How to survive the tyrant Judge (part 2 of 3)

Part 2, The dangerous disease of power

I have long held to the proposition that the expressed motivation attracting judges to the bench is suspect.

I do not take as universally true the easy, self-serving assurance of many judges that he or she simply wants to do good. I am leery of do-gooders. I have believed, and I still do, that judges, like all persons, have needs that fuel their choices. Their need, in a money society, is certainly not money, for judges are notoriously underpaid. The greatest attraction to the bench is simply power. In a given case the judge has more power over the litigants before him than any other human being on the face of the earth.

I have sometimes encountered tyrant judges who lord it over the poor rabble struggling below them, who seem to enjoy observing a particular lawyer helplessly twisting and turning in the winds of their whims. I have suspected that some such judges furtively rejoice in their power over lawyers who have been more successful than they, and over litigants who for unobvious reasons the judges may despise. I have seen judges who eagerly await the opportunity to dump a load of scorn on those who have made unfortunate choices in their lives. Yes, some want to do harm. And I am saddened that I find myself writing these lines.

I recognize that judges, like doctors who daily face the injured and dying, and lawyers who are routinely relating to clients who are maimed or hated or who are guilty of horrendous crimes, may become calloused in order to maintain some semblance of mental health. But as for judges, how does a human being wrench screaming children from their parents, turn one’s back on the pathetically injured for no better reason than they fail to fit some fictional legal model, send men to the death house or to long terms in the torture chambers of prison unless the judge has grown a certain protective coating around the hide of the heart? Still even the most gentle judge, the rare one who exudes a caring nature, is often one who I am not likely to trust, not at first. I have discovered that too often an outward benevolence covers a merciless heart.

But if I am fair I must acknowledge that judges are not too different than I. I, too, claim I want to do good. I claim that I have devoted my life to help the forgotten, the lost, the voiceless, and the damned. It all sounds good. The idea of it feeds my soul. I have a need to be useful, to feel worthy, to engage in just causes, to fight just fights. I wish to be seen as a warrior for the people. If my own sense of self stands for justice on behalf of ordinary people, justice against the powerful, against the corporate overlord and the tyranny of government why can’t I grant such an honorable motive to judges? After all, we have encountered many humans who genuinely care. And judges who were once lawyers surely know the dismal plight of those who seek justice and who so rarely obtain it. Yes, rarely.

Still, these days too many judges ascend to the bench bearing a fealty pledged to the people’s masters. We can understand the phenomenon. Today, most judges are selected by a power saturated with the interests of business, and a majority of the judges appointed were once prosecutors or corporate lawyers. In their former lives these lawyers took on the cause of power. As prosecutors they were daily drowned in the dreary decadence of criminals crowding the jails. As civil defense lawyers they experienced the excesses of trial lawyers representing those who claimed to be injured or who, even though injured, sought to take advantage of their injuries. The politicians seek judges who reflect their own philosophical leanings. The tree grows bent in the direction of the prevailing wind and in the calm can never fully right itself.

“The tree grows bent in the direction of the prevailing wind and in the calm can never fully right itself.”

Unfortunately, my view of the bench is supported by a majority of trial lawyers who represent ordinary people. At the Trial Lawyers College, where we teach lawyers how to successful fight for people against corporate and government power, the attitude of the attendees who have spent many years in the trenches before countless judges is nearly uniform. Rarely do I find a lawyer who believes most judges are mostly fair, mostly caring, and mostly driven to accomplish good ends. Sadly, many see judges as their enemies, as opponents in the courtroom even more powerful and adverse to the lawyer than the opposing lawyer.

They see judges more concerned with their dockets, with moving their cases forward, with controlling the courtroom and the lawyers, with making decisions that will be acceptable to their constituents and that will not be badly reported by the media. True, most often lawyers do not see judges as overtly dishonest or even consciously in the pocket of power. But they see them as the possessors of power who too often exercise it wrongly, insensitively, in forwarding their own agendas, and ultimately functioning to the detriment of the litigants. This is not to say that there are no caring, fair, even loving judges in this country. Many, but not enough, do great honor to the bench. In the end, a majority of judges are seen by most people’s lawyers as a power source of harm.

As for me it is harmful to look up to a judge who has ignored the poor and bowed to the rich, to show such a judge respect when he is not worthy of respect, to show such a judge deference when he reveals an underlying indifference to the human condition, to give such a judge honor when he has lived a life on the other side protecting power and money. Yet I am troubled by these judgments.

