It’s Not Too Late for Courtroom Persuasion: 3 Simple Ideas to Use Now [Ep 132]
Even with the mounting pressures of trial preparation, Elizabeth offers three straightforward strategies any lawyer can implement: strategic timelines that tap into natural chronological thinking, active notepad writing to command attention, and the persuasive rule of threes.
Whether you prefer simple sketches or polished presentations, Elizabeth offers guidance on easy techniques that pave the way for a successful trial strategy.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Strategies for mastering courtroom persuasion for trial lawyers
- Utilizing timelines to organize narratives and simplify complex information
- Techniques for enhancing jury engagement through storytelling
- Practical tips on using giant notepads for courtroom attention and memory retention
- The power of the “rule of threes” in simplifying and organizing presentations
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Episode Credits
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Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Larrick (00:02.594)
Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I’m glad that you’re joining me today for this new episode about courtroom persuasion.
And it’s not too late, okay? I’ve got three very simple ideas, you may have already heard them but possibly forgot, that are extremely persuasive to our audiences. Now, this episode piggybacks off of my last episode where we talked about trial strategies and I gave you five questions you could ask to create a strategy for your next trial.
But I wanted to give you three really simple ideas today in this episode so you can add them to any strategy that you may have coming up. And these come from my experience in doing focus groups, of course, in learning through continuing legal education, reading books. And again, these may be things that you have heard, but you may have forgotten because they are so simple.
And why are they persuasive? Well, all three of these ideas work with our brain and short-term memory because when we step into a courtroom, we have a limited time. We always have a time constraint, whether jury selection or opening statement or even with our motions and arguing there will be a limitation. And so we always should be thinking about our audiences and how to work with that short-term memory.
Elizabeth Larrick (02:15.596)
Because there is a limitation and we don’t want to overwhelm it and we want them to remember. So let’s jump right in. Number one simple idea is a timeline. If you’ve worked with me at all, you know how much I love timelines and I always encourage folks, you’ve got a case, let’s put it on a timeline. Because people naturally, we naturally think chronologically. Okay, so beginning, middle, end, right? Think about our stories and
when we put it into a visual and it could be as simple as, know, literally draw a line across the page and have five points that come across chronologically where you can become even more persuasive is where you start your timeline, right? And where you end your timeline. So naturally people may think, okay, let’s take, for example, a car crash. You’re gonna definitely have that point on your timeline, but do you start there?
Well, persuasion and many other trial consultants and books would tell you, maybe not, because maybe we always want to be focusing on the actions of our defendant. And so we start with a point on our timeline that begins focusing on the actions of the defendant. OK, so boom, we’re already doing some persuasion there. Where you end, obviously, some people would end with the events that brought them there. Sometimes you go a little bit further. Either way, you are
creating something that is very familiar to people. Again, making it easy on our brains, that cognitive ease. They see a timeline that, oh, this is familiar. I’m going to get this. And it has like placing the information in a sequence so that they don’t have to hold it in their brain because most of the time our timelines are going to be a little longer than four or five points. If you can make them that short, great. But most of the time we have a few other things that have to go on there. And so having it
Organized and holding a place on a piece of paper in an order is very, very persuasive and helpful for folks. Also, you will find that if you have a really great timeline, you can use it with many different witnesses. And again, you can make it fancy. Hire a company to create you a fancy PowerPoint. You can keep it super simple and just literally draw it on a notepad. Don’t overthink this. However, just know that when people
Elizabeth Larrick (04:37.528)
think about a timeline, especially our audiences, they’re gonna think about it like you would see it with a timeline and events popping up, Not necessarily a list, okay? So this is sometimes where we get a little bit confused. I will ask lawyers, hey, you have a timeline and they send me basically a Word document or a PDF that it’s just a list in order. That’s a list, not timeline, okay? So remember, it’s literally time on a line, okay? So number one point would be use a timeline.
wherever you may be, right? Even if you’re just arguing emotion about discovery, like that back and forth, they can get Huisynthesimil and Huisynthesimil, like put it on, make it easy for the court to see how hard you have been working to get that confer and get that information, okay? Use that timeline. So my other very simple idea for court persuasion is to get one of those giant notepads and write on it.
I mean, this is so simple, but it is so overlooked and generally complicated by lawyers. When I ask people to do this, they generally look at me and the first thing that they say is, I have terrible handwriting. It’s okay. Because here’s what happens when you stop what you’re doing in the courtroom and you move over to that notepad and you begin to write, you have the full attention.
of everyone because they don’t know what you’re about to write and they want to know, right? It’s like the mystery in the room. Okay. So you have their full attention, which is really hard to do. If you’ve sat and watched any kind of trials recently or even in your own, you’re going to notice there are folks who are just not paying attention. They’re off in La La Land, but no one’s talking. Everyone’s watching you right out, right on this notepad. And if you’ve been to Mark Lanier’s Trial Academy, he has a whole.
fancy, I’m going to call it an Elmo, where basically he does the same thing, right? Puts a white sheet of paper up there, these black fancy pens, and he writes, right? And he knows that folks are watching with bated breath what he is doing. He has their attention. They want to know what’s coming next. This is so simple, right? It doesn’t have to be a roadmap like he does. It could be as simple as just a checklist with one or two words on it. Draw a T chart with before and after.
