Uncategorized

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Since it’s Halloween, let’s consider a frightful topic. Experienced trial lawyers usually get past their stage fright early on, and even come to relish the idea of standing in front of a jury, or most any audience. But younger attorneys, law students, or those who simply haven’t had that many […]

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: On a recent series of flights, I watched “Valley of the Boom,” an unconventional but highly- entertaining miniseries focusing on all of the shenanigans that accompanied the early 1990’s Silicon Valley technology boom and bust. It was a time when the public and investors alike were fascinated by the bright

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: When you are working on boiling down your message, there will often be that indefinable “something” that makes you recognize when you have the right language. A good trial theme, for example, doesn’t just summarize the strength of your case. As I’ve waxed before, the right theme will be based in language

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Congress and the American public have been gripped by some unknowns recently. A whistleblower in the intelligence community made a claim that the Inspector General considered both credible and urgent. But, initially at least, that’s about all we knew because the whistleblower’s complaint was not provided, as the law requires,

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The government often plays a background role in civil litigation. An action, decision, or product from one party might meet the government’s regulations, for example. The question that raises is “Are the regulators trusted?” That question, it turns out, does not really have a simple “Yes” or “No” answer. Trust

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As I’ve written before, it is never safe to trust a potential juror’s own opinion about whether they are biased or not. That is because there has never been much support in the social science for that ability to self-diagnose. That, of course, has not stopped self-diagnosis from being the

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In one of the many classic scenes from “My Cousin Vinny,” the hapless defense attorney played by Joe Pesci, delivers his brief but to-the-point opening statement (“Yeah, everything that guy just said is bullshit… Thank you.”), only to have the judge respond, “The entire opening statement, with the exception of

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Amid the chaos this week in the British Parliament, Prime Minister Boris Johnson referred to opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, calling him a “chlorinated chicken” and, oddly, “a great big girl’s blouse.” While certainly original, the meaning of these particular metaphors might be lost, particularly to us on the Western side

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: When an alleged hazard exists and causes a person to be injured, then maybe a business might think about fixing it. But would the fix amount to a confession and cause the business to own that prior liability? That’s the question that motivates Rule 407 in the Federal Rules of