What they don't teach you in law school: Multiple uses for video footage

You have your producer shoot the scene, the plaintiff's current condition, experts' statements.
This raw material can be the edited six ways from Sunday into video for the settlement brochure (Scare the Insurance Company, I call it). It's one thing to acknowledge in dry prose, yes, she has limitations on ADLs. But seeing someone struggle to get a spoon to her mouth or lie quietly while someone changes his diapers, that's an order of magnitude more effect.

Of course you're getting ready for trial. One of my client firms makes that explicit. We prepare every case for trial. Like hip hop gangsters who leave their shoes untied to show they're not going to run away if there's trouble, they're ready. So the same footage can be edited into admissible demonstrative evidence.

You're also ready to try this case in the press. One huge class action had me produce clips that ended up on the CBS Evening News and were played to US Congressional hearings. Other edits were used for a road show to recruit plaintiffs for the class.

Maybe you don't need all these for every case. But the marginal cost and effort to have it in the can is nothing. You may never have to draw your weapon, especially if the bad guys see you have one.