Do you know what Lawyerology is? If not, just “Google it”. With the new year comes a new opportunity to resolve ourselves to not only improve our personal lives, but to also take another step in the perpetual quest to be better trial lawyers and better business people. Although at times the law may seem static,unyielding, even archaic, the environment in which we, as trial lawyers,practice law is constantly evolving. The millennial generation now represents the largest percentage of our population. As the population changes and evolves, so do our potential clients and the members of our juries. If trial lawyers do not evolve with that changing environment, victories inside and outside the courtroom will become more and more difficult. This ever changing battlefront is one of the greatest rewards and challenges of being atrial lawyer. While we can go for years,even decades, without a change in the letter of the law, we are always adapting and changing our methods and strategies for landing and litigating cases.
Every trial lawyer knows that getting the cases to litigate is equally as important to the success of their firm and, in turn their clients, as winning the cases. While this may seem obvious, the vast majority of trial lawyers are not using the tools available to ensure a steady flow of business in today’s fast paced, mobile, connected world. Instead they cling to old school marketing and business techniques that are withering away into extinction before our very eyes. How many of you still rely on the Yellow Pages as your primary tool for advertising and marketing your business? How many of you are using the phone book as your only tool? If you answered yes to either of these questions, from a business perspective you are charting a course for extinction.
For those of you who didn’t Google Lawyerology, or worse, didn’t know how to “Google it”, or even worse, don’t know what “Google it” even means, Lawyerology is simply the practice of law, or perhaps more appropriately, the science of the practice of law. From a business perspective, this means putting some thought and time into increasing your firm’s online presence. One of the ways to do this is search engine optimization. As Ricky Bobby aptly put it the classic film Talladega Nights, “if you’re not first, you’re last.” If you are not dedicating time and resources to your firm’s online presence and getting as high as possible in search engine results, you are behind the curve. Another way is social media.
How many of you have accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn? Quite a few I would imagine, but how many of you are actually using them? As busylawyers, time constraints and a lack of knowledge regarding these forums often results in a failure to adequately use these tools to improve our law firms, as well as the legal representation we provide to our clients. The question is,how does a practicing lawyer with a large docket of complex litigation casesfind the time to manage this aspect of the business? One way is to hire someone to handle this task; however, as lawyers it just doesn’t feel right to provide opinions andinformation labeled as our own, or that of the firm, without actually havingpersonal involvement. Another way is tofind a management tool that can provide a platform for personal involvement by attorneys with minimum time commitment. Our firm uses a product called Hootsuite. Hootsuite software has provided the platform for me to be personally involved in the firm’s online and social media presence without taking away from the work Ineed to accomplish to competently represent clients.
From the practice perspective, we also need to be sure we are keeping up to date with the methods for delivering our message in a way that wins the cases that our business solutions bring through the door. Particularly, trial lawyers need to focus on clearly getting their message across to younger, more tech savvyjurors living in a fast paced digital world. Expert witnesses can often be challenging in this respect and their testimony must be focused and tailored to appeal to today’s jurors.
A seasoned and successful trial lawyer I know once told me: “anexpertis not going to win your case for you, but he sure can lose it.” The railroad crossing, trucking accident and products liability crashworthinesscases that our firm typically handles are overflowing with expert witnesses: accident reconstructionists, operations experts, biomechanics, track experts,animators, medical doctors, economists, life-care planners, and the list goes on. You can find an expert for pretty much any issue in your case and the problem is, we often do.
One way to deliver clear and concise expert testimony in the information age is touse visual aids and communication skills to clearly get even complex conceptsacross to the jury. While this article is too brief to address the topic in any detail, I will suggest some resources and reference materials where you can begin to appreciate and understand how clear visual and auditory information is directly related to our ability to persuade jurors.
Somebooks you might consider include Gerald Zaltman’s How Customers Think;”Frank Luntz’s Words Work; GeorgeLakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant; and Selling Blue Elephants by Howard Moskowitz and Alex Gofman. The advice contained in this books, founded in the areas of marketing and psychology, is invaluable to trial lawyers. These principles can now be put to work through a myriad of presentation mediums that have emerged in recent years. Presentation solutions like Prezi.com, Brainshark.com and Sliderocket.com have taken Power Point to the next level and all provide easy to use and cheappresentation solutions where trial specific software like Trial Director is not cost effective. All of these companieshave free trials and examples on their websites. Any lawyer trying a complex case to today’s jurors needs to consider these principles and tools in thepreparation of their case.
The moral of the story? The Lawyerology of yesterday is not the Lawyerology of today and the Lawyerology of today will not be the same as the Lawyerology of tomorrow. In the increasingly competitive and high stress environment we operatein as trial lawyers each and every day, don’t condemn your firm to stagnation by ignoring the ever changingtools available to help you succeed.