COMING SOON, Part 3 of 3: “The judge. Who is this tyrant?”

How to survive the tyrant Judge (part 1 of 3)

PART 1: Understanding the self

I preach endlessly that it all begins with you.

We’re afraid of judges because they’re power-persons, which harkens back to our experiences with our first power-persons – usually a parent. Most often we don’t understand that psychic connection while we stand miserable and quaking before His Honor. Instead of a judge the psychic eye sees a raging father or a scolding mother. The psychic memory has not forgotten the child’s helplessness before such a power-person. Nor has the survival instinct let the psychic mind forget that should the child be cast out, the child will face the ultimate horror—death. And what if the judge should reject us?

We are introduced at an early age to the relationship between power and helplessness.  Beyond the fear of the parent power-person we are taught to fear the ever-watching God—the ultimate power. Why do judges peer down on us from on high? Why do the remnants of ancient belief systems still have us ”praying” to his Honor? From the earliest times we learn the art of beseeching that is often gilded with resentment—the deaf, unresponsive God of Job. And always we long for our own power.

At a recent seminar conducted at Trial Lawyers College, participants were asked to complete any unfinished business they might have with a parent, living or dead—one participant taking on the role of the child, another the parent and the two reversing roles as necessary to permit the full story to emerge. The results of such exercises are universally astounding. The participants are touched in deep places, some to weeping, some to silence and others to anger. But none leave the exercise unmoved. Why, I have wondered, is there such a high quotient of parent-child conflict?

My own supposition, formed empirically over the years, is that more children than we suspect have been abused. I am defining abuse from the child’s perspective of powerlessness. To the child, abuse feels like the inexorable, assertion of raw, undeserved power. It may include perceived unjust punishment, deprivation or a sense of abandonment directed to a child who is unable to fight back or to protect himself or herself. It is the painful exercise of power by often innocent parents that imposes injury.

Parents are not equipped to judge their conduct through the eyes of the child. No courses are offered for Parenting 101. Often abuse grows out of the parent’s own experienced abuse as a child—so the biblical admonition that “the sins of the father are visited upon the child.” Some parents who feel powerless themselves are the first to exercise unwarranted power over their children. The abused child, as I have defined him or her will become the lawyer most likely to be abused by the judge.

“The abused child, as I have defined him or her will become the lawyer most likely to be abused by the judge.”

At the above mentioned seminar I was drawn to a young woman, a beginning lawyer, who presented herself as childlike. She had a small, sad, perpetual smile on her face, and if I shut my eyes and listened, her voice sounded like that of a five or six-year-old. Physically she looked like a little girl with a chubby body and a round doll-like face. Naturally she was adored and protected by the other participants at the seminar. She had had limited experience in the courtroom. But the few cases she’d tried before several judges left her with the impression that judges were kind and helpful. I thought, yes, who but a sadist bent on injuring children could possibly treat such a child with anything but kindness. I found myself wanting to protect her, and this lawyer, still as child, was taken under the wings of the judge, the same judge, I discovered, who had been the judge from hell for another participant in the same seminar.

My own parents were often bewildered as to how to deal with their rambunctious, raucous, rebellious offspring. I was never spanked nor sent to a corner. I do not remember any particular punishment at all. When those mutinous adolescent years came along my parents simply threw up their hands in surrender, and I left home at sixteen to conquer the world, which I viewed as a probability. I rebelled against the strict, religious teaching of my mother and absorbed the anger of my father against the “upper crust,” the moneyed class, who, were represented by the callus authority of his employers. I loved my father and hated the boss, that malevolence on high who could abuse that good, brave man. Early on I saw authority as the enemy and vowed never to be captured by power, and, of course, that included the power of the judge. My life with judges has not always been easy.

I have never heard a judge admonish a lawyer, “I am not your father, Mr. Jones. I am the judge.” Nor have I met a lawyer who has walked into the courtroom saying, “Remember, this man is not my father or my mother, this is not my father’s boss nor some heartless, demanding teacher. The relationship of judge and lawyer rolls on, year after year, the judge as the power-person, the lawyer as child, the lawyer struggling in the courtroom against the power of the judge and neither understanding much about the seeds of their relationship.

COMING SOON, Part 2 of 3: ”The Dangerous Disease of Power”

More on growing old: Plucked before one’s time

I think in metaphors. Abstractions exercise the brain but, like one working out on a treadmill, take me nowhere.

