Wyzga On Words

1 Teenager, 11 Texts, 2 Dead Men & Redemption By Science.

It started as normally as any morning: a 19 year old male gets into his SUV to drive to work in the freezing rain of an early morning.  As he drives he sends and receives texts messages and drives so erratically that a tractor trailer driver behind him comments that nothing good will come of this.  Prophetically, as the SUV barrels down the crest of a hill it drifts over the middle line, clips a Saturn which is flung crosswise in front of the tractor trailer, getting hit broadside before coming to a dead stop in a ditch.  The 19 year old is fine.  The 2 men in the Saturn traveling to work were killed.

My family knows that I keep my cellphone turned off when I have it in the car.  They know not to call me from the road on their cellphones.  There is the rare occasion when I'll speak to a brother who has a voice-activated hands-free system and then only in the event of a parent emergency.

My experience with motor vehicle cases and the pre-trial focus groups examining people's thoughts, feelings and opinions about texting and driving has shown me over and over and over again: folks don't like it; *but* it's always the other guy or gal who will cause the problem. 

What explains our addiction to the pings and beeps and ringtones of incoming messages?  For this we turn to a topic near and dear to the heart of my friend and colleague, Stephanie West Allen, who blogs as Idealawg: neuroscience.

According to Matt Richtel's article in the NYTimes, "A Texting Driver's Education", the battle between the prefrontal cortex where high-level decision-making occurs and the lesser but still critical primitive survival regions of the brain gets played out in unexpected ways when the cellphone summons, as follows:   

When the phone rings or a text comes in, the sound can be just as urgent as a lion in the brush — and just as tough to ignore. Is it your spouse? Your boss? A new business opportunity? Primitive brain wiring compels you to answer. But what if you’re driving, like Reggie?

Much of the information that comes through is insignificant, even a nuisance, like spam. Wouldn’t that cause people to learn to ignore it? Perversely, just the opposite is true. The fact that the information is of variable value actually increases its magnetism. That’s because it creates a lure called intermittent reinforcement, a powerful draw that comes with uncertainty of the reward. It’s the very thing that causes a rat in a cage to press a lever repeatedly when it isn’t sure which press will bring the next delivery of food. It presses again and again, just as we click to open our text or email programs.

“What’s happening, in essence, is that you’re constantly scanning your texts and email because every once in a while you are going to get a good one and you can’t predict when that is,” says David Greenfield, a psychologist and an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, where he teaches a class on Internet addiction. He compares the Internet to a slot machine, adding: “That’s why Facebook is so popular. It’s the fact that it’s dynamic and novel, and constantly changing.”

The idea that technology use affects the brain is supported by a growing body of neuroscience. Several studies show that when people play video games or use the Internet, they exhibit changes in the levels of dopamine, a neurochemical associated with pleasure, similar to changes in the brains of drug addicts. When you hit “send” or press a letter on the keyboard, it prompts a change on the screen, a picture pops up or an email opens, and you get a little dopamine squirt, Dr. Greenfield says, a kind of adrenaline rush. If you do it over and over, it conditions you to the rush, and in its absence you feel bored.

While no one is saying that cellphones and cellphone use are addictive in the sense that a narcotic is, these devices have additive qualities:

“The cellphone, and other similar technology, meet a deep need for social connection with a greater ease and greater potential detriment to it in the same way that a vending machine that is right down the hall plays to our need for calories,” says Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and a professor of social and natural science at Yale; he is an expert in the use of social networks across time.

To some researchers, it feels like a process of neurological hijacking, the taking over of our decision-making process."

And this quality which triggers a deeply ingrained reward process is what makes "It Can Wait" about as useful as "Just Say No."  

Two things: after denying for two years that his texting was responsible for the two deaths he caused, Reggie Shaw finally saw how the battle between the focus on his driving was distracted by the primitive parts of his brain calling him to the phone.  The science convinced him.  Now he is on a one-man campaign speaking to anyone who will listen - especially young drivers - that his two counts of negligent homicide are just one text removed from this being another driver's story.

The other is the effort of several men who are closing in on perfecting a device that attaches to the car driving column and will block both incoming and outgoing texts as well as prevent incoming calls from reaching the driver: "Trying to Hit the brake on Texting While Driving."  Some folks say there's nothing to be done until the self-driving car is on the road.  But maybe folks like Reggie Shaw will help us align our behaviors and attitudes so that whatever is coming in over our digital devices really can wait.

