by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting It's been quite a week at A2L Consulting, and I want to share three pieces of good news and some valuable resources with you to round out the week. Unbelievably, we crossed the 6,000 (free) subscribers threshold this week at The Litigation Consulting Report blog. I say "unbelievably" because we only just crossed the 5,000 subscriber mark three months ago. Clearly, publishing valuable information for the litigation marketplace is both something we love doing, and the marketplace loves reading our articles, ebooks and watching our webinars. We remain grateful that the ABA honored us as one of the top 100 blogs in the legal industry. To celebrate this milestone, we are re-releasing our Top-50 Articles of All Time E-Book for free with no form to fill out. Just click here or on the graphic next to this article, and you'll be able to download the book instantly. These are 50 of our best articles out of 400 that we have published so far. It's a great resource for lawyers, litigators, in-house counsel and litigation support professional alike. I also had a chance this week to be interviewed by famed litigator Mitch Jackson as part of his Human.Social project. The interview largely focuses on why A2L produces this blog and how it simultaneously creates value for our readers and for us as a business. Here is the recorded interview below:
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting Seven of the top ten web searches that lead to a visit to our website in 2014 were related to voir dire or jury selection. These are topics that we write about frequently and assist clients with often at A2L Consulting. To respond to the obvious demand for information about voir dire, we are today releasing our latest free e-book, The Voir Dire Handbook. This 111 page book is comprised of 37 articles about jury selection, voir dire and related topics. Like our 20+ other litigation, persuasion, psychology and presentation-focused e-books, The Voir Dire Handbook is a free download with no strings attached.
In today's complex legal landscape, seeking guidance and support during times of legal battles is a natural instinct. People often turn to their close circle of advisors and friends for advice and support. While it is understandable to seek comfort and reassurance from those we trust, it is important to exercise caution when relying solely on the opinions of these individuals.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting It's been another unbelievable year at A2L Consulting. I'm very proud to see us again be voted best jury consultants and best litigation graphics consultants. More than 20,000 free e-books and webinars were viewed on A2LC.com. Incredibly, there were more than 300,000 pages viewed our site this year. About two-thirds of those visits were to our award-winning Litigation Consulting Report blog that now boosts 5,800 free subscribers (that's more than 2,200 new subscribers since last year!). On that blog, we will have published 115 articles by year's end. It's a few less than last year, but we have to confess, we were really busy being litigation consultants this year! Each year I list the very best articles based on your readership, and this year 14 articles stand out as the top-14 for 2014. Each of these articles was read by thousands of people, and some were read by tens of thousands.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting Most would agree that mock trials are not conducted as often as they should be. After all, why wouldn't you want to learn what kinds of jurors you will see on your jury, understand what works about your case and what doesn't, understand what works about your opponent's case and what doesn't, gauge your settlement position, provide outside counsel a chance to practice and gain many more benefits all for a tiny fraction of the cost of what is often at stake? Is a mock trial mandatory? Of course not—and neither is having someone else cut your hair. Both are entirely optional expenses, but both are very good ideas.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting Earlier this week I published, 25 Things In-House Counsel Should Insist Outside Litigation Counsel Do. I realized something important while writing that article and while participating in follow-up discussions with readers and colleagues. It's an important realization as I think recognition of it might just lead to better litigation results and money savings for in-house counsel. Here it is. Because of the current state of the relationship between most in-house counsel and outside litigation counsel, outside counsel are not asking for budget for everything they believe would help win a case. This is leading to short term savings and longer term major expenses.
Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting The relationship between in-house counsel and outside litigation counsel has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. Technology and the Internet have been the driving forces for many of the changes. Technology growth has forced outside litigation counsel into a quasi-technology consultant role in the way they deal with e-discovery and case management. Technology has made litigation more complex as the underlying subject matter of cases has become more complex. The availability of information via the Internet has made in-house counsel a more savvy shopper and a better informed manager. Technology has surely changed the way outside litigation counsel tries cases and has forced trial counsel to be trial-technology savvy. There are many more examples of how the fast flow of information is altering the balance of power between in-house and outside counsel, but you get the idea. Reflecting these changing times, the 25-point list below offers useful best-practices that in-house counsel should be demanding from outside litigation counsel.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting A little more than a month ago, I surveyed our readership and asked, "how does in-house counsel hire outside litigation counsel?" Six possible answers were presented in random order. In-house chooses the lowest priced firm from a group of approved firms. In-house hires the best litigator based on prior experience. In-house hires the best litigator based on their reputation. In-house hires their litigator friends and former (or future) colleagues. In-house hires the litigator most likely to generate a win. Finally, a write-in field for other responses answers Having worked in the litigation industry for more than 20 years and seeing favoritism trump skill plenty of times, I expected some cynicism to show through in the answers provided. However, even with that expectation, I was still very surprised with the results.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting If you can learn the secrets of how mock jurors commonly behave during mock trial deliberations, you will be better positioned to win at trial. These behavior patterns are understandably foreign since most people see mock juries deliberate infrequently. However, when you are a jury consultant, mock trials are routine, and repeat behavior patterns become clear over a long career. Surprisingly, it turns out that no matter where you go in the country, mock jurors tend to act in similar ways. Although there are venue-specific idiosyncrasies, mock jurors act quite similarly from locale to locale. If you understand the questions they almost always ask, the order of deliberations they usually follow and how mock juries address damages almost every time, you will be far ahead of almost all of your peers. We at A2L have put together a free 75-minute webinar, 12 Things Every Mock Juror Ever Has Said. It will be conducted live on December 9, 2014 at 1:30pm ET and is designed to share A2L's accumulated knowledge about mock jurors. Click here to register for it for free.
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.
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