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(formerly the Persuasive Litigator blog)

Author name: ken.brodabahm

Lawyers and Corporate Defendants – Expect a Little More Hostility from the Jury Box

Bias / /

By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: I suspect there has never been any great love affair between attorneys in general and the jury pool. Jurors know that lawyers are there to influence them toward a desired result, and that’s typically met with suspicion. Similarly, corporate defendants also don’t tend to make a jury’s list of favorites. We’ve […]

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Account for ‘Social Inflation’ in Damages Awards

Damages / /

By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: “Social inflation” is a phrase that crops up these days when people are talking about civil damage awards. As an explanation for a wave in so-called “nuclear verdicts,” social inflation refers to the phenomena of typical damage award levels rising over time as the population gets more comfortable with those big

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Defendants, Don’t Automatically Avoid the First Move in Settlement

Case Assessment, Settlement / /

By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: At a national conference I spoke at earlier this week, one of the other presenters was  Anne Marie O’Brien of Smith Pauley LLP, a very experienced litigator and mediator working out of Omaha, Nebraska. During her talk, she asked a room full of defense attorneys how many of them routinely made the

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Expect Skepticism (and Some Support) for Railroads

Adapting to Jurors, Bias / /

By Ken Broda-Bahm: It hasn’t been the easiest year for America’s railroad companies. Last Fall, in the midst of an inflationary panic, a national rail strike threatened to disrupt the nation’s shipping system, before that was resolved through a combination of Presidential carrots and sticks. But that was all eclipsed just a few months later,

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Model Effective Legal Persuasion

Adapting to Jurors / /

By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Persuasion is at the core of what litigators do, not exclusively, but particularly in court. Despite that, aspiring lawyers train on a legal model that emphasizes some aspects of persuasion (like evidence and logic) while de-emphasizing or ignoring other aspects (like emotion, salience, and motivation). In a recent article, “Persuasion Principles

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Witnesses, You’re Preparing for Improv, Not a Play

Testifying Effectively, Witness Preparation / /

By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: To be clear, testifying isn’t acting. Testifying is telling the truth. And with apologies to those who will point out that good acting is telling the truth as well, there are some important differences for the testifying witness, not least of which is that any appearance of artifice reduces credibility. Even

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