When I started trying cases, a good trial graphic cost real money. And it required a real investment of time. On a big partnership dispute or trade secrets case, we hired a graphics vendor months before trial to build the damages model and the timeline of who knew what and when. Juries noticed. Professional graphics helped show we were prepared. It looked impressive, and it was persuasive.
That’s mostly over. With the AI tools now on the market, an associate can turn out in an afternoon what used to take a vendor a month. Over the next few years, lawyers on both sides, regardless of resources, can show up to court with polished, shiny presentation that used to require a budget, time and planning.
One prediction is that this leveled playing field makes the lawyer less important, because anyone can show up looking like a high-end professional. I see it differently. When a jury, a judge or an arbitration panel is inundated with AI-generated content, both in both their personal and professional lives, I think an advocate has an opportunity to establish real trust and credibility in a way that technology cannot.
Graphics will still have a place. Good demonstratives can help keep an audience engaged, and they are useful to distill complex concepts. But in a world now filled with cheap content on every screen and every device, I think the soft skills of trial lawyers from decades past will reemerge as essential to building trust with judges and juries.
Cheap Graphics Cancel Out
An advantage everyone has is not an advantage. The cost of a credible-looking image is heading toward zero. Reconstructing an oil-well failure, mapping lost profits by region, lining up two companies’ source code side by side — all of that can now be done quickly, and all of it will look authoritative.
Jurors know this. They scroll past hundreds of images and videos a day and know that plenty of them are edited or fake. Judges and arbitrators know it too. Few people will give an image extra weight anymore just because it looks expensive or professional.
I watched this unfold firsthand while teaching trial advocacy at SMU. At first, AI graphics brought great novelty and professionalism to presentations. Students could show up with an opening statement that looked like a high-end law firm with an army of associates had prepared it. And with that, some were able to stand out brilliantly — at least initially.
With essentially no barriers to entry, it did not take long before these great looking presentations no longer stood out.
At that point, my attention reverted to the quality of the speaker, her words, her delivery and her ability to connect with the audience. Preparation and confidence cannot be AI-generated.
Jurors Fall Back on the Messenger
Most trial lawyers will agree that credibility is paramount in the courtroom. Particularly when people struggle to judge information on its own terms, they judge where it came from. We do it with doctors, with contractors and even with a neighbor whose advice we have learned to trust over the years.
Credibility is earned slowly over the course of a trial: in voir dire, in how a lawyer handles a bad document, in whether an opening statement’s promises are kept by the close. It can be lost much faster. One exhibit that overstates the evidence, or a graphic that turns out to be built on an assumption the witness cannot support, will taint everything else that lawyer shows the jury.
Credibility is not a personality trait. Jurors build their view of a lawyer from small things, and most of them happen with nothing on the screen. None of that can be handed off to software. It comes from preparation, from knowing the record cold and from a habit of telling the truth about your own case.
As judges and juries are flooded with pictures, videos and other questionable AI-generated content, more than ever, an attorney’s own personal credibility will be vital.
Personal Advocacy
In his book Trying Cases to Win, Herbert Stern wrote about “personal advocacy” as a trial lawyer’s greatest tool. He gave the example that the best lawyer to have in the courtroom would be “Honest Abe” Lincoln, because of his reputation for truthfulness. I think that has not changed.
But where technology once helped differentiate a presenter and could help enhance credibility, the rapid diffusion of technology, and AI graphics in particular, no longer gives you an edge.
So in the years to come, I expect that a “great, persuasive presentation” will not refer to polished graphics on a screen. It will refer to the orator’s own ability to speak, build rapport and connect with the audience.
John Adams is a Dallas-based trial lawyer focused on commercial disputes. He can be reached at John@dallastriallawyer.com.