They say the jury trial lawyer is a dying breed. I disagree.
In the criminal context misidentification is a phenomenon where victims or witnesses of criminal activity mistakenly identify one person as the perpetrator of the crime. When this happens the people making the identification become convinced that the person they identified…
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As a trial lawyer it is hard to get real feedback on your trial performance. This is because people are naturally averse to giving negative feedback even when it is called for. People may feel that if they give you…
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Controlling the runaway witness during cross examination is one of those challenges that we as trial lawyers have to deal with on a daily basis. No matter how tight and pointed the question is, the runaway witness takes it upon…
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The scarcity principle is a phenomenon of human psychology. It may even be an evolutionary trait. It states that we give more value to things we consider rare and less value to things we consider plentiful. It is the reason…
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As a trial lawyer most of your training outside of the basics will come from trying cases. But no matter how trial active you are you will not be in trial every day. In fact, recent trends suggest that you…
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If you’ve handled a few criminal cases you’re familiar with the misidentification defense. Some other guy did the crime and one, two, or eight people saw that other guy doing the crime but they all mistakenly think your client is…
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Closing argument is almost every trial lawyer’s favorite part. Everyone is looking forward to it. Everyone spends hours fantasizing about that incredible closing argument they will give. With as much glory as it attracts, you’d figure there would be more…
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Cross examination is one of the toughest skills for a trial lawyer to become good at. While becoming great at cross examination is a life long journey, becoming a competent cross examiner is not very hard to do. If you…
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As a trial lawyer we win some, we lose some. That’s the nature of the game. When we win it is easy to believe that we won because we are great. We won because we did what we had to…
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The “even if” argument is the king of all trial mistakes. If you try enough cases or watch enough trials you’ve either seen it, done it, or both. It goes like this: “Members of the jury, it is absolutely clear…
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