Saturday, March 16, 2024

New Book Website Launched - ronclarkbooks.com



Hope you visit my new website - ronclarkbooks.com. It was just published.














Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Trump's Helpful Courtroom Behavior

 


Trial lawyers think differently from other human beings when they evaluate a person who might be a witness. First, they evaluate what the person has to offer in the case in the context of the rules of evidence. The trial lawyer ponders whether or not what the witness has to offer is admissible in evidence. If the witness hurts the case, the lawyer may move to keep the witness off the stand or exclude part of the witness’s testimony as inadmissible under the rules of evidence. If what the witness offers is helpful, the lawyer comes to court prepared to argue it is admissible under the rules.

Second, the trial lawyer evaluates what the witness has to offer in terms of whether it helps or hurts the case. Does the evidence the witness can provide help or hurt the case? Obviously, if it hurts, the lawyer turns to the rules of evidence in hopes of being able to keep the witness off the stand or exclude the harmful part of the witness’s testimony. Conversely, if what the witness offers is good for the case, the trial lawyer will want the witness to take the take the stand and get the evidence the witness can provide admitted into evidence.

With those two concepts in mind, consider Donald Trump’s involvement in the E. Jean Carroll case in which the jury awarded plaintiff Carroll $83. million. Defense counsel called Trump to the stand, and he testified for around three minutes. 

Let’s evaluate Trump as a witness from the plaintiff’s lawyer’s perspective utilizing the two criteria—admissibility of the evidence and whether or not the evidence is helpful or harmful. Regarding admissibility of the evidence, to the extent that Trump wanted to continue denying he sexually assaulted Carroll, the plaintiff’s had the court’s ruling on the evidence that that issue had been resolved during the first trial and that testimony that the sexual harassment did not happen would not be allowed. 

Second and most fascinating is how the two sides evaluated what Trump contributed to the case in terms of whether it was good or bad. It’s hard to fathom why defense counsel put him on the stand and let him behave the way he did in the courtroom. He offered little during his three minutes on the stand.

Plaintiff’s counsel were delighted by Trump’s performance and gave it high marks for helping the plaintiff’s case. As they have said in  interviews after the trial, the plaintiff’s themes for the case were that Trump was a bully who thought the rules did not apply to him, and Trump’s courtroom behavior offered corroboration for those themes. Trump not only spoke loudly so the jury could hear him when he should not have done so, and he walked out the courtroom during opposing counsel’s closing argument, which is a breach of courtroom decorum. 

The court probably instructed the jury to evaluate a witness’s testimony in terms somewhat along these lines:

"In considering a witness's testimony, you may consider these things: the opportunity of the witness to observe or know the things they testify about; the ability of the witness to observe accurately; the quality of a witness's memory while testifying; the manner of the witness while testifying; any personal interest that the witness might have in the outcome or the issues; any bias or prejudice that the witness may have shown; the reasonableness of the witness's statements in the context of all of the other evidence; and any other factors that affect your evaluation or belief of a witness or your evaluation of his or her testimony." (Emphasis added)

Clearly in the minds of E. Jean Carroll and her lawyers, Trump’s demeanor and behavior helped their case.


Sunday, February 4, 2024

CRAFTING THE CONTENT OF A PRESENTATION

 


The following is an excerpt from Powerful Presentation Handbook - a book that can serve as a guide whenever you are making a presentation whether it is given in or out of a courtroom.

CRAFTING THE CONTENT OF A PRESENTATION

There are three guiding principles for selecting and designing the content of your presentation: (1) a purpose and passion; (2) suitable to the audience; and (3) engage and entertain.

1. PURPOSE AND PASSION 

First, have a passion and a purpose. As Danielle Kennedy says, “The speaker’s objectives are like the writer’s thesis statement. What are you trying to say? Accomplish? What is the purpose of the speech? It’s mission statement? If you don’t know, should the audience guess?” Selling the Danielle Kennedy Way, Danielle Kennedy (1991)

What are you going to talk about? What are you trying to say? Accomplish? Is the subject of your presentation decided by others or is that left up to you? Usually, you will be asked to speak on the subject because you are knowledgeable about it. However, you might be assigned to speak on a subject upon which you are not well versed. 