Florida's Own Emmett Till.

A long-time friend wrote about recent interviews with jurors in the Zimmerman/Martin trial to say that he was caught off guard to learn that some of the verdict result may have come from interpreting the jury instructions.  His impression was that jury instructions are informative but not mandatory; otherwise, why get jurors involved?  Just let the judge decide. He also expressed the view that the Florida law of 6 might not serve the system well; perhaps 12 heads in deliberations might have been a different story.  And one final requirement: a mix (male/female) should be required as well.

Here's the conundrum: jurors are required to follow the letter of the law as the judge instructs.  Oftentimes a question in jury selection will be " Can you follow the law as the judge instructs you or are your beliefs such that you would not?"  Jury instructions, in addition to being poorly written for the layperson to interpret because they are drafted by.......lawyers, are also meant to be followed as written.  And as the judge has read.  Usually the jury will get all the instructions in the jury room but they can be like hieroglyphics to decipher.  However, that is the point of a jury by peers: the community gets to figure it out.

Yes, a small jury is a more difficult jury.  Give me "12 Angry Men" any day.  The numbers give more room for argument.

The 3rd point is that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty; and that is the job of the prosecution.  If they fail, as they have done so notably before, then the jury has no way out except to vote "not guilty."  When I was in law school and then again trying criminal defense cases, I learned that most often the defendant is guilty and the defense lawyer knows the defendant is guilty.  The job of the defense is to keep the State from fulfilling its promise to the jury: prove the case.  That was done here.  If the charges as filed and the jury instructions said X and if the State did not prove X, then the jury has to go with Y.  Even though following the spirit of the law might have rendered a different verdict.

I am still nauseated by the interview given by the defense trial consultant who said they selected women who would relate to Zimmerman's fear when Martin was beating him.  I wonder what these same women  would have felt walking alone in the nighttime in an unfamiliar neighborhood to be followed by a stranger in a car, who then left the car, chased them........do you think they would fight for their life?

At the same time I still cannot fathom how this jury reconciled that someone can put into motion all these events and stand behind a law designed to protect someone in Martin's shoes.   But I wasn't there.  Who am I to say?

At the end of the day no one really knows.

Still and all, this verdict is a reflection of the collective conscience and consciousness of the community: we allow racial bias, we allow gun-toting, we allow vigilantes, we allow angry, violent, cruel behaviors toward each other, in the media, toward animals, toward the environment. It is our collective consciousness that designs our world.  It's no wonder we have become what we allow.

Florida's own Emmett Till.

How Do You Move A Mind? Tell An Emotionally Meaningful Story.

 

I never excelled at math but I understood enough about formulas to create this one decades ago:

"content + context + value = emotionally meaningful story"

What does it mean?  Lawyers are storytellers. Your client's legal story depends on power, passion and precision to develop and deliver a persuasive argument. Otherwise, the story is equivalent to "water, fire, marshmallows, silicone - now draw your conclusions."

Our justice system turns on legal elements.  But those legal elements came about because somebody did something to somebody else under a set of circumstances.  Facts are necessary to prove the case; but it is the personal, emotional and conflicting aspects of the case that create compelling stories from the same forensic fact pattern.

Whether you are writing a brief, preparing for alternative dispute resolution or presenting your case to a jury, there is no substitute, no silver bullet, no simple technique that substitutes for hard work, creativity and this formula: content + context + human value = emotionally meaningful story.

The same holds true for anyone who uses narrative to relate, motivate, innovate, incite, appeal, agitate, and so on.

Click here to read Maggie Koerth-Baker's article, "The Mind of a Flip-Flopper," delving into the scientific research studying moral attitudes, the ways in which emotions and attitudes interact and, how to change a strongly held belief.  Excerpt.

"Moral attitudes are especially difficult to change, Haidt said, because the emotions attached to those preferences largely define who we are. “Certain beliefs are so important for a society or group that they become part of how you prove your identity,” he said. “It’s as though we circle around these ideas. It’s how we become one.”

We tend to side with people who share our identity — even when the facts disagree — and calling someone a flip-flopper is a way of calling them morally suspect, as if those who change their minds are in some way being unfaithful to their group. This is nonsense, of course. People change their minds all the time, even about very important matters. It’s just hard to do when the stakes are high. That’s why marshaling data and making rational arguments won’t work. Whether you’re changing your own mind or someone else’s, the key is emotional, persuasive storytelling."  [emphasis added.]

