Lawyers love words. Lawyers love words on slides - tons of words on slides. Some lawyers think that the more words they use on a PowerPoint litigation graphic, the better. They are wrong. Actually, using too many words on a slide will dramatically damage your effectiveness. This damage is not aesthetic in nature. This is not about your look and feel. It is scientifically proven damage that affects how well you inform and persuade your audience. Indeed, it can be said the higher your slide's word count, the lower your persuasiveness.
by Ryan H. Flax, Esq. Managing Director, Litigation Consulting & Gen. Counsel A2L Consulting
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting Welcome back from summer (to most), and welcome to the busy fall/winter litigation season. This blog, The Litigation Consulting Report, is now just about 4 ½ years old. In that time, we have written nearly 500 posts on dozens of trial and presentation-related subjects, including everything from TED talks to Reptile trial techniques to voir dire best-practices. We've earned accolades, won awards, won countless trials, and we have steadily grown our number of subscribers year after year, and I'm especially thrilled to say that we've just signed up our 7,500th blog subscriber! Every subscription is free, and perhaps that is part of the reason it took us less than a year to grow our community from 5,000 subscribers in September 2014 to 7,500 subscribers in September 2015 — a 50% increase. To celebrate reaching 7,500 blog subscribers, today we’re publishing (as a free download) this collection of our very best articles to date called, A2L Consulting's Top 75 Articles of All Time. By "very best," I mean that our readers have, by choosing which articles they read most, told us which articles they think are the best. On the Web, your clicks are your votes. We’re thrilled to receive this feedback from you.
by Ryan H. Flax (Former) Managing Director, Litigation Consulting & General Counsel A2L Consulting In our last post in this series, we explained why storytelling is the key to gaining and keeping the attention of any decision maker and thus the key to winning before trial. How does one develop an effective story? Here are the rules of thumb. First, the simpler the story, the better, and the simpler the language, the better. Use metaphors involving sensory descriptions. Reduce the facts to a relatable story, and use “word pictures.” The complete package of storytelling is not just an oral telling of a story; it also involves necessary visual persuasion. Studies show that at least 60 percent of people learn primarily by seeing. They are visual learners.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting At A2L Consulting, we have just published our latest e-book – the third edition of the Litigation Support Professional's Trial Toolkit. It's 262 pages long, contains 88 articles and is completely complimentary to download. This new e-book will be indispensable to any litigator or litigation support professional who wants a summary of the latest thinking in the fields of trial technology, trial graphics, and litigation support. In this book, we try to demystify the craft of the trial technician, with nitty-gritty discussions of how trial consulting firms do what they do, especially on a tight budget. We present ideas for seamless trial presentations that can be built, if not on a shoestring, on a budget far smaller than one might anticipate. Since the art of trial presentation is often best described as a story-telling venture, we give you the latest on the best story-telling techniques, including 16 trial presentation tips from classic Hollywood movies. We also provide 13 reasons why it’s not a good idea to do your trial preparation at the last minute, 12 great ways to combine oral and visual presentations, and five questions you should always ask in voir dire.
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 We at A2L are sponsoring later this month a new and exciting webinar entitled “Winning Your Case BEFORE Trial Using Persuasive Litigation Graphics.” Whether you are in-house counsel, outside counsel, or a member of a litigation support team, this 60-minute webinar will prove invaluable and will reveal secrets of persuasion that will help you win cases before trial. The key insight here is that graphics aren’t only for use at trial. They can also be used very effectively in motions and briefs presented to judges, even if jurors will never see them. If you are planning to use graphics to make your argument or tell your story at trial, why not use them at an earlier stage to make your argument convincingly in your brief or motion?
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting We just learned that a blog post that we wrote recently was named the “Pick of the Week” by LitigationWorld, a popular email newsletter for litigators, litigation support professionals, and corporate counsel who manage litigation. This is the seventh A2L Consulting post since 2011 to be so honored. For each issue of LitigationWorld, the editorial team there reviews hundreds of articles published during the previous week. From these articles, one is selected as LitigationWorld Pick of the Week. The article is selected because the editors there believe that it is a must-read for anyone interested in litigation. The article that won this honor was entitled “12 Reasons Litigation Graphics are More Complicated Than You Think.”
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting There is a lot to learn from data, and these days data is everywhere. For better or worse, data can be available for everything from the number of steps you walked today to how long you took to read a particular Web page. I recently took the time to assess how the AmLaw 100 law firms were interacting with our site, particularly with the articles on this blog. Some law firms are very active, and some hardly visit at all — and I think this information tells us a great deal about these law firms. This data is interesting to me for many reasons. First, I’m interested in making sure that our articles appeal to the AmLaw 100 law firms, as just about every one of them has been a client of A2L Consulting at some point. However, I’m also interested in what the data says about the law firm itself. Is the firm interested in learning? Is it serious about litigation? Is it set in its ways?
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting We publish a lot of articles on this blog here at A2L Consulting. Sometimes we publish so many that it’s not easy to decide which ones to read first. That's why once a quarter we do a mini-retrospective of the best articles based on what our readers choose to look at. Our theory is that the more people that read an article, the more compelling and the better it is. All these articles relate in some way to persuasion: Why expensive-looking litigation graphics are better than inexpensive-looking ones, why you are less persuasive when you are using clichés, how people obtain trial experience these days when most cases don’t go to trial. We think this also helps our readership sort through the very best of our content by relying on the votes of 6,600 fellow subscribers as indicated by their reading habits.
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting If the creation of litigation graphics were as simple as some people make it out to be, you would never need a litigation graphics consultant. Yet litigation graphics consultants of varying skill levels are everywhere these days. Clearly, there is a need for them. But why? What value do litigation graphics consultants add? It’s a fair question, and here are 12 good answers. 1. Contrary to what some think, litigation graphics are more than electronic versions of printed documents: Many litigators make the mistake of thinking they are fully utilizing litigation graphics when they hire a trial technician who does nothing more than show documents on screen. See Why Trial Tech ≠ Litigation Graphics 2. Real litigation graphics consultants are storytelling experts, not PowerPoint experts: The technology isn’t what matters. As with lawyers, there are wildly differing levels of talent and education among litigation graphics consultants. The very best, like those on the A2L team, are true experts in helping to craft a story using visuals. These experts add value, not just slides. See Patent Litigation Graphics + Storytelling Proven Effective: The Apple v. Samsung Jury Speaks and $300 Million of Litigation Consulting and Storytelling Validation
by Ken Lopez Founder/CEO A2L Consulting I'm absolutely thrilled to announce the release of A2L Consulting's latest free litigation e-book, The Opening Statement Toolkit. You may download this book with no strings attached right now by clicking here. In this 219-page book, you will find 66 articles curated from A2L's massive collection of posts related to litigation and persuasion. Each article relates to opening statements in some way. From organizing the opening to the use of storytelling techniques to persuade, the book contains an amazing array of tips that will prove valuable to the novice litigator and the veteran alike.
by Ryan H. Flax, Esq. (Former) Managing Director, Litigation Consulting A2L Consulting We have discussed four important tips for maximizing persuasion during your opening statement (See parts 1, 2, and 3). The last tip is the use of demonstrative evidence in connection with the statement. You need to be aware that most people, other than lawyers, are visual preference learners. Most lawyers, in contrast, are auditory or kinesthetic preference learners.1 Most people teach the same way they prefer to learn – so lawyers typically teach by lecturing, since that is most comfortable for them. But this strategy does not help with the majority of jurors, who would prefer to be taught visually, at least in part. So bridge this courtroom gap with demonstrative evidence, including litigation graphics.
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