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Month: October 2013

YOUR DEMEANOR COUNTS

YOUR DEMEANOR COUNTS

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When analyzing what the demeanor of the plaintiff trial lawyer should be during trial, one should keep in mind how jurors and judges arrive at their viewpoints, opinions and verdicts. Research and functional magnetic resonance imaging has confirmed the majority of our decisional thought processing goes on at a subconscious level. Our impressions and decisions are not logical, but rather a process that occurs without our conscious involvement and at an unconscious level. However, these subconscious conclusions are always rationalized…

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THE CHALLENGE OF JURY SELECTION

THE CHALLENGE OF JURY SELECTION

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Two of my partners and I start a jury trial in Seattle a week from now. Originally set to start on Monday the trial judge decided the case wouldn’t fit the scheduled time and it was moved to another judge to start a week later. There is a train load of paper flowing in from defendants consisting of motions, briefs and documents. The defendants have been attempting to move the venue and/or continue the case and this onslaught of paper…

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THE ART OF LISTENING

THE ART OF LISTENING

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Our greatest  failure as plaintiff’s trial lawyers  is  not listening with concentration. We don’t really listen to everything the juror is saying  or in a nonverbal way communicating  to us in jury selection. We don’t do a  good job of making  it clear to that juror that we have heard and accept in a totally nonjudgmental way whatever they have told  us. We  don’t carefully listen to the witness testifying in order to know how  to follow up. Listening is…

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