What makes a trial lawyer trustworthy? The keys to trial persuasion are sincerity sincere and the ability to project that sincerity. Sincerity, more than eloquence, a good appearance or any other attribute, is what really matters in trial advocacy.Sincerity in…

This bears repeating again and again. Sally Bulford, a Utah prosecutor, provided these humorous writing pointers under the title 1. Avoid alliteration. Always.2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)4. Employ the…

Nothing is more effective in conveying information to an audience than doing so by painting word pictures. Use words to bring up pictures in your listeners’ the mind’s eyes. Seize your audience’s attention by vividly describing what happened. When you…

How you prepare your witnesses for direct and cross-examination is critical to your success in trial. The following is an indispensable checklist along with notes for thorough and effective witness preparation. Preparation for the courthouse and courtroom:– Courthouse – where…

INEXPENSIVE PERSUASIVE TRIAL VISUALSIf your case calls for a diagram of a floor plan or landscape or a crime scene diagram involving a landscape, floor plan, crime scene,  timeline, or the like and you don’t have a large budget, SmartDraw…

 David Boies is America’s preeminent trial lawyer. His successes include cases, such as that against California’s Proposition 8 and the Microsoft antitrust case. In an interview with Katrina Dewey for Lawdragon, http://www.lawdragon.com/feature-articles/cocktails-with-david-boies/  he described his belief that it was an…

THE RIGHT WORDS FOR TRIAL LAWYERS—THE RULE OF THREESuccessful trial lawyers know how to pick the right words to persuade. They use similes, metaphors, analogies, famous quotes, and the rule of three. We’re going to explore all of these,…