By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm –
In litigation it is often true that, “the devil is in the data,” in the sense that numbers and how they’re presented can be extremely important. In employment cases, jurors often need to grasp the overall percentages that prove or disprove a discrimination claim. In mass tort pharmaceutical cases, expert witnesses will often need to explain the scientific studies that underlie their theories of causation. When information like this is presented to a jury, we are expecting this diverse slice of the common citizenry, many with a high school education or less, to somehow understand numerical data at a graduate school level. When attorneys and witnesses aren’t armed with the best teaching tools, success in getting fact-finders to understand those numbers can be a very uncertain proposition.
Recently, we came across a remarkable video clip of a BBC production showing a Swedish professor, armed with only a dramatic (and somewhat ideosyncratic) speaking style and a innovative data chart, explaining a specific statistical point. Called “200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes,” it is a visual way of showing the recent history of economic and life-expectancy development throughout the world over the past two centuries. The chart serves as a visual support to the professor’s conclusion that “the huge historical gap between ‘The West,’ and ‘The Rest’ is now closing.” The clip embedded below, with about a million and a half views as of the time I posted this message, qualifies as a YouTube hit.
At the heart of the clip’s appeal is that it shows a very simple way of making a very complicated point. As Hans Rossling, the Swedish professor of international health, puts it in this video, “Having the data is not enough. I have to show it in ways that people both enjoy and understand.” The same might be said to lawyers: having the stronger evidence is not enough, if you aren’t showing it to the jury in a way that is both enjoyed and understood.
What is most attention-gaining in the video is the technology, and specifically the visual novelty of the professor literally standing within the data chart and interacting with it. But that is probably less important than what the presentation says about how to make data meaningful and understandable.
As you watch the clip, keep three things in mind that relate to an attorney or an expert’s need to make data meaningful and engaging to jurors:
1. Orient First. People who work with data often assume that a well-designed chart should be self explanatory, but you can’t rely on that. Note how Professor Rossling provides a fast, but complete, orientation to the elements of the chart between :30 and 1:00 of the video. He explains the X-axis, Y-Axis, as well as the meaning of the size and color of the data-points.
2. Keep the Claim Front and Center. The purpose of showing data is never simply to show the data, nor is it just to increase the jury’s understanding. In an adversary setting, the only purpose in showing charts, or any other demonstrative for that matter, is to make or to preview a clear argument that supports your case. Professor Rossling makes it clear that all of the fancy data and presentation boils down to one proposition: that both Western and non-Western societies have increased wealth and life-expectancy over time in a relatively unbroken trend.
3. Adopt. Key to any demonstrative use, whether it is a flip-chart or a high-level animation, is that it is interactive. The demonstrative should be designed so that the presenter – an attorney or a witness – can illustrate claims in a dynamic fashion. Apart from Professor Rossling’s physical interaction with the data in this example, it is also worth noting the ways he maintains interest and allows for more subtle points. For example, when the data representation method masks a particular fact by lumping all of the regions of a country like China together, he just breaks it apart to show differences in different regions. As long as it explained, the presentation is dynamic rather than confusing.