The question of whether to trust our logic or trust our
emotions is rarely brought up in the context of legal matters, at least not
from the lawyer point of view. Certainly, we discuss endlessly how this or that
prospective juror’s mind-set (highly emotional versus highly rational) might
impact our case, but not usually how the lawyer’s emotion would.
However, recent research by M. Pham,
L. Lee and A. Stephen provides interesting insights into the positive
impact lawyer emotions might have in winning cases.
In brief, their study showed that people who were more likely to trust their feelings were also more
likely to accurately predict the outcome of a particular event. The researchers
call this phenomenon the “emotional oracle effect.”
How does this apply to winning
your case? Tune in to your emotions. If, when preparing a witness, you sense
that something is “off,” don’t dismiss that because your logic tells you all is
well. Trust your emotions enough to say something like “I notice that . . .” or
“I’m wondering if. . .” which is a non-threatening way to probe further and
take a look at whether or not what you sense with this witness has some basis
in reality.
Similarly, you can review the
demographics of your prospective jurors all you want and weed out the obvious
“bad apples,” but when it comes down to “keep Juror A versus Juror B” – tune in
to your emotions. Listen inside yourself for that intuitive hit and go with it.
Your mind is bigger than your
analytic prowess. Use all of it, rational and emotive, in the service of your
success.
