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By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: You’re working your way through discovery. Your arguments and themes for trial are taking shape. By the time you’re in front of the jury, you’ll know what to say. But first there’s a mediation. Now you need to refashion your persuasive appeals for a different purpose. Your mediator is not a judge […]

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Let’s say that you are facing a creative challenge and you need to come up with a great idea. Do you retreat, take your time, think it through and then come back with a winner? Or do you seize the chance to be quick on your feet and start spitballing ideas

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Remember when you took that hot air balloon ride as a kid? Or when you played that prank on a teacher by leaving slime on her desk? Or when you caused havoc by spilling a punch bowl at that wedding? Do you remember any of these events? Participants in studies have

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: America’s new president-elect may see a courtroom before he moves into the oval office. While the Defense has filed a motion to delay in order to allow time for settlement, the trial in a lawsuit by former Trump University students is currently scheduled to begin in San Diego on November 28th. In a recent

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: 2016 will be remembered as the year the polls and the pundits were wrong. After enjoying a relatively clear lead in the polls throughout the election, and being predicted as the winner by previously credible poll aggregators like the Huffpolster and Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog, and after the majority of talking

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It usually happens about five minutes into a corporate defense opening statement: the “good company” story. Jurors will hear about the history, moral commitments, and good works that this company does within the community. This “Corporate Social Responsibility” or “CSR” message is a staple for some attorneys, but does it really

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Some computer scientists recently had to get creative about creativity. The researchers (Jordanous & Keller, 2016), from the Universities of Kent and Sussex in the UK, have been looking at computer-based intelligence, and specifically the ways computers can be assessed as exhibiting creative behaviors or not. Of course, that is what makes

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: This past Tuesday, it was time for the 2016 campaign’s vice presidential debate pitting Republican Mike Pence against Democrat Tim Kaine. Broadly, the vice presidential comparison does not matter too much, because people tend to vote based on party and based on the person at the top — not so much

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: This is a political season for double standards, glass ceilings, and dancing backwards in high heels. Hillary Clinton, as the first female to be nominated for President by a major party, finds herself locked in a close race with one of the least conventional candidates in modern times, Donald Trump. That combination

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The basics of public speaking aren’t that hard to learn. But among even experienced speakers and persuaders, some seem to be more magnetic than others. That factor, charisma, makes the speaker more interesting and the content more likely to seem clear and influential. It is believed that the charisma factor played an