Opening Statement: Your Golden Opportunity as a Trial Lawyer

 

Opening Statement is a golden opportunity. As a trial lawyer, opening statement is your chance to communicate your message in your words. It is a golden opportunity for three reasons. 

First, you can provide the jurors with the story of your case in your own words. Opening statement will aid jurors in organizing and understanding the evidence as it is presented during trial, creating a sketch on the jurors’ mental canvas.  Brushstroke by brushstroke, the sketch gains color, and the jury can visualize the picture you want them to see. 

Jurors want a story. Our history is a history of storytelling. We pass on our culture with storytelling. Our stories are told online, in newpapers, in plays, in movies. It’s all storytelling. If you don’t provide a story, opposing counsel’s case narrative may control the jurors’ perception of the case. Alternatively, if opposing counsel does not supply a convincing case narrative, the jurors are likely to concoct their own, and this story may not be in your favor. 

Second, opening statement provides a first impression on the jury. For the first time, jurors hear your full message.  According to the rule of primacy, an audience is likely to remember what they hear first.

Third, because you deliver the message, you control how it is crafted and presented.  During the rest of the trial until closing argument, the evidence will necessarily be presented in fragments, and it will often be introduced out of chronological order.  But, throughout your opening, your message should be clear and convincing.  During the rest of the trial until closing argument, however, your messengers will be witnesses.  Although you have some control over how witnesses impart information, you do not have complete control.

For more information about how to craft a dynamic opening statement see Addressing the Jury: Opening Statement and Closing Argument (2023 and only $9.29) and Trial Advocacy, 5th Edition (2023).