I'm very fortunate to have a lot of friends, and I often end up telling the same story more than once in order to catch people up on what’s going on in my business and personal lives. Sometimes it’s just out of friendship. Sometimes I want to hear my friend’s opinion. Sometimes I want to persuade.

Since I’m also in the business of professional storytelling -- or at least in the business of helping others tell their stories in the most professional and persuasive way possible -- I pay attention to how I tell a story. I especially notice how the story evolves as I tell it for the third, fifth, or 20^th time. 

Because it ALWAYS evolves.

Sometimes the story changes because I have new insights. Sometimes it changes because of how it seemed to affect the last person I told it to. Sometimes it changes because of direct feedback or insight from my friend or adviser.

May 2019 was an unusual month, in which a variety of major things happened personally and professionally. In fact, so many things happened at once that I needed to lean hard on my various advisers for good advice and wisdom.

After a month that involved a great many consultations, everything got better, and I noticed something about that process. With each new retelling of events, I noticed how I automatically refined my story to more easily inform my listeners. I automatically changed the order of how I presented facts so that they flowed better. I found that I had injected appropriate humor. My stories seemed to be effective. They even caused some people to take some action in parts of their personal and professional lives just because they heard them (aka persuasion).

Hopefully, you see where I am going with this when it comes to our work with trial lawyers.

It's NEVER your first story that sings. Refining your story requires constant interaction and dialogue with others. That's why I will never understand the trial lawyer who writes their opening statement the night before trial or the trial lawyer who refuses to do a mock trial.

In 25 years of doing this work, I have learned without qualification that the very best trial lawyers want their answers questioned. They do the mock. They conduct practice sessions. They invite critiques. They are the best precisely because they do this. Practice and preparation are what separates the good from the great -- not the law school they went to, not the firm they work for, and not even the innate ability to connect with a jury.

Other A2L articles about storytelling, visual storytelling, persuasion, trial prep, mock trials and practice include:

• Great Trial Lawyers Behave Differently
• 50 Characteristics of Top Trial Teams
• 3 Ways to Force Yourself to Practice Your Trial Presentation
• 9 Things In-House Counsel Say About Outside Litigation Counsel
• Dan Pink, Pixar, and Storytelling for the Courtroom
• Practice is a Crucial Piece of the Storytelling Puzzle
• Three Top Trial Lawyers Tell Us Why Storytelling Is So Important
• The 13 Biggest Reasons to Avoid Last-Minute Trial Preparation
• Your Coach Is Not Better Than You – in the Courtroom or Elsewhere
• What Steve Jobs Can Teach Trial Lawyers About Trial Preparation
• 6 Ways to Use a Mock Trial to Develop Your Opening Statement
• 21 Reasons a Litigator Is Your Best Litigation Graphics Consultant
• Practice, Say Jury Consultants, is Why Movie Lawyers Perform So Well
• 7 Things In-House Misses When Litigation Consultants are Underutilized
• The 5 Very Best Reasons to Conduct a Mock Trial
• FREE DOWNLOAD: Storytelling for Persuasion - 144-page complimentary book
• 10 Things Every Mock Jury Ever Has Said
• The Very Best Use of Coaches in Trial Preparation
• Why Do I Need A Mock Trial If There Is No Real Voir Dire?
• 3 Ways to Force Yourself to Practice Your Trial Presentation
• 7 Questions You Must Ask Your Mock Jury About Litigation Graphics
• 11 Problems with Mock Trials and How to Avoid Them
• 12 Astute Tips for Meaningful Mock Trials
• Trending: Mock Trial Testing of Litigation Graphics AND Arguments
• 10 Suggestions for Conducting Mock Bench Trial Consulting Exercises
• Mock Trials: Do They Work? Are They Valuable?
• 11 Surprising Areas Where We Are Using Mock Exercises and Testing
• $300 Million of Litigation Consulting and Storytelling Validation
• Conflict check: Be the first to retain A2L