Persuasion
Informed by dispassion when arguing with passion
A key part of persuasion is getting the audience to listen to the speaker in the first place. If the audience feels uncomfortable, threatened or even frightened by the speaker, the audience will be distracted in trying to tune out from the speaker, defend themselves...
Transcending the blockages of anger, irritation, and untruth
An interesting mating dance is often done between criminal defendants and the lawyers they are considering hiring. They want to know a lawyer’s fee, the lawyer’s quality, and the lawyer’s devotion to them and their case if hired. Some feel pressure (for instance to visit...
Great lawyer Judy Clarke’s magic in humanizing those charged with monstrous offenses
Judy Clarke stands behind the late Wyoming Chief Justice Bob Rose (wearing an eyepatch). I am standing here, in pre-gray wavy hair, two men to the left of Bob Rose. (1995, Thunderhead Ranch, Dubois, Wyoming.) When I transitioned from a Washington, D.C., 25-lawyer corporate law...
What if we treated clients as family members?
How many doctors and lawyers do you know who keep their patients and clients at arm’s length? I see it all the time. Does it come from habit, training, observation of colleagues, assumptions, wrong analysis, or a combination of some or all of them. For me...
Achieving victory through visualizing success, proceeding from a strong framework, storytelling, enchantment, and unfoldment
A few times in my high school trigonometry class, I would sit down with my teacher during her office hours to assure that I was understanding one or the other challenging concept. Our meetings were short, because she would distill our discussions to such simplicity...
In Persuading, Remember That People are Like Ever-Changing Rivers
Good criminal defense lawyers talk about judges and prosecutors, because an important part of persuading is knowing the people we are persuading and battling. However, the judge, prosecutor or anyone else we see today is not the same one we see tomorrow nor saw yesterday,...
Challenges versus problems in Virginia criminal court
In many ways, my Fairfax criminal defense lawyer blog is a tool for my self exploration and self development, and to remind myself of the best ways to get and stay on the right path. If I do not write down and crystallize my key...
Negotiating from the Getting to Yes Approach
Soon after starting college, I sat transfixed as Roger Fisher gave a talk about negotiating on goals versus positions, in any conflict from global to local to litigation. It all makes sense, but many prosecutors seem not to have heard of such an approach to...
The difference between handling flung dung in the battlefield versus from behind the keyboard
Deepak Chopra once replied to a barb that he is full of dung: “But shit recycles as life !” Without taking away from Dr. Chopra my praise for his reply, he replied from the distance of space and time from the Twitter attacker. Dr. Chopra’s...
When Your Ideal Judge Disappoints
Depending on the judge I get for my case, my response runs from hoping I have misread the judicial assignment to figuring the judge is better than some and worse than others to raising my hands in joy to the sky. When one of the...