Plaintiff Trial Lawyer Tips

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Recently an outstanding plaintiff’s attorney shared the report of an obituary about a talented reporter and writer Pete Hamill.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/nyregion/pete-hamill-dead.html The key to Hamill’s writing skill was noted in the obituary where it reported: “He idolized Hemingway.” Hemmingway’s writing style was brevity and simplicity with powerful words that dispensed with adjectives and got straight to the point.

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There is much lawyers can learn from Hemingway’s writing style. Lawyers are afflicted with the curse of lacking an awareness of the difference between the important and relevant from the unimportant and irrelevant. They either lack the skill to do so or are too lazy to make the effort.

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One of the most fundamental differences between journalism and other forms of writing is the way journalists obtain the information they write about. Journalists obtain information through a variety of reporting techniques, which can include interviewing sources, looking through government documents, researching old articles, and observing events firsthand.

Good news writing begins with good, accurate reporting. Journalists perform a public service for citizens by presenting truthful facts in honest, straight-forward articles. In a blog regarding news reporting, First News Education, https://schools.firstnews.co.uk/blog/journalistic-writing/top-ten-tips-for-writing-a-newspaper-report/, there is an excellent outline about how to correctly and properly write a news report. The instructions are very relevant to the rules for lawyers in advocacy either an argument or in writing. These rules are:

A news report should be about something that is happening now or recently occurred. Current issues, key events and crimes make good subjects for news reports.

The opening paragraph should be concise and explain the full story in as few words as possible. Even if someone reads no further, they should know what has happened.

Newspaper articles are written so the information is given in order of importance with each preceding paragraph including more detail. This style of writing is called The Inverted Pyramid where the most important information is in the lead paragraph. If reports end up being too long for the newspaper, they should always be able to be cut from the bottom.

Have they answered WHAT happened? WHEN did it happen? WHY did it happen? WHERE did it happen? WHO did it happen to? HOW did it happen?

Including quotes is a useful way of bringing opinion and expertise into your article and will make the story more interesting. Quotations don’t have to be long to be powerful.

Sentences should be short and punchy. This is a good opportunity for students to practice changing vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning.

Reading out loud will help determine that it all makes sense.

A news report is characterised by its use of facts, this is what differentiates it from an opinion piece. Anyone can create an internet page, so it is essential to use reliable sources of information and double-check your facts. Some sources can be trusted more than others, but all facts should be checked in two different places. Which of the sources to the right do you think are the most trustworthy? Where would you place them on the scale to the right? The exercise of writing a news report should help pupils in understanding to distinguish between fact and opinion.

Make sure to proofread for spelling and punctuation errors using a thesaurus and dictionary to check the spelling and meaning of words. Reports should be written in the third person and past tense; check for consistent and correct use of tense.

That’s how lawyers should write and advocate. Here is an exercise for learning how to properly write a report. It equally applies to how lawyers should learn to describe the essence of their case.

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In 2000, Microsoft conducted a study measuring how long people can focus on one thing for a specific amount of time. The results showed the average person’s attention span was 12 seconds. About 15 years later, it dropped to 8 seconds. That’s why trial lawyers need to learn simplicity, clarity and brevity in their advocacy, both written and verbal. In addition, this is why storytelling is more critical than ever. We need to understand what truly influences attention, quality, and engagement. Focusing on these signals will help them better connect with our audience and make their persuasion more effective.

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I recently read two books on persuasion and communication. Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs and Lawyers, Judges and Semi Rational Beasts by Daniel Holloway. They both had excellent advice for trial lawyers. Here is a summary of ideas from both books

As we all know, an essential part of persuasion is showing you share your audience’s values. We divide the world into US and THEM, and reserve good feeling and thinking for the former. We are tribal creatures, and tribal affiliations exert profound influence on our feeling. Tribalism raises the importance of presenting yourself and your client in a way that allows judges, law clerks, and jurors to relate to you and your client. We need to demonstrate our membership in their “tribe” through common values and beliefs. Persuasion works by accommodating the decision-maker’s existing values, attitudes, and beliefs. But, sharing your audience’s values alone is not sufficient. They also must believe that you know what you are talking about and are qualified as well as trustworthy. We tend to trust those who trust us. Integrity and competence serve as general markers of trustworthiness. We think well of people who think well of us. Respect and value the person you are talking to. We give respect and generosity to those who give it to us. We give what we get, and so does most everyone else.

When people show no commitment to accuracy, fairness, or reasonableness, you cannot rely on them to tell you the full truth, to interpret things fairly, to make reasonable requests. Tell the truth — including the essential bad parts. We trust people who clearly care about accuracy, fairness, and reasonableness. As an example one book author says: “While an evangelical Christian will respect you for trying to do what Jesus would do, he still won’t let you remove his appendix.” The audience must consider you a sensible person, as well as sufficiently knowledgeable and trustworthy before they will follow you.

We know emotion plays a role in every decision we make. When we communicate emotionally we should always speak simply. The most emotional words of all have just four letters. Less is more, and in pathetic terms, less evokes more. In general we should always use simple speech, but do not use fancy language when you get emotional. Instead, keep everything simple. The moment you begin to confuse someone, to make him think, the frown deepens, the arms cross. Make everything as simple and concrete as possible (while maintaining accuracy). Use language, voice, and body to help the jurors follow, understand, and engage. Make the words no longer than it needs to be. Develop these skills because there is no time or mental space to think about technique during trial. Use simple language and avoid jargon. Make it interesting, clear, and easy.

Try to make your audience feel powerful. Give them a sense of self-control. Research shows that people who feel powerless tend to lash out more.

As you know, how you describe or frame an issue is important. Here are framing techniques: First, find audience commonplace words that favor you. Next, define the issue in the broadest context—one that appeals to the values of the widest audience. Then deal with the specific problem or choice, making sure you speak in the future tense.

We make moral judgments intuitively and automatically. Only then do we rationalize them. The unconscious feeds snap judgments to the conscious. Snap judgments come from the interplay of (a) the feelings and thoughts active in our minds, (b) trust or distrust in the source of the new information, and (c) the new information itself. Snap judgments are usually final judgments. If a judge or juror has already figured a thing out in the past, it is going to take some doing to move them off their pre-written answer. If you have already committed to an idea, hearing strong arguments against it can deepen your commitment to the idea. The emotional tail wags the rational dog. Or, in Jonathan Haidt’s metaphor, emotion is an untrained elephant, and the rational mind is a rider. The rider mostly just goes along for the rids but comes up with reasons to justify what the elephant is doing.

The progressive view is that democracy depends on citizens caring about each other and taking responsibility both for themselves and for others. This yields a view of government with a moral mission: to protect and empower all citizens equally. Conservatives hold the opposite view: that democracy exists to provide citizens with the maximum liberty to pursue their self-interest with little or no commitment to the interests of others. Under this view, there should be as little of the public involved as possible. Instead, as much as possible should be relegated to what we call the private self-interest. Whatever our moral sensibilities, we take pleasure in altruistic punishment. When someone breaks the rules in a way that threatens to harm others, we enjoy punishing the rule-breaker.

Conclusion

These are a few of the ideas from these two excellent books worth considering.

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