My wife Lita and I are leaving in a few minutes for the airport. We going to Italy and aren’t back until the first week in June so I will not be posting on this blog during that time. Gerry Spence is still at it in Detroit defending a lawyer with the assistance of a very fine criminal defense lawyer from Idaho who worked with Gerry in the Randy Weaver case. While all lawyers are an attorney’s worst nightmare for…
David Ball has written excellent books about trial and his last book David Ball on Damages is particularly helpful. He has captured some basic truth’s about communication involving today’s jury panels. One of his principles is that a trial is what you spend time talking about. Juror’s assume that what you devote time to is important to the case. That means that while liability is obviously critical, the case should be about harm and damages. Dividing time between liability and…
The Spence Trial College conducts regional seminars around the country. At this year’s regional seminar in Washington,the topic was cross examination. The college approach involves: (1) role reversal: Become the witness; identify what the witness is afraid of/devoted to/motivated by and why (2) What is the story that advances your case? Determine what story you want told by: witnesses, client, experts and the juror’s story as well as the universal story. My talk affirmed this approach and consisted of these…