What are two things you should avoid saying on direct (rhetoric, not legal prohibitions)?
- dates and names. use before/after and roles instead; think about what function these terms serve in a story
- jargon
What are the three things you want to create in opening?
- A lens for the audience to interpret the evidence
- A filter for acceptance and rejection of evidence
- A framework for understanding
Give the 6 parts of the structure of an opening, in order.
- impact statement
- introduction (self and client)
- narrative
- burden of proof
- preview witnesses
- conclusion
What is the basic structure of a story?
Somebody
Wanted
But
So
Then
[And now only you can fix it]
What are 5 ingredients of a compelling story?
WITSA:
Words
Images
Theme
Scene
Anchors
Again, what is a theme?
Your case in a single sentence.
What are two things to think about in a given scene?
Who are the witnesses? What are the props?
What are anchors?
Physical places in the courtroom that you move to while giving your opening statement. Your movement must be purposeful and meaningful.
What’s the importance of anchors?
They’re great memory cues for the jury.
What are 7 different structures you can use for opening statement?
- Chronological
- Reverse chronological
- Cause of action (from the beginning)
- Neutral observer (opening is in 3rd person)
- Relationship (opening is about the characters)
- Rules of the Road (opening is about a duty)
- Villain is the Vehicle
Who is the villain when the villain is the vehicle?
Whoever betrayed our client.
Who is the hero when the villain is the vehicle?
The jury.
What are the four parts of building the betrayal story?
- Find a trust relationship
- Explain the betrayal
- Identify the villain
- Make the jury the hero
What are 5 examples of trust relationships?
- contract (explicit)
- belief in the truth (implicit)
- ability (implicit)
- authority (implicit)
- system (implicit)
What are 4 ways you can explain the betrayal?
- willful violation of the trust relationship
- failure to meet the trust relationship
- inability to meet the trust relationship
- failure to meet societal expectations for an authority figure
Who are 3 potential villains?
- a specific person
- an authority figure
- the system
Why don’t we want our client to be the hero?
If we start with our client’s narrative, jurors are looking for ways that our client violated a trust relationship. We always compare ourselves to a protagonist and will often say “I would have done something different.”
Why do we want to focus on the villian?
Because the jury will look for ways that the villain violated the trust relationship. They’ll make their own conclusions about the villain.
What adds to the credibility of a villain-as-vehicle story?
When the villain has some part that strives to meet the trust relationship, but forces or pressure pulled the villain away from meeting the trust relationship. We don’t always need or want the jury to think the villain is evil. We just want the jury to think that the villain failed.
What is the single most important thing you can’t do in opening?
Argue your case.
What does it mean to argue your case?
You’re explicitly asking the jury to draw inferences from the facts.
Give 7 examples of things you might say or do that would cross the line into argument.
- telling the jury who to believe/disbelieve
- expressing an opinion on certain facts
- analyzing evidence
- explaining the significance of testimony
- providing perspective
- interpreting
- basically anytime you say, “so”
What are the 5 ingredients of the Recipe to Have Your Narrative Accepted?
- Coverage
- Coherence
- Conflict
- Uniqueness
- Goodness-of-fit
What are three things that add to coherence?
- Consistency
- Plausibility
- Completeness
