In case you’re looking for a few last-minute holiday gifts for people in your office—or if you just want to try some new gadgets for yourself—the TechnoLawyer NewsWire has come out with its top 25 new products of the year. TL NewsWire’s nearly 12,000 subscribers determined the Top 25 list,
I discovered a new app that has some exciting possibilities for use in trial or mediation, allowing attorneys to launch and deliver their presentations in a more professional manner. Most of us have sat through presentations where we’ve seen the presenter plug in a laptop for projection, and then we
Legal visuals work. We thought so, and now we have the statistical rigor of a controlled experiment to prove it. In a study comparing opening arguments delivered with and without simple PowerPoint visuals, mock jurors were persuaded more often when the slides were used. The study found effects on persuading
“Luddite Lawyers Are Ethical Violations Waiting to Happen.” That’s the alarming headline on a great post earlier this week in Lawyerist.com by attorney Megan Zavieh, who specializes in defending attorneys under investigation by the California State Bar. She talks about how lawyers’ relationship to technology—and their obligation to understand it—have
Professor Edward Tufte, the guru of information graphic design, advises his students to study the design of popular websites to learn techniques for conveying information quickly and efficiently. In today’s post, I’ll take Tufte’s advice and look at some of the techniques that NPR’s Planet Money reporting team used in creating an engaging page
On this day before Thanksgiving, I just couldn’t come up with a lot to say about informational graphics or litigation. I thought it best simply to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and to express my gratitude for Cogent Legal’s employees, clients, friends and family. At home, my family is preparing
This post provides an annotated version of the Apple v. Samsung iPhone patent decision. These annotations are like those we use in an e-brief / ebrief. The post provides a video showing how to do the bookmarking annotations.
Good visual presentations enhance juror attention, cognition and retention in the courtroom. By providing comparisons and reference points familiar to the juror, demonstratives can help communicate difficult concepts and data. Understanding of spatial information (e.g., positions, sizes and movement) particularly benefits from graphical representation. In today’s blog post, we’ll explore
In closing argument, it can be effective to show the jury the verdict form and tell them how you hope they fill it out. This technique is particularly important when the jury will face a complicated, multi-page special verdict form—introducing the jury to the form may avoid errors that will
A few weeks ago, I published a post based on my presentation at the Melvin Belli Seminar on Tort Practice, which focused on a three-step process for attorneys to develop graphics from the very start of their case to “build the visual foundation” for it. This post is a follow-up
If you’re reading this blog, chances are you have an interest in legal tech and litigation graphics. You likely know they’re important for any 21st-century case presentation. But you know less about how to get trouble-free and top-quality tech, demonstratives and litigation support. Maybe it feels too time consuming, too expensive
In oral argument, a litigator has very limited time—she needs to hit the high points and move on. She must communicate enough information to convince the judge or jury of her argument, yet must avoid getting mired in details that will only confuse. Good litigation graphics can counter this time crunch by allowing an
We recommend to our readers a recent New Yorker article by Gareth Cook entitled Why Abraham Lincoln Loved Infographics. Cook’s New Yorker article discusses Lincoln’s “slave map” as an early example of an infographic. Infographics—such as maps and charts that visualize data—are a powerful communication tool for litigators. As Cook explains, infographics take “information that is not easy for
We all know by now that we live in a world in which information is delivered visually, and that people learn best when they have visual aids. Attorneys who head to court with demonstratives to show as well as tell their case are at a distinct advantage over attorneys who
Great graphics make difficult concepts understandable, and such graphics are what we aspire to each day at Cogent Legal. Today’s blog entry will dissect a graphic from the New York Times and think about what makes it work. The October 8, 2013, edition of the New York Times included a great graphic in its report on
Morgan C. Smith, president and founder of Cogent Legal, is an attorney who litigated complex, high-value cases for almost two decades.
Michael Kelleher is a registered patent attorney and former partner at the firm of Folger Levin & Kahn where he litigated IP and complex business cases for 16 years.
Andrew Walker is the Co-Executive Director of the Sacramento office, and an attorney with many years' experience in mock trial work.
Deep Athwal is Co-Executive Director in Sacramento, and also an attorney with extensive mock trial experience.
Please note: Cogent Legal provides litigation consulting services to attorneys. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice on any matters.
