Trial.Win Dojo
Zen vs Fight or Flight
Sometimes when a lawyer is standing in front of me and they're arguing emotion to me. Sometimes they become animated or they become loud or they become agitated, angry sometimes. And what I found, what was interesting to me is as soon as they got loud and animated and agitated or angry, my ability to hear and understanding process, what they're telling me, almost completely goes away. I find myself wondering, "Why are they so angry? This is not that complicated. Just tell me what you want to hear." And I wonder, "Are they angry at me? Do they think I'm stupid? I'm not going to get it."And accept this as true, judges are probably more often than you know, more afraid than anybody in the room. Read more »Within a Reasonable Degree of Medical Hogwash
What is the definition of within a reasonable degree of medical certainty? Is there a definition? I never thought about it. It is a phrase that was invented for courtrooms and for jury trials, and for hearings in front of judges. It doesn't exist anywhere outside the courtroom as far as I can tell and I tried to research it. Read more »Moving Past Mediocrity to Effective Cross Examination
I used to think I was good at voir dire, and I was terrible at voir dire. I wasn't comfortable with direct examination. I was terrified of cross-examination. I had that notion that most lawyers have, especially when they come out of law school, having not been taught to try a jury trial, by the way. Law school does not teach you to talk to juries. It doesn't teach you how to get in touch with the truth and how to convey the truth in a way that it will be embraced and received and believed by a jury. Read more »Don’t Fear the Chiro-Quacker
I've never understood why lawyers are afraid of chiropractor cases and soft tissue injury cases. If a bullet goes through and through and never strikes a bone, it's a soft tissue injury. So what is the difference? Read more »Mean, Scary Jurors and a Pot of Gold: Don’t Run From Mean Jurors
So remember, when you feel like running away... and you should anticipate the things that are going to scare you about every case... don't run away. Treat everybody with respect. But don't run away, and tell the jury that you're afraid of that issue. Read more »Civil Justice vs. Gunslinger Justice
The system only works if jurors award damages that are just an appropriate for each case. And then if they don't do that, and they're not willing to do that, then there's no legitimacy in the civil court process. Read more »Hot Coffee and “Stupid” Jurors: Resist the Urge to Lecture or Educate Jurors
Don't identify the jurors that you do want, you ask questions and you frame them in a way to identify who you don't want. But you don't do that for the purpose of exclusion, you just make sure you don't tell the other side in the form of your questions, who they want to get rid of. Read more »Inclusion vs. Exclusion: Framing Questions in Voir Dire
There's a way to frame... And it's the same question, it's just framed differently. Framing issues, framing questions is one of the most important parts of trying a jury trial, framing your questions. It takes a little preparation. You think about what you want to ask. Read more »Chronic Pain, Dependency and Addiction
You have a personal injury client, an injured client that is dependent on pain medicines and suffer from and have been diagnosed with chronic pain. And I'm not going to give the medical definition, but chronic pain is basically a person that has an injury that is going to result in pain for the rest of their life. Sometimes they're diseases that can cause that or arthritic conditions that are genetic thing can cause that. Sometimes injuries, especially to the spine or certain joints, can cause a permanent injury that is going to cause pain for the rest of their life. So if you have a client that is diagnosed with chronic pain and is under pain management, we have to understand and respect that society doesn't look favorably upon the pain management industry. Read more »Skimming off the Top of Your Client’s Justice
Do you voir dire about contingency fees on your personal injury cases? I do, always have. It's the elephant in the room. And I can assure you that if you ask 100 people whether they think contingency fees are a good thing or a bad thing, a large majority of them are going to say it's a bad thing. Read more »
