Continuing Legal Education Today : MCLE for Attorneys & Legal Professionals : Faith Pincus : Pincus Professional Education : Continuing Legal Education (CLE), Public Speaking

Here are a few more tips from my interviews and conversations with judges, as well as from our programs:

 

Don't just grab that brief that your (or someone else) wrote and filed months ago and skim it before going in to court.  Study the facts and the cases like you're going to be taking a test on them.

That way you can respond to questions about anything in the brief, not just what you thought was important.

• Create a one page cheat sheet with issue, case cite, holding and page in brief

This allows you to respond to questions quickly, competently and professionally without having to search for cases in your brief while your judge(s) wait for you.

• Practice, Practice, Practice

A summary judgement motion is just as important as trial. Practice your argument, have someone moot you, be prepared.  A frequent complaint hear from judges is about attorneys who come in and wing it off their briefs.

And for a great short read about the other side of the coin, see "Five Oral Argument Tips - For Judges" on Howard Bashman's How Appealing.law Blog by the Hon. Michael W. Mosman,U.S. District Judge, District of Oregon on how judges could behave better when hearing oral arguments.

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Just a quick entry to say check out Carolyn Elefant's post on passion and enjoying yourself. 

Gave me a nice lift today as I find myself distracted by the (at last!) fabulous So. Cal. weather and wanting to take one of the dogs to the beach instead of working on work.

Go Carolyn and thanks for the boost!

 

 

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In the spirit of David Letterman's Top Ten... here are the top10 ways to ensure you are not invited back to speak at an event:

10.   Spend the entire time you are on the panel eating snacks.

9.     Interrupt the other speakers and monopolize the program (when on a panel).

8.    Spend so much time reminiscing with your war stories you don't cover all, or even most, of your topics.

7.    Come unprepared and wing it.

6.    Bow out of an event after committing to the program, without providing a replacement speaker of equal credentials and quality.

5.     Present a canned Power Point that you use all the time, but doesnt really fit your topic.

4.     Arrive at the event a few minutes before you present with a Power Point presentation without having made any Power Point arrangements in advance.

3.     Read your outline or Power Point to the audience.

2.     Present on a topic other than what was agreed upon.

And the number one way......

1.     Show up late.

 

 

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     This is the first in a series of Top Tip posts I’ll be making on litigation and presentation skills, culled from Pincus Professional Education CLE programs by judges, staff attorneys and practitioners, as well as the public speaking and oral argument courses I teach.

Improving your Oral Argument, Part I:

Presentation skills are critical to the success of any attorney. We need to be good at presenting in the board room, the court room, the office and even in the community, because that is what the job demands.

And, the better one is at public speaking, in any context, the more that person is perceived as an expert and a leader and the more that person advances in her or his career.

Below are five quick tips to improve your public speaking skills in the court room – but I could go on forever, and will provide more later on. These tips come straight from judges and court staff attorneys.  

1. Find out who your audience is and meet their needs: in this case – the judge(s) or Justice(s)

Make sure your presentation is right for your audience – your trial or appellate judge.  Who is the judge and what is her or his (or their) approach on the bench? Should you expect a lot of questions, a quiet judge, a hot panel? Instead of approaching the argument from your perspective, approach it from theirs.

How do you do this?

•  ask around;

•  most importantly, take the time to go see your judge(s) / justice(s) in action, on multiple days;

•  think you don’t have time for a and b above?

You really do, you just have to give something else up – one less lunch, one less day at the gym, or a few less billable hours that month … whatever it is you have to give up, it is worth it to not be surprised the day of your argument.

And you will be amazed at how much you learn just by watching other attorneys do well, or not so well.

For a quick post on finding out more about your judge, regardless of where the court is located, see "Well, You’re Better Than You Look.” by Eileen Burkhalter Smith on the Young Lawyers Blog for more ideas on this topic.    

2. Organize, Organize, Organize

One of the biggest problems attorneys have when presenting is being disorganized. That includes trying to cover too much. 

In an oral argument, you have time to cover, at most, 3 important issues. Pick your top three issues, and practice arguing them in any order possible.

For an excellent, detailed post on the how to organize, the judge's perspective, and what to expect, see Andrew Frey's article, "Preparing and Delivering Oral Argument" on Mayer Brown's Appellate Net site. 

3. Don’t read your brief or your presentation.

First rule of oral argument: never read your brief. Assume the judge and her lawclerks have read it. 

Second rule, don’t write your presentation out word for word and read it. I know some of you love to do this, but it is a habit you have to learn to drop.  

