It's All About the Story

       Last week was my three day trial.  Whew!  I spent four days going home after dark and coming back to the office before dawn.  It was exhausting.  To reward myself for a job well done, I went out and bought myself two new pairs of shoes - but I digress.  As you might imagine, a three day trial provides lots of Trenches moments for this blog.  It gives me at least a week's worth....
       First, let's start with my pet peeve.  Attorneys who don't prepare their clients or witnesses for testimony.  This is different than the flip side - clients who don't take preparation for trial seriously.  There are two levels to preparing witnesses for testimony.  The first is having a theory of the case.  The second is the preparation itself.   You can't do the second properly without the first.  It reminds me a bit about the Chesire Cat in Alice in Wonderland:  if you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there?  You see, presenting a case in court is all about telling a story.  The lawyer doesn't tell the story herself; she uses various people, or witnesses to weave different pieces of the tale together so the story flows together, makes sense to the judge, and persuades.  Some people can tell a story and some can't.  It's kind of like telling a joke; some can tell one, and others can't (I'm one of those who can't).   Even if you're not a good story teller, however, it's obvious when you at least try.  Then, even if the story comes out in herks and jerks instead of smoothly, at least there's a story.  I'm pretty good at telling a story; not every attorney is.
       That, of course, brings us to the second part of the preparation, the testimony itself.  Clients and their witnesses know a lot of facts.  Some of those facts are important to the story and some are not.  Some facts, all the witnesses know, and they don't need to be presented by everyone.  That's part of telling a story - knowing which facts are important and essential to the story and which are not.  It's important to know which person is the best one to reveal the facts, as well.  The witnesses don't know what facts that they know are important to the story because they're not telling it.  The attorney is, and it's up to her
to elicit the necessary facts.  That takes work, both by the attorney and the witness.  There's no shortcuts, and it takes time to do it right.  Lots of time.  Here in the Trenches.