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Bar News - September 23, 2005 Book Review - Using New Tools to Engage, Educate, Even Entertain Jurors By: Charles G. Douglas, III
The electronic devices available today make it easy and affordable for lawyers to engage and entertain the jury while educating them. The book Creating Winning Trial Strategies and Graphics is written by Christopher Ritter, a former partner at a major San Francisco law firm. Ritter, who has tried numerous cases in the state and federal courts, devotes his attention here to graphic strategies for trials to help lawyers give the jury what it wants. His book contains a number of illustrations and discussions that walk the trial lawyer through the competition that exists between comprehension and boredom for the jury. By using graphics and by keeping documents highlighted and emphasized through PowerPoint and Trial Director, says Ritter, one should have success in educating and entertaining jurors. Because Ritter has engaged in a number of mock trials over the years, he is able to discuss how jurors come to conclusions and make decisions in their attempt to do the right thing. His chapter on jury deliberations is helpful in explaining that jurors need a single coherent story line and that lawyer-like arguing of alternatives does not work with jurors. While some of his illustrations are far more complicated than I think they should be for jury use, Ritter’s discussion of information architecture and the technique of making sure that not all the information is up at the same time are useful. He uses excellent analogies such as the old Burma Shave commercials that were presented in a segmented form so that the viewer had to look for each of the signs to understand the full message. This technique is called “pacing” and, unfortunately, with the press of preparation for trial, the points in important documents cannot always be brought out one line at a time in the dramatic fashion that they should be. The book has an excellent discussion of the technologies available and gives examples of four different cases and the graphics that would be used for each type of case. The final chapter on hypothetical cases contains a CD-ROM, which enables the reader to actually view the various examples given in the hypothetical cases so as to fully understand the available technology. The use of color and symbols are also helpful in making the evidence interesting for jurors and appealing to the active ones, who then have something to argue about when deliberations begin. The reality in New Hampshire is that there are ELMO setups in the federal court, but only in one of the superior courts— Merrimack County. However, at a trial two years ago in Manchester, my firm and the opposing firm made arrangements with the clerk of court to bring in electronics experts so that ELMO as well as Trial Director projection equipment could be used during a six-week products’ liability trial. The use of the big screen on the wall of Courtroom Four opposite the jury as well as several viewing stations in the jury box meant that the documents did not have to be passed around among the jurors. Paper copies of all exhibits were marked and available for preserving the record. Film clips, radio and television interviews, and a variety of documents were used to make the trial interesting and fast-paced to avoid the problems that would otherwise have made communication difficult. As the first four-color book published by the American Bar Association, Ritter’s volume is interesting and visually easy to follow. Charles G. Douglas, III, admitted to the New Hampshire Bar in 1968, is a trial attorney in Concord who previously served on the New Hampshire Superior and Supreme Courts.
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From sketchpads to Trial Director, from chalkboards to ELMO, from passing exhibits among the jury to animated reenactments, the electronic era has brought great strides in the area of appealing to jurors’ eyes as well as their ears.|
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