The First Trial (Where Do I Sit? What Do I Say?) in a Nutshell
Authors:
Goldberg, Steven H. / McCormack, Tracy Walters
Edition:
3rd
Copyright Date:
2016
9 chapters
have results for "the first trial"
- After your first trial, and certainly by your third one, your confidence and ability should be sufficient to consider skipping directly from the factual scan to the trial examination notes. For the first trial, however, do not skip writing out the entire question and do not take the questions to court. This step will help you anticipate any objections to testimony or exhibits and make sure you can lay all necessary foundations for witness testimony and exhibits.
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- The first trial is not too early to be concerned about asking questions that in addition to being understandable are persuasive. The words you choose, the concepts you present, and the emphasis you create will determine whether you have presented merely an understandable examination, or a persuasive one.
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Chapter 2. The Script: What Do I Say? 2 results
- creation of characters and dialogue, the trial lawyer uses a single, simple theme as the touchstone against which every piece of available evidence is measured. The theme—the reason that your client should win—becomes the relevance standard for every pretrial and trial judgment the lawyer is called upon to make. As you approach the first trial, you are likely to have more witnesses, more information, and more legal theories for recovery or defense than you can use effectively. The first step in preparing your trial/play is to understand that you have more than you can use. The second step is to identify the excess. Focusing on the theme of your closing argument helps you to eliminate the excess and recognize the relevant.
- ...the first trial, even for the most nervous among us, shifts from thoughts about sitting in the wrong chair to concern about saying the wrong words. We worry about having it sound right until we realize that the most important thing is the idea that our words represent. When that happens, we proceed to the mountains of information we have accumulated through investigation and discovery—no doubt with a theory of recovery or defense in mind—and sort it by witness. We identify each witness, catalogue what the witness has to say, arrange the sequence of the witness’s oral testimony, arrange the witnesses in an acceptable order, and pronounce ourselves more or less ready to proceed. All too often, this approach misses a main point of a claim or defense, and the judge never allows the legally insufficient claim or defense to go to the jury. Just as often, this approach puts so much information before the jurors that they miss the main point for all the irrelevancies. When a lawyer...
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- ...the first trial begins the moment that you first decide to take the case, and continues until you say your first words in the courtroom. Preparation is the indispensable ingredient in trial success. It is impossible to overrate its importance. Virtually every writer, lecturer, and casual observer about trial stresses the importance of preparation. It is, therefore, astonishing how many lawyers never learned or just forgot. It is even more important for the beginning trial lawyer, because preparation leads to confidence, even if we just look more confident than we actually feel! This primer deals with the last part of trial preparation—preparation of the theater. Once you have gathered all of the facts available, interviewed all of the witnesses that will submit, considered all of the possible legal theories, and developed every scrap of information that investigation, discovery, and research can provide, you must begin the process of selection. You cannot present everything that...
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- Publication Date: March 18th, 2016
- ISBN: 9781634602709
- Subject: Trial Practice
- Series: Nutshells
- Type: Overviews
- Description: The First Trial Nutshell is a fresh and unique approach to advocacy instruction. Concentrating on the overall approach to trying a case, it weaves persuasion and procedure to help lawyers and law students prepare for their first trials with confidence. Addressing everything from technology to where to sit and what to say it meshes the practical advice and “how to” instructions with sophisticated persuasive techniques. Small enough to be read in a single sitting, this book will serve as the perfect first primer and a continuing resource for experienced litigators to read again before trial mediation or arbitration.