Persuading Under the Guise of
Informing Using Trial Exhibits
by Kenneth J. Lopez, J.D.,
President & CEO
Q: Document Call-Outs are used in every trial
and their only function is to help the Judge or Jury extract key information
from a long document, right?
A: Wrong. The best document call-outs persuade. (see below)
Animators' Litigation Consultants and
Information Designers routinely use an age-old courtroom tool, the document
call-out trial exhibit, in a totally new way to help win more cases.
I want to quickly share with you the basics of our trial exhibit technique
so that you may use it effectively in your next trial or presentation.
Recently, Animators at Law was hired
by The U.S. Department of Justice to produce a group of trial exhibits
to defend against injury claims in a rescue helicopter landing. One
of these trial exhibits was what we call a persuasive document call-out.
Its purpose was to convey a clear visual argument rather than to be
used, as most document call-outs are, as a routine story telling device.
In consultation with our Animators at Law Information
Designers and our Litigation Consultants, all of whom are attorneys,
we created a document call-out with a stop sign shape. The ABA has
found that combining and oral and visual messages, as done in this trial
exhibit, increases juror memory retention by at least 650 percent. This
relatively simple approach to highlighting the key policy in this case
was designed to leave the Court with a strong and clear message:
The hospital
where the helicopter landed did not follow its procedure to STOP traffic
and this failure,
not the Government's helicopter, caused the injury.
With talented lawyering and help from
effective trial exhibits such as this one, the Court ruled in the Government's
favor and awarded nothing to the Plaintiff.
While Animators normally finds itself creating trial exhibits for a
top 100 law firm and for the defense side of cases with more than $50
million at stake, this case underscores our ability to also do a little
with a lot. Since this case was relativity simple from a factual and
legal standpoint, we were able to work within the Government's typically
strained budget without difficulty. However, even in the multi-billion
dollar cases that Animators is routinely involved in, Animators finds
that its fees are a mere drop in the bucket compared to what is at stake.
To discuss upcoming litigation, learn
more about these demonstrative evidence techniques or to have a presentation
made to your firm on these and other subjects, please contact:
Tanya S. Cunningham, JD
sales@animators.com
1.800.337.7697 ext 122
703.548.1799 ext 122
703.548.5450 (fax)
Animators at Law is the nation's premier attorney owned and operated
producer of demonstrative evidence, jury research and animation. Since
1995, Animators has consulted on thousands of significant cases with
cumulative favorable decisions exceeding one trillion dollars. Our customers
include more than three quarters of the nation's top law firms and hundreds
of others. While most of our team is based in our Washington, DC headquarters,
local offices and relationships allow us to easily work in New York,
Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas, Florida & Philadelphia.
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