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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In a recent mock trial, the jurors deliberated on the meaning of the duty of good faith and fair dealing. The conversation went something like this: Juror 1: They clearly met the contract. I mean, look at the language.  Juror 2: Yeah, but did they treat the Plaintiff the way […]

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Most of the civil cases we work on are big cases. It’s not a lone lawyer with a briefcase, it is a team: several senior attorneys, associates, paralegals, and in-house counsel. That’s the team that needs to work together through the long haul of the lead-up to trial, and that’s the

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “Careful what you email” has become a pretty important consideration in Washington lately, and not just for the politicians. This past week, Marc Kasowitz, President Trump’s longtime personal attorney found himself in the spotlight over an email exchange with a critic. On the evening of July 13th, Mr. Kasowitz seems

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Imagine that you’re housebreaking a puppy. After the inevitable ‘accident,’ and in order to enforce the rules of the house, you address her using your best lowered and ominous voice: “Daisy, what do you do?” Without having any idea what you’re actually saying, the pup reacts to your tone, and

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: On June 5th, three men used a van and knives to conduct an attack on pedestrians near the London Bridge and Borough Market. Just one week later, another man used a van in an attack on people leaving a mosque near Finsbury Park. Are we likely to frame both events

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: At one point back in my university teaching days, I worked with an international consulting group providing training on persuasion and argumentation to teachers around the world. Often, I would work with a translator. I remember being in Haiti, for example, providing training while my presentation in English was being simultaneously

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: High-profile trials often lead to temporarily renewed awareness of the litigation consulting field. This time around, the rediscovery has to do with the first sexual assault trial for the actor and comedian Bill Cosby. An article entitled, “Bill Cosby’s Trial is Already Showing How Twisted America Is,” came out recently in the online source Vice. Beyond

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Going to trial is a lot like going to Disneyland! But only in the sense that it is very expensive, and you will spend a lot of your time waiting. The expense and the delays of the trial process are a common focus for criticism and a big part of

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The earliest days of the Trump presidency, the Trump campaign, and Trump himself have all posed quite a bit of a quandary for social scientists. The reason for that is, while all politicians select, exaggerate, and sometimes tell an outright lie, Donald Trump seems to have a relationship to the

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: If the panoply of strategies to persuade were a dating pool, then the fear appeal would definitely be the “bad boy,” or “bad girl.” By that I mean, attractive, a little shady, and potentially dangerous. The tactic of motivating your target audience by instilling and then alleviating some kind of