It’s 11 p.m. Sunday night. You are a young lawyer trying your first case that starts tomorrow. You have prepared and carefully thought through how to present your case. Then it hits you. You have to get a complex set of documents introduced into evidence. Your case depends on it. But you aren’t exactly sure how to do it. You scramble and do some Google searches or ask ChatGPT. You get a lot of words back. You don’t know if what they say is right. If only you could watch how an experienced lawyer does this. But you can’t so you walk into court the next morning scared shitless.
Enter CVN
Occasionally, when I go to legal conferences such as the one put on this week by AALL, I stumble upon a concept, an idea, or a product that actually moves the needle. Such was the case when I attended a talk by representatives of something called the Courtroom View Network (CVN). Instead of relying on AI to solve any and all problems, CVN found a practical solution to the problem of a lack of trial skills training.
I got the sense that these guys have been around a while, but as its CEO, Lou Freitas, said at the session, they only recently began marketing their product as a trial training tool. It capitalizes on the use of video to teach lawyers how to try cases, much like you go to YouTube to watch videos on how to repair or install things.
What they have done is videoed literally thousands of state court trials in their entirety. Rather than essentially creating a video report of the trial and its highlights, CVN instead videos the complete trial without any commentary or analysis. As Arlin Crisco, the Sections Editor of CVN, put it, CVN is like the C-SPAN of trials.
So What?
So what, you say: what’s the good of a bunch of videos that no one has the time to watch? You can’t really have a lawyer spend chunks of valuable time watching a three-day trial all the way through. Why not just rely on AI and AI-driven simulations to promote the training of trial skills?
But here’s the beauty of what these guys have recently done: they recognized that if these trials, or portions of them, could be easily accessed and watched, they could serve as a valuable training tool at a time when there are so few trials and even opportunities to observe trials. So, they created a way to index and then access these trials to do just that.
Their search tools allow you to search for trials by type of case, by attorney, and by industry. Perhaps more importantly, you can search the library of trial videos by the function you want to observe such as opening or closing statements, cross-examination, direct examination, etc. They also created a playlist of subjects that are easily accessible.
They even have interviews of some of the lawyers who are in the videos, describing not only what they did but why and how they did it. Indeed, using their tools, you can slice and dice these trials any way you want. It essentially creates a best-in-practice library for inexperienced and, for that matter, experienced lawyers.
Real Life, Not Simulations
The concept is based on the notion that one of the best ways to learn how to try a case, short of actually trying a bunch of them, is to observe trials or at least parts of them. By seeing and hearing real lawyers in the courtroom and noting how they do things, lawyers can see what really happens and get a real sense of how things are done. How problems and roadblocks are overcome. How the lawyer moves around the courtroom and uses their voice and inflection to better persuade. These are things, as Crisco put it, you can’t learn these by reading a book.
I remember as a young lawyer, one of my biggest fears was how to practically do many of the little things. Like how to get documents properly admitted. Or how and when to make an objection. Or how to proffer proof. It would have been wonderful, not to mention comforting, to be able to watch a video of a seasoned trial lawyer doing these very things. One less worry when you’re trying your first case or even your tenth. And more an opportunity to focus on how to persuade instead of worrying about being tripped up.
A Persuasive Example
And make no mistake, these videos are chock full of great and memorable techniques to persuade. Crisco actually gave a demonstration of how a simple video could teach powerful persuasive techniques. He showed a clip of an actual opening statement by a good plaintiff’s lawyer in a medical malpractice trial.
The plaintiff’s claim was based upon the failure of the doctor to send a biopsy of a cyst to a lab for analysis after extraction. The lawyer used a red piece of heavy clay to demonstrate the cyst. He removed the clay from a model of the plaintiff’s face and then walked over to the metal trash can and said, “Instead of sending it to the lab, the doctor just threw it away.”
He then dropped a piece of heavy red clay into the trash can where it landed with a resounding thud. I will remember that trash can moment. Which is exactly what the lawyer wanted the jury to do.
Start With the Problem, Not AI
A few weeks ago, Melissa Rogozinski and I wrote an article about the perils of letting AI take over and drive what we do instead of thinking through the ways to solve a problem. And using AI only when it actually enhances the solution. We used the Cite Checker tool created by Clearbrief as a prime example. That tool allows for the quick check of citations generated by an AI tool without using AI itself. The CVN tool is in the same class. It uses AI as a tool to access real life.
Why is this so valuable in the age of training by simulation? An AI simulator, as good as it may be (and there are some good ones), is still a simulation. I can tell you from experience that what happens in the courtroom is not predictable. It’s nuanced. What the lawyer does depends so much on what happens right in front of him. That’s why what persuades depends not only on technique but also on knowing and observing the audience, seeing them and picking up signals. A trial can’t be fully simulated.
Moreover, a simulation is still a simulation. It’s not real life, and those that go through and use the simulation tools know that. It’s just not the same as watching an actual trial lawyer in action and seeing what they do.
And finally, there’s another reason being able to access the real thing and see what a trial lawyer does is important. In the age of AI, where there is a paucity of effective ways to learn how to do things in the courtroom, many may turn to a chatbot, an LLM, to ask how to do things – one that a) may give wrong information and b) may not be practical advice.
The Next Best Thing
This is why the very best trial lawyers are often those who try a lot of cases, who become comfortable in the courtroom, who can read the courtroom and command it. This on-the-job training can’t be easily replicated when there are so few opportunities to try cases. So, the next best thing is being able to observe trial lawyers in action and what they do. Actually seeing a trial and hearing it is the next best thing to experiencing it.
It’s also a great example of using AI appropriately and in its proper place and combining it with non-AI tools. I can’t vouch for how good the CVN product is, but I can vouch for how good of an idea it is.
The ability and confidence to try cases is not a forgotten skill at a time when so few cases are tried. One thing I learned over the years is that the best way to get a case settled is to treat it from the beginning as a case that will go to trial. To know and act like you have that ability. What CVN has done, if it works as it claims, is to give lawyers that ability and confidence. And they didn’t start with AI to do that.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and writer. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a blog devoted to the examination of the tension between technology, the law, and the practice of law.