by Tony B. Klapper Managing Director, Litigation Consulting & General Counsel A2L Consulting I’ve recently joined the litigation consulting team at A2L as its Managing Director. This means that I will be working closely with top litigators to help them craft persuasive themes and stories, assist in the testing of a case during a mock trial exercise, and develop powerful demonstrative exhibits. In my 20+ years working at Kirkland & Ellis and then Reed Smith, I have participated in many trials, arbitrations, evidentiary hearings, mediations, and board presentations. Almost without fail, I have been the attorney responsible for coordinating and developing the litigation graphics for these events. That did not mean putting mouse to screen in a graphics program or PowerPoint. Instead, I would put pencil to paper and sketch out a great idea that someone else transformed into a powerful litigation graphic. It is work that I have always been passionate about. As I transition from working on graphics two or three times a year to developing them every week, I want to take a moment to reflect on what I’ve observed about trial graphics as a litigation partner at two major law firms. Janus-like slides. Janus is the Roman god of gates and doorways. He is depicted as having two faces and typically represents beginnings and endings or contrasting experiences, such as war and peace. Although not one of your sexier Roman gods – clearly no Jupiter or Venus – Janus does inspire some effective litigation graphics: A split-screen slide that reflects a cause on the left and an effect on the right, or a representation or claim on the left and visual proof that the representation or claim is false on the right. A single, simple split-screen slide can instantaneously convey a powerful message without resorting to a series of dull, ineffective bullet-point assertions. The Timeline. Effective stories are not simply recitations of chronological events. But “when” something happens and how that something relates to “when” something else happens is almost always a central feature in litigation and part of a good story. Stories have beginnings, middles and endings. They transport us through a maze of actors and activities, all anchored in time. Instead of vertically listing from top to bottom a series of events -- as many fond of the easel and flip chart will do -- a well-crafted and visually appealing timeline allows you to elegantly develop your narrative in linear fashion. But it’s not just the narrative. A timeline that is chock full of entries may tell a completely different story than one with wide gaps of time, even without needing to read the fine print.
by Ryan H. Flax (Former) Managing Director, Litigation Consulting & General Counsel A2L Consulting It’s always interesting to me how humans view and judge each other. We all do it almost all of the time, in every interaction with other people. We even do it when we don’t even interact with others, for example, while driving or watching TV. We develop little dramas and characters in our minds to make sense of the world around us and its characters. This is particularly important in my profession, where my goal is to help litigators frame their case or showcase their client in a compelling and engaging way for judge or jury. I’ve just watched the video below and it highlights how important it is to frame our clients’ character correctly when we want a decision maker to see things our way. That “correct” way of introducing our client is whatever way will result in a decision in our favor – Ask: what would make the judge or jury feel our client should prevail?
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting Over breakfast the other day, a partner in a major law firm was explaining to me that it can be challenging to explain the added value that litigation graphics consultants can provide in a case, especially given the challenging budget environment in which litigators operate today. He was surprised when I said that the key here is not the fact that graphics consultants know how to prepare PowerPoints. After all, the average law firm associate can prepare a pretty decent PowerPoint presentation. The problem is that perhaps one in 500 PowerPoints prepared by a smart and well-informed law firm associate does more good than harm. What litigation consultants can do for a trial team is more complex, more persuasive and more sophisticated. So here are ten ways in which a litigation graphics consultant would add value where a litigation associate might cause harm or simply might not provide benefit. 1. Supporting the development of a narrative. We've written about this extensively, and great graphics consultants like those at our firm have enormous value here. One of the essences of trial presentation is telling a narrative. See, $300 Million of Litigation Consulting and Storytelling Validation. 2. Helping separate the theme from the narrative. Many of us who took trial advocacy were taught to start out our openings with "this is a case about . . . ." After that, we would usually state our theme. What many lawyers were not taught was how to develop a persuasive narrative. A few rare litigation graphics consultants can operate at the 1st chair level and offer this kind of support. See, 14 Differences Between a Theme and a Story in Litigation and 21 Reasons a Litigator Is Your Best Litigation Graphics Consultant. 3. Helping combat the now-fashionable “Reptile” trial strategy tactics that plaintiffs lawyers use. We have discussed this in several recent blog posts. See, Repelling the Reptile Trial Strategy as Defense Counsel.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting "How long in advance of trial should I be working with my trial graphics firm?" I hear this question in some form quite regularly. Often the person asking it has some idea of what they are planning to do, and they are looking for validation of their plan. However, for those who are genuinely looking for best-practices, I can offer meaningful guidance based on 20 years of advising top litigators and watching top trial teams prepare for trial. Clearly, a balance must be struck between the likelihood of settlement and the value of preparing your trial presentation long in advance of trial. Prepare too late and you risk not helping your fact finders understand your case, and you surely won't be maximizing your persuasiveness. Prepare too early and you run the risk of doing work that won't be needed if settlement occurs, and you might be focusing too much on your trial presentation and not enough on developing a good record. So what's the right amount of prep time for trial graphics?
by Alex Brown Director of Operations A2L Consulting My hobby is woodworking. Recently, I had to build a dog fence so that my wife could train one of our dogs. From photos I figured out the dimensions, type of wood to use, and the hardware needed. What I did not take into consideration were the tools I would need to complete the job easily and on schedule. In the process of building the fence, I ended up at our local ACE Hardware store shopping for multiple tools including one I had never used before, a planer. Only after destroying a few key parts for the fence did I learned my lesson, and I decided to figure out how to use the tool that was supposed to make the job easier. When preparing for a trial, most decisions are made prior to the actual trying of the case. Who will be the expert witnesses, what is the theme, how and when do we introduce our evidence, and how do we present it to the jury or judge in an engaging and persuasive way in the form of a trial presentation. PowerPoint is key to most trial presentations, and we all believe we know how to use this tool. But, we also know that at 3 AM, 48 hours prior to opening statements, is the time when Murphy's Law shows up to cause a little havoc. Below are seven ways to use PowerPoint effectively to reduce the strain that Mr. Murphy seems to always introduce.
by Ryan H. Flax, Esq. (Former) Managing Director, Litigation Consulting A2L Consulting It is well known and generally accepted by the top performers in the litigation community that you need to use demonstrative evidence, including litigation graphics, to be persuasive at trial. As a scientific certainty, using visual support to back up your key points and arguments is critical to maximizing persuasiveness. As a litigator, I’ve personally created and used graphics, and developed litigation graphics for others, to use at trial, at Markman (patent claim construction) hearings, and for other presentations. As a litigation consultant, I’ve seen countless terrific litigators both understand that they do need graphics and at the same time misunderstand how they should be using litigation graphics in these and similar settings.
by Ryan H. Flax, Esq. (Former) Managing Director, Litigation Consulting A2L Consulting A2L has a wonderful partnership with Courtroom View Network (cvn.com), which is a warehouse of video footage of courtroom presentations of all kinds and should be a valued resource for attorneys and law school students wishing to educate themselves on the “to-dos” and “not-to-dos” of litigation argument. I have been browsing the intellectual property video footage at cvn.com and wanted to provide you two examples of different presentation styles in patent litigations: one using no graphics and one using graphics. I compare and contrast these presentations below.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting
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