A Second Chance

nybooks.com

38 points·mighty-fine··8 comments

A nice read and a good reminder that presentation and knowing your audience counts for a lot, in court as well as the workplace. It's not the facts or your deliverables, but the way in which you sell them to others.

In this case,I felt it was only needed because of having jury trials. I had the same takeaway that is useful in other places as you. For example, my boss presented a feature that I had worked on better than how I would have done it.

A judge is a jury of one. They may be better trained to rely on evidence, but they are clearly also human and affected by other factors. For evidence of this, I only need to refer to the well-cited study showing that parole judges were significantly more lenient at the start of the day and after their lunch break.

Wasn't that debunked a while ago? https://www.pnas.org/content/108/42/E833.long

Interesting, I haven't read that.

However, I really think it's a stretch to assume that judge's are immune to presentation style.

IMX (albeit very limited) in code[1] jurisdictions, judges do most of their work by correspondence. They direct the proceedings in writing, and the lawyers respond in writing.

Bonus common law track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBM82Ju2kJU

[1] compare "what have the Romans ever done for us?"

The article makes it sound like the lawyer botched the first trial, which is mildly surprising given that it was paid for by insurance with a strong motive to win.

You should know before trial exactly how a witness will answer all questions. It doesn't sound like there were any surprise questions, they just didn't prepare the witness well enough for the first trial.

Can the URL be cleaned up :)

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