By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: I’ve known this since my days as a college professor: If you really want to learn something, then try teaching it. And there’s an important principle at the heart of that. The mindset of an active teacher is different — and better — than the mindset of a passive learner. When you’re […]
Prepare Your Jurors to be Teachers Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Every juror with a strong and relevant belief or experience is asked it in oral voir dire: “Would you be able to set that aside and base your decision on just the facts?” Attorneys conducting oral voir dire would do well to ask themselves the same question: “Are you able to
Lawyers, Set Aside Your Own Bias in Voir Dire Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Sometimes characters are important, but never seen. For example, Godot is waited for, but doesn’t make it to the stage. In HBO’s Veep, the President is often the center of the story, but is never seen or heard on screen. Even in the Charlie Brown cartoons, we hear about but never
Consider the Credibility of Your Missing Persons Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “Shoot for the moon,” that motivational saying goes, “and even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Sounds nice, until the cynics (the kind who write demotivational posters) add, “…and die in the cold abyss of space.” Both the feel-good and the sarcastic versions of that sentiment have a
Counter the Plaintiff’s Damages Anchor (Especially When It’s Overboard) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Jurors often identify with the fact witness, and for a good reason. If there is one person in the courtroom with whom they have the most in common, it is the person in the witness chair – the person who also has no specialized legal training, and was, like them,
Witness, Mind Your Tone: Eleven Reminders Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Consider the expert witness mismatch: One expert represents the common mainstream scientific view, while the other expert is there to support a theory that lies on the far side of the credibility spectrum, and may have just barely survived a Daubert challenge. Yet what jurors see is an equivalency. One
Fight False Equivalency Among Experts Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Alexis de Tocqueville, France’s number one America fan back in 1835, was particularly fond of our jury system. In an oft-quoted passage, he said that “The jury, and more especially the civil jury, serves to communicate the spirit of the judges to the minds of all the citizens; and this spirit, with
Emphasize the Civic Role of Your Civil Trial Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: My first thought was, “What’s NPR’s talented social science correspondent, Shankar Vedantam, doing talking about fish?” The story, reported on Friday, focused on research showing that fish make better decisions when swimming together rather than when swimming alone. An interesting finding, but where’s the “social” in that “science,” since people aren’t fish? In
School Your Jury (Like Fish) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Cameras don’t simply record what is in front of the lens. Every movie director knows that the camera highlights, frames, hides, emphasizes and distorts. The Francis Ford Coppola’s among them know that they’re not simply filming, they’re ‘painting with light’ using the film as a canvas. The legal uses of
Don’t Assume the Camera Is Neutral Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Here is an important technique. Experienced persuaders may already have it internalized, but it still helps to make it explicit and look at why it works. The technique is this: Begin ‘big’ with an abstract statement (This is a case about a betrayal of trust) and then get ‘small’ by
Your Message Sequence: Go Big Then Get Small Read More »