Welcome to the Trial Skills Live Blog your home to learn, share and discuss trial techniques and other law related skills. This site is hosted by young attorneys who share a passion for the law and who want a forum for sharing tips and offering advice to students, professionals and anyone who wants to know more about advocacy and the law. In addition to our weekly updates, we invite you, our readers, to provide your own words of wisdom, insights, commentary and critique.
Sunday, August 23, 2009 at 8:18PM A child witness can play a key role in your case, but it can be tricky both to establish their credibility and to ensure their reliability as a witness. Let’s talk about a few ways to accomplish both of these goals and to make the experience as painless as possible for your child witness.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 9:55PM It is said that a meticulously prepared case wins trials. While your presentation is critical, it is unlikely you'll win on style and delivery alone. Nevertheless, your presentation is a key part of the puzzle in mastering trial advocacy. And winning the jury is what it’s all about.
Before we give you our tips on winning the jury, we need to make sure you’re head is in the right place. The courtroom is a theatre, and it’s useful to think of it as such. Some of the most successful advocacy programs in the country hire actors to critique a student’s delivery. So, before you stand up in front of the judge and jury, you’d better have your act down cold.
1. Know it Cold:
You’ll hear attorneys and advocates tell you that you should avoid reading from a script when delivering an opening or closing statement. But it’s not that simple. Memorizing a speech might make for a better delivery, but it won’t necessarily help you win the jury. More than memorizing the words, you need to understand your arguments and that means being prepared to switch things up if the situation calls for it. Your ability to intuit from the reaction of a jury whether or not a certain point is worth reemphasizing or skipping over can be critical.
2. Know Your Audience:
What if you need to discredit (impeach) an expert witness who happens to be a mechanic? Would it be important to consider whether members of the jury share his profession? You bet it is! While your instincts may be to go all out after an expert witness and to draw out his weaknesses, you may very well be offending the jury by doing so. You need to be mindful of the fact that the jury may have more in common with the witness you’re trying to impeach than they have in common with you. If the goal is to win the jury, you’ll need to make sure you know your audience to avoid this common mistake.
3. Keep it Simple:
You may win the admiration of your friends and colleagues by showing off your superior vocabulary and complex arguments, but it’s unlikely you’ll win the admiration of the jury. Now, we’re not suggesting that you start speaking in a baby voice either. You certainly don’t want to talk down to your audience. If you’ve created a good case and a strong theory, there’s no reason that you can’t delivery it in a simple form. In fact, if you can’t compress your arguments into a simple form, chances are you need to go back to the drawing board and rework your theory. Sometimes the most basic of arguments are the most effective. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
4. Body Movements & Positioning
Your movements and positioning in court is an art form. The great advocates are masters at keeping the juries attention through voice inflection, the changing of pace and the use of courtroom spacing. Check out an animated video on courtroom spacing available at Before Class Media.