Yesterday I was having lunch with Imaging, my darling. We were in the sun on the back porch overlooking the pond and the Tetons. After we’d eaten she began picking off the older blooms of the geraniums and tossing them aside. Some had some beauty left in them.

“Why do you pick those that are still pretty and with just a petal or two beginning to turn?”

“The more blooms you pick off, the more will come to take their places,” she answered.

We have to make room for the coming generations. But we do not want to give up our space, not yet. No. Not yet. And many of the older generation have power and money. They can purchase a few more years. Geriatrics is big business, but some say Medicare will break the nation.

A few weeks ago I had lunch with Dr. Kevorkian, known to many as Doctor Death. He has admittedly assisted in the suicides of more than a hundred people who were terminally ill, and who suffered unremitting pain that had turned their lives to living hell. He’d just been released from prison and is on parole. He is over eighty, too thin, frail, but funny and full of life and looking for ways to transform his remaining years into something useful. He had decided to run for Congress as an Independent in Michigan, (a felony conviction does not disqualify one for office in that state.) He was eager to take on some of the unpopular but critical issues in that state, including prison reform. I offered him money for his campaign. He is poor, yet he turned it down. He wasn’t taking any political contributions. I’m glad he wasn’t picked off the social geranium plant before his time.

Indeed, I stare at my own wilting petals, but remember one of my commenters here, Kurt, who scorned me for my concerns. He told of a federal judge, Wesley Brown, who is 101 years old, who never misses a point, and who walks up four flights of stairs every morning to his courtroom. Thankfully he was not plucked from the judicial plant before his time.

More on winning—one can grow very thin eating one’s threats

I learn from whomever I can. I’ve told you repeatedly that I learn more from my dog and grandchildren than from all the bearded, gazing gurus. We can even learn from the French.

I’ve preached that we ought not—no never—motivate our competition. I am civil to my opponents in the courtroom. I never threaten. If I’m afraid, I do not try to cover it with macho. If I’m confused I am confused. So are most lawyers and most judges. But I never– no never—attempt to frighten my adversaries—or to anger them.

When we are frightened we instinctively hide, run, or attack. When we’re told we’re going to be smashed, as the French relay swimmers were foolish enough to threaten the Americans in the Olympics, and the experts say no scenario can be found leading to an American victory what is to be done? But the experts overlooked the imprudent French threat that motivated the Frenchmen’s competition down to their toenails, which was the length of the American’s victory–the small part of a second.

I want my opponents to be comfortable, complacent, content, yes, cozy. I want them to see castles in the sky. I want them thinking of their golf game, or running off to Vegas where what they do stays in Vegas. I do not want them threatened, frightened or angered. And where do we learn all of this? You see, we can learn—even from the French.

The secret to winning…so who are you?

When I enter the courtroom it never occurs to me that I could lose. Battles are to be won. The opponent is merely a necessary player, as is the judge. They are there because the battle could not proceed without them.

The idea of losing comes, in part, from a lack of preparation, which is a failure of self respect. Think of it as if you were a boxer. You have not trained. You have two inches of belly fat hanging over your shorts. Your cheeks are baggy. You puff going up the stairs. You brag a lot because that is all you have. This is a fighter who will lose because he does not respect himself sufficiently to prepare. If he were the trainer he wouldn’t allow a boxer such as he to enter the ring—he would care too much about his profession as a trainer to let an unprepared fighter he trains get slaughtered.

The refusal to prepare also reveals a lawyer who does not care deeply for the client. Jurors recognize an unprepared lawyer. It means the lawyer does not care much for this person whose life or welfare is in his charge. If the lawyer does not care, why should the jurors? The lawyer knows the client better than they. Caring is contagious. If the lawyer doesn’t care the jurors won’t care either.

I know lawyers with great talent who stagger out of bed in the morning not knowing for sure which case they are scheduled to try that day. But the fault is sometimes not the lawyer’s. The cost of operating a law office and to make an acceptable living from the trial of cases is hard at best, particularly in the criminal field. Most persons charged with crimes do not have the money to pay a lawyer for the necessary time it takes to adequately prepare a case – months, considering the investigation, the interviewing of witnesses, and the endless pretrial motions the lawyer faces in the modern trial, not to mention a trial that can last many weeks.

