Plaintiff Trial Lawyer Tips

My friend Mark D. Swendsen, Sr. and I share ideas about communication, including those dealing with politics. Mark has been a California attorney for four decades and a former hostage negotiator. He has published books and lectured on the law, including a lecture to the Inner Circle of Advocates, a national trial lawyer’s organization, His training and experience includes Neuro Linguistic Programing as well as psychological insights. His book Target the Unconscious! The Modern Psychology of Rhetoric for the Plaintiff’s Lawyer is…

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I have written frequently about the importance of a message of betrayal in negligence cases, especially medical malpractice. But, I continually see lawyers presenting their cases as a mistake. They present a case involving an error, a mistake or a negligent act and then expect the jury to follow the law. But, jurors are driven by their value systems irrespective of the jury instructions. When a case of negligence is tried to a jury of conservative people, too often the…

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Eric Oliver is a long time friend and a very experienced jury consultant. http://www.eric-oliver.com/  He wrote an article about communications  “Heard Mentality.” Some of the observations Eric made are important to remember in our practice and are summarized below: Jurors begin their understanding of our story with a theme. We all make sense of case stories by starting at the most general level and working down to details. A theme provides a general direction. If you do not provide a…

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