Ep. 73: What Makes a Great Truck Crash Lawyer with Christy Crowe Childers

AFTER THE CRASH PODCAST

Hosted by David W. Craig

Episode 73: What Makes a Great Truck Crash Lawyer: A Conversation with Christy Crowe Childers

Christy Crowe Childers: But we’re never going to encourage you to settle your case for less money than your case is worth. And we’re also going to try in every case, if there’s any way possible to effectuate change. Is there something about this case? Your family member has passed away. Let’s have them have a mandatory rule in their training from now on that would’ve prevented your mom’s death or your dad’s death.

David Craig – Host: I’m attorney David Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of Craig, Kelly & Faultless. For over 35 years, I’ve dedicated my career to helping individuals and families who have been seriously injured or lost loved ones in devastating semi-truck, large truck, and other commercial motor vehicle accidents. When tragedy strikes, life can feel chaotic, overwhelming, and uncertain. Many people don’t even know where to begin or what questions to ask. That’s why I created After the Crash. A podcast designed to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to navigate these challenging times.

In each episode, I sit down with experts, professionals, victims, and others involved in truck wreck cases to give you inside guidance and practical advice. Together, we’ll help you understand your rights, protect your family, and move forward. This is After the Crash.

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of After the Crash, the podcast where we explore trucking cases, semi cases, other heavy truck cases for the average, everyday person. Today, I’m really pleased to have Christy Crowe Childers as our guest. Christy is an accomplished, very successful trial lawyer that handles trucking cases. She graduated first in her class from law school. She is board certified with the National Board Certification through … She was the first woman to actually get that in Georgia, correct?

Christy Crowe Childers: That’s right.

David Craig – Host: And she’s one of the few in the country. I think there’s less than a 100 total altogether. And unfortunately, there’s not that many women. There’s more men board certified than there are women. And Christy is certainly one of the leading trial lawyers, man or woman. And she certainly is one of the ones that’s a trailblazer in the respect to women trial lawyers. She has created what’s called the Damages House, and she’s got a book coming out, I think, in the near future. She has presented and taught other trial lawyers like myself, how to handle damages and how to get the right compensation for the harm that is caused for our clients.

She founded a group called Mother Truckers. I’ll let her talk a little bit about what that is, but she’s the founder of it and leads that group. Recently, she formed a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization for women trial lawyers. We’ll let her talk about that. She also has a couple kids. She’s married. I don’t know how you do all of that stuff. And then she tries cases and she handles truck cases. How in the world do you do all that, Christy?

Christy Crowe Childers: I don’t sleep really. That’s my tip. But no, actually I do. I take really long naps. That’s my secret to success. On Saturdays or Sundays, take a long nap.

David Craig – Host: Well, let’s talk just first in the beginning. What attracted you to the truck arena, the niche or the truck accident niche?

Christy Crowe Childers: I think you and I probably talked about this before, David. I love how regulation-based it is, how there are a set of rules that are supposed to be followed. And if you learn all of those rules, which as you know, there are a lot. I’ve got my whole FMCSR [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations] with me today, handy in case we were going to talk about a few damages regs that are particularly important. And I just love how you can … Just by learning and becoming the best at what you do, you can really use the rules to your advantage and to your client’s advantage.

David Craig – Host: And so tell us a little bit about how you went into this. And in Georgia, I mean, you’re the first woman board certified. So what does it mean to be board certified in truck … For the everyday folks that may not even know what board certification is. So let’s talk a little bit about it, before we get into it. What is board certification and why did you go that route?

Christy Crowe Childers: Yeah, so there are so many lawyers who say they do trucking and for a while that was me. I would take a trucking case and generally treat it like a personal injury case, but then there are lawyers who are board certified in trucking. And what that means is we know all the rules and there’s so much more that you don’t know prior to learning all the rules that you learn in preparation for the board exam.

Pretty much what it means is at any given time, you can ask me a trucking question and I know the answer. Why is this important? Why not just learn it on the go? Somebody comes to you with a trucking case and figure it out then. Well, the reason why this is so important is because of the nuances. When you know all the rules, you make connections between rules and cases that you wouldn’t have naturally made or just known off the top of your head.

And so you truly become a subject matter expert to the point where other lawyers begin calling you. In fact, one of my friends texted me a trucking question and I was like, “Is this a knock-knock joke?” And he was frustrated because he needed the answer right away. And I was like, “I’m just kidding. Here’s the answer.” He’s like, “No, I thought I was asking a trucking expert.” I’m like, “You are, fine.”

But you become the resource, not just in your own firm, but for a lot of lawyers, who have not had the time yet in their careers to become an expert in the field, but nothing keeps them from advertising for the cases.

David Craig – Host: And that’s one of the things, and I just wrote a new book. It’s Never Been Easier to Pick the Wrong Attorney because all the marketing people are faced with, and people don’t have a clue if they’ve never been … They’ve never hired a personal injury lawyer, they’ve never had a catastrophic accident to them, they’ve never been involved in a semi wreck. And all of a sudden they find themselves in a horrible situation. Time is urgent. They’re dealing with catastrophic events that are … Sitting in a hospital or sitting at home rehabbing somebody or planning a funeral.

They don’t know where to turn. And like you said, there’s all these lawyers out there saying that they are truck wreck lawyers and some of them have never handled a truck wreck. Even the ones that have, have never walked into a courtroom and tried a case. You and I both have tried trucking cases and the board certified lawyers, we’re specialists. We specialize in truck accident law, and it’s not that easy. You can’t just go buy it. There’s so many of these things nowadays where people can buy a medal, a certificate.

Christy Crowe Childers: I know.