To survive financially, many lawyers are required to take too many cases from poor paying clients. Public defenders are often laden with scores of cases, many serious ones, without the time or resources to properly prepare while the prosecution may have all the time and resources necessary to win. As a consequence too many persons charged with serious crimes do not receive an adequate defense. They are often counseled to plead guilty, to make deals—the only bargaining chip they have—with their own lives. Take ten years from my life in exchange for the forty years that I will probably lose if I go to trial with an unprepared, unskilled, uncaring, overworked public defender or for that matter, a private attorney who has taken my case because he’s three months behind on the rent. A money system favors money, not justice.

A few lawyers are skilled enough that they can win some of their cases with nearly no preparation at all, but they know that many a client has suffered as a result — in a system that cannot provide justice for all, no matter how the myth is sold to the people.

I have said that when I enter the courtroom I do not consider the possibility I might lose. To lose one must give permission to his opponent to beat him. As a young lawyer I lost three civil cases in a row. The pain of losing was so severe I could not bear the thought of ever losing again. It became a life or death issue for me. Life as a loser became so unacceptable that I would rather quit the profession than continue down that road. I realized that preparation was a critical key.

I also began to understand that if one has a full sense of self, not a blown up conceit, but a person who makes mistakes, who is afraid, who can feel and care, who is as real as he can be, who is on the road to becoming a person—that person will be hard to beat in a courtroom or anywhere. He is not an intellectual muscle man or a phony sweet pea with the supercilious smile and a nose worn smooth from toadying the judge. He can be trusted and he speaks a language that jurors understand.

How do you beat such a lawyer? Be more of a person than he. I let my opponent worry about losing. It will take him into strange and dangerous places.

The defense of Geoffrey Fieger (or How to win against towering odds)

As many of you know I recently defended Geoffrey Fieger, that “scurrilous rebel” who dared take on this administration, who, in fact, took them all on, from the President of the United States to the Supreme Court of Michigan—even Michigan’s Attorney General, and who, as might be expected, given the record of this administration for using the Department of Justice to rid itself of its political enemies, faced an indictment (the last official act of Attorney General Gonzales) containing ten felony counts including those catch-all entrapment charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.A federal court jury acquitted Mr. Fieger on all ten counts.

Even before the opening statements the federal district judge instructed the jury that what Mr. Fieger had freely admitted, namely, reimbursing his employees, his friends and family for their contributions to John Edwards’ campaign for president, was illegal. Yes, illegal. That should do him in since the only defense remaining was that he did not act knowingly and willfully when he made these reimbursements that were in excess of $100,000. Mr. Fieger, by consensus the most brilliant trial lawyer in Michigan (and perhaps in America), had run for governor and must have known very well what the law was and chose to violate it.

The government spared no horses to eradicate this pest once they were provided a starting place, which turned out to be one of Fieger’s former employees who claimed he was fired because he refused to play the reimbursement game. The government came down on their target with many questionable subpoenas to the banks of those who had contributed and been reimbursed, after which the government, in the dark of night, descended on the Fieger employees with 80 or more FBI and IRS agents, threatened them, interrogated them, hauled them before a grand jury for further interrogations that covered more than two years, and finally charged Mr. Fieger with the ten felony counts mentioned above.

They had him. They had his employees as their witnesses, nearly all of whom had been given immunity. They charged his partner, Ven Johnson, with most of the same felonies believing he would flip on Fieger to save his own hide. They had an air-tight case, one they visualized would produce the bloody hide of Geoffrey Fieger as a trophy for the prosecutors’ wall. What happened?

The Fieger team, David Nevin, my great associate, Geoffrey Fieger and myself will present a two-day seminar, “Anatomy of a Trial,” at my ranch on September 5, 6. The ranch is located nine miles east of Dubois, Wyoming, in the mountains. We will discuss the defense, the tactics, the overriding philosophy we teach at Trial Lawyers College in the defense of a criminal case. You will hear from Geoffrey Fieger on how it is to be a defendant in criminal case, to lose all control, to put one’s self into the hands of another lawyer. You will also hear from me and David Nevin on how it is to defend a fellow trial lawyer of the will and nature of Mr. Fieger. The trout fishing is good too.

“ANATOMY OF A TRIAL” seminar

• September 4-7, 2008
  (with seminar presentations on Sept. 5,6)
  Thunderhead Ranch
  Dubois, WY
  Call 800.688.1611 to register
  Seminar fee: $2,500 – proceeds support Trial Lawyers College, a 501 3c non-profit institution

On growing old

I don’t know how to start.  I despise the sweet rhetoric that is so optimistic and feathery, and I equally abhor the moaning of old men who should have already died and who, in fact have been dead a long time but remain breathing.

