Lawyers can sometimes be so laser-focused on advocating for their client during trial that they overlook the small things that can determine how they come across to jurors.
Fear not; A group of seasoned Texas jurists have seen it all and they have a few simple rules for you. Four trial judges — Melody Wilkinson of Fort Worth, Dale Tillery and Bonnie Lee Goldstein of Dallas, and El Paso’s M. Sue Kurita swapped stories Thursday regarding some of the biggest and most common mistakes they’ve seen lawyers make in front of a jury.
Their resulting advice may seem like common sense; but apparently some things happen often enough to warrant a mention before a room of lawyers at the annual advanced personal injury law conference in Dallas hosted by the State Bar of Texas.
So, here are 10 trial-related do’s and don’ts gleaned from their artful guidance on how not to shoot yourself (or your client) in the foot, a.k.a. how not to make jurors hate you or your client:
1. Do: Know your client’s name. And don’t you dare mispronounce it.
2. Don’t: Disagree with opposing counsel on striking a juror just for the sake of it. If it’s abundantly clear that a particular juror will be distracted at trial due to happenings in his or her own life, don’t let your pride get the best of you.
3. Do: Monitor your client — particularly if he or she is one inclined to try making small talk with jurors during breaks, or follow them to lunch at Dick’s Last Resort.
4. Don’t: Let a client’s team of family, friends or cheerleaders try to influence the jury’s perception of your client, despite your client actually being on good behavior.
5. Do: Show up the Friday before a Monday trial start date to test out the courtroom’s technology with your own devices. No juror likes extending their civic duty by even a minute because you haven’t sorted out technological difficulties beforehand.
6. Do: Be ready to get creative. For example, if a diagram of the car crash did not make it on your co-counsel’s Power Point presentation, just get on the floor and draw a diagram of your client’s account of the accident to hold or capture the jury’s attention. Just make sure your argument is actually a strong one.
7. Don’t: Leave jurors hanging to twiddle their thumbs during downtimes —say, while a translator talks to the witness on the stand in a foreign language. Pull up some helpful documents on the projector you’ve already presented into evidence, or your business card — anything.
8. Do: Speaking of translators: know who your translators are before they become a representative for your side. Bonus points if you know whether they’ll be prone to high maintenance requests that distract jurors from the case. You probably need to get the judge and jury familiar with the weird visor your translator demands wearing because their eyes are light-sensitive.
9. Don’t: Disrespect a single soul in the courthouse. That includes the random car you wanted to cut off while scrambling to find a spot in the courthouse parking garage. It could very well be a juror in your case.
10. Don’t: If your trial is in a small-town courthouse, don’t drive your Porsche to trial each day. Or any day. You will gain nothing but eye-rolls.
If you’ve never made any of these missteps, congratulations! Treat yourself to a Big Ass Beer at Dick’s Last Resort. Just be aware that there may be a few jurors nearby.