By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The way we create, locate, and measure public opinion is changing, and fast. It used to be that we treated the body public as a passive audience waiting to be canvased, surveyed, or focus-grouped. Today, however, people in all demographics are active in public and semipublic internet spaces creating, sharing, and liking […]
Account for Social Media Distortion Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: I’m a little proud of the fact that, up to this point, I’ve managed to avoid writing about the Jodi Arias trial. But all that’s about to change, and not because of the volume of salacious detail that has emerged in the Arizona murder Defendant’s two weeks on the stand.
Use Juror Questions to Piece Together Your Case Challenges Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: A recent blog post written by a juror in the trial of Jim Fayed, a gold trader convicted of arranging the brutal murder of his estranged wife in a Los Angeles parking garage, included some rather colorful descriptions of the prosecutor’s use of demonstrative graphics: …And then there were the
Follow the Ten Commandments of Graphics Use in Trial Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Once more, over the cliff! Our lawmakers have had to make, or not make, some risky decisions lately. The “sequester,” a poison pill of across-the-board cuts designed to force a spending compromise, has just done what no one believed it would do when it was created in 2011: It’s gone
Speak to the Brain’s Politics Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The fact that we ourselves are bracketed in time makes us want to see that span – a generation – as terribly important to who we are. Projecting that onto others as well, we tend to see people as products of their generation. That is the frame of mind that
Don’t Hate on Younger Jurors Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: So, you’re conducting a mock trial and eyeballing the participants as they check in. Gradually, it strikes you: Some seem to know the drill a little too well. Later in the day during deliberations and interviews, it is all the more clear: Some have the wide-eyed and uncertain look of
Don’t Ride with ‘Frequent Flyers’ in Your Mock Trial Research Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: I have a five-year-old daughter (stay with me, it’s relevant), and every night, just as she is going to bed, I tell her a story, creating each tale in impromptu fashion. I’ve been doing this for as long as she’s been able to understand what I’m saying (and probably a
When You Think “Story” Think “Structure” Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Early rhetorical theory and the most modern advances in cognitive science are able to find a surprising amount of common ground. Particularly when we think of the persuasive demands on legal communicators, there is much that would be recommended both by the ancients, as well as by the most current
Persuade With Participation, Part Two: Learn from Modern Cognitive Science Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: This past Tuesday President Obama delivered the first State of the Union Address of his second term. It’s been traditional for the party on the other side to give a response, and in what is becoming a pattern, there was a response from both the Republican Party as well as
Check Your Alignment in Multi-Defendant Litigation Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: An attorney in our firm recently stopped me in the hall. “I’m giving a talk on how to persuade in court,” she said, “Anything I should emphasize?” Where to start, I thought, where to start? It is a broad question, as the topical range of posts in this blog can
Persuade With Participation, Part One: Learn from Early Rhetoric Read More »