpson admits he never trained pace and shares how this oversight prevents lawyers from connecting with jurors.
Dan has no patience for lawyers who hand a client's deposition prep to an associate, and then blame the associate (or the terrified client) when it goes sideways.
According to Dan, voir dire is essentially a script, and the best trial lawyers all repeat the same proven lines.
Whether it's a jail, an airplane, or an asbestos exposure, the participants practice creating space so jurors don't just hear the story, they witness it.
★ After seven scheduled attempts, Sagi Shaked finally completed a Trial Lawyers University bootcamp, motivated in part by training alongside his son Tomer, an incoming Georgetown Law student.
★ Sagi and Dan Ambrose walk through the bootcamp's cross-examination fundamentals: leading questions, present-tense phrasing, effective flip-chart use, and controlling breath and voice.
★ Sagi describes how rotating between the roles of lawyer, witness, and juror during training revealed how hand movement and eye contact "lock in" a witness or jury.
★ Working through his own upcoming intersection-crash trial, Sagi practiced building visual space and the illusion of movement to make courtroom storytelling more persuasive.
★ During witness prep for a civil rights case, Sagi and Dan worked to help a badly beaten witness relive his story instead of simply recalling it.
★ Sagi explains why mild traumatic brain injury cases require a different approach than orthopedic cases, describing TBI cases as functioning like wrongful death cases for the family left behind.
★ Sagi shares how he uses TLU On Demand and his own conference presentations to pass along what he's learned to other plaintiff trial lawyers.
Shemia dropped out of a bachelor of divinity program at Boston University, sold cars for a couple of years to save for law school, then graduated from law school in Oregon in 2009 — building persuasion skills at every stage.
While working at a corporate defense firm, Shemia simultaneously served in the Oregon legislature, passing paid sick leave and wage transparency laws — and quickly realized she would never make partner at a firm whose corporate clients were her political adversaries.
Representing her mother in an age discrimination case, produced a settlement that let her mom buy her first home ever; that moment of purpose drew Shemia fully to the plaintiff side.
After discovering Claude Cowork, Shemia spent the entire following weekend building email triage and expense-report automation — a "camel's nose under the tent" that transformed how she runs her practice.
The episode introduces the TRIAL acronym — Triage, Research, Intake, Advocacy, Learning — as a practical roadmap for how plaintiff lawyers can deploy AI across every phase of their practice without sacrificing professional responsibility.
Shemia used Claude to download all prior deposition transcripts of an opposing attorney 30 years her senior, extract their patterns and rule citations, and build a cheat sheet.
Stephen King describes sleeping only an hour and a half per night during trial because AI had already anticipated every contingency — letting him stay fully present for the jury instead of managing logistics in his head.
★ Michael graduated from law school, clerked on the Fifth Circuit, and joined a big law firm in New York City.
★ After moving back to Brownsville, Texas for his future wife, Michael joined a plaintiff firm under mentor Ed Stapleton, tried four cases in his first year, and inherited his own law firm just four years out of law school.
★ Michael describes a prolonged period of cyclical depression, weight gain, and insecurity — driven by taking too much personal responsibility for case outcomes.
★ His mindset transformation came through intensive coaching with Sari De La Motte, daily use of "The Miracle Morning" routine, and a mantra about trusting judges and juries that he still repeats silently in the courtroom.
★ Michael explains that truly earning courtroom confidence requires two experiences: winning a case to prove it's possible, and losing a big one to prove you survive it.
★ At Michael's firm, no commercial-policy case is allowed to proceed to a demand or mediation until the attorney has first presented it to the full firm at their weekly Tuesday lunch — a structured review designed to prevent undersettling.
★ Michael's Big Rig Bootcamp (July 9) will feature live cross-examination demonstrations, medical testimony training, and a deep dive on why facet joint injuries treated with radiofrequency ablation are million-dollar cases.
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