No matter how you arrive at the assigned subject, you want to make the subject your own—to know what you want to get across to your audience—your purpose. When the subject of your talk is your own and you have a purpose, you will have a passion for your subject, enabling you to speak from your heart and mind to your audience. If you can’t make the speech your own, don’t give it.

Nothing is more dynamic than a person who has purpose and a passion for the subject and wants to deliver the message from the speaker’s heart to the hearts of people in the audience. In Chapter 3 “Lessons in Eloquent Rhetoric”, we can tell from their speeches that Reverend King, Oprah Winfrey, Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, and Gerry Spence each had a purpose and passion for their subject matter. Each of them radiated their purpose and passion to the audience. 

2. SUITABLE TO THE AUDIENCE

The second principle for crafting the content of a successful presentation is to make sure that the audience needs and wants to learn about the subject. If the presentation does not meet listeners’ needs and wants, it is not worth giving. 

The topic must fit what the audience wants and needs. Sometimes, while the audience members may need to learn about a subject, they do not want to listen to a talk on the subject. If that is the situation, they are not going to learn much. If the audience needs to learn about a subject but does not naturally want to learn about it, you must create the desire to know. 

Creating a want to know in the audience can be accomplished by explaining to the audience why they should care about the subject of your talk. For example, when I worked at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina, every week a new contingent of state and local prosecutors came to Columbia to receive training at the Center. They were there to become better prosecutors. What did they want? They wanted practical information that would help them perform their job. 

While the attendees at the Center needed a presentation on prosecutor professionalism—legal ethics—to become better prosecutors, a lecture on the subject was not one they, as a matter of course, were looking forward to and wanted.  Because the attendees did want practical information, it was important for the presenter to explain, with the aid of every-day practical examples, that ethics violations can result in mistrials and reversals of convictions. An ethic’s presentation framed around this practical information coupled with advice concerning how to avoid professional responsibility pitfalls was one that the prosecutors wanted in the lecture on prosecutorial professionalism.

3. ENGAGE AND ENTERTAIN

The third principle for selecting and crafting your powerful presentation is—find material that will engage and entertain the audience. Yes, entertain them. To accomplish this, the speaker must do the necessary brainstorming and research. Where do we get the material to include in the presentation? The first and best source is your creative mind. When you are motivated by either glee or fear that you are going to give a talk, ideas will start flowing. 

The ideas may include a joke, a story, a demonstration, a personal experience, an anecdote, and so on. Get out of the way and do not pass judgment on the ideas that come to you because you are brainstorming. Do not initially reject a train of thought because on later reflection what you initially thought was not a good idea, could indeed be usable.  

Write down your ideas.  Put them in a file on your computer. Label the file with the date of your talk and title of the presentation. When an idea comes to you, put it in the file. Keep a tablet by your bed or a phone so you can record the ideas when they come to you in the middle of the night.

Here are some notions that are winners:

Naturally, anything supporting the message you want to impart to the audience.

Stories: Use stories to make a point. 

A joke that is pertinent to the topic.

Quotations: They are useful to drive home a point. A quote is good if it is from a well-known, respected figure. 

Transcript: If the subject is trial work, an excerpt from a trial transcript could fit in the talk. 

Extended anecdotes work well. 

Demonstrations: Demonstrations can highlight a point you want to make.

Rhetorical devices, such as an analogy, simile or metaphor, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

The topic of your talk will dictate to you what research you need to do. Discuss your talk with the person who asked you to make the presentation; find out what the person wants to get across to the audience. Read everything can get your hands on about the subject. Talk to people who are knowledgeable on the subject. 

If you are interested in reading more of the book, you can locate it on Amazon by clicking here. It is only $7.99 in paperback and free on Kindle Unlimited.



Saturday, December 23, 2023

Reforming the Criminal Justice System

 


For most of the virus isolation year, I  worked on a new book—Roadways to Justice: Reforming the Criminal Justice System. The book was published by Full Court Press, Fastcase, Inc.

