By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: So the case is complex. Maybe it involves a tricky multi-stage legal question. Or maybe it requires understanding some arcane point on patents. Or perhaps it requires grappling with the workings of an unfamiliar technology. In these cases, is the jury up to the task? It can be tempting to […]
Don’t Fret, Your Jury Can Handle Some Complexity Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The idea of something being a “Legal Fiction” is that it is treated as true for the purposes of the law, but it is not literally true. “A corporation is a person” is perhaps one of the best known of these legal fictions, and one that generates passionate disagreements. As
Question the Legal Fiction of the ‘Reasonable Person’ Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The idea of a courtroom trial is that it is a sealed system. The fact-finders arrive in a neutral state of mind, they receive and review only what is vetted and presented in court, and then they deliberate to a verdict without any outside influence. We know that this sealed
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Once you’re aware of “dehumanization” as a feature of communication, you start to see it everywhere. Characterizing a group as less than human in one or more ways is often part of the rhetorical landscape on the most divisive issues. If economic or political migrants, for example, are viewed as animals,
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Generally speaking, the “exigence” refers to the needs or demands of a situation, as in “the exigences of city living.” However, within the fields of persuasive communication and rhetoric, the exigence has a more particular meaning. Theorist Lloyd Bitzer first applied that meaning in a 1968 piece called “The Rhetorical
Know Your Exigence Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Just before Thanksgiving, the White House released a statement on U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia in the wake of the brutal murder of U.S. journalist and Saudi expatriate Jamal Khashoggi. The short version of President Trump’s message? Nothing has changed. Despite the fact that Mr. Khashoggi was a permanent U.S. resident, a
Beware of Paraleipsis (and Other Shady Rhetorical Strategies) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Defendants, and some plaintiffs, can have a source problem when it comes to legal persuasion. They’re already seen as morally questionable, and that makes whatever claims are coming from them already suspect. For defendants, they’re tainted because something bad happened and they’re “the accused.” And some plaintiffs also get that
Make Your Language More Personal and Less ‘Polite’ Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: A few days ago, after the National Rifle Association got wind of a new issue of Annals of Internal Medicine which included several articles on gun control, the organization tweeted back at the doctors: “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” Once various other conservative commentators jumped aboard, the
Stay in Your Lane (But Own That Lane) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: You know how the joke begins: “A guy walks into a bar…” But wait, for you to know the punch line, this has to be past tense. So wouldn’t it be, “A guy walked into a bar…?” It could be. But usually it is “walks” – present tense. Why? Because
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As our team was conducting a recent social media analysis on a jury pool, one particular potential juror stood out. He was, as he proudly proclaimed in his public online messages, a “flat-earther.” And this belief of his, that we live on a flat plane rather than on a globe,
See the Threads of Conspiracy Thinking Read More »