Use elements of storytelling.

Jurors understand a case best within the context of a story that has a beginning, middle, and end. Decide which small details and which bigger elements are vital. If you leave out something the jurors need to make the story seamless, they will make it up themselves, and the story they have won't resemble the one you thought you were telling them.

Avoid beginning your openings the same way each time. Choose the best way to begin a particular story for that particular case and for that particular client. Regardless of what you choose to include in the middle of the story--the meat of what happened---and in what order, the middle must follow your chosen beginning, and it must lead inevitably to the end you have chosen. Many attorneys mistakenly assume that the story they are telling ends in the past. Instead, it is alive, and the jurors are participating in it. The story ends only when the jurors give it an ending.

Make sure you tell the story from only one point of view. Otherwise, jurors may get the impression that both sides are equal. For example, if your client was struck by a car while crossing the street, you can begin the story in the crosswalk. Then describe the sign flashing, and your client waking up in the hospital, discovering that the driver of the car was drunk, and recovering from the injuries.

Or you can tell the story from the driver's point of view, starting from getting up in the morning and having a drink, having a two-martini lunch, declining a friend's offer of a drive home, squinting into the rearview mirror, seeing no one, pressing down on the gas, and slamming into something.

It is your job to lay out the story of the case in a sequence that is easy to follow and leads the listener to one inevitable conclusion.

Alan Blumenfeld

Katherine James

Culver City, California 

[For the video series "What Can Lawyers Learn from Actors?" from ACT of Communication and ATLA Education, contact ATLA Education at [phone].]