David Craig – Host: Board certification, you can’t. You have to have so many hours, so many years of practice. A certain percentage of your practice has to be trucking. You have to depose truck drivers and safety directors and dispatch folks. And you have to have had a certain amount of experience, you have to have writings, and then you have to be approved by judges or people you practice in front of. And then you have to go take a test on top of everything else. And so-

Christy Crowe Childers: It was like another bar exam.

David Craig – Host: It’s not easy.

Christy Crowe Childers: Yeah. No.

David Craig – Host: It makes sense if you’re looking for an attorney and you’re saying, “Okay, I need the best. I need the best, the most qualified because my future is dependent upon it.” Then why not pick somebody who specializes, who’s been vetted by a board group like Christy has? Like I have, like the other 60, 70, 80 board certified lawyers in the country. I think if nobody listens to anything else we say today, I think … Because you and I both would like to represent everybody, but we can’t and we won’t, but both of you and I would like people to get to the right lawyers.

Christy Crowe Childers: That’s right.

David Craig – Host: It’s too important for somebody to go to a lawyer who doesn’t know those regulations like you showed, the trucking regulations.

Christy Crowe Childers: And what’s going to happen is they’re going to settle your case for the first offer that they get from the insurance company. The insurance company’s going to say, “Oh, all we have is 750,000 in insurance.” And they’re going to take that at face value and because they’re nervous about handling a trucking case or trying a trucking case, they’re going to do everything they can to get you to settle the case. Whereas David and I from day one are like, “All right, where’s the other money? Where’s the insurance? They’re not telling us the truth. There’s these other companies involved.”

I got a crazy case, David, that I’m going to file today, where we’re bringing the insurance company in because this insurance company kept reinsuring what’s called a chameleon carrier. These trucking companies, they get in trouble and they shut down and they just start over with a new name. No problem. And there are insurance companies out there, who will know that this is happening and help perpetuate the fraud. Those are the bad guys. There are good truck drivers too, and we love safe truck drivers.

David Craig – Host: Absolutely. But I think the point is and you just made, is that you and I are both looking at it and saying, “How do we get full value for our clients?” And that may mean suing other people other than just the trucking company because like you and I both know, some of the really bad trucking companies out there are carrying minimum insurance, which unfortunately is still $750,000 per wreck. Some carriers will only carry a million, but still $750,000 or a million dollars in these catastrophic cases is completely insufficient.

And you need somebody who knows not only … If you know the regs, if you know, “Okay. Who’s responsible for putting this truck on the roadway and this load that they have on the roadway?” A truck accident attorney, a board certified truck attorney, is going to know all the players. And so they’re also going to know, who do we call and what experts do we need to help us with this case to fully develop it? Right?

Christy Crowe Childers: That’s right. We do know the experts and we know who not to use as an expert, for sure. And we know who the trucking companies always use as an expert because they’ll say anything they’re paid to say. So it’s good to hire someone who really knows. A lot of the lawyers, of course, can go to conferences and learn some of this stuff, and we’re always glad to be brought in on cases, of course. But if you as a member of the public are looking for a lawyer, getting a board certified lawyer is a no-brainer.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. I mean, I always think that’s the place to start. And then the next thing I always tell people is interview them. It may be the very most important decision you ever make in your lifetime, and you may spend a year, two years, three years with this lawyer. And so you should take the time to call. If you call Christy, she’s going to take your call. She’s going to meet with you and talk to you. I’m going to sit down with you and talk to you, but you should feel comfortable with the lawyer you’re picking.

You shouldn’t feel forced, you shouldn’t feel coerced, you shouldn’t feel that you’re intimidated. You should feel like these people are on my side and they’re going to help me and work with me through the toughest time of my life to make sure my family’s protected.

Christy Crowe Childers: I know. A lot of times when I’m traveling to other states or even in my own state, I’ll see TV commercials for lawyers and the person will seem so weird. And I’m like, “You are going to have to spend … If you go to trial, you’ll have to spend five days sitting next to that person. Hanging out with them, getting to know them.” Why would you not hire somebody like David who seems like the perfect grandfather to hang out with you and have at your trial table, at your trial team?

Those guys, they make a lot of money. They just do. And I just think to myself like, “Why would you want to hang out with somebody like that?” If you look at a TV ad and you think, “That person seems weird and I wouldn’t want to hang out with them.” Why would you hire them to spend time with them?

David Craig – Host: I had a client who one time gave me a great compliment and she said she felt listened to. She came into my … Her husband was killed. She sat down, her kids were there. I wasn’t bothered by her kids being there. Who was going to watch them? It was a horrible time in her life and she wanted her kids close to her. I’m like, “Bring them.” She goes, “Are you sure?” I said, “No, bring them in my office.” And after the case got done. A year or so later, a year or two later, she brought her kids back into my office.

I’d met her with her throughout the whole time. We got close to trial and then they ultimately paid a fair number, but she later brought the kids back in when they were older because she wanted to show me and my staff and say, “Look, these are the people who took care of us, who protected us.” And she’s like, “They’re just ordinary people.” I said, “Well, that’s no bigger compliment you can give me than saying I’m just an ordinary person.”

Christy Crowe Childers: I love it. Yeah. We stay in close contact with our families that we represent, especially in the death cases because you just are all living this shared trauma. But a funny story about kids coming to the office. So we had that happen and we set the kids up. I have toys here, of course I do, for the kids. And I have things for them to do that’s fun. And after the mediation was over, and it was for a death case, for their sister.

One of us walked back in the conference room and this little boy had engraved his name in our conference room table, but I love it and I still see it. And when I see it … I mean, they thought I might be mad, but I was like, “I don’t care one bit.” How sweet is that that I had that precious boy’s name, he was like seven or eight years old, in my conference room table forever to remind me of that soul and that family and that person who we helped through a tragedy.

