Several years ago I came across a book with the unusual title “Unfair Secrets of Winning in the Law with NLP” by Franz Mesmer. As a long time  student of Neuro Linguistic Programming I bought the book and studied it carefully. It was an excellent summary of basic concepts of this approach to communication  with practical advice and suggestions. I learned that Franz Mesmer was merely a name adopted by the author for the book and other books as well. Mark D Swendsen Sr. is the actual name of the author. It turns out Mark is a California trial lawyer in Healdsburg with a background in the areas he has written about.

When the president of the Inner Circle of Advocates Suggested that I might give a talk on this general subject, I recommended that instead she invite Mark to give the talk.She did invite him and he gave an excellent discussion to this group of some of the best plaintiffs lawyers in the country.

Mark and I exchanged communications through email about the subject before he spoke and  it turned out he was writing a new book. I, of course,  was very interested because of his background, knowledge and skills in this general area. He was nice enough to send me a draft of the book he was working on and we communicated about it.  Mark asked me if I would write an introduction to it and I felt privileged to do so because it is an excellent book.

I am pleased to have provided a small contribution to this book which is entitled Target the Unconscious! The Modern Psychology of Rhetoric for the Plaintiff’s Lawyer.” Let me hasten to add that I have no financial interest in this book whatsoever which is available from Amazon. I recommend it to you only because the content is an excellent collection of an important aspect of communication. Perhaps the best way of explaining why I think this is an important book for plaintiff lawyers is to refer to what I said about the book:

“The information in this book about Neuro Linguistic Programming will benefit plaintiff trial lawyers in representing their clients, but will also provide concrete lessons and improving ourselves… You’ll be told how to trigger the primitive brain’s unconscious will to survive in order to motivate a verdict in your clients favor…This book explains patterns for influencing the unconscious mind, concepts of hypnotic oratory and waking trance suggestions, and patterns of persuasion addressed to the unconscious mind. This and much more are reasons why this book should be required reading for every plaintiff lawyer who wants to be the best he or she can be as an advocate.”

If you have any interest in this area of communication, this paperback book is a virtual encyclopedia of information.