By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Brothers Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick book focused on what makes some ideas thrive and persist while other ideas die, and that idea itself has had some stickiness to it. I was reading an ABA Newsletter recently, and Trey Cox applied the idea to trial themes, arguing that in […]
Go for Sticky Theme Over Catchy Phrase Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The Reptile (Ball & Keenan, 2009) is about as hot as a cold-blooded creature can get. The theory, focusing on trying plaintiffs’ cases by aiming your appeals at the primitive drive for personal safety and security, seems to have struck a chord with plaintiffs’ attorneys. With regular seminars, a growing family
Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Unifying Vision: A Return to the Reptile Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: We’ve written frequently on themes: those little nuggets of language and meaning that distill a case to its persuasive essence. As consultants, we create themes even more frequently, trying to find the right message to leverage a case’s greatest strengths while minimizing or reframing its most important weaknesses. By definition,
Beware the Anti-Theme Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Once more, over the cliff! Our lawmakers have had to make, or not make, some risky decisions lately. The “sequester,” a poison pill of across-the-board cuts designed to force a spending compromise, has just done what no one believed it would do when it was created in 2011: It’s gone
Speak to the Brain’s Politics Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: I can remember the first time I wrote a theme for a bench trial many years ago. The trial team used the theme, and used it as themes should be used, which is to say, emphatically and repeatedly. And it worked: The judge actually included the theme in his written
Make Your Trial Theme Cinematic…Or At Least Memorable Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: So I almost called this post “Beware of Negative Messaging,” then I realized that that itself is a negative message. Focusing on what isn’t true, or focusing on what needs to be avoided is certainly part of communication, part of litigation, and judging from an uncomfortable number of my titles,
Embrace Positive Messaging Read More »
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – The need for a theme that communicates, simplifies, and unites your case has become common sense to litigators. But the way that we come up with a theme is a little more mysterious. Some see theme creation as an act of laborious analysis, developed out of a painstaking accounting
Know Your ‘God Terms’ and Your ‘Devil Terms’ Read More »
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – Reacting to new evidence of support in the public as well as the U.S. military for allowing lesbians and gays to serve openly, those who support a continuation of a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy continue to warn of a dangerous loss of troop cohesion and morale, as well as the potential loss
The Persuasion Strategy You Have to Fear…Is Fear Itself Read More »
by: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm From exploding automobile gas tanks to faulty cribs, the history of jury verdicts is littered with cautionary tales of what can happen when a company fails the perceptual test of protecting its customers and standing behind its product. While these lessons apply most obviously to products liability, a parallel concept
Steward Your Product Read More »
by: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm Chances are you’ve now heard of “Twitter” in which groups of online friends stay in touch by frequently sending short – 140 character – electronic answers to the question “what are you doing now?” Twitter leapt into the legal consciousness mainly because some users started sending “tweets” reading something like, “I’m sitting
Right-Size Your Message in Trial Read More »