FOCUS GROUPS BOOK

Through the years the Edge system has given us an addiEonal 5 rules for safety rules to keep in
mind:
1. First in =me goes first – first Eme the bad act could have been prevented.
2. All rules should address the emo=onal stool – lie, betrayal and hypocrisy.
3. All rules should include the quid pro quo – you do for me what I do for you, the
client followed the rules, but the defendant did not.
4. The last rule is always the mo=ve – the why this happened.
5. Every rule must have its own checklist – checklist are the facts that show the
rule was violated.
While with the above rules on safety rules you are equipped to formulate the sentence
structure of the rule, the focus group comes in to give you the content. The objecEve here is to
give the focus group your facts, players and informaEon regarding what happened and ask them
what safety rules would have prevented the harms that occurred.
By simply asking the first in Eme that the harms could have been prevented, by whom and how,
you begin narrowing down when Bubba believes the system failed. The litmus test is to ask the
parEcipants, do the safety rules give you the system failure? Has Bubba idenEfied for you the
system that failed, or did not exist in the first place that led you to be bringing the case to
them?
2. Iden=fy your first in =me and case system failure.
This is an extension of the above, but warrants reiteraEon and its own objecEve. A key objecEve
in focus grouping your case to formulate your safety rules and test them is to have the jurors
idenEfy the first in Eme event and place in the history of your case that the bad thing that
happened to your client could have been prevented.
When you correctly idenEfy the first in Eme moment that the harm could have been prevented
you have unequivocally also idenEfied your system failure. Please read that again. I cannot