Publications: Want More Effective Case Presentation? KISS the Jury

There are 12 jurors in the box waiting to hear your case. In order to win, you need to persuade them to view the facts in your favor—but the approach that will reach the physics professor from State U. may not work for the clerk from the Fifth Ward. Herein lies the key to an effective jury presentation: KISS.

You’ve no doubt heard “keep it simple, stupid” applied to a lot of situations before, and it makes good sense to apply it in the courtroom as well. The argument that only six jurors understand is not as good as the one that reaches nine. The theme, argument, analogy, or explanation you share with the jury should be designed to reach all 12 members, employing terms and references common to the majority. They will like your case—and you, and you will have a better chance of winning.

Here are three things to consider as you think about that first KISS:

1. In order to convince someone of your case, you must understand it yourself. Learn how to state your case in one paragraph—a three-sentence paragraph. Then boil it down to one sentence. If you don’t understand your case in its most elegant simplicity, your jury won’t either.

Mike Ficaro, one of the top trial lawyers in Chicago, takes it one step further. He believes the ultimate message must be simple enough that you can explain it to Tarzan. For a prosecutor in a criminal case, it would go like this: Stealing bad. Defendant steal. Defendant bad. The presentation may be more complex, but the theme must be that simple.

2. If you can explain it to the bagger at the grocery store, you are ready to try your case. My father used to tell me, if you can explain your case in 30 seconds or less to the guy who pumps your gas, you understand your case well enough to explain it to a jury. Now that we pump our own, I substitute my experience with supermarket clerks.

3. Relate your case and themes to everyday experiences. Many of our everyday experiences are almost universal. If you can relate your case to one of those, or relate your opponent’s case to something not universal that cannot be shared and understood by most others, you will attract the jurors to your case or turn them away from the other side’s.

In a recent toxic tort case in Chicago, Mike Ficaro and his trial team had to demonstrate that the plaintiffs were not injured by their homes’ proximity to the alleged toxic dump site. The case was very complicated, and the experts talked about biologic plausibility, epidemiological-odds ratios, toxicology results in animal studies, and dose-response relationships. Way too complicated—it took the lawyers involved years to understand these concepts, and the trial was expected to last only six weeks. Essentially, though, the question was whether the plaintiffs were exposed to enough of the toxic substance to cause their injuries.

Mike’s trial team developed an expert who reduced it to hard numbers: how long a person would have to be at the location and how much of the toxic substances the person would have to ingest in order to cause injury. At trial Mike boiled those concepts down to an experience that stuck in the jurors’ minds: To cause their claimed injuries, the plaintiffs would have to sit in the middle of the dump site seven days a week for 40 years and eat a dirt sandwich every day. When the case was over, the dirt sandwich was still on the jurors’ minds.

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