{"id":1434,"date":"2016-11-29T17:46:13","date_gmt":"2016-11-29T22:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/?p=444418"},"modified":"2016-11-29T17:46:13","modified_gmt":"2016-11-29T22:46:13","slug":"trial-lawyers-youre-doing-it-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/legal-innovation-center\/2016\/11\/29\/trial-lawyers-youre-doing-it-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial Lawyers \u2013 You’re Doing It Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"trialI have watched about 50 or so opening statements. I recently watched one of the worst opening statements I have ever seen. It was a little over an hour. It was full of things like, \u201cYou see, this was an S-corp. And for those of you who don\u2019t know about corporate formations, a S-corp is different from a C-corp.\u201d It bounced around. It was unorganized. The two saddest things were that (1) the attorney looked like he thought he was killing it, and (2) it could have been a great story.<\/p>\n

If you are reading this post, you are probably a trial lawyer, and probably even a successful trial lawyer. You might be thinking that you are not doing it wrong because you already have a pretty good track record of success. Maybe you\u2019re right, but the question you should be asking yourself is not whether you\u2019ve done well, but whether you can do better.<\/p>\n

Using Graphics To Tell Stories<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not going to tell you that your opening needs to be a narrated slideshow, but I will tell you that you should always look to incorporate some kind of computer-made graphic. There are three reasons for this: (1) your jury doesn\u2019t care about your case enough to pay enough attention to all of your words, (2) they will remember the key elements of your story better, and (3) you will adequately explain a complex issue in 30 seconds instead of five minutes.<\/p>\n

From your perspective, you have put a lot of time and money to get to this point in litigation. You know your case backwards and forwards, and you are excited to tell your story. Put yourself in the jury\u2019s shoes. You\u2019ve just been sworn in. You don\u2019t know any of these lawyers, but you know they both have an agenda to sell you and will both give you a slanted view of the facts to get their point across. Then, they go into \u201ccause of action number one \u2013 breach of fiduciary duty\u201d and five minutes later, you are wondering how the food in the cafeteria is.<\/p>\n

Using graphics at trial is not going to turn your partnership dispute case into a totally awesome drug\/murder\/espionage trial, but it will solve some of your problems, regardless of whether you are a grand orator. If we look at TED talks, some of the greatest TED talks use PowerPoints, but not the way lawyers like to use PowerPoint \u2013 with Power[bullet]Points. In fact, Forbes wrote an article<\/a> about the use of slides in TED talks and had this to say about using graphics as one of the nine secrets to great public speaking:<\/p>\n

Some of the best TED presentations are designed in PowerPoint. Others use Apple Keynote or Prezi. Regardless of the software, there are no bullet points on the slides of the best TED presentations. There are pictures, animations, and limited amounts of text\u2014but no slides cluttered with line after line of bullet points. This technique is called \u201cpicture superiority.\u201d It simply means we are much more likely to recall an idea when a picture complements it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Business Insider ran a similar article<\/a> and had this to say:<\/p>\n

“Slides break the connection between the presenter and audience,” says [TEDx organizer Jeremey] Donovan. “Only use them when they document an experience firsthand in a way that beats verbal description.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lastly, take a look at some great examples of using graphics to tell a story:<\/p>\n