Starting as a young lawyer and continuing  I consult Professors Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, for speaking and writing with power and conviction. Below are maxims from their book.

Place Yourself in the Background. According to professors Strunk and White good writing (and speaking) comes naturally without trying to effect a certain mood or temper.  Write and speak so the recipient is drawn to what you are writing or talking about rather than your emotional take on the subject. In this way the recipient is drawn to the substance.   If the substance is there the recipient will have an emotional response. 

Write and Speak Naturally.  Be yourself. Forget about imitating someone else.  Admittedly, we are all imitators and have been since babies.  The key is draw on our experiences rather than a copy of the source. This allows the message to be our message which is authentic.

Never Overwrite or Overstate. Stick to the facts without gilding or adding. When we overstate the reader or listener knows. The message is processed in a negative way like this person is trying to sell me something.

Write and Speak with Nouns and Verbs. Eliminate adjectives and adverbs. As stated by professors Strunk and White: “The adjective hasn’t been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.” It is nouns and verbs, not their assistants, that give good writing and speaking its toughness and color.

Avoid the Use of Qualifiers. This means words such as rather, very, little, pretty, and probably to name a few. As stated by the professors: “These are the leeches that infest the pond of good prose, sucking the blood of words.” The use of the adjective “little” is particularly debilitating. “Little” is a badge of a weak speaker or writer.  The same is true with other qualifiers.

Active Voice. Speak and write in the active voice whenever you have a choice. The active voice “I will speak and write with conviction” has power. The passive voice conveys weakness: “I will try to speak or write with conviction.”

Write and Speak at High Level. When speaking use the ing.  Rather than “I’m thinken about doen it, ” say I am thinking about doing it.” This elevates you  to to a speaker with more education in the listener’s mind. The listener consciously and subconsciously hears your messgae as more educated. Eliminate slang in writing and speaking. This puts you at a higher level.

Make the Point and Stop. As stated by our professors “do not explain too much.”  When saying too much adverbs and adjectives creep into speaking or writing. This makes the message weak rather than strong. Shakespeare says: ” The lady doth protest  too much me thinks.”

Avoid Fancy Words. Speak and write like you are talking to a high school student. Avoid words of  trade that only fellow trade members know.  Avoid foreign language;  it sounds like you are trying to impress;  it is not impressive to deliver a message the recipient misses.

Remember John Wayne’s Maxim:  “Speak slow, speak low, and don’t  say too much.”

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

 Cross examination is a challenging part of the trial.  It presents the opportunity to either turn an adverse witness into my witness or destroy the adverse witness. Either way my case benefits form successful cross examination.

My preference is to turn the witness into my witness. On destroying the adverse witness I do this in a way the jury will accept. I never embarrass, badger, or abuse a witness.

One of my favorite cross examination movie scenes is Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution.  As we see from viewing this short but sweet cross, Laughton is able to destroy a fact witness in a way acceptable to the jury. He uses the classic inability to perceive facts to destroy the witness.

As we see in the clip Laughton begins by setting the foundation for inability to hear (and hearing a conversation is the basis for the adverse testimony). In setting the foundation Laughton begins by asking the witness in a booming voice if she recently applied for a hearing aid. In doing this Laughton uses change of voice (going into a less audible voice) to dramatically illustrate the witness’s hearing problem. When the prosecutor objects Laughton unfazed agrees to repeat the question.

In a booming voice Laughton restates his question with the witness admitting she has yet to receive her hearing aide. Continuing in his booming voice Laughton verbally summarizes the witness’s testimony. In doing this he paints the scene within which the witness is supposed to have heard a conversation that could not be heard by a person with poor hearing. Then by again lowering his voice Laughton demonstrates the witness’s inability to hear as she again cannot hear Laughton’s lowered voice. The damage is done. The witness is destroyed without being embarrassed, badgered or abused.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Eye contact leads to meaningful connection. Begin with an accepting and understanding heart,  making eye contact.  

In a jury trial I start with eye contact before speaking. I stay with a juror  (three to five seconds) then go to the next juror who invites eye contact.

When talking and listening I keep eye contact until completing a thought. I go to the next juror who invites connection; I engage with eye contact discussion. This allows me to connect. 

Try making eye contact in all conversation group and individual. It shows the person you have connected with you care.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

This is my take on how a trial lawyer is like a Pocock cedar racing shell. James Daniel Brown, In Boys In The Boat (Viking 2013), discusses George Pocock, a master shell builder in the 1920s and 30s. Brown writes about Pocock’s discovery of cedar as the ultimate wood for a racing shell; with the result being “the boat as a whole [is] under subtle but continual tension caused by the unreleased compression in the skin, something like a drawn bow waiting to be released.”

“To Pocock, this unflagging resilience-this readiness to bounce back, to keep coming, to persist in the face of resistance was the magic in cedar.” This unseen force imparts life into the shell. “As far as Pocock is concerned a shell that does not have this “life” in it is unworthy. Id. at 139.