David Craig – Host: Absolutely. I mean, these people, they count on us, they need us. I keep photographs of the clients that I’m representing that have passed away as a result of a wreck. I keep their pictures on my desk because every morning I want to be reminded, why am I getting up early? Why am I staying late? Why am I coming in on the weekends? It’s because of these people. These people have entrusted us, and I can’t think of a more rewarding job than what you and I get to do every day.

Christy Crowe Childers: It is incredible.

David Craig – Host: I think there’s a difference between settlement lawyers and trial lawyers. And you are one of the best at trying cases. Tell us a little bit about why it matters if you have a lawyer who tries cases versus somebody who never goes and tries a case.

Christy Crowe Childers: So I parachute into cases a lot, is what we call it. And I’m one of those lawyers that says, “I don’t care …” I mean, maybe you accidentally hired a settlement lawyer. If I parachute into your case, I take it as it comes. I’m not going to pass any judgment on the lawyer who did their best work up to then. I just go with what I got. And sometimes it’s worse than others, but sometimes it’s not too bad.

But the difference I see between lawyers who invite me in, who are trial lawyers versus ones who are settling is the depositions have not been taken right a lot of times. The before and after witnesses. These are the family members that are going to tell your story and they haven’t been prepared at all. And so their depositions have already been taken and I always find a way around it at trial. But then you’re at trial and you just don’t have these stories. And the lawyer could say, the defense lawyer could say, “Well, why didn’t you tell me this at your deposition? We’re making it up for trial.”

As opposed to my trial lawyers, every time they’re in depositions, they’re thinking about it being like a play. How is this going to look to the jury? What’s the story here that this witness we’re trying to get out? But here’s the thing. I’ll help out anybody. I don’t care if it’s their first day on the job or if they’ve been doing it for as long as you, David. It’s just fun to me to just hop in and figure out the trial problem. And that’s the difference between a trial lawyer and a settlement lawyer, I think, is we are always trying to look for the solve. There’s this bad fact in your case. We’re going to figure out a way around it.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. And a lot of people don’t want to go to trial. I mean, I don’t think I’ve met too many clients that want to go to trial and they’ve been through enough trauma. And I don’t force clients to go to trial. I don’t force clients to settle, but I want them not to be afraid. I want them to understand, that we will go tell their story and they have a story that’s worth telling. Make the decision, not out of fear, but make a decision that’s right for them and their family for the right reasons. And I think that’s empowering to people.

Whereas instead of being coerced or their arm twisted and they’re scared, forced. Well, you could do worse or you could do this or they could do … I think you need to be prepared. And you and I both want to tell their story. Sometimes we don’t get to, but we want to. We want to tell that story. We want to figure ways to minimize the bad and to take advantage of all the good.

And I think that’s one of the best things you can do for people is to make them feel comfortable and realize that they make that decision and there’s nothing wrong with going in and walking into a courtroom. That jury, I think, I believe, and you may disagree. But I believe the jurors really try hard to get it right. I really do believe they try hard. I think they do a good job. I trust them and I would trust them with my own family’s situation. I would trust them any day over an insurance person or a defense lawyer, that’s for sure.

Christy Crowe Childers: Yeah, I think they are trying to get it right. But until recently, I struggled with, how am I going to get them to put a dollar figure on the value of life? How can you as a person value pain and suffering? And I was doing it all the ways that everybody had been doing for 40 or 50 years. And I was like, “It must just be me. I must be the only one in the world that doesn’t know how to put a dollar figure … Get juries to put a dollar figure on pain and suffering.”

And so I came up with this method, David, that you know about, Damages House, and it just made it so much easier for me to explain that loss. And what it did to juries, you see the “aha” in their eyes. It’s just something magical about it that helps them finally start monetizing pain and suffering in a way that is new, but also goes right to the heart of the fact that the things that we lose that are most valuable don’t come with a price tag, right?

David Craig – Host: Yep.

Christy Crowe Childers: Yep. And I know you know the method. So if the clients hire you, you know how to do it. And we use it just from the very beginning when we’re building out your case because, there’s only two things that you’re ever doing in a case, y’all. We’re trying to show the jury what went wrong, and then we’re trying to teach them how to make it right. And they want to make it right, like David said. But until now, they didn’t really have a way or a method to do that other than … A lot of times lawyers would just get up and say a number or they would use multipliers. You may have heard of that before.

You can look it up, you can Google it and there’ll be websites that tell you that your pain is worth three times your medical bills. Well, we don’t believe that, do we, David?

David Craig – Host: Nope.

Christy Crowe Childers: No, we don’t. And so it just didn’t feel real and right to us to be tying the things that are so valuable, not being able to play with your grandkids, not being able to go fishing like you used to. How do you put a dollar figure on that? Well before, we were just telling the jury to come up with a number. And so now we’ve got a new tool in our toolbox. It doesn’t make sense for every case, but what I give lawyers, and in my cases and in your cases too, David, is a method for coming up with that number that makes a lot of sense. Something magical about the framework that helps jurors put it all together.

David Craig – Host: Well, it’s got to be … I’ve seen it and I think it’s exciting that you’ve developed it, you’ve worked on it, you’ve refined it. It’s got to be exciting as heck when it works for your cases. But I would imagine it’s even just as exciting, if not more exciting, to see other lawyers using it all over this country and getting great results with it. You got to be proud.

Christy Crowe Childers: Yeah. So I’m at this little bitty law firm in Macon, Georgia. I mean, I travel nationally, but I can only help so many people. And David, it’s like my ideas out there getting justice all over the country. Just this little idea I had. Every week I’m hearing about 10 million, 18 million, 30 million verdicts. And part of me is like, “Well, dang. Wish that was me.” But I’m always very, very proud. I immediately get on the phone with a lawyer and here’s what I do for all of us, me and you both, is I find out what they did that worked and what they did that didn’t work.

