Wyzga On Words

Draw To Reveal The Story.

Who here doodles?

When we draw we are using a basic visual tool to help make sense of complex concepts, thoughts or ideas.  Drawing can help clarify and articulate our visions to ourselves as well as others in a conversation, presentation, meeting or trial.

I often use Post-It flip charts and Magic Markers when working with clients or audiences.  Drawing provides insight and problem-solving in a myriad of ways that mere conversation or brainstorming simply cannot accomplish as effectively.

Perhaps it's true that seeing is believing.

To see for yourself, visit Legal Sketchpad:

"BUSINESS SKETCHING FOR LEGAL CONFERENCES, STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETINGS AND TRAINING.

Legal Sketchpad promotes the use of basic visual tools in legal communication. As direct as possible, as low tech as possible."

I have no dog in this fight.  I am just pleased to help spread the word that PowerPoint is not the only game in town. 

TIP:    Fall back on what came naturally to you when a box of Crayola 64 helped unleash your imagination and creativity.

What Do I Mean When I Say "Power, Passion & Precision"?

 

Power.

            Passion.

                            Precision.

For decades now I have repeated my "3P Mantra" when speaking and teaching communication skills, story skills, and platform skills.  I use the "3P Mantra" on my office voice mail.

Power means coaching yourself to practice like you play.  The team plays to win.  The team practices to win.  You play to win - so practice like you play - with power.   A coach at my gym was training a member to get ready for her first tri-athlon.  It was the coach who kept reminding the trainee that she was getting ready for a race, a competition, to beat other people - not just taking a bike ride or a swim.  She took the advice and came in 4th in her class.

Passion means having life.  Does your case story come alive?  Or are you putting lipstick on a corpse?  Do you have a sense of affection for your work, for your client, for this case?  When my clients express exhaustion I always ask them, "For what do you have affection?  How do we marshall that for the task at hand?"

Precision means that state of being exact.  To be exact you must consider all the ways to get it right. To get it right you must develop the right story, right facts, right issues, right language, and right mindset. It can't be wrong when it's right.

Power.

            Passion.

                            Precision.

Q&A Tuesday: Moot Court, Written Briefs & Oral Argument.

Q:    If written briefs pull the laboring oar in the judges' decision-making, what's the point of oral argument?

A:     To serve as a sounding board for the judges.

Time out of mind I argued the final rounds of Moot Court Competition in front of then sitting chief justices of state supreme courts.

One by one each member of the panel gave the winner (me) and the runner-up (the other guy) their evaluations and suggestions for our future practice.  This one I took careful note of: "In oral argument, do not evade a judge's questions.  The court is asking you questions so it can learn and understand your position.  Participate.  Give the court your best answer."

Imagine my surprise to read similar advice from the United States Supreme Court.  Adam Liptak writing for the NYTimes, "Are Oral Arguments Worth Arguing About?" informs us that the nature of oral argument is to involve the lawyers in the debate.  Excerpt.

"In an interview with Bryan A. Garner published in 2010 in The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, Justice Clarence Thomas was asked how often he changed his mind thanks to oral arguments.

“Almost never,” he said, adding that they may make a difference for his colleagues “in 5 or 10 percent of the cases, maybe, and I’m being generous there.”

That is as it should be, said Mr. Estrada, who has argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court.

“Somewhat refreshingly to our citizens,” he said, “the administration of justice has to do with the merits of the case and not entirely to do with the skill of the advocates.”

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who argued 39 cases in the Supreme Court before joining it, told students at Columbia Law School in 2008 that lawyers play a relatively minor role in that highly stylized discourse.

“Quite often the judges are debating among themselves and just using the lawyers as a backboard,” he said. “One of the real challenges for lawyers is to get involved in that debate.”

Oral arguments are in any event far less important than the written briefs.

“Of the two components of the presentation of a case, the brief is ever so much more important,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told Mr. Garner. “It’s what we start with; it’s what we go back to.”"

TIP:    Write your best brief.  Give your best oral argument.  Answer the court's questions with a "clear, concise and cogent" reply.  Participate in the debate.

 

 

Anne Lamott Has Words For Writers & Lawyers.

I am a card-carrying member of the Anne Lamott fan club.

No question about it.

I have been insanely intimate with her books: Traveling Mercies, Bird By Bird, Plan B, and Rosie, among others.  The margins are filled with notes, the words are underlined and re-underlined.  I, like so many others, are convinced that Lamott wrote a particular book just for the reader. 

Something Lamott said rings true for all writers, and especially for lawyers who write their opening statement or closing argument but so rarely read what they've written aloud.  There's a big difference hearing with the ear:

"Nothing can break the mood of a piece of writing like bad dialogue. My students are miserable when they are reading an otherwise terrific story to the class and then hit a patch of dialogue that is so purple and expositional that it reads like something from a childhood play by the Gabor sisters. ... I can see the surprise on my students' faces, because the dialogue looked okay on paper, yet now it sounds as if it were poorly translated from their native Hindi."

TIP:     Any time you have something to say aloud, speak out loud what you've written to hear how it sounds before you have to stand and deliver your words to the decision-maker or listener.

Lawyers are Suspicious of Stories That Do Not Come Packaged in Structures.

I am delighted to have been invited to join Kathy Hansen's blog, A Storied Career!

Just in case you missed us, over the next several days I'll be re-posting the interview she conducted with me and began publishing on April 9th.

Click here for the 3rd post.

Nurses Hold the Space for Patients, Families to Tell Their Stories.

I am delighted to have been invited to join Kathy Hansen's blog, A Storied Career!

Just in case you missed us, over the next several days I'll be re-posting the interview she conducted with me and began publishing on April 9th.

