become a better lawyer

We lawyers love to hear ourselves talk. That can be the death of a jury selection. In a good voir dire, the jurors do most of the talking. Even if I can't hear what the lawyer and jurors are saying, I can tell a good voir dire from a bad one by listening, as long as I can tell who is talking. Lawyer talking most of the time? Bad. Jurors talking most of the time? Good.

They are once again on their way. They are walking through the
forest. Shrek belches.

DONKEY
Shrek!

SHREK
What? It's a compliment. Better out
than in, I always say. (laughs)

DONKEY

Jury consultant Dennis Elias (@JuryVox) twitted:

At opening statement you have no standing with the jury. Don't tell them what the evidence will show; story them the evidence.

Break that down into a rule (tell the jury the story of the evidence) and a reason (because you have no standing with the jury).

You may not have noticed this, but people don't like lawyers very much. Or rather, they don't like people acting like lawyers very much. Once they get to know them, they like the human beings behind the label just fine, but it's not the jurors' job to go behind the label, and if you define yourself as "Big Important Attorney Man" they're not going to. I bet a young lawyer $50 that he would get laid more if his business cards said "Self-Important Asshat, Esq." instead of "Attorney at Law". Not the easiest $50 I've ever earned, but it was easier than stringing barbed wire.

Rule 1 of my Simple Rules for Better Jury Selection is the Nike Rule: Just do it.

It's not a very sexy rule, so I won't lead off with it when I'm speaking in Waco in September (I'll probably put it at the end for the few faithful who stick around); I'll give you Rule 2 (The First Date Rule) soon, so don't feel too ripped off.

Just do it. A rule on three levels.

An evolving list:

1. The Nike Rule.

At Illinois and Missouri lawyer Evan Schaeffer's Trial Practice Tips Weblog, Evan has a link to an Amazon list of 16 Books to Read if You Want to Become a Better Trial Lawyer by Dallas Governm

Sunshine Swallers, one of the Harris County's next generation of outstanding young criminal defense lawyers (a true believer in the best sense), is working with Suzette Sova from the Harris County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority (MHMRA) to arrange a 12-hour Mental Health First Aid course.

Here are the Google results for:

• compassionate criminal lawyer: about 124,000
• truthful -truth criminal lawyer: about 148,000
• tough criminal lawyer: about 315,000
• creative criminal lawyer: about 319,000
• aggressive criminal lawyer: about 2,290,000

Granted, these are not all lawyer websites, but there's a Michigan lawyer with the domain name AggressiveCriminalAttorney.net, and he's not alone in advertising his aggression. Search for "Houston criminal lawyer," and two of the highest-paying pay-per-click campaigns include "aggressive" in their descriptions.

Takuan Soho, The Mysterious Record of Immovable Wisdom, from The Unfettered Mind: Writings from a Zen Master to a Master Swordsman