My old age is apparent to any who observe me—the wrinkles, the false pregnancy (my three year old granddaughter once asked me if I was going to have a baby) and the gray hair (one is grateful for any.) But although it may not be beautiful, age, too, is in the eyes of the beholder. To many who by chance see me walking down the street I am but another old man who is occupying space on the earth that, fortunate for the population explosion, will soon be relinquished. But the beholder also includes me.

I do not look at myself unless it is utterly unavoidable. Even alone, before and after the shower, I find myself avoiding the mirror, and if a towel is handy, I drape the same over the flesh to evade its obvious message. But the kindest part is that out in the world others must look at me where I am free of it. I cannot see my face. I cannot see my rear. I cannot see my walk. I can see my belly and my feet splayed out like a duck, but only if I look down. That being so, the vision of my old age is mostly the misfortune of others.

Having come to the obvious conclusion that I am aged, those around me offer up unnecessary help. I am cautioned about a bump on the path to prevent my falling. I am helped along the way in the dark by my friends as if they can see better than I. When I wish to arise from a sitting position I am offered a hand to assist me in lifting the inglorious heap they observe sprawled out below them. None of these kindnesses reflect my need. They only acknowledge how I am observed by those who wish to be appropriately supportive in the presence of old men. Thus they have been taught, and I accept the same as a matter of entitlement.

I admit to certain infirmities. I can no longer run, for which I am thankful. Walking is easier. I tire quicker and can now take naps without criticism. Old dogs and old men sleep a lot. That one dastardly demand forces me to the bathroom several times a night and interrupts my sleep, but I know younger men who cannot go at all. I am stiff in all the wrong places which gives me the right to complain and to receive, in kind, the socially correct sympathy of my friends. Another bonus: One’s infirmities aid one in conversation with one’s peers of similar age. If nothing else we can always talk about our old, failing hearts, our old, failing teeth, our old, failing gonads, our old, failing backs, our old, failing…the potential for mutual comparisons and therefore closeness with another human being is nearly endless.

If I am called upon to identify someone by name an invisible shield slams down in front of the memory, a shield the name cannot penetrate. I have gotten to the place where I realize names are irrelevant to my happiness. I have an excuse for not remembering them, an advantage that a younger person does not enjoy. I also cannot remember certain events that others are quick to recall in disgusting detail. I understand the function of my mind: It retains that which is useful or important to me. That three years ago I promised something to Harvey when he next appeared in my town, a person I no longer remember, and probably never met in the first place, serves to teach those who deal with old men to get their promises in writing. That includes those who carelessly make bets with me and try a day or two later to collect. How does one remember?

I like old age. Actually I am seventeen years old lurking around in this strange, inefficient covering loosely called a body. I relate to the hermit crab that crawls into discarded shells along the beach and who lives a very nice, sheltered life. I pity men who find old age a hindrance, and who whimper because they cannot, except with large sums, attract young, vibrant, exciting women. Those insensitive old fools would not know what to do with such a woman if they caught her. And any woman who would have one of those deserves what she gets—an insensitive old fool.

I have encountered enough in almost eighty years of life to finally identify that which was really not interesting or worth while in the first place. That includes smoking, booze, long, exhausting, torturous back packing into the mountains and mountain climbing—all to prove one’s manliness, fancy clothes, cuff links, ties, horseback riding that leaves the loins raw and angry, river rafting that provides wet cloths and more hypothermia than joy, fancy French restaurants where it takes fifteen waiters to provide what one good American waitress can bestow in half the time and without all the elevated noses.

I do not like golf and most golfers, most rich people, all bankers, most art galleries, most modern art, Mozart, cruise ships that are populated with the aged who are irredeemably wealthy, caviar, chicken unless it is fried and most fish unless it is also fried. I have discovered the meaning of life which is good milk chocolate with almonds, hot fudge sundaes, and my wife’s 85,000 calorie chocolate cake.

Skiing is now out of the question and was only marginally acceptable on warm sunny days for a run or two for a year or two. I cannot tolerate style shows, dinner parties with more than two other couples, stand-up cocktail parties where the most interesting thing discussed is what someone with whom one is stuck with has been doing, which is substantially nothing except most of the above. The nice thing about being old is that one does not, yes, dare not, waste any of one’s life on any of these discoveries that took a lifetime to try out, endure and discard. One’s life remaining need not be frittered away crapping out on any of this. But what remains to be discovered and experienced approaches infinity. Fortunately, most of this exists in the mind—which is a safer and more convenient place to explore.

