Persuasion

Many prosecutors and police (and perhaps too many judges) apparently see criminal defense lawyers as a curious mix of being part of the legal establishment — “one of us”, in the minds of many of them — who also represent “them”/”the other”/the person to be...

Soft is not weak when applied in terms of active relaxation. Collapsed is weak. Brittle is weak. Stiff is weak. Softness enables listening and winning; loudness deafens; hardness makes brittle and weak. Softness puts opponents and others more at ease — and open to the...

I went from public school to college, to a Wall Street-based bank for a year, to law school, to a law firm, to the Maryland public defender’s office, to another law firm, to my own duo law firm, to my current solo law firm. Too...

My criminal defense clients come to me often feeling out of balance. I often am among the first people they tell about their predicament. This situation is imperfectly akin to a seriously injured emergency room visitor hoping to be helped by a doctor with all the attributes...

My close friend and teacher Trudy Morse — a great grandmother who learned many key life lessons before I ever was born — once wrote in thanks to those who supported her along the path of life. Local taijiquan teacher David Walls Kaufman, who very generously...

The National Criminal Defense College and the Trial Lawyers College heavily focus on storytelling throughout the trial. Most people organize their thoughts and decision making along storytelling lines. Most law schools try in a huge number of respects to teach students to unlearn their humanity,...

This blog entry is a reprint from an earlier posting, as I wind down this week’s vacation. This morning, a gaggle of geese crossing a busy street gave drivers a chance to step back from their Friday hustle-bustle.. John Johnson emphasized to me the importance...

Earlier this month (June 2012), I unplugged from email and the phone except for a handful of communications with my family and office, for the apparently first Cultivating Balance law world retreat at the Blue Cliff Monastery in Pine Bush, New York, where anything but...

The three basics of effective trial advocacy, and persuasion beyond the law, are knowledge/intelligence/preparation, skill/experience, and passion/conviction. They all need to be synthesized into a harmonious whole. Passion, conviction, and persuasion are major hallmarks of the Trial Lawyers College, which I attended for four weeks in August...

Those who actually attended Woodstock know full well how overcrowded a be-in it was. In the middle of it all, a partially-toothless (from being beaten at demonstrations?) Hugh Romney announced to the crowd: “What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000… We...