Oral argument is your opportunity to have a conversation with your judge(s). 

It’s one of the most exciting, rewarding parts of litigating (really!). This is your chance to engage on an intellectual level with your judge and it’s their chance to get their questions answered (see #4 below) and learn what they need to learn to decide the case.

None of that happens if you read a presentation. On top of that, it really annoys judges.

I once heard a 20+ year career staff attorney for an appellate court describe oral argument this way:

“the most effective advocate imagines he or she is a law clerk in chambers explaining why a judge should go a certain way. They are not argumentative; instead, they focus on having a conversation about why judge should make the desired ruling.”
 

Many courts provide tips on their website and also post post oral arguments for you to learn from.  For example check out the Florida Supreme Court's information, "Information about Oral Arguments."

 

Continue Reading...

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It’s time to update my mobile technology, so I decided to read a few posts on the latest options. I recommend this post by Ryan McKeen and Finis Price at the ABA Law Journal comparing the Droid v. the IPhone. 

That does it, I’m getting a droid! 

Lawyerist has a quick post about how an attorney can put an IPad to use.  I'm not convinced it's enough reason to buy one, but he has a few good ideas.

On the other hand, the ABA is talking about publishing an interactive version of my upcoming public speaking for attorneys book in a IPad platform - complete with links to video and audio samples of public speaking and oral argument do's and dont's.  If a lot of publishers go that route with their books, it makes the IPad a lot more interesting.

 

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Hi all,

Sorry to say, I haven't been around the blogosphere much lately - at least not my own blog that is. I know - they rock and it's good for me to write on a regular basis. But so is exercise and eating right and I can't manage that right now either.

So, in lieu of some pithy interesting advice or commentary, I'm sending you over to the brilliant Cordell Parvin, who writes fantastic posts on a daily basis.  Cordell, can you write mine too? (just kidding).

Check out Cordell's latest post on what he's reading that you might want to read too.  Very interesting stuff on:

• Social Media Content Plans
• Why you need more than Passion to be a success
• Seth Godin on Self Determination
• Building your Brand, and
• Price Points

Links to Seth Godin, Chris Brodin (are these guys related or what - every time I hear their names I think they should go on the road together .. .Godin and Brodin... Brodin and Godin...), John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing (also great posts) and more provided.  And I'm not providing direct links to the stories, because I think Cordell's comments are worth reading, so go there first!

Check it out.

 

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I just found this great post by Vicky Pynchon,  at her www.negotiationlawblog.com blog on a judge who ordered counsel to have lunch (with thanks to Roger Wood, at Association Law Blog). 

The judge's tongue in cheek order shows a great sense of humor.  It also cleverly demonstrates just how ridiculous judges belive attorneys are when they behave like idiots.   

This one goes in my "it's about your credibility column."  The attorneys involved will never live this one down.

 

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Just last week a speaker at the American Continuing Legal Education Association's mid-year conference in Orlando stated that he thought attorneys over a "Certain Age" (capitals intended!) were not using social networking as a means of communication, networking or finding out about legal community events, such as continuing legal education programs.

What? Are you kidding me? 

OK, I'm thinking to myself, I'm probably on the (much) lower end of his Certain Age scale (if I'm on it at all) so I probably don't count.  So, just for fun, I took a casual poll (a very scientific casual poll, I promise) of my attorney friends via Twitter and Facebook and, go figure, they disagreed.

I know, skewed poll, they're using social networking.

Need to poll folks the old fashioned way, by email.  But still, many of my friends who pipped up said they were of a Certain Age and they couldn't imagine business or personal life without social networking.

Where am I going with this? 

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I'm excited to announce that I have recently added Finz Advance Tapes to the Pincus CLE line up. 

Brought to you by Pincus Legal Education, Inc., I will continue to deliver the excellent, informative and fun audio summaries and analysis of Torts and Civ Pro/Evidence cases in CA that Professor Steven Finz was known for these past 18 years.

In the tradition of Professor Steven Finz, Professor Pat Cain and other well respected law professors will continue to analyze and summarize the latest case law in CA related to the two available series topics: Torts and Civ Pro/Evidence.  

I have already listened to one of Pat's Cd's and her humor and tone is as charming and easy to listen to as Steve's was.  The next monthly CD release will include Professor John Diamond from UC Hastings and Professor Pat Cain discussing the latest torts cases.

We will announce the Civil Procedure/Evidence professors to take over in a bit.

Please see www.advancecollege.org or www.pincuslegaled.com for more information.

 

 

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