Roadways to Justice is a history of efforts to reform the criminal justice system, and it is somewhat of a memoir. Beginning in 1969, I worked as a prosecutor in the King County Prosecutor’s Office in Seattle Washington for 27 years. Following that for 8 years I was the Senior Training Counsel at the National Advocacy Center in South Carolina where state and local prosecutors were trained. During that time, I also served as the program manager of continuing legal education programs for the National College of District Attorneys.  

In 2004, I returned to Seattle and have been a Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at Seattle University Law School where I teach Trial Advocacy, Pretrial Advocacy, Essential Visual Litigation and Technology, and Essential Lawyering Skills. In addition, I’ve taught in over 40 states at continuing legal education course and internationally in the Balkans. 

The central focus of Roadways to Justice is how to reform the criminal justice system. The King County Prosecutor’s Office has had remarkable successes in reforming the justice system, and what success the one prosecutor’s office has had provides a roadmap for others who want to make a meaningful difference in the American criminal justice system. 

The book has received some really nice reviews like this five-star review:

"For those who doubt the criminal justice hasn’t changed for eons, this book is a must read. The author, a nationally known former prosecutor and educator, outlines through personal experience how the system has evolved in the last 40 years. He paints a picture of how the public prosecutor’s office has played a leadership role in this evolution, from dealing with public corruption, the death penalty and juvenile justice to providing training on a national level to new prosecutors.

"Mr. Clark’s use of actual events and cases in which he was involved brings home how the system can be steered by prosecutors dedicated to doing the right thing."

Thursday, December 14, 2023

RIGHT WORDS FOR TRIAL LAWYERS

 

Metaphor: A metaphor makes comparisons by replacing one thing for another. Metaphors are powerful because they connect the information you want to impart to with something with which the jurors are familiar. Also, metaphors can be utilized to make a complex idea easier to understand. In trial advocacy, the metaphor can be a bridge between your case theory and something with which the jurors are familiar.

Here’s a collection of metaphors, some of them compiled by Paul Luvera, one of the nation’s leading trial lawyers:

Robert Frost—The Road Not Taken: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both. . .”

Shakespeare—Romeo and Juliet: "Juliet is the sun." 

Shakespeare—Macbeth: “Life is but a walking shadow.”

Shakespeare—Timon of Athens: “The sun’s a thief.”

Plato: “As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”

Mark Twain: “Everyone is a moon and has a dark side, which he never shows to anybody.”

Churchill said of Secretary of State Dulles: “He is the only bull who brings his own china shop with him.”

Comedian Robin Tyler: “Fundamentalists are to Christianity what paint by the numbers is to art.”

Len Deighton: “In Mexico, an air conditioner is called a “politician” because it makes a lot of noise, but doesn’t work.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower: “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”

Jim Hardin, the District Attorney for Durham, North Carolina, in closing argument of the murder trial of Michael Peterson (The Staircase documentary): “I started looking around the scene and in the stairwell thinking—what if those walls could talk? What would they say? Ladies and gentlemen, these walls are talking. Kathleen Peterson is talking to us through the blood on these walls. She is screaming at us for truth and for justice. It’s all in these photographs.”











Thursday, November 30, 2023

New Edition: Evidence Book

 


Good news today. Aspen Publishing wants to do a new edition of our Evidence book.





Friday, November 24, 2023

NEW LAW SCHOOL PRETRIAL ADVOCACY FLEX JD COURSE

 


Beginning this Spring Seattle University Law School will offer my Comprehensive Pretrial Advocacy Flex JD course. It is a 4-credit course. Flex JD courses are designed for students who are working. They are hybrids—for example, my Pretrial Advocacy course involves one synchronous online Zoom session per week running from 6 to 7:30 p.m. and two in-person weekends at the law school. Students in the Flex JD program can graduate in four, rather than three, years.

The curriculum of my course while organized to fit this pattern will cover the same material and experiences that an in-person at the law school course covers. One big difference is that students will be interacting with and submitting work on a very robust Canvas web page. 

The text for the course is my Pretrial Advocacy: Planning, Analysis and Strategy 6th edition, which is being published by Aspen Publishing.