How come story works this way? Here's one answer: 

"Timothy Wilson is a psychology professor at the University of Virginia and the author of the book “Redirect,” about how we change our minds and behavior. Stories are more powerful than data, Wilson says, because they allow individuals to identify emotionally with ideas and people they might otherwise see as “outsiders.” Wilson says researchers speculate that children who grew up seeing friendly gay people on TV will be more likely to support gay marriage as adults, regardless of other political affiliations and religious beliefs. Once you care about a character, Wilson says, you can find a way to fit them into your identity."  [emphasis added.]

TIP:    content + context + value = emotionally meaningful story.

 

Q&A Tuesday: What Else Does Story Do? Navigate Life's Complex Social Problems.

Q:     How do stories make us human?  And what does this mean for the decision-maker?

A:    Plotlines can help change the brain when "a person is curious, is predicting what will happen next and is emotionally engaged."  What David Eagleman wrote in quotes I've been saying for decades.

You might agree that the way to take anything seriously is to care about it.  Likewise, to get the listener to care about your client’s case you must endow the story with importance by treating it as an emotional experience.

Well crafted story.  How do you do that?  You take the time to produce a well-crafted story that will serve as the premium communication device to focus decision-maker attention and judgment on certain key ideas or behaviors, as well as understand the significance of that behavior.

Virtual journey.  Why is this notion critical to success?  When decision-makers follow a story, they journey - virtually - with you into a different world, an imagined reality, another mental location where the story actually exists while never having left their physical state.  The process of transition from physical world to virtual world is active with the decision-maker energetically conniving and conspiring with the attorney all the time to actually will the virtual world into existence. Why? Because the decision-maker is curious about what is going on, wants to believe the story and that they can do something which matters.

Legal to local. Does this really happen?  You have witnessed this yourself in the courtroom.  Every day decision-makers are torn away from routines, placed in unfamiliar settings and asked to make profound decisions after being handed complex legal terminology that is supposed to help them address conflicting versions of the same facts.   They hear legal judgment - the series of formal justice procedures we call case law, opinions, rules of evidence for resolving disputes in our society.

Sort and organize.  How do they decide?  By formulating a story that explains the alleged activities in familiar terms using key messages or themes that define the case from their point of view.

Parallel judgment.  Your jurors organize and sort out complex legal information, especially conflicting information, into meaningful structures that make sense to create a parallel form of social judgment that anchors legal questions in everyday understanding.

Cooperative enterprise.  In the grip of a heartfelt story artfully told, their minds are fully engaged.  When fully engaged, your jurors are working with you in a cooperative enterprise, connected and considering options, possibilities and outcomes.

Persuasion.  Storytelling persuades when the decision-maker can place herself inside the story with ease, listen deductively, absorb a story that explains the conflict early on, articulate the story in her own terms, and filter the evidence selectively to be consistent with her personal story, world experience and understanding of the world order.

David Eagleman's NYTimes Book Review of Jonathan Gottschall's work, "The Storytelling Animal," reinforces the ways in which story and the telling of stories are not mere entertainment for housebound children on a rainy afternoon.  Excerpt.

"Remember, in “Star Wars,” when Luke Skywalker precisely aims his proton torpedoes into the vent shaft of the Death Star? Of course you do. It’s memorable because it’s the climax of a grand story about good triumphing over evil. (You’d be less likely to recall a moment in which a protagonist files her nails while discussing her day.) More important, Luke’s scene provides a good analogy: It’s not easy to infect the brain of another person with an idea; it can be accomplished only by hitting the small exposed hole in the system. For the brain, that hole is story-shaped. As anyone who teaches realizes, most information bounces off with little impression and no recollection. Good professors and statesmen know the indispensable po­tency of story.

This is not a new observation, but nowadays we have a better understanding of why it’s true. Changing the brain requires the correct neurotransmitters, and those are especially in attendance when a person is curious, is predicting what will happen next and is emotionally engaged. Hence successful religious texts are not written as nonfiction arguments or bulleted lists of claims. They are stories. Stories about burning bushes, whales, sons, lovers, betrayals and rivalries.

