Finding the right storytelling angle can be challenge for any trial lawyer, but for those advocating on the right-hand side of the v, it’s often even more so. In representing clients jurors may not automatically find sympathetic, defense counsel must express empathy for harms the plaintiff has suffered without admitting to their liability and present technical data that is critical to their client’s defense but wearisome for fact finders to follow. Good narrative technique can help, and in this episode, legal storytelling specialist David Mann shares the insights he’s gain in over a decade of working with trial lawyers to develop winning case stories. 

Topics
4:01  Changing defense landscape
7:20  Plaintiff’s automatic emotional hook
9:54  Humanizing the defense client
12:13  Importance of storytelling
17:34 Observing versus opining
20:31  Going granular
24:38  Being engaging and persuasive
28:12  Check your blind spots
30:26 Persuasive presence and turning facts into a story
35:03  Signoff question

Quote
“[Defense lawyers] need to be good storytellers, and they are just beginning to see how important that is and how they are now losing where they used to win. They’re also seeing the nuclear verdict problem. So juries are awarding tens of millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars in cases that just a few years ago that would have been unheard of. And now it’s getting to be more and more regular. So that that’s how high the stakes are for the defense.” David Mann

Resources
David Mann (bio)
Turning Facts into a Story (May, November)
Persuasive Presence (October)
Building Trial Skills: New Orleans (program)
The Secrets of Persuasive Legal Storytelling (podcast episode)
Engaging the Jury in the First Two Minutes (free webcast)
NYT 10-Minute Challenge (gift article)