And then I take all of that and I share it at the next conference, which you invited me out to your conference. And when I was there, you had the very latest. Here’s what’s working, here’s what’s not working, here’s how we can change it. And then of course, all of this will go in the book that comes out next year to help lawyers across the country.

David Craig – Host: Yeah, I think that’s so great. One of the things I tell people when you’re looking for a lawyer is, have they written on the subject? Do they take time to teach other folks? And Christy does, which I think is extraordinarily exciting. Now, one of the things that I hear a lot is that I hate truckers, that I’m against truckers, which is not true.

Christy Crowe Childers: No, I love truckers. I drive tractor trailers with other ladies across the … No offense, guys, but I take a bunch of other women lawyers and we go and we drive tractor trailers. We’ve been to Alaska driving tractor trailers, in Montana. And we call ourselves the Mother Truckers. And the nonprofit that I started, David, actually benefits not just women trial lawyers, but also women in the transportation field.

David Craig – Host: Okay.

Christy Crowe Childers: So it also has that element to it. And here’s why, women trial lawyers in trucking make up about 10% of the field, and we closely match women in transportation, women truck drivers. They’re about 10%. And this isn’t true for all of them, but generally our ladies are scoring really, really well on their safety scores, our lady truck drivers. And so our nonprofit wants to get more ladies the opportunity to go to a good trucking school, to get more experience, to go to these women truck driver conferences. Like Women In Trucking is one that I’m sure you’re familiar with.

And so we want to sponsor them and give scholarships, so we can elevate women in the truck driving field. And also, David, you’ve represented injured truck drivers before, right?

David Craig – Host: Yep, absolutely. I still do. Right now, I have a handful of truckers that were injured by other truckers.

Christy Crowe Childers: That’s right, because they’re on the road all the time, multi-truck pile-ups. And you and I have talked before about the special things you have to do. And here is where a highly experienced board certified trucking lawyer can really be an asset in your case because there are just things about truck driver clients and the injured truck driver that you need to know if you’re going to take on one of those cases.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. I think first of all, you and I both would agree that over 90% of the drivers out there are safe, caring, professional. They’re doing a job that’s necessary and they’re just trying to get home safely to their own families, but unfortunately they do get hurt. You and I both go after the bad ones. And unfortunately, my experience has been over the years, the bad ones are getting worse and they cause more harm.

But the good ones are out there. And I saw, especially during COVID, when there was mainly trucks on the road all over the country. That they’re putting some people behind the wheel that shouldn’t have been behind the wheel, and they were hurting good, safe truckers. The trucker, as the victim, has special issues and special problems and presents special challenges for us. Why don’t we talk a little bit about that?

Christy Crowe Childers: Right. So they’re going to flip the script on you. If you’re a truck driver, the first thing they’re going to do … What we do in our cases, they’re going to pretend like they’re us. They’re going to start asking you all these questions about the rules and are you aware of all of this? So we as attorneys are going to have you prepared on all of that, ready to give your deposition to make sure you appear as the safest driver out there, a professional driver. Someone who really cares about truck driving and the safety, and understands the magnitude and the danger of driving an 80,000 pound vehicle.

And so we’re going to have you prepared there. And then on top of that, we are going to use the regulations to show why you as an injured truck driver, why your damages are high. Unlike other professions … David and I can come to work without a medical certificate. We can come to work totally sick. We could come to work if we couldn’t walk. Nobody’s given us a medical exam, are they David?

David Craig – Host: That’s right.

Christy Crowe Childers: But you as a truck driver, you have to be medically certified every so often. And there’s a list of 13 things in FMCSR 391.41, and these 13 things can disqualify you. And what I like to do in a deposition, David, is I like to talk to the safety director of the company we’re suing. And I want to make sure we get this on the record. And I say it like this. I say, “There’s a list of 13 things that can disqualify my guy who got hurt from being able to ever do the job he loves.”

And I like to start at the bottom because that’s where the good stuff is. He’s disqualified if he’s an alcoholic. Number 12, meth or drugs, bad hearing, bad vision. Number 9, mental issues. Number 8, epilepsy. But number 7, you know what number seven says on that list to ask the safety director? And they’re like, “No, tell me.” And I show them my book where it has it right here, and I say number seven is if they have any orthopedic issue, muscular or neuromuscular issue, they can make it to where they are impaired from driving a commercial motor vehicle, so that it’s not safe for them to do so.

And in our cases, that’s a lot of times the case. Bad neck injuries, bad back injuries. And so that’s an orthopedic injury that per the rules can medically disqualify them from doing their job. And what you might say is, “Well, they can get a special certificate.” Nope, that’s not so easy. It’s this really long form with scary language in it that says that your motor carrier has to sign it in addition to you. And even if you get your motor carrier to sign off on this safety waiver that they’re doing, it can still be denied by the FMCSA [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration] and every two years you got to re-up it.

So why would they hire you when you have to have this special certificate instead of a driver who doesn’t have that? And what we tell the jury is that. How would you like to know that, that for the rest of your career, that at any point in time you’ve got the hatchet hanging over your head and you might not get your medical certificate. And also, not all of these things come with a special certificate that you can get a special waiver. One of them, for instance, is you can’t be on narcotics. So how does that affect our pain?

As truck drivers, they have to drive through the pain. They can’t take pain medicine or narcotics that’s going to impair their ability to drive. They’d getting super big trouble if they did. So in a lot of our states, almost every state, actual pain is one of the elements that we have to ask the jury to value. We say, “Dear jury, it’s your job to value the things in life that don’t come with a price tag and one of those is actual ouch pain.”