Elizabeth Larrick (06:50.194)
or even just points from a testimony as summary. mean, this is one of the easiest places where when people are working with their clients on direct exam or an expert on direct exam, you got to switch it up. Otherwise, people really will be falling asleep. But using writing on that giant notepad will significantly help. Plus, what I have found when I’ve used this is and save that notepad and bring it back for closing. Remember what we heard from our client? We heard from our plaintiff here who said
This is how long this lasted and here were these numbers on our pain scale and here are the things that they did, right? it all comes back. okay, great. And instead of me just saying it out loud, it was right there. They could have read it themselves. okay, I remember when you’re writing all that. that’s true, right? And so the other thing that happens is when you write it down, it becomes much more concrete in their memory. They’re having to remember whole bunch of stuff and that notepad can make it really easy.
right, to keep their attention. And also you write down the words that of course have the most persuasion, okay? Again, thinking through these things, but if you haven’t thought and you’re just going on the fly, get that T-chart up there, get that checklist going, or again, just write points from testimony to summarize what someone has been saying, but very, very helpful and super persuasive. The last idea, again, I’m not telling you anything you guys don’t already know. This is fantastic stuff, but it generally gets a little…
lost in the shuffle of when we are getting ready for trial, and that is putting things into the system of threes, right? So again, thinking through our how we learn in our story, like story format beginning, middle, end, So three points, right? Keeping it down to just three points. Think about the title of this podcast episode, three simple ideas, okay? Why are threes? Well, they have found
that three is the smallest number to create a pattern in our brains. And our brains love to look for patterns. They also know that really our brains can only hold typically three to seven things at a time. And I would say three to five. But now at this point where we are and now it’s 2025, I would say three is it, okay? That’s pretty much all we can hold in our short-term memory. So we don’t wanna overwhelm it. The lovely thing about the rule of three is it really helps you as a lawyer be able to…
Elizabeth Larrick (09:13.002)
really fine tune and cut the fluff. And these are the top three things. Okay. So think about going through your opening statement, top three things. Think about doing your direct exam. Here are the top three things. Cross exam, top three things. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t have like sub points, but I think what you want to be able to do is be able to simplify for your audience point number one, timelines. And then I went into it, right? Point number two, writing on the notepad, right?
Then I went into it so that it’s easy. You’re going to remember all three of these things. You’re also going to say Elizabeth is not original. Of course, it’s not. Say that it was. But simple, right? Three simple ideas is what we came here for this episode, because what I want to remind you is that it is easy and it’s not too late. Even if you are starting trial next week, OK, you still have time to put together a timeline that has five events on it. Get out that notepad and write two or four or three things on it, right?
look at your organization of your information and put it into the rule of threes. okay? make it simple for your audience. and that way they can keep it in their working memory. okay? and they’ll tell it to each other. right? that’s why when we look at some of the the trial strategy on opening statements and our CLEs, they typically go and use the rule of threes. right? three safety rules. okay? you can have more or less, right? but three safety rules. right?
When we talk about preparing folks for trial, maybe it’d their trial testimony or depot testimony, we try to push things into three points. Again, we just want to make sure because that’s what people remember. Okay, now three simple ideas that it is not too late for your courtroom persuasion. And if I were you, you could use all three. Okay, these do not necessarily crowd the other, okay? And number one would be a timeline.
got several events, which you normally do in your case. Please use a timeline. Help your audience be able to hold the points in reference to each other. That’s also really helpful for a comparison, okay? Next one, it’d be to write on that giant notepad. Figure out a way to make a checklist. Make a T-chart, for and after, right? You can just writing up simple words from testimony will help keep people’s attention, keep it focused. And again, if you take that extra step and think through, like, okay, you’re gonna have a very persuasive.
Elizabeth Larrick (11:35.156)
exhibit in front of the jury that’s going to stand up there. And last, of course, which is our system of threes. Thinking through our presentation, how can we get it into three main points to make it easy for our short-term memory to keep it and for our brain to connect it as a pattern? All right. I hope that these were helpful. They were either gentle reminders or if they were new, that’s awesome as well. Again, if you’ve worked with me, you know I’m always going to be creating a timeline for you, whether
most of the time for focus groups and even with our opening statements. One of the best examples that we talked about was with Michelle Gesner in episode 129, where we looked at her case and saw she needed two timelines. Go back and revisit that episode. I will put a link in the show notes for you so you can go back and re-listen to us talk about that and why we felt, oh, this is really necessary and who to use it with. So that was one of the things too that can be persuasive. All right.
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. And don’t forget, if you are interested, I have a trial lawyer prep newsletter. If you want to join that, you get one email a month, try not to bug you all too much, with extra tips and strategies for preparation of your cases, maybe focus groups, witness prep, trial strategy. Each month, you will find that link in the show notes, or you can go on over to lyricallawfirm.com slash connect to fill out that. All right, thank you so much for tuning in.
And until next time, thank you.