Trial Graphics - A Critical Need for Any Courtroom

 

Trial Graphics: An Essential Tool of Modern Litigation

Case preparation is time-consuming and expensive. As litigation moves to mediation, arbitration, or trial, the progress of a case becomes increasingly dependent on its visual impact and the effective use of trial graphics in its presentation. Words carry more of an impact when combined with precisely timed visuals.

Trial Graphics

To present the facts of a case, trial graphics have an important impact on decision making behavior and persuasion. Trial graphics present the facts, support witness testimony, and help attorneys to be easily understood. As such, our firm places considerable importance on the effective use of trial graphics.

What Are Trial Graphics?

Traditionally, case preparation depended mostly on legal pads, pens, file folders, notebooks, and filing cabinets to keep case materials organized and accessible. Color coded paperclips and stickums provided additional organizational tools. Once the material was organized, it was analyzed and the case was developed. Trial graphics were then designed to support a presentation of the case. 

Trial graphics were delivered using overhead projectors, oversized trial boards, and posters exhibiting key documents and summary timelines. These visual aids were often combined with the familiar flip chart that anchored one corner of the courtroom. While some of these tools are still used in certain situations, the manual control of these traditional tools is cumbersome and doesn’t support efficient, effective demonstrative presentations.

In the digital age, trial graphics incorporate a variety of electronic media for case presentation delivered with high end projectors and the use of software such as TrialDirector.

 

Why Are Trial Graphics Important?

Words carry more of an impact when combined with precisely timed visuals. Visual impact is crucial not just for presentation purposes, but to support human memory for the retention of important facts.  If used effectively, trial graphics are an important asset to any case.

Although in some cases, A2L Consulting's job is to let the complexity of a case work in our favor, most of the time our task is to make an otherwise complicated case understandable to anyone. 

As demonstrative evidence consultants, one component of A2L Consulting's work is to apply the best use of trial graphics to make the evidence and facts of an entire case easier to understand.

Why Are Trial Graphics Helpful for a Case to Be Easily Understood?

The effective use of trial graphics turns complex facts and ideas into easily understandable images that are memorable, influencing decisions and persuading judges and juries.

At A2L consulting, one of our tasks always involves assisting litigation counsel with the creation of courtroom presentations that effectively utilize trial graphics to persuade the judge or jury. Relying heavily on the use of easily understandable trial graphics, we make it clear which side is the correct position to take.

Since litigation counsel is typically far more intelligent and better educated than the average juror, this is sometimes a difficult task and we typically work with litigation counsel that has worked a case for so long, they may have lost sight of what makes a case so difficult for the average person to understand in the first place.

We assist trial teams in making the facts of the case easier to understand. This facilitates the building of the trust necessary for persuasion. With the majority of jurors deciding a case after opening statements, the importance of understanding cannot be overstated. Understanding must exist to form trust, and trust is prerequisite to persuasion.

At A2L consulting, we've used trial graphics effectively for litigators from all major U.S. law firms and most of the largest international firms.