And in a truck driver’s case that has to drive through the pain because he can’t take narcotics, I am telling you that that number is higher because any one of us who isn’t a truck driver, sure, it’s not great to do. But we can take drugs. We can take prescribed legal drugs to help us with our pain, but he can’t. And also, a lot of times they would say, “Well, my …” Other lawyers will say to me, they’ll say, “Christy, he’s still getting his certificate right now.” But you know what? Fear of extent of injury is one of the elements.

And so theory is that one day that doctor’s going to look at him and they’re going to say, “Joe, I know I’ve been giving you that medical certificate every two years, but I can’t do it anymore.” And there’s no guarantee in our cases that their health is not going to continue to decline to the point where they are disqualified in the future. And that goes to that element.

And jurors are asked to put a dollar figure on each one of the elements of pain and suffering, fear of extent of injury, put a dollar figure on that. And under the methods that you know and that I know, we give the jury, in your case, a way to put a dollar figure on there that truly honors what you’ve lost.

David Craig – Host: I mean, when you think about it, I mean that’s … You and I drive, we don’t do it for a living, so we don’t have to do it every day. We can find people to take us, but a truck driver has no choice. And like you said … And so many of them, their self-image is that they’re tough. They don’t want to admit weakness. They don’t want to admit that they’re hurting. And part of the reason they don’t admit it is because they’re so afraid that they’re not going to be able to qualify physically and medically.

And I’ve had them tell me, “David, I’m not stopping. I’m not going to get checked out.” I mean, they’ll go to the emergency room after the wreck and they’re like, “David, I’m not going to get checked out because if they find out that I’m hurt, then I will lose my medical certificate and I will not be able to drive.” And I’m like, “But you’ve got to go do those things.” And so the trucker is a different type of case.

When you represent the trucker, you’ve got to help them understand that they’ve got to get the treatment. I mean, I’ve even had them tell me that they’re struggling without the pain medication. If they haul all across this country, that they’re worried that their leg may go numb or they may … I had a guy who was losing control of his bowels because he had nerve impingement in his lower back, but he wouldn’t stop because he had to provide for his family. And that presents a different challenge.

Also, the mental. A lot of the truck drivers that you and I both represent have driven their whole life without an accident. They’ve got clean driving records. They’re very safety conscious. In their wildest imagination, they don’t imagine themselves in a bad wreck. And then all of a sudden they’re involved in a horrific wreck and they are injured. Mentally, some of them have a tough time getting back in a truck and driving out on the interstate.

I’ve had truckers who couldn’t do it anymore. They had to give up driving, and some of them would drive a taxi around town, or they would do something where they didn’t get on interstates. But can you imagine what that loss is? For somebody who loved going all across the country, someone who loved … That was them, that’s who they were. All of a sudden now they’re driving an Uber or they’re driving a DoorDash. To them, it’s just horrible and they’re not the same and they don’t feel the same and their losses are different than someone else.

Christy Crowe Childers: That’s right. And I was thinking about it. This also applies to a lot of our first responders, who have to have medical certificates. Our police, our firefighters, and our military people as well. They have to stay medically qualified. So it would be a similar thought process for them as well. It takes who they are. To be a truck driver, to have to work 14-hour days, 11 of those hours driving day in and day out. It has to be a passion, a calling. It has to be in your blood. I couldn’t do it.

David Craig – Host: No. There’s a special place for these folks, but that’s like every case we do. I mean, the true value comes from understanding what the loss is to this particular person or this family. You can’t say everybody is going to be three times or four times or two times what the medical bill is. It makes no sense. You can understand that if you’re just listening, you’re like, “Why would it make sense?”

My sister is a physical massage therapist, and she goes into suites at the Colts stadium and she gives massages to folks up there, but she has to carry a heavy table. She has to stand all day. She has to bend over people. She has to have a good back, good neck. And I don’t do anything but sit. And I carry a briefcase, and if it’s really heavy, I could have somebody carry it for me if I wanted to.

But the reality is, if you hurt my neck and back and her neck and back, and we were in the exact same car, in the same wreck, why would it make sense to give her … And we both hurt her our neck and back and we couldn’t lift, we couldn’t bend without pain. Why would it make sense to give her and I the same amount of money? It wouldn’t. She would deserve so much more than me because every single day that she works, her physical wellbeing is involved in it.

Now, if you took away our ability to think and talk, then mine might be worth more than hers because that’s how I make my living. And so that’s common sense. People understand it, but yet insurance companies and trucking companies, they love a computer generated, driven, slow multiplier.

Christy Crowe Childers: They do. Yeah. And that reminded me. So a lot of people think truck drivers are just steering wheel holders and there may be some out there that are, now that they have a lot of automatic trucks. But I was talking to a safety director. He was like, “It’s not that hard.” And I said, “Sir, have you ever driven a tractor trailer before?” He’s like, “No.” And I was like, “So you think my client just backs his truck up to that trailer and it hooks itself up and then he just drives off?” He said, “Yeah.” And I was like, “That’s not how it works.”

I actually have a picture, I don’t know if you can see it, but this is me at a conference holding up a chain. This is just one of the trucker chains that they have to put to secure their load. And the most money for truck drivers, of course, are when the job is harder, when it requires more of their body and their muscles. And those chains are heavy. I had to hook them up. We went to truck driving school, that you’ve been to as well. And when you have to throw those chains over, I mean, it’s not like they’re just sitting there driving down the road all the time. They’re out physically making sure their loads are secured because they’re the ones that are on the hook if it’s not.

David Craig – Host: And I think that’s another … You mentioned earlier that you’ve taken some folks out to learn how to drive trucks and to drive trucks. I’ve taken the attorneys in my office and it’s more than just driving trucks. You get to sit there and you learn, you talk to truckers, you talk to professional truck drivers, they show you the load. They show you what an inspection is of the truck. They show you how to put your triangles out and nighttime conspicuity. It’s really a comprehensive experience.

