Use “Less is More” to Win in Court

 

Some courts are lenient with the amount of time allotted for a trial, some are not. It certainly can seem impossible, sometimes, to jam the amount of evidence and testimony you have in the number of hours permitted.

And yet, as is so often true of many things in life “Less is more.”

On being debriefed, some jurors stated that the matter at hand was treated with less than full consideration as the trial stretched on and on. Jurors began discussing plans for the various events in their lives, sharing thoughts about how to deal with children, difficult bosses, and so on, clearly impatient and bored with what they were experiencing as an unnecessarily long process.

Jurors who may have had the patience to sit through long trials and long deliberations some 10 or so years ago are no longer willing to be held hostage past what they consider a sufficient rendering of the facts and testimony. Our world has sped up tremendously: we abbreviate everything, we rely on bullets and headlines, and we expect everything to happen quickly, as in “now.”

This is one of the great advantages of focus groups: attorneys are forced to reduce their entire case to a mere hour and a half, which puts a glaring spotlight on what is essential and what could be left aside.

Yes, you still must get across your points, you must still develop testimony and present evidence appropriately. However, a great deal can often be trimmed from the presentation of your case without losing impact. If anything, you generally gain impact from being succinct.

Handling the Angry Witness

You’re gearing up for trial, you hardly have the time or patience to deal with an angry witness. Yet there you are, in the unenviable position of having to prepare a witness who is angry for any number of reasons:

- The witness is a client, angry that this matter couldn’t be settled or that it even is in litigation at all.

- The witness is furious at being “required” to testify.

- The witness has healed or substantially recovered from the incidents at issue and resents having to deal with “it” all over again.

Whatever the witness’s reason, he or she is mad! And only too happy to tell you all about how aggravated and upset they are. You try to get down to the business of prep with “OK, but we’ve got to focus on preparing you for your testimony,” which is labored, halting and difficult at best.

There is a more effective way. People in highly charged emotional states need FIRST to have their emotions thoroughly acknowledged, in order to clear their minds and hearts sufficiently to think rationally.

Start by reflecting your witness’s emotions: “It is frustrating to have to go through this again.” Let them respond with another emotional salvo, and follow that with something like “This has been really hard on you.” By now, the witness will have calmed down some, because you’re not resisting their emotion, you’re acknowledging it. Notice how the acknowledgement is done in third person, non-inflammatory terms. Once you sense that the witness is less angry, you’re ready to open the prep session with the use of the word ‘and.’ “And that’s why we’re here today—to prepare you so the jurors can understand your perspective.” 

More than anything, emotionally wrought people want just one thing – to be genuinely heard. 

 

Reaching Jurors on Different Levels

A successful lawyer is one who knows how to persuade jurors, that much is obvious. What is less obvious is that jurors are persuaded on several different levels. One level that is often ignored is the difference levels in how we each perceive information, our unique perceptual modes.

An individual’s perceptual mode determines the primary way that individual perceives events and situations: we see it, hear it or feel it. That is not to say that people who favor a visual mode, for example, only experience the world through their eyes. Rather, they first and predominantly experience the world in visual terms. Visually oriented people make use of the auditory and feeling modes, but only secondarily.

How does this apply to the courtroom?

Each of us tend to express and receive information in our preferred perceptual mode, to the relative exclusion of the other modes. Many men, for example, are visually oriented, and thus are focused on the visual. Women are frequently more kinesthetically (feeling) oriented, and relate to kinesthetic expression.

Figure out how you see the world: are you more likely to say “I see what you mean” “I can’t picture it” (visual), or “that sounds good to me” “Doesn’t ring a bell for me” (auditory), or “I understand how you feel” “I want to get a handle on this” (kinesthetic)?

Deliberately express yourself in all three modes during trial; make a conscious effort to communicate in those modes that are not your predominant one. In so doing, you will more effectively reach and therefore persuade all the jurors, not just those who resonate to your native mode.

Conviction vs Slash-and-Burn

It is often tempting to rip into opposing counsel, or disparage his/her client in emotionally charged vitriolic words, yet such an approach rarely wins over jurors. Sure, you have the shock value of a momentary deer-in-the-headlights stunned witness or a knee-jerk angry riposte from opposing counsel, but in the long run, that’s not what convinces jurors.

Jury studies systematically show that jurors tend to be highly critical and disapproving of such tactics. One time during trial, no problem. More than that, jurors will turn on the offending attorney. Over-aggressiveness has repeatedly been pointed out in jury debriefings as an advocate’s most common flaw.

This is not to say you must turn into Mr./Ms. Meek, not at all. It simply means that you persuade jurors more with positive arguments, such as appealing to devotion to an ideal, or the well-being of the community at large, or the importance of justice. These can be expressed with great vigor and emotional commitment, as long as you are sincere in your delivery.

Conviction in the name of a righteous cause is what wins jurors over, not slash-and-burn verbal onslaughts.

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Read my latest article, "Managing the Angry Client 101" in the September issue of Plaintiff magazine. Click here.