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(formerly the Persuasive Litigator blog)

Author name: ken.brodabahm

Remember, it’s a Sidebar, Not a Bar Fight: Reason With, Not At, Your Adversary and Judge

Adapting to Judges / /

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – The popular image of legal argument is most often a polished and professional presentation, made from a podium in front of a jury or judge.  To those of us court watchers who read transcripts, it is clear that the biggest roll-up-your-sleeves-and-argue moments are often at sidebar – those conferences conducted with counsel […]

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That’s Right, The Women Are Smarter: Pay Attention to Your Jury’s Social Intelligence

Adapting to Jurors, Voir Dire / /

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – “The men totally dominated the discussion the last time,” said JoAnn Chiakulas, the hold-out juror in Rod Blagojevich’s first corruption trial, “and a lot of the women were not treated very nicely.”  The former governor’s newer jury consisted of eleven women and one man you might expect a change in that department.   But this second jury deliberated

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Determine Whether Your Jurors Are Driven by Process or by Verdict

Adapting to Jurors / /

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – When the Casey Anthony jury moves to the deliberation phase in the near future, it is possible to imagine one of two scenarios for how those deliberations discussions will start: Scenario One:  Okay, who here feels that she is guilty?  Let’s just go around the table… Scenario Two:  Okay, let’s start

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Spot the Jurors Who Feel Entitled to Award Higher Damages

Adapting to Jurors, Bias, Comprehension, Damages / /

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – We all remember Aesop’s fable of the happy-go-lucky grasshopper who played away the summer while the ants worked industriously.  When winter came, and the hungry grasshopper ended up at the ant’s door, the moral of the story became clear:  entitlement, the feeling that the world owes you a living,

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Experts: Don’t Cross The Line Between Confidence and Arrogance

Adapting to Jurors / /

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – Attorneys, consultants, and experts know testimony needs to be delivered with more than just clarity and authority.  It needs confidence.  Jurors and judges alike are more comfortable with an expert’s testimony when it is delivered with self-assurance and conveyed with certainty.  But according to research sponsored by The American

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Tell Your Patent Invention Story In a Way That is Worth Copyrighting

Patent Litigation, Strategy / /

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – Last month, Uniloc USA lost a multiyear battle against Microsoft to preserve a $388 million jury award against the software giant, and will now be retrying the patent infringement case on damages alone.  One thing Uniloc has in its corner for retrial is a compelling invention story:  a plucky Australian inventor working since the early

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Don’t Wear The Black Hat Lightly: You’re Not the Bad Guy Because You’re at Fault, You’re at Fault Because You’re the Bad Guy.

Adapting to Jurors, Bias, Energy Litigation / /

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – So, let’s say you are BP, and after the Deepwater Horizon spill you are facing several thousand claims in the courtroom.  You are potentially more worried by one big claim in the court of public opinion:  you’re seen as a bad actor.  That perception certainly has less to do with any causal analysis of the failure of

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Persuade Using Both Alpha and Omega Strategies

Bias, Opening Statement, Products Liability Litigation, Social Media, Strategy / /

By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – Never heard of “Alpha” and “Omega” strategies for persuasion?  Until recently, neither had I.  But after reading the research, it has changed my way of looking at persuasion.  The terms are based on something called the “approach-avoidance” model (Knowles & Linn, 2004), suggesting that to an audience, every position you

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Beware of the Jury’s “Filter Bubble”

Adapting to Jurors, Public Perception, Social Media / /

By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – You may not have heard the phrase “filter bubble,” but it refers to an internet phenomena, as well as to some basic psychology on how we receive and process information.  More fully explained in the video clip below, Eli Pariser coined the phrase to refer to the individual separation (that is the ‘bubble’

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