And I think that it was invaluable. I think that it helped the lawyers in my office understand and ask so much better questions by doing it. You can see that, “Guys, to put those triangles out really doesn’t take that long.”

Christy Crowe Childers: I know.

David Craig – Host: And they always talk about, “Well, I didn’t have time to do it.” Well, really? How much time did you have? “Well, I was sitting there 15 minutes.” Well, really? You’re supposed to have no later than 10 minutes. “Oh, wait a minute. What are you talking about?” I thought it was an extraordinarily valuable lesson.

Christy Crowe Childers: Yeah, it’s really great. And I did the triangle thing too, and I was being funny. I was taking my time, stretching. I was seeing how long it could possibly take me. And I was trying to just drag tail, I still got it done in under five minutes.

David Craig – Host: I really think it’s helpful. Again, it shows … And if you’re out there and you’re interviewing lawyers, you ask them, “Do you teach? Do you speak? Do you write? But also, what do you do?” And I think it’s important for people to understand that when you have a case like this, it’s not just Christy or me. It’s people that work with Christy. It’s people that work with me because it takes more than one person to handle these cases properly.

And so I have paralegals who are … Actually, I got two that are board certified through the ATAA conference, but I think it’s important to understand that it takes a whole team. And that team, when you go to trial, it’s extraordinarily important that you have all kinds of different folks in your team because you don’t know who your jury’s going to be, and you want to have people that might relate well to all the different types of folks on your jury. Do you think that’s as important as well?

Christy Crowe Childers: I do. Yeah. We may be 10% nationally, women that is, in the trucking field, but when I came to your state of Indiana, David. Your numbers were fabulous. I looked out and I was like, “Where did all these ladies come from?” And you also, I know have women lawyers in your firm as well. And here’s the thing, when I hear certain things and I have a guy on my trial team, he may like certain witness testimony, and I’m like, “I don’t know. I mean, fine, but I don’t really relate to that.” And then I’ll tell a story, a simple story about a guy who’s trying to make a pizza. And then my guy friend that’s on my trial team, he may not like that story, but the women will be like, “Oh, my gosh. I love that story.”

And here’s what we figured out. It’s great to have a male, female team if you can get one because it’s the same as on the jury. You’re not going to have a jury of all men or all women or even all younger people or all older people. And so what we like to do is have either attorneys or witnesses to meet each one of those archetypes. And so I look at the archetypes of the mother, the son, the sister, the grandfather. And I actually have this list, David, and I go through it and I try to find that witness in my case.

But one time I figured out that I couldn’t find a father figure for this guy. All of the father figure witnesses seemed like jerks. They almost just made me feel sorry that the guy didn’t have a father figure. And that’s when I realized that was the story. This was a guy who didn’t have a father figure, and so he had to be that for everyone, but now with his injury, he couldn’t be there for everybody else anymore.

It was one of those things where I’ve got my list, I want to have all the archetypes, and that’s what I figured out, is sometimes that’s the story. Is that person doesn’t have a grandfather figure in their life, but someone on that jury, I’m going to have somebody in my witness box that someone on my jury relates to.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. I love having people with different viewpoints that come from different places, that have different perspectives on life. I feel like that’s a great thing. I see so many law firms where the leader of the law firm wants everybody to look at things the way they look at things. And I think that’s just absolutely a wrong way to do it because your perspective may have worked for years and then suddenly it doesn’t because you no longer relate as well to the new folks that are on your jury.

And I think by having all kinds of different folks, all kinds of different backgrounds, we can do a better job of putting the case together through witnesses and through our own strategy. I’m a firm believer. I think one of the reasons that I built this firm … I couldn’t agree with you more, having women attorneys is extraordinarily important. And one of the reasons I built this firm was that I didn’t see that everywhere in the personal injury world. And I feel like that’s really a shame because they’re missing out on that, when I see an all male firm. No offense to anybody that’s got an all male firm, but I feel like you’re missing so much.

Christy Crowe Childers: I’ll say offense. Go find you a woman. We’re out there. I see it too, David. You see the billboard or the ad and it’s like all these guys, they have on the same shirt and the same coat. And I’m like, “Where’s your lady lawyer? There’s plenty of us out there.” I mean, I personally would wonder that if I was a consumer hiring a lawyer.

David Craig – Host: I do. I mean, it just makes common … It’s just common sense. I think the world would be a lot better place if we had more women running it, but that’s a whole different story. I have a daughter. In fairness, I have a daughter who’s a lawyer. I have a coffee cup that says you can’t boss me around because you’re not my granddaughters. But I think women are extraordinarily important. It’s always important to our firm.

We have more women in our firm than we do men. We have 40% of our attorneys are women, but that will continue to improve. It’s so extraordinarily important, I think. If you’re out there and you’re looking and saying, “Okay, I’m going to spend the next couple years with this group.” What people are they? Are they inclusive? Do they have different types of folks? Are they going to listen to me? Are they going to relate to me? And I would pick a firm that has a lot more different types of folks that might help relate to you.

Christy Crowe Childers: Absolutely. I agree. A lot of what I do just because of what I went through is I reach out to other women trial lawyers and you can spot them across the room, when they have got this light and fire in them, but they’ve been being put into blind spots. And they have had people at their firms who didn’t let them shine. And I grab that person and I say, “Join my group. There’s a whole bunch of us ladies who are just like me from across the country. Not in every state, but in a lot of different states.”

And that’s our Mother Truckers, but also Sisterhood of the 8, which is for all women trial lawyers, not just trucking lawyers. And what we do is we bring these ladies in and we say, “I love that you’re … Stay at the firm you’re at, but what we want to do is just give you all the assets you need to shine and be a star there and to find your place.” So that’s what I’m doing personally to try to help the effort.