Story not only sticks, it mesmerizes. This is why WWE wrestling thrives on fake but exciting plotlines, why there are so many hours poured into prefight boxing hype, and why there are stirring back stories included in all the profiles of Olympic athletes. But not all stories are created equal. Gottschall points out that for a story to work, it has to possess a particular morality. To capture and influence, it can’t be plagued with moral repugnance — involving, say, a sexual love story between a mother and her son, or a good guy who becomes crippled and a bad guy who profits handsomely. If the narrative doesn’t contain the suitable kind of virtue, brains don’t absorb it. The story torpedo misses the exposed brain vent. (There are exceptions, Gottschall allows, but they only prove the rule.)

This leads to the suggestion that story’s role is “intensely moralistic.” Stories serve the biological function of encouraging pro-social behavior. Across cultures, stories instruct a version of the following: If we are honest and play by the social rules, we reap the rewards of the protagonist; if we break the rules, we earn the punishment accorded to the bad guy. The theory is that this urge to produce and consume moralistic stories is hard-wired into us, and this helps bind society together. It’s a group-level adaptation. As such, stories are as important as genes. They’re not time wasters; they’re evolutionary innovations."

TIP:    Use stories to help your decision-makers navigate lilfe's complex social problems.  "As such, stories are as important as genes. They’re not time wasters; they’re evolutionary innovations."

Do Not Swim, Hike Or Go To The Hospital Alone.

Let's begin here.  "The Short Life and Lonely Death of Sabrina Seelig" as reported by Anemona Hartocollis for the NYTimes reads as a cautionary tale: don't take Ephedra; make sure your jury relates to the story of your dead client; be aware of struggling hospitals, and so on.

What happened?  A 22 year old college student took Ephedra to stay up all night to complete a paper.  Feeling ill in the morning she called 911, an ambulance was dispatched, she was taken to a struggling Brooklyn hospital where she was given sedatives, strapped to a bed, slipped into a coma that evening unattended by the hospital staff and died 6 days after admission.

Her lawyer lost her case for any number of reasons.  I was not there nor part of the trial team.  I do not know.  What is reported is that there was (as there will always be) conflicting testimony, an uneven balance in the gaggle of experts, blame on the plaintiff for bringing about her own death, and juror distancing:

"After a day and a half of deliberations, the jury of four men and two women returned its verdict: Wyckoff and the individuals working there had not been negligent.

The jury did not seem to identify with Ms. Seelig."

As I have written and spoken before, the decision-maker must have some connection to your client.  The decision-maker does not need to have lost a sister or daughter or loved one to death.  The decision-maker does not need to have experience with medical malpractice.  But that decision-maker must be reminded of the values of safety, trust, and vulnerability, taught the medical rules including the simple four-step process of differential diagnosis, as well as the hospital rules of charting, monitoring, and vital signs. 

So often these cases turn on the inevitability of the outcome.  Apparently, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center was just the place.  Excerpt.

"In 2007, when Ms. Seelig was a patient, the state ordered Wyckoff to hire a management consultant to improve its governance and finances. Five years later, it is still struggling. The Brooklyn district attorney has been investigating allegations of mismanagement. A three-month investigation by The New York Times, the results of which were published in March, found a history of insider dealing and positions being given to people with political ties. The hospital officials involved denied any wrongdoing. The hospital does not carry malpractice insurance." 

One thing is for sure: if we have not yet gone to an emergency room or a hospital for treatment, we know someone who has.  One day we will most certainly be there ourselves. 

Here's the rule: Do not go to any hospital alone.  If you must, let someone know where you are going and when and why.

Several years ago I created a website for Vincent DeAngelo, an accomplished, highly-regarded medical malpractice attorney in Hartford, CT.  Mr. DeAngelo insisted that his website provide critical information to the public in five areas of potential medical malpractice: Vbacs, emergency rooms, medication errors, hospital infections, and nursing homes.

Click here to access DeAngelo's educational website complete with detailed downloadable pdfs you can read to learn more about these areas and information to take with you before going to the hospital.  

Our moms were right when they told us not to go swimming alone.  From the grave Sabrina Seelig is reminding us not to go to the hospital alone.

Fear Or Compassion? Which Motivates Action?

I've been reluctant to kick the hornet's nest on this one.  Folks seem pretty divided on The Reptile Theory.  Like Paris - you either love it or you hate it.

