WestCon Tribune

June Review

Trial Presentation Strategies Tools and Tips for Courtroom Presentations

Presented by John Whitney, President, ThinkTwice, Inc.

Our June Westcon meeting was an outstanding and insightful presentation by John Whitney, President of Think Twice, Inc. Mr. Whitney explained some of the newest ways to design convincing and understandable courtroom presentations.

Mr. Whitney began by outlining the principles of learning, what a “picture” is and how you define that picture, and then showed what your options are as a presenter, either as an attorney or as an expert witness and concluded with examples of case studies performed by his company and how they affected the outcome of trials.

People learn in three different ways: clinically, auditory or visually. Some people are able to understand things clinically through the use of models, some are good listeners but the majority (about 85%) tend to receive and maintain more information through visual means. The Myers-Briggs study (as well as others), group people into categories of feelers, testers, intuitors and thinkers.

Attorneys tend to be thinkers. It is important to remember that how an attorney thinks about a case may well be different from the way in which the audience will receive it and it is important to make the connection. Mr. Whitney’s example was the difference of reading a book and establishing your vision of the characters and environment and then seeing the movie. Most often the director of the movie has a very different vision. Therefore a picture can often get a large group of people focused on a common “visual language”. The adage of ‘a picture tells a thousand words’ is another way of realizing how a picture can help a presenter move through a lot of information very quickly. A picture is also a tangible item that can be used continually and taken into a jury room.

Think Twice, Inc. utilizes what is called information graphics. This process is taking a lot of information and distilling it down to a few key points which will highlight something pertinent for the speaker.

It comes down to getting the audience invested in your presentation. Why should they care about it and what are the common points that will help them to understand issues and areas that they are most likely very unfamiliar with? A judge and jury will need to relate to construction issues such as concrete or water infiltration common to experts or attorneys in a way that they can understand.

Different graphics commonly used are stills such as photographs or physical models and materials, and animations in either two-dimensional or three-dimensional form.  All forms can be highly useful Deciding on the method is usually a question of what image you wish to emphasize. 

Needless to say, this review will be lacking in trying to explain the visuals used in the presentation. If you missed seeing it, you missed a good one!