This passage rings true of the worthiness of a trial lawyer. The trial lawyer is under a subtle but continual tension in trial-like a drawn bow. The trial lawyer must have unflagging resilience- a readiness to keep coming especially in the face of resistance. This is the unseen make up of a trial lawyer. With this make up the trial lawyer is worthy of the responsibility of representing an injured person against the resistance of the insurance industry.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Constantine Stanislavski refers to “The Magic of If” in his book An Actor Prepares. Here Stanislavski instructs acting students to put themself into the emotion of their part by imagining what it is like “if” they (are in the same situation their part places them in). Putt ing our self in the “what if”  situation allows a natural emotional spontaneity to emerge.

A few years ago I read an article in the King County Bar Association Bar Bulletin: Daniel Dugan, The Turning Point (March 2015) at 14-15, where Duggan a Trial Consultant discusses “The Turning Point.” Duggan teaches “The Turning Point” is a story telling technique using “counterfactual thinking.” “Counterfactual thinking is a technique where you ask a person to describe the opposite of the situation they are in now.” Id. at 15.

A counterfactual question “elicits rich responses revealing motivation, emotion and a glimpse at a person’s view of fate or destiny.” Id. Duggan goes on to reason that counterfactual reasoning by jurors allows them to see the case from our client’s perspective.

To illustrate Duggan suggests we invite the jury to imagine how our client’s life would be if her injury had not occurred: “Well to understand this ladies and gentlemen you will hear from Katie’s  [lay witness] who will tell you Katie’s life would  be… .”  This allows for two story lines-one a life with injury, and two a life without injury. “The gap between these two story lines will now appear huge and graphic.” Id.

And the jury goes from the typical mindset of does Katie deserve X amount of money to I get it X amount of money will get Katie’s life back on track. The jury’s verdict becomes the “tool that jurors use to make one life out of the two paths that lay before…[Katie] at the time of [her injury.]” Id. Although her injury forced Katie down her life changing path, the jurors can get Katie back on track because “they understand what it will take to do that.” Id.

Combining Stanislavski’s “if” with Duggan’s  “counterfactual thinking” allows jurors a unique perspective and gives them the tool to fill the gap between the two lives.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Every knowing lawyer seeks a jury of the same sort of people as their client; people who will be able to imagine themselves in the same situation and realize what verdict the client wants.

Choosing jurors is always a delicate task. The more a lawyer knows of life, human nature, psychology, and the reactions of the human emotions, the better equipped for the subtle selection of the so-called “twelve people, good and true.” In this undertaking, everything pertaining to the prospective juror needs to be questioned and weighed: this means all matters that combine to make the person; all of these qualities and experiences have left their effect on ideas, beliefs and fancies that inhabit the juror’s mind. Understanding of all this cannot be obtained too bluntly. It requires finesse, subtlety and guesswork.

A skillful lawyer does not hunt for learning or intelligence in the box; [the skillful trial lawyer] knows that all beings act from emotions and instincts, and that reason is not a motive factor. … The nature of the person is the element that determines the juror’s bias for or against our client. [The juror’s]… intellect can always furnish… good reasons for following their instincts and emotions. Many [seemingly] irrelevant issues… are not so silly as they seem.  There is no sure rule by which one can gauge any person.

It is not the law alone or the facts that determine the results. Always the element of luck and chance looms large. A jury of twelve is watching not only the evidence but the attitude of each lawyer, and the parties involved, in all their moves. Every step is fraught with doubt, if not mystery.

Often a casual remark may determine a vital situation. In all questions people are frequently influenced by some statement which, spoken at the eventful time, determines fate. In fact, all that occurs in life is an endless sequence of events resulting from the wildest chance.

Clarence Darrow, How to Pick A Jury (Esquire Magazine 1936)(edited/redacted by PAT)(Photograph Courtesy of  the Clarence Darrow Foundation).

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Several years ago when reading  Joe Dimaggio’s biography I was taken aback by Dimaggio’s usual first reaction: “What’s in it for me?” The great Yankee being first and foremost concerned about himself. Sales philosophy teaches what matters is what the buyer believes is in it for him. Dale Carnegie writes: Why talk about what we want. Although we are eternally interested in what we want no one else is, because everyone else is interested in what they want. “So the only way on earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.” Id.

Applied to a jury trial we know what we want, and what the defense wants, but failing to connect with what the jurors want results in a roll of the dice. This is because what the jurors want  is the key to success. We must get to what the jurors want and show them how to get it.

This is what the reptilian philosophy recognizes. The reptilian must not be forgotten, but there is more to it than a simplistic low brain analysis. We should remember the middle emotional brain and the logical cerebral cortex. When we do this we factor in the emotional component of like-ability, and the cerebral component of logic meaning we make sense.

To put this together we must first discover our client’s story. In discovering the story we feel the betrayal of our client, so we can convey our client’s betrayal to the jury. The jury must feel defendant’s conduct is conduct that demands a corrective response because society is better when people are held responsible for their actions. There must be a connection between lawyer, client and  jury so the jury understands their corrective response benefits society which in turn benefits the jury.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.