The notion that we should regard jurors as reptiles to get some huge verdict out of them by playing to their fears has always struck me as cold-blooded, and not a little inhuman.  How we regard people and things becomes how we treat them.  I felt so strongly about this I co-wrote an article with Stephanie West Allen and Jeffrey Schwartz for The Jury Expert entitled "Atticus Finch Would Not Approve."  [Click AllenSchwartzWyzgaTJEMay2010 to read.]  My position has only strengthened.

I used to work with a beekeeper who insisted on calling the honeybees "really angry" when they reacted to us opening the hive boxes.  He treated them as if they were somehow "really angry."  He over-smoked them.  He was tense, jumpy and afraid.  His physical actions conveyed fear.  At the end of the day working with him I was a wreck.

And yet, there was nothing to fear.  We were suited up for the job.  We would get head-bonked by some of the guard bees; but that was normal behavior.  No bees chased us or swarmed us.  A honeybee has to be truly threatened to sting; when she does she rips out her guts and dies.  Not an action to be taken lightly. 

When I was trained as a beekeeper I was told to remember, "No jerks in the beeyard." While I have not yet gotten to the stage where I will work my hives wearing only a veil, I know that to bee Zen keeps everyone - beekeepers and honeybees - calm.

It works with people, too.  The Science of Compassion by the social scientist David DeSteno writing for the NYTimes shares the results of scientific research that shows empathy with the suffering of others is alive and well.  Excerpt:

"As a social psychologist interested in the emotions, I long wondered whether this spiritual understanding of compassion was also scientifically accurate. Empirically speaking, does the experience of compassion toward one person measurably affect our actions and attitudes toward other people? If so, are there practical steps we can take to further cultivate this feeling? Recently, my colleagues and I conducted experiments that answered yes to both questions.

In one experiment, designed with the psychologist Paul Condon and published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, we recruited people to take part in a study that was ostensibly about the relation of mathematical ability to taste perception — but that in actuality was a study of how the experience of compassion affects your behavior.

In another study, published in the journal Emotion, the psychologist Piercarlo Valdesolo and I conducted an experiment ostensibly about music perception — but that actually investigated how feelings of compassion might be increased.

Our hunch was that compassion is easiest to feel when you have a sense of commonality with someone else."

And what did the scientists find?  Excerpt:

"What these results suggest is that the compassion we feel for others is not solely a function of what befalls them: if our minds draw an association between a victim and ourselves — even a relatively trivial one — the compassion we feel for his or her suffering is amplified greatly.

What does this mean for cultivating compassion in society? It means that effortful adherence to religious or philosophical dictums (often requiring meditation, prayer or moral education), though clearly valuable and capable of producing results, is not the only way to go. There is nothing special about tapping in synchrony; any such commonality will do. Increased compassion for one’s neighbor, for instance, can come from something as easy as encouraging yourself to think of him as (say) a fan of the same local restaurant instead of as a member of a different ethnicity.

Simply learning to mentally recategorize one another in terms of commonalities would generate greater empathy among all of us — and foster social harmony in a fairly effortless way."

I am not Pollyanna enough to believe that I can buy someone a Coke and the world will live in perfect harmony.  

I agree that there is fear in the world.  Look at everything from video games to the nightly news to the most recent midnight movie massacre in Aurora, CO.  You will get more than your share of a diet of human suffering. 

But fear does nothing to improve the situation - fear causes us to hide, bar the doors, become complacent.  Ironically, when we feel an empathy, a compassion for the situation we will act - whether for gun control, mental health, local food, a jury verdict, whatever.  How does it work this way?

"What these results suggest is that the compassion we feel for others is not solely a function of what befalls them: if our minds draw an association between a victim and ourselves — even a relatively trivial one — the compassion we feel for his or her suffering is amplified greatly."

Like my friend the angry beekeeper, you get what you name.  Whether or not the honeybees were "really angry," he perceived them as such and treated them that way.  It was how he perceived them that created the expectation of harm. 

I've had enough of fear.  I prefer to be on the side of those who encourage a deep compassion for human suffering and from that place articulate for action to lessen the plight of others.

Q&A Tuesday: Why Invest In Focus Group Research?

Q:   Why should I invest in focus group research?

A:    Reconnaissance.

