Stop Whining! Win Juror Votes with Witness “Can Do” Attitude (Part I, Plaintiff)

Your key witness is usually your client, or your client’s representative. If plaintiff, the witness is likely to complain, a litany of “He/she/they done me wrong.” Perfectly understandable, why else would your client be there in the first place! However, to juror ears, an unending stream of complaints sounds like whining, and jurors don’t like whiners.

What they like are people who, despite their misfortunes, are valiant, are giving it the best shot they can. This doesn’t mean your plaintiff client stiff-upper-lips it to where through gritted teeth/wired jaw they maintain “All is well,” but rather that you make sure, during direct, that you expose the ways in which your client is doing the very best that they can to survive/heal/improve things despite horrendous odds.

Now you have a potential winner in juror eyes, not a loser-whiner.

Keep Clients Happy by Keeping Them In the Loop

Every case has its problems; some can be anticipated, others cannot. In their eagerness to maintain their credibility and be effective problem-solvers for their clients, lawyers frequently make the mistake of failing to inform clients of problems in an appropriate and effective manner, or of failing to inform them in timely fashion. Inevitably, you will find yourself at some point in time with the double headache of trying to appease an unpleasantly surprised and irritated client, and of trying to resolve the original problem.

Most clients need and want to be informed about the troublesome aspects of their case. Client-satisfaction surveys show that clients complain mostly that lawyers do not inform them about problems until the problems are so big they can no longer be ignored and that lawyers are unrealistic, usually minimizing problems and overestimating their ability to deal with them quickly and easily.

Clients dislike surprises, especially unpleasant ones. This holds true for small surprises, such as finding out at the last minute that a meeting was rescheduled, and for large surprises, such as suddenly realizing that the worst possible jury has just been impaneled for their trial.

Diminish the surprise factor by informing your clients of potential problems as soon as you begin working the case. Be upfront with your clients. Do your best to keep them in the loop as much as possible. Hopefully, you’ll avert most of those problems and your clients will be the more satisfied because of it.

For Deposition Success: Speak to the Jurors!

Your client is a rational, mature businessperson. You expect them to do well at their upcoming deposition, after all, they have plenty of real-world experience, and of course you go over the facts of the case with them as well as some deposition basics. You are subsequently horrified when they waffle, or get angry, or are evasive, or volunteer or do any of the multitude of the other communication sins that constitute poor testimony.

But here’s the thing: whether your witness is a CEO or a homemaker, he or she must be prepared as rigorously for deposition as they are for trial. Why? Because the vast majority of cases don’t go to trial, and depositions are critical in determining your effectiveness in negotiating the best possible settlement for your client. Yet time after time, lawyers fail to prepare witnesses sufficiently for deposition. The reasons are simple: too much to do, too little time.

There are, however, some basic guidelines that can help your witness at their deposition in the absence of your being able to conduct full-fledged video-taped role play with them.

Here's a tip: tell your witness that although it may seem like he is responding to opposing counsel’s questions, in truth, the witness is addressing the jurors. It doesn’t matter whether or not the matter ever gets to trial, when the witness responds as if he speaking to jurors, being informative rather than defensive, polite and even-tempered despite opposing counsel’s ploys, the quality of his testimony improves radically.

Wall Street Meltdown Impacting How Jurors View Business Clients

Listen to Dr. Noelle Nelson on The Legal Broadcast Network.

Topic: Wall Street Meltdown Impacting How Jurors View Attorneys & Business Clients

To hear the 10-minute interview, go to:

http://thelegalbroadcastnetwork.squarespace.com/the-lbn-blog/2009/6/25/wall-street-meltdown-impacting-how-jurors-view-attorneys-bus.html