I have always feared death, as, indeed, any honest person will admit. That fear is endemic in the species and can also be found in abundance in all other mammals, birds, fish and cockroaches, so we have nothing on them. But as I have grown older my fear of death has lessened. That is one of the kindnesses of Mother Nature. Having lived a full life, the end does not seem nearly so horrible. But my idea of eternity is, indeed, horrible and the promise of eternal life, here or elsewhere is unacceptable. Think of having to live through all of what we have already experienced—and forever. After about five hundred fifty three thousand years or thereabouts one would surely have experienced all there is to experience and beg to die, and, being unable to, one would discover that eternal life is actually hell.

Remember, a beginning always demands an end.

Winning—the simple secret

Some of my tribe have been worried because I haven’t posted for a while. You’ll recall I’ve been writing about slavery. We are all slaves. Each of us has a slave specialty—slave to work, slave to debt, slave to guilt, slave to social pressure, slave to habit, slave to sick relationships, slave to….I try to be free, and sometimes I won’t post for a while. You have given me that permission. Don’t worry. I may be taking a walk through the forest in the early mornings when I usually write. But it is good to be missed.

Speaking of forests, in a jury trial lawyers become guides to the jurors through a frightening forest. The jurors do not even know the person sitting next to them. They have never been in a courtroom before, this strange place where lawyers argue according to strange rules that do not make sense. The jurors do not know where justice lies. They do not know who to believe, both sides pointing their accusatory long white fingers at their opponent.

There is a judge looking down at them dressed in a black robe. Nothing grows in the courtroom. The place is barren of life. Lawyers with soft hands that seemingly have never done an honest day’s work talk in a strange language, one with incomprehensible words that have no other purpose than to put the jurors down. The jurors have worries of their own, their families, their jobs, their debts that grow while they sit and listen to this senseless blather. Still they know the stakes are high, a person’s freedom or life or well being are at stake, and the jurors want to do the right thing.

I have said that it is as if the juror is about to embark on a journey through this forest and he or she has to decide which lawyer, as a guide, to follow. That’s why the only thing a trial lawyer has to sell to jurors is credibility. Without it, the most skilled, the most charismatic, the most comely, the best dressed, the highest paid, the lawyer with the highest IQ, the lawyer from the largest firm, even the one the judge seems to favor cannot win without credibility. It is also why the lawyer who may be frightened, inept, less skilled, not so eloquent, even second rate and sometimes befuddled will win every time if he or she is a credible person.

I have been criticized for being “too superficial.” I suppose that means that my own intelligence quotient is dragging behind or at least isn’t on display. But remember, we can think our way to any decision. The reasoning of the U.S. Supreme Court is a good example. The court’s numerous five to four decisions tells us that about half the court have thought themselves into the wrong decision and do so continuously. We can think ourselves into oblivion. Science is already knocking on that door with its invention of nuclear weapons and the manufacture and use of devices that will surely destroy this fragile, pretty little planet.

Our worst enemy is our own species. We have the ability to lie to and cheat our own and to thereby seriously injure or destroy each other. But we are also equipped with what I call “psychic feelers” that tell us when someone is attempting to deceive us.

Our worst enemy is our own species.  We have the ability to lie to and cheat our own and to thereby seriously injure or destroy each other.  But we are also equipped with what I call “psychic feelers” that tell us when someone is attempting to deceive us.  We can be hoodwinked for a day or two.  But in a trial that lasts for any length of time, the jurors begin to understand, even on a subconscious level, who is the most trustworthy.  Over the long haul, jurors usually can’t be fooled, and those who contend that this simple truth is superficial and does not give due credit to their own massive brain power will be those who use that same superiority to explain why they lost their last case, and the case before that.

I have often spoken of “the magic mirror.”  It reflects who we are with each other.  If the lawyer does not trust the jurors, the jurors will not trust the lawyer.  If the lawyer does not like the jurors, the jurors will respond in kind.  If the lawyer keeps secret his or her feelings the jurors will secret their own.  If the lawyer hides behind big words and tricky tactics the jurors will turn away from him.  How hard is this to understand?  I keep insisting that our role models should be our children.  I have often said I have learned more from my kids and my dogs than from all of the super minds out there.

So how can you win your next case? How can you win your next argument — in the courtroom or at home? How real and how credible can you be?