On the flight here to Los Cabos I finished Malcom Gladwell’s new book Outliers. I believe his previous two books The Tipping Point and Blinkhave invaluable information for trial lawyers. I’m not sure this one does or at least not to the same degree as his previous books. His new book does discuss what I’ve told lawyers. He calls it the "Matthew Effect" and I call it the law of abundance. The point is that Matthew 25:29 quotes Jesus as…
I’m a great believer that lawyers must use a checklist for every deposition they take no matter how experienced they are. If seasoned airplane pilots use checklists, lawyers should too. It’s too easy to get side tracked during a deposition and forget some area of questioning. What follows is an example of a verybasic and simplistic outline for the deposition of an eye witness in a damage case. I take an outline like this and revise it by adding areas…
I read that the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association is studying a possible change of its name. When the American Trial Lawyers Association decided to change its name to American Association for Justice,somestate trial organizations began to make the same kind of changes to their names. California was one of the largest to do so. There is no question but that a brand or name has an impact on people’s impressions. That’s exactly why Karl Rove and other Republican advisers…