Litigators

Evolve

I finally realized that there was no One Way To Rule Them All when it came to closings.

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Blocks on Blue Background symbolizing Business GrowthIt takes time for a good trial lawyer to figure out how to do well one of the myriad tasks that are part of our work. But even when you find a way to do something, you may learn it is not The Way.

While my colleagues and I still get to try more cases than virtually all of our adversaries, I was fortunate enough in my early career as a prosecutor to try many cases to juries. This was the 1990s, Giuliani was mayor, crime was coming down, but then that meant that we had lots and lots of cases. The end result was that even before I left the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, I already was fortunate enough to try something close to 20 jury cases.

By the time I tried my third or fourth one, I winced when I thought of how perfectly terrible my closing was in my first. I thought I was a lot better in my second trial (though I won my first, and lost my second, and I’m sure there’s a lesson there). Around the fifth or sixth trial, I finally had a method for how I did things in the closing — how I organized them, what kinds of demonstratives made sense, and so forth. I found a way to handle one of the hardest parts of being a trial lawyer: synthesizing days or weeks of evidentiary presentation to a group of nonprofessionals that never heard of the case or anyone in it before, in a way that made sense, and (hopefully) helped the People of the State of New York, for that particular case.

But then I had a multiweek trial that involved years of harassment and, quite frankly, an entire cast of characters (most were involved in the opera, and they brought their performance abilities to court). The summation there required something different, and the way I was so sure I had to close did not make sense, so I found another way.

And so it continued in government service, and after, in all kinds of cases: while there were certain basic rules and principles I followed in closings (Absolutely Rule Number One: Plan To Make It Short. Then Make It Even Shorter), I finally realized that there was no One Way To Rule Them All when it came to closings.

Or just about anything else. As trial lawyers mature, we should learn A Way for how we do things: so much of this is not intuitive and takes a while to learn (as the saying goes, that’s why we call it practice). But the best trial lawyers win for their clients realizing that even as they learn a way to do something, they must be flexible to find The Right Way for the case they are working on right now.

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john-balestriereJohn Balestriere is an entrepreneurial trial lawyer who founded his firm after working as a prosecutor and litigator at a small firm. He is a partner at trial and investigations law firm Balestriere Fariello in New York, where he and his colleagues represent domestic and international clients in litigation, arbitration, appeals, and investigations. You can reach him by email at john.g.balestriere@balestrierefariello.com.

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