David Craig – Host: Well, I appreciate it, Christy. I appreciate everything you’re doing for all the women attorneys, as well as just all attorneys in general because you’re teaching the damages and those type of things apply to all of us. And I think it’s fantastic and I think you’re doing a great job. What else? Anything else that we haven’t talked about with respect to trucking, commercial motor vehicle, these 40 ton vehicles that we should talk about?

Christy Crowe Childers: I feel like … And I know you probably have more years of experience than me at this, but over the last 20 years, it seems like juries have changed. You and I can talk about that a little bit if you want.

David Craig – Host: Yeah.

Christy Crowe Childers: Certain trial consultants would tell us to say this and not say this and do this and don’t do that. And something interesting, and this will be in the book, is that I can … I’ve created my own big data platform, where at any point in time I can ask 100, 200, 300 humans their thoughts on something. I built it out myself, so it’s very cheap. I got a lot of pushback for some of the new things that I was doing. I mean, Damages House is new, right?

David Craig – Host: Right.

Christy Crowe Childers: That’s brand new. And so what I can do now, if there are ever any haters out there that are like, “That’s not the way it’s done.” All I have to do is I say, “Ask the humans. Okay, let’s go ask the humans.” And what I have found is that … Although all of those tips were great 20, 30 years ago, our jurors today are just a little bit different.

For example, one of the differences, of course, is the shorter attention span. Needing more visuals, needing information given to you quickly and in several different formats and how we frame the story. Whether we humanize the client earlier in the story, which we were taught never to do that, right?

David Craig – Host: Mm-hmm.

Christy Crowe Childers: I actually ran a study recently, where if I just humanized the client just a bit in the very beginning of opening statement at trial, it doubled the number of people who wanted to give the big numbers in the case. And it was two sentences. This is a case about a man who loved his grandchildren and would work hard every single day to make sure that they had a brighter future. He was the guy you could depend on at church, at work, until this happened.

That’s it. I put those two sentences in my study, and then I did a study without those two sentences, which is the old way, which we were always taught. Like “Don’t talk about the plaintiff that early.” And it doubled the number of people. And the reason why I came upon this is because, David, in all the movies you’ve ever seen, do they ever kill off the main character before you’ve ever even met them?

David Craig – Host: No.

Christy Crowe Childers: No, they don’t. And so we want to make sure we don’t do too much because I understand the need not to talk about the plaintiff too much until we talk about the harm, but those two little humanizing sentences. It was wild the way that it changed the numbers in a statistically significant way. So that’s something else new that I’m doing is just … It’s a new age where … I’m just one of those people, I don’t care how things have been done forever. It wasn’t working for me, so I’m going to go do it this other way.

And when people come to me and they’re like, “But Christy, that’s not the way we’ve always done it.” Now I’m like, “Okay, let’s go ask 300 people.” And if they are still not convinced, I’ll ask 300 more.

David Craig – Host: Again, the difference between attorneys that are looking to try cases, they’re worried about, how do I get the value out of a case versus those who just want to settle a case and they’re not really worried about that. I think that’s fantastic. I think the more information we can have, the more awareness we have that times change, people change. People were different after COVID then they were before COVID. And so I think it’s just things we have to recognize.

I’m a firm believer in focus groups. I do tons of focus groups and I do different kinds. I’m not set in any particular way. Amy Pardieck is my trial consultant that I work with and Amy does a wonderful job and she runs my … We do focus groups even where to file a lawsuit. We’ll sit down and say, “Okay, maybe we have three different places we can file this lawsuit. Let’s do a focus group on … Let’s quickly find people in each one of those areas. Let’s run some facts by them and see how they react.” And it’s amazing.

I’ve been doing this for 40 years and I’ll sit there and say, “By God, I know that we should file this in Georgia, outside of Atlanta. This is where I have one of my options.” Or, “There’s Iowa and Des Moines and then there’s a small little county.” I’m like, “Man, I bet you outside of Atlanta is where we got to go.” Well, we focus grouped it and it turned out that was my worst spot. And the little county was the best county for the facts of this particular case.

And so rather than just buying into a concept that bigger verdicts come out of this particular area, we then looked the specifics. And so before I even filed a lawsuit, I was wanting to know, “Well, what would ordinary folks look … How would they look at this case?” In this case, there was a dog on somebody’s lap and they were speeding a little bit over the speed … They’re driving a little bit over the speed limit, my clients were in the rain.

Well, in rural Iowa, they didn’t care about the dog being in their lap and they didn’t care about seatbelt and they didn’t care about driving too fast in the rain because there’s nobody out there. In Georgia, they were all hung up. Well, they had the dog in the lap. Why would they have a dog in their lap? Why would they be speeding in the rain in congested traffic? Well, there wasn’t congested traffic, but it was so interesting. But I think that you’re absolutely right. I think the more we talk to people, whether it’s BigDa, whether it’s these different companies, whether it’s your own company.

I’m looking at building my own facility where I can take every single client, every case I have and focus grouping it, and then keeping the analytics and keeping the data, so that we can then look at it. Not only does it help us drive the case and determine the best strategy, but it also gives attorneys confidence because when the other side tells you your case is crap, you hear that over and over and over. There’s this problem, there’s that problem. Well, it’s nice to hear, “Well, is there a problem or isn’t there?” And the best way to find that out is do exactly what you’re doing, which is run it by 300 people.

