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Search Term: storytelling in the moment
Going to trial is the only way to know whether you will win, and the lawyer must fight like hell at trial and throughout the case
What is the most exhilarating part of being a criminal defense lawyer? Trials. Trials must be well-prepared and well fought; that is a given. Those meant for trial work will feel invigorated rather than exhausted by the battle.
Parables, schmarables. To persuade, open your heart to help open others’ hearts, and tell a persuasive story
This year, the Voice of America and a freelance journalist with a major magazine interviewed me about the Boston marathon bombing trial against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, humanizing criminal defendants to jurors, and Tsarnaev’s lawyer and my hero Judy Clarke. The Voice of America interview was videotaped...
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...
The wild ride of criminal defense – The unfolding inspiration of victories
Criminal defense is a wild ride. One day, I am sitting on top of the world with a big court victory, the next day I am appearing before a very difficult judge to say the least, and the next day I am talking to a...
Finding the magic to great speaking and writing
So many people are afraid of public speaking, seeing the audience as a potential source of judgment, criticism, ridicule and shaming, rather than as connected to the speaker or as akin to the speaker’s closest friends. Many people write in stilted fashion, reaching constantly for...
Let the courthouse walls disappear and the unblocked testimony begin
Repeatedly in my initial discussions with them, clients and witnesses recount the events leading to my client’s arrest not only with descriptive words but with conclusions, opinions, and the occasional (usually with younger witnesses, which seems to be a generational way of speaking) "so I was...
Persuading in a suit, when we were once children frolicking in the sun
As I became ten years old and beyond, I noticed more often the premium that was paid for children to act more mature as they got older. Why? To have a disconnect with the power of our children within? To become easily tamed humanoids, so...
Being persuasively real when procedural rules and bench rulings apply, and the objections fly
When I studied in 1979 for my certificate to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation ("CPR"), the instructor never told us that as we compress the chest during the administration of CPR, some people will have vomit come out of their mouths, the same mouths in which we...
Winning on Framing Club Ah v. Club Blah
Photo from website of U.S. District Court (W.D. Mi.). An essential focus at the Trial Lawyers College is to replace verbal legalese droning at trial with painting word images, telling persuasive stories by re-enacting events, and talking from the first-person perspective of non-lawyers involved in...
Humanizing Criminal Defendants
A criminal defense lawyer’s criminal defense lawyer, showing lawyers the powerful path to humanizing our clients, through storytelling, kindness to all, summoning our inner magic, and a reminder that “reality is no obstacle.” When I started practicing criminal defense over fifteen years ago, a repeated theme...