By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: So you have just started the mock trial and you know this much: Your case doesn’t fare very well at all on first impression. After hearing a summary from you and the other side, your credibility is low, the proportion of those siding with your adversary is high, and you […]
Think Again: Escape Bad First Impressions By Encouraging Reappraisal Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: When you lose a billion dollars in trial, you tend to look for every opportunity to get around that verdict. That would appear to be the explanation for Samsung’s recent efforts to target juror misconduct in its recent patent trial with Apple. Samsung’s claims center on the foreman of the jury,
Treat Post-Verdict Juror Interviews as Education, Not Discovery Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm Amid the spin and analysis in the immediate aftermath of last night’s lead-off Presidential Debate, much of the reaction is focused on appearance and style, with some wondering if Obama was on the receiving end of a kind of “Nixon/Kennedy” moment with Romney looking cool, confident and “presidential” while the President
Look Like You’re Winning: 2012 Presidential Debate Series, Part One Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm To celebrate the first Monday of October, I’m reviewing Jeffrey Toobin’s new book on the recent history of the Roberts Court. One thing is again made clear: Toobin knows how to find the story in the law. That is the same thing that all good trial attorneys are aiming for,
Leading Motives and Trailing Personal Stories: Lessons in Jeffrey Toobin’s “The Oath” Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm The law treats factual evidence as a repository possessed by the witness and elicited through testimony. Like a bucket, filled, in the case of your witnesses at least, with the sweet clear water of truth, you just dip in a ladle and out comes the descriptions, the observations, the facts.
Don’t Mistake the Witness for a Bucket of Facts Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm It is the mantra of every political communicator trying to control the focus and avoid gaffes: Stay on message. In the current presidential campaign, however, that is easier said than done. Republican nominee Mitt Romney, for example, has had a particularly bad week. After some widely criticized comments on the
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm Imagine a typical employment discrimination case, subject to all of the ambiguities of human motivation. To the plaintiff, it is a story of good if not exceptional work performance cut short by a decision to terminate based on race, gender, age or disability. To the defendant, it is a story
Realistically Compare Your Employment Fact Finders Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The reason probably, at least partially, has something to do with justice. The cases that should remind us the most of that can sometimes feel like lost causes, like the tragedy of Adnan Latif. This young man traveled in 2001 from his native Yemen to Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border,
Remember Why You Went to Law School Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: News: Americans still don’t love lawsuits. According to polling conducted in August by Luce Research for the American Tort Reform Association and the group, Sick of Lawsuits, “Americans firmly believe that lawsuit abuse is a problem in our country. They see too many lawsuits and believe that the number of
Take Anti-Lawsuit Attitudes With a Grain of Salt Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: P: Hey, have you seen the amicus brief that was written entirely as a cartoon? S: A cartoon? You mean someone submitted a joke as an amicus brief? P: No, not a joke. The lawyer, Bob Kohn, lays out his argument in a series of frames with characters and dialogue,
Persuade Through Dialogue Read More »