By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Every experienced communicator knows that eye contact can be key to credibility. A communicator who maintains strong eye contact has power and immediacy, while one who avoids eye contact conveys weakness and a lack of confidence. For witnesses, that understanding is easy enough to apply in situations of live testimony: […]
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Flip a coin, roll the dice, pick a number, throw a dart — there is no shortage of metaphors for the perceived randomness of juries. That belief that “anything can happen,” is applied to some extent to the whole jury model, but nowhere more so than on the topic of
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: By the time they get to opening statements or closing arguments in trial, most lawyers have been living with the case facts and story so long that talking about it really isn’t the problem. What is the problem, though, is sticking to a plan, hitting the time limit, and not
Speak Extemporaneously: Seven Tips for Losing the Notes Without Going Off-the-Cuff Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As of posting time, seven African-American churches have burned down since the racially motivated murders in Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina two weeks ago. One of those fires may have been caused by lightning, but there’s a concern that others may have been caused by a belief – namely,
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There’s a movie currently in the theaters called “Inside Out.” In the animated film, pyschological drives are personified as characters – joy, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness – all in charge of navigating the mental experiences of the main character, an 11-year-old girl. Beyond being a bit of entertainment for
Design Your Metaphor Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The idea of the corporate personhood is typically thought of as a “legal fiction” (Schane, 1987). That is, we treat a nonperson as a person so that it makes sense legally to talk about corporate entities doing what people would otherwise do: buying and selling, entering contracts, suing and being
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Based on recent events, we are still a long way from Dr. King’s dream of a nation where his children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The horrific murder of nine worshipers in the Emanuel African Methodist Church in
Consider Character Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As any watcher of the Marvel movies knows, origin stories are important. You can’t fully understand The Wolverine until you know how he came to be sporting those retractable adamantium claws. Trial consulting also has an origin story, coming from cases in the early to mid-seventies, when academics provided their expertise on
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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: My 8-year-0ld daughter is currently obsessed with a game called “Minecraft.” She is using increasing portions of her precious screen time to sign into her “worlds” in order to build and develop elaborate houses and other buildings. As I understand it, the point isn’t to rack up a high score or
Make Your Jurors “Structure Builders” Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It’s one of those sort of things where, once you know what it is, you’ll see it everywhere. The Dunning-Kruger effect is the research-proven tendency for those who aren’t very good at something to carry an inflated view of their own abilities, because they aren’t quite capable enough to understand their
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