Plaintiff Trial Lawyer Tips

Karl Rove brought to perfection for the Bush administration the framing of actions in a way they would be receptive. For example "The Clean Air Act" allowed businesses to pollute. The "Healthy Forest Act" allowed the logging industry to clear cut indiscriminately. The proposed "Clean Ocean Act" would allow free oil drilling with the potential to pollute our waters. George Lakoff, professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, has written extensively about framing and metaphors. We know, as…

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Actor Kirk Douglas has written his ninth book Let’s Face It age 90 years. It is an entertaining book. One thing he wrote struck me as a lesson for trial lawyers. He says when he gives a speech he always starts out telling the audience he has had a stroke. As a result, he tells them, he has to speak slowly to be understood. However, he goes on, he’s found that when he does speak slowly people listen because they…

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Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469 and became a figure of the Italian Renaissance. His writings included political theory and he wrote a pamphlet The Prince which he hoped would help him gain influence with the ruling Medici family of Florence. The well known writing has a chapter he titled "Cruelty and Compassion. Whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse." Here is a sampling of his answer. He advised that…

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