March 24 to 27, 2011, I traveled to the Cascade Mountains to be with legendary trial lawyers Gerry Spence and Paul Luvera. These wonderful lawyers have achieved amazing results on behalf of their clients for decades. I thought perhaps, I could learn some of the clever tricks these great lawyers used to get results for their clients. What I came to understand is there are no clever tricks or magical speaches to manipulate juries.
In fact the message was clear, always be honest and sincere with your jury. I always considered myself to be honest, especially in a courtroom. Then I thought about all the attorneys that always tried to hide their client or some damaging fact from juries. These attorneys told the jury the story that the attorney wanted to tell. They never told the complete story of their injured client that the jury not only needed, but wanted to hear about.
In order to know the complete story, the real story, we must listen. We must climb into their eyes and see what they see. We must feel as our client feels. Until we know exactly what it is to be our client, we will never know the real truth. When we become our client we can tell the jury the truth and not just give them a clever speach.