Christy Crowe Childers: Hey. There’s this other thing we’ve been doing, David. So if one of your listeners out there has a tough case and it’s on video, and you’ve done this too, I’m sure. But what we’re doing … So this case comes in and I’m like, “I don’t know, man.” And my law partner’s like, “Christy, I know you like taking tough cases and figuring it out, but this one, I don’t know.” Because trucking cases, sometimes we’ll spend 100,000, $150,000 of our own money on experts.

The trucker was speeding, but it was just a little bit, five miles over. And I was like, “I’m afraid that people won’t care about that.” I tell you what, they did care. The focus group came in, of the 100 people, almost all of them talked about him speeding and how much it bothered them that in this construction zone, he was going over the speed limit. So that was a fact that I was going to hide from. I was going to minimize it. I wasn’t even really going to talk about that as much as I was the other things he was doing wrong.

But when I found out early on in this case that that was a real push point that we could leverage, then the depositions became all about speed and that’s thinking about trial ahead of time. Adjusters don’t care about depositions of their client. They have their mindset on whose fault it is and how much. But in the depositions, we’re setting up speed as being something that is so important and why it’s different for a truck driver than a car driver. That they always follow those rules. So anyway, that was another fun way.

But now I did it on another case for one of my Mother Truckers. This trucker was driving with his knees. He wasn’t looking at the road. He was getting a cigarette out and a car just came over just a little bit and he plows into her. Well, they didn’t like that one. Focus groups didn’t like that one. So that was … I thought that was going to be an easy case, but the lawyer that had me run that one has a lot more work to do on the case and we found that out early.

David Craig – Host: Yeah. And that’s the best way. And the insurance company, the trucking company may not care until you can show them, they should care. We’ll do settlement videos, we’ll put the settlement videos together, and then I’ll sometimes show them the focus group, some of the results that I’ve gotten and say, “Hey, look.” We resolved one in the 20 million, 20 plus million range, and we would’ve never been able to get it done had we not run focus groups and not been able to show that what they thought was not a problem was a huge problem.

And also then be able to package together in a video to show how much harm there was but there’s a difference. I mean, we’re investing in a case, we’re investing, like you said, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to collect millions or tens of millions of dollars, and that’s a different type of lawyer, I think, than a lot of folks out there. Those that are looking at it … And that’s another question I would ask them, “What do you do? How do you determine the value? How do you increase the value of a case? What work do you do?”

Because if you’re like Christy and she’s running her cases by hundreds of people to figure out how to increase value, then that’s different than somebody who says, “Well, I’ll negotiate it. Once you’re done treating, then I’m going to put a value on it. I’ll tell you what the value is, and then I’ll settle it for you.” That’s a different conversation.

Christy Crowe Childers: That’s right. And now we will settle your case. I don’t think that David and I are just trial hungry, although we are. If it makes sense for us to settle your case, we will settle it, but we will settle it for full value. And it’s always your decision, of course, but we’re never going to encourage you to settle your case for less money than your case is worth. And we’re also going to try in every case, if there’s any way possible to effectuate change.

Is there something about this case? Your family member has passed away, but let’s stop them from killing somebody else’s mom, somebody else’s dad. Let’s have them have a mandatory rule in their training from now on that would’ve prevented your mom’s death or your dad’s death. And that is not something that ordinary lawyers do. They don’t say, “This is going to be a mandatory term of our settlement.”

David Craig – Host: Absolutely. And you’re absolutely right. I mean, you can’t bring a loved one back. You can get the compensation, you can help the family with money. But like you, I mean, I think some of the ones that I’m the most proud of is not the number. The number’s good, but the ones, in fact, my family stood strong and said, “We do not settle, will not settle unless this company adopts new procedures.”

One that comes to my mind was a case where a company was putting tired drivers on the road and they didn’t have a very good policy on their tired driving. And this particular driver had sleep apnea and they weren’t checking it and they weren’t doing the proper training or education. And so my client was like, “No, we will not settle unless they agreed to make changes.” And so we made changes. It’s confidential which company it is, but I can tell you that we’re all safer because my client was brave enough to say, “We will go try this case unless … Or until they make these changes.”

Christy Crowe Childers: I love it.

David Craig – Host: It’s extraordinarily rewarding for both of us when that happens.

Christy Crowe Childers: It is.

David Craig – Host: Well, Christy. You and I can talk forever, I think. What else do you want to cover?

Christy Crowe Childers: That’s it for me. I think you’ve pretty much heard about all my little pet projects I’ve got going on, all my new things I’m learning about. I’m like you, I wish I had access to your wonderful videography team that you have and who I love and who have helped me on my own cases. And it’s wonderful that you have them in-house to help you with your settlement packages. You have a special team there at your law firm.

David Craig – Host: The video team that I have is not actually in-house. They’re actually a company that I work with, which is called Impact Video. I would highly recommend them.

Christy Crowe Childers: Not just your videographers, but your whole … I met your staff at ATAA, at the conference. When you spoke on stage. You guys, picture this, the whole front row was his law firm, his staff members were there rooting him on.

David Craig – Host: Well, I think it’s important. I mean, when we take our people … I try to encourage them to go out and listen to folks like you and other great trial lawyers out there because that’s how they learn and you want your team to be as informed and as educated about what we do as possible. So if somebody’s trying to find you, how do they find you?

Christy Crowe Childers: They can go to childersmccain.com. That’s C-H-I-L-D-E-R-S-M-C-C-A-I-N.com. Or they can give me a call at 478-737-6259. Or they can look up Christy Crowe Childers, Macon, Georgia, and Christy Childers trucking lawyer. That’ll probably come up in Google too. I’m pretty easy to find because there’s not a lot of people like me in my area.

David Craig – Host: Well, Christy. Thank you so much for being a guest on this episode of After the Crash.

Christy Crowe Childers: Thanks, David. Thanks for having me.

David Craig – Host: This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website, ckflaw.com. Or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-Ask-David. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.