Here's the second post

Content + Context + Value = Emotionally Meaningful Story.

I am delighted to have been invited to join Kathy Hansen's blog, A Storied Career!

Just in case you missed us, over the next several days I'll be re-posting the interview she conducted with me and began publishing on April 9th.

Here's the first post:

Content + Context + Value = Emotionally Meaningful Story.

What Decision-Makers Look For From The Lawyer.

A book review holds a good lesson for lawyers. 

Sylvia Brownrigg writing for the NYTimes Book Review, "A Wedding and a Funeral,"  leads with several observations sure to be shared by readers and speech listeners alike. Excerpt.

"A very good book is not only more satisfying, memorable and coherent than its lesser neighbors on the shelves. It’s also more relaxing to read. That wary inhalation as you take in the first lines — Will I believe in these characters? How distracted will I be by implausible dialogue, or forced plotlines? — lasts a page or two and then gives over to a long, slow breath of relief. You don’t have to worry. This writer knows exactly what she’s doing. She won’t let you down."

Lawyers, speakers, politicians, what are the take-aways here?

TIP:    Have you developed believable witnesses or characters?  Do they have fidelity to what we know?

TIP:    Will the listener or decision-maker be distracted by implausible rhetoric?  Plotlines that fail to hang together seamlessly?  Is your trial story or presentation congruent from start to finish?  Or does it unravel like a poorly knit sock?

TIP:     Do you know exactly what you want to convey and to whom so your listeners and decision-makers can relax into the story, go with you on that virtual journey, and "translate images into action"?

Q&A Tuesday: Do You Know That ASTC's 31st Annual Conference Is June 7th to 9th In New Orleans?

Q:    I heard tell that the American Society of Trial Consultants is holding its 31st Annual Conference in New Orleans.  What's happening?

A:    We are so jazzed to have the opportunity to learn, play, connect and succeed!

TIP:    Check out the ASTC website for an overview of the conference, registration and sponsorship opportunities.

TIP:    Get ready to let the good times role by reading through Conference Planning Committee Member Patricia Rhinehart's list of just a few things to do:

If you love music, New Orleans is the place to be! There’s music all over: people playing in the streets, on sidewalks and in the open-air cafes.

The best thing about the French Quarter is Royal and Chartres. Royal Street of course has great shops and all the fabulous art galleries. Check here for maps.

Stop at the Monteleone Hotel and have a drink at the Carousel Bar.  It's old, it's beautiful, and yes - it's a moving bar!

There's a great little restaurant on Orleans Avenue behind the cathedral - Orleans Grapevine - small, quaint, known for excellent wines.

Check out The Green Goddess. Something of a hole in the wall, but the food and the chef are SO worth it!!!

St. Louis Cathedral is a great stop for a beautiful church with pretty stained glass and even more history.   You may catch a wedding party spilling out into the square and second lining down Royal Street.

Frenchmen Street in the Marigny is New Orleans funky with lots of clubs for listening to music. Watch the clock for the Witching Hour!

Take the streetcar down St. Charles and get off at Lee's Circle.There's the Ogden Museum of Southern Art . A must see.

From there venture down Julia street and others in the Warehouse District  for Galleries and restaurants. 

For military buffs there is the National World War II Museum - a great and moving tribute to the service of the greatest generation.

Continue the streetcar down St. Charles through the Garden District  to Uptown and the University area. 

Stop at Carrollton Avenue and grab some breakfast or lunch at the Camellia Grill before spending some time shopping in the Riverbend area.

If you have access to a car go down Magazine Street for shopping and eating - where the locals go!

See you there when the good times roll!

"Emotional Meaning Leads To Listener Action."

My dear friend, colleague, author, writer, mediator, blogger and story-tracker, Stephanie West Allen, emailed me the link to The Inside Story, an article on the power of narrative by Peter Gruber published in Psychology Today.

Gruber's article is a tidy review of what we storytellers live and breathe.  Excerpt.

"Telling stories is not just the oldest form of entertainment, it's the highest form of consciousness. The need for narrative is embedded deep in our brains. Increasingly, success in the information age demands that we harness the hidden power of stories. Here's what you need to know to tell a killer tale."

I was encouraged to revisit many of the themes I have been writing and speaking about since 1994 when a book of stories fell off a shelf into my hand and said, "Come follow us."  Themes like "virtual journey" which Gruber calls "virtual transportation."  Either way you look at it the notion is a well told story invites the listener inside the story to share the experience. Remember to release them at the end.   

Stories are not fluff - they have become the "cornerstones of our conscience" as lawyers have learned. Pull accurately on the collective community conscience and you are likely to get them on your side of an argument.

This is another oft-told notion:

"The first rule of telling stories is to give the audience—whether it's one business person or a theater full of moviegoers—an emotional experience. The heart is always the first target in telling purposeful stories. Stories must give listeners an emotional experience if they are to ignite a call to action."

As I wrote on bookmark give-aways in 2003:

"Storytelling thrives on imagination.  Images touch the heart and become sensations, sensations trigger memories, memories create meaning and meaning leads to listener action."

Any story must be emotionally meaningful for the listener to care about it. That does not mean the story has to be emotional and fraught with drama.  No.  It must evoke a value or values that the listener identifies with as personal to them and their life experience, their view of how the world turns.  This is especially true of decision-makers, those people you want to give you some action in exchange for the story.

Not all of us are called to be storytellers.  There are three distinct and interwoven parts to any story: the story itself, the teller and the listener.  Listening attends to the images and helps translate the metaphors into "this is like that."  Without the listener there is no story.

If it's true that we read to know we are not alone, I believe we listen to stories for the same reason.