On Friday, November 5th, Levinson and Stefani Injury Lawyers’ own Ken Levinson will be a featured speaker at the Iowa Association for Justice’s 48th Annual Convention.
This hybrid event allows attendees to join either virtually or in-person, but will be held at the Downtown Des Moines Hilton. Other speakers include the New President of AAJ, Navan Ward of Atlanta, as well as IAJ’s Nick and Courtney Rowley, Lauren Fraser of New Jersey, and Karen Koehler of Seattle.
IAJ prides itself on gathering some of the most prominent speakers from across the state of Iowa and the country itself to discuss innovative litigation solutions and trial advocacy techniques.
Levinson will be sharing his ideas regarding focus group utilization methods and practices for the present day as compared to pre-COVID.
“I love teaching,” Levinson said of his participation in the convention. “I love helping fellow trial lawyers. I’ll be discussing how we’ve pivoted from focus groups and preparing our cases before COVID to how we do so now–by using Zoom more, getting input from other lawyers and participants, and using virtual focus groups along with surveys and other methods.”
Levinson noted that before the coronavirus era, many trial lawyers didn’t think much about other ways to hold focus groups–and they’ve now been forced to think outside the box.
“We used to only do focus groups in person,” he said. “We didn’t really consider any other method to test our cases and help our clients with focus groups. Now, we’ve made changes in the middle of COVID to do focus groups remotely and it’s been interesting; it’s easier, in a lot of ways, to find participants because sometimes they’re more comfortable at home.”
Not only is it easier to find participants, but focus groups can be held with more people than ever before when done virtually.
“We can do some interesting things online and get more people, because by definition, a conference room only holds so many individuals–but you can do a virtual Zoom focus group with around 50 people,” Levinson added. “A conference room size can be limiting. Now, we’ve been able to survey people and have them fill out questionnaires in real time, whereas in person, it’s a lot harder to do that. It’s been really seamless, especially when we need to show exhibits from our computer. We’ve done a lot of focus groups in jurisdictions and states far away, but from the comfort of my office in Chicago.”
For information on attending IAJ’s Annual Convention virtually, click here, or head here for details on joining the in-person event in Des Moines.