I am often asked what is the worth of investing in focus group research.  The answers are as many and as varied as the lawsuit you have filed or are considering filing:

1. learn attitudes
2. learn opinions
3. learn biases
4. learn notions
5. get ideas for discovery
6. get ideas for strategy
7. test the legal story
8. test the experts
9. test the experts' opinions
10. test the other side's story(ies)
11. test the visuals, demonstratives
12. test your own platform skills
13. ferret out the landmines
14. learn all the ways you can (or might) lose your case
15. learn whether you should even file a lawsuit
16. value of the case
17. whether alternative dispute resolution is feasible
18. ideas for direct and cross examination
19. witness preparation
20. whether and how to go to battle
21. and so on.

Still, lawyers are not convinced that they should invest a reasonable amount of money to learn what is bad and worse about their cases, their clients, and their own strategy.

So I am forced to go to a movie to plead my case.  The other night I was watching Steven Spielberg's Academy Award nominated production, "War Horse" based on the novel of the same name.

Early on in the movie, British cavalry officers listen to a report from their scouts about the location of enemy German soldiers.  The Brits learn the number of German troops, number of mounts, artillary, best positions of attack, strategy for attack, risks of loss of men, and so on. 

As the Brits prepare to attack the German soldiers, the officer in charge tells the scout, "Time spent on reconnaissance is time well spent."   

And then they went to battle. 

Who Here Has Given Jury Service?

Would it surprise you to learn that it's not nearly so many as we might think or have been led to believe:

"Twenty-nine percent of the adult American population has served as a juror. The remaining 71% of Americans live with, live next to, work with, or otherwise hear about the experiences, good and bad, of those 29% who have lived it first hand."

- Tom Munsterman
Director Emeritus, Center for Jury Studies
http://www.ncsconline.org/D_Research/cjs/

The media is replete with hair-raising jury and juror stories derived from jurors on high-profile cases, Twittering jurors, pathological liar jurors responsible for causing a mistrial, blogging jurors, texting jurors, flirting jurors, sleeping jurors, Facebook-ing jurors and those who truly want to do a good job.

What's a lawyer to do?  Look no further than the National Center for State Courts Center for Jury Studies.  Following is the Mission Statement:

"Most Americans are more likely to experience the American jury justice system as a juror than as any other type of participant in the legal system. The Center for Jury Studies is dedicated to facilitating the ability of these citizens to fulfill their role within the justice system and enhancing their confidence and satisfaction with jury service by helping judges and court staff improve jury management. To do so, the Center engages in cutting-edge research to identify practices that

- promote broad participation by the community in the jury system
- respect jurors' contributions to the justice system
- utilize jurors' time effectively and make reasonable accommodations for their comfort and privacy, and
- provide jurors with the decision-making tools necessary to make informed and fair judgments in the cases submitted to them."

The Center for Jury Studies disseminates this information through technical assistance contracts, educational programs, and public outreach.

You might wish to check out the publications on such topics as jury size, jury nullification and effective voir dire to learn how to expand the process of justice through your community and courtroom leadership.

13 Minutes With Bill Harley - Storyteller - TEDx: Stories Out Loud.

Back in the day I fell in love with the storyteller Bill Harley.  But then so did many many many folks: storytellers and listeners alike.  We knew so many of his stories and song by heart.  Bill made us happy and nostalgic and giddy and wistful at the same time.

Over the decades, articles, blog posts, and presentations to thousands of lawyers, I've said the same things about the importance and power of story:

1. To make your story emotionally meaningful to the listener, you must marry content (facts) to context (circumstance).
2. We are wired to hear narrative, to sort matters out - even legal matters - in narrative.
3. Narrative is how we figure out the ways to carry on despite the problems in our lives.

TIP:    Click here to take 13 minutes to listen to Bill Harley in his recent TEDx talk on the power that stories have which no media, no social network, no list of facs (or factoids), no computer can match.

A few highlights:

TIP:    We are creatures of context.  Context gives order: what happened before and what came after.  Order gives meaning.

TIP:    Stories are how we assign meaning to our lives, and the lives of others.

TIP:    The stories we create are how we answer the riddle of the problem so we can carry it through our life without it dragging us down.

TIP:    We are not built to remember lists of facts - we are wired to recall narrative.

TIP:    Stories work because they are cognitive & emotional: safe to think about because it’s not about us: we take the story & apply it to us & take us & apply to the story.

TIP:    Know when to speed up & slow down.  Know which visual underscores the narrative.

TIP:    Rely on this: we are genetically encoded to pay attention to the person in front of us. 

AND, if the one in front of us is you, the storyteller, imagine what you can do with the power of story.

 

 

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.