by Tony Klapper
Managing Director, Litigation Consulting
A2L Consulting

At A2L, we strongly believe that strong visual presentations are indispensable to courtroom success. But great visuals don’t just create themselves. Top-notch litigation graphic artists are the ones who make unforgettable visuals, and that means that graphic artists need to be a crucial part of any trial team.

And good graphic artists aren’t easy to find. As a graphic design website explains, a great graphic designer should “love art in all its forms” and “should live to create and to be inventive.” A graphic artist needs to understand color, composition, typefaces and dozens of other design elements and to use the best digital tools available.

All that means that trial lawyers need to learn how to work seamlessly with graphic artists. This isn’t necessarily so straightforward; after all, trial lawyers and artists are literally using different parts of their brain to approach a problem. Lawyers are classic left-brain people. The left hemisphere of the brain is dominant in language processing, logic, mathematical computations and memory. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, oversees spatial abilities, visual imagery, and the interpretation of context and tone. Those right-brain aspects reflect the skills and strengths of a graphic artist.

Together, the left-brain skills of the attorney and the right-brain skills of the graphic artist should produce great results – if they can work together. The trial consultant on the team ideally has a foot in both worlds, understanding the importance of precision and logic as well as the need for clarity and beauty. The trial consultant can “translate” between the lawyer’s language and the artist’s language and maximize the contributions of each one. It’s a role of the trial consultant that isn’t often noted but one that can be crucial in building the necessary collaborative spirit.

It would therefore be a shame if, as some trial teams do, the lawyers were to belittle the contributions of the graphic artist and just have him put into graphic form the lawyers’ idea of what the trial visuals should look like. Instead, an excellent graphic artist, such as those who work for A2L, should have the authority to suggest what the visual presentations should be like at trial. Empowering the graphic artist in this way not only adds a new “set of eyes” but also adds a whole new way of thinking.

As is almost always the case, the best results in litigation graphics aren’t just the work of one person. They grow out of collaboration, not dictation. One of the best things about working with a company like ours is that we know how to meld the disparate approaches of different human beings to create a great result.

Other A2L resources discussing how trial lawyers and litigation graphics professionals can work best together to win cases:

• Free Webinar: PowerPoint Litigation Graphics - Winning by Design™
• 13 Reasons Law Firm Litigation Graphics Departments Have Bad Luck
• A2L Careers in Trial Graphics, Jury Consulting and Trial Technicians
• 3 Observations by a Graphic Artist Turned Litigation Graphics Artist
• 21 Reasons a Litigator Is Your Best Litigation Graphics Consultant
• 6 Triggers That Prompt a Call to Your Litigation Consultant
• 11 Small Projects You Probably Don't Think Litigation Consultants Do
• 11 Things Your Colleagues Pay Litigation Consultants to Do
• 16 Litigation Graphics Lessons for Mid-Sized Law Firms
• 16 PowerPoint Litigation Graphics You Won't Believe Are PowerPoint