A few weeks ago I found a book of poems, Poems of Pleasure, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in a small book store in Port Townsend, WA. I was prowling around the shelves of old books when my eye caught this book. Originally published in 1888 this book had the name Graci E. Merrill August 24, 1921 written in an elegant penmanship inside the cover.I like Wilcox’s poetry so I bought this book which I had not seen before. One poem…
I’ve just returned from the Washington State Bar Convention in Vancouver B.C. I was fortunate to have chaired the Friday portion which involved talks that were limited to ten minutes each. It always impresses mehow much you can say in ten minutes. When you think about 30 second commercials and the television shows that have 2.5 minutes of cross examination, you realize that we often use far too much time to make our points in trial. Milo Frank wrote a…
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…