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| Source: Amazon.com |
Win Your Case: How to Present, Persuade, and Prevail--Every Place, Every Time by Gerry Spence
From the Book's Cover:
Gerry Spence is perhaps America's most renowned and successful trial lawyer, a man known for his deep convictions and his powerful courtroom presentations when he argues on behalf of ordinary people. Frequently pitted against teams of lawyers thrown against him by major corporate or government interests, he has never lost a criminal case and has not lost a civil jury trial since l969.
In Win Your Case, Spence shares a lifetime of experience teaching you how to win in any arena-the courtroom, the boardroom, the sales call, the salary review, the town council meeting-every venue where a case is to be made against adversaries who oppose the justice you seek. Relying on the successful courtroom methods he has developed over more than half a century, Spence shows both lawyers and laypersons how you can win your cases as he takes you step by step through the elements of a trial-from jury selection, the opening statement, the presentation of witnesses, their cross-examinations, and finally to the closing argument itself.
Spence teaches you how to prepare yourselves for these wars. Then he leads you through the new, cutting-edge methods he uses in discovering the story in which you form the evidence into a compelling narrative, discover the point of view of the decision maker, anticipate and answer the counterarguments, and finally conclude the case with a winning final argument.
To make a winning presentation, you are taught to prepare the power-person (the jury, the judge, the boss, the customer, the board) to hear your case. You are shown that your emotions, and theirs, are the source of your winning. You learn the power of your own fear, of honesty and caring and, yes, of love. You are instructed on how to role-play through the use of the psychodramatic technique, to both discover and tell the story of the case, and, at last, to pull it all together into the winning final argument.
Whether you are presenting your case to a judge, a jury, a boss, a committee, or a customer, Win Your Case is an indispensable guide to success in every walk of life, in and out of the courtroom.
Synopsis:
Trial lawyer Gerry Spence takes the reader through the accumulated skills he has developed over years of defending accused criminals, some of them quite high profile cases, and pursuing monetary damages in civil cases. He starts out by describing the need to, as he puts it, have a good saddle on an equally good horse. The analogy, which he attributes to his uncle, is that it doesn't matter if your saddle is worth $1000 if the horse you are riding isn't worth ten bucks. In other words, a learned man who can't apply his knowledge to real-life practice is not going to be able to bring any of that high priced training to bear. The lesson was not lost on this reader.
Spence continues on by explaining his own tactics in winning cases, which he says are just stories that need to be told. Included are such elements as the ability to get your point across to other people, for as Spence points out, we all make our decisions in our gut and then rationalize them based on our intellectual abilities afterward. I'm not sure I totally agree with that conviction, but I can agree that I tend to feel a decision before I feel really confident about the means by which I came to it. So there may be something to it. Then again, it may just be the power of suggestion.
The author then adds on other skills that he has learned, such as listening with empathy instead of asking questions and then going straight to your next thought without taking time to actually listen. This makes good sense too, as the best speakers are also usually the best listeners. Or so I've heard.
Win Your Case spends a great deal of time explaining techniques that would-be arguers could use to improve their skills as potential trial lawyers (those who argue a case before a jury in a court of law). The author attempts to also direct comments toward the lay person as well, though it is clear that Spence is at home in his element and that his skills are best used by others who share his profession.
The author spends time discussing methods in which people might help analyze the way in which others made a choice (such as how an accused client felt when placed in a situation of being accused of a crime he/she didn't commit - more on that in a minute) or reacted to a situation. He refers to this as Psychodrama. Look for it to pop up again in this review.
Mr. Spence also explains how to do an effective cross examination, which is the method in which a lawyer attempts to refute the testimony of a witness on the stand in a trial situation. This was the strongest part of the book, in my opinion.
During all this instruction, the author takes time to give his own particular spin on many subjects, including education, the criminal code in the United States, and the situation in our justice system. He even takes time to make a few cracks at organizations and people with whom he seems to hold a grudge. He does amend the names of many private organizations, to avoid outright defamation (or is it slander? I can never keep those two straight). But you can tell he has his opinions, and he makes no bones for them.
Caution: Video clip contains adult language.
This is a rather famous scene from the film A Few Good Men. Mr. Spence says such a scene (though he doesn't name this one specifically, that I recall) is unrealistic. He says that in his entire time practicing law before a jury, he has never had a person break down on the stand and confess in such dramatic terms. Still, it makes for an exciting conclusion to the movie, at least.
What I liked about it:
I must admit, I found the author's arguing skills to be top notch. For instance, the book inadvertently made me think about how I typically view defendants in criminal proceedings, and - at the same time - also to re-evaluate my feelings about the attorneys who defend people who (to my previously more one-sided view) are nothing better than criminals and parasites on the backs of the American population. You see somebody on the news and it's hard not to think to yourself: "yeah, he's guilty." Know what I mean?
But Lord love him, Gerry Spence did make me really think about these beliefs, through his persuasive commentary on the fundamental basis behind them. He really gets to the heart of the matter, I guess you'd say. I got to agreeing a bit more with him about how the justice system in this country has its problems.
For example, he uses the story of a crooked cop and his partner. This cop goes into a building and then shoots and kills a man. He says he thought the guy had a gun, and he's been shot at before and doesn't want to give somebody else a chance to kill him. Knee-jerk self defense before the fact, as it were. The cop places a so-called "throw away" gun under the body. He tells his partner to back him up. It's them against the deceased's wife, and who are most people gonna believe, ya know?
Now the wife of the deceased could reasonably be due some compensation for the cop's misdeeds, even if there isn't enough proof for putting the crooked cop away for manslaughter (a wrongful death suit, in other words). But this sort of lawsuit makes the local police force look bad. What can be done in a situation like that? And is it a realistic scenario? Though I'd say most of the nation's police are good men doing a tough job and being underpaid, I'm sure there are instances when this sort of thing actually happens. It makes an ordinary citizen question the system. At least this "ordinary" citizen did.
My point is, even though I am not about to change my views on crime completely, I do have a new appreciation for the role that a good lawyer may have in defending an accused criminal. They can't all be guilty, after all. It is too bad we can't see into the hearts of men and know how to judge them fairly. But that just isn't how it works.
This example above is just part of what I admired about the book. Something else I enjoyed was Mr. Spence's explanation of the process of cross examination. It is remarkable in its simplicity and yet its subtle power to unearth a cogent story from a witness who, in other circumstances, might sink an attorney's case by saying things that that attorney doesn't want put in the trial's record or on the minds of the jury. The technique involves telling the story of the events that occurred, and after each portion (cutting said story up into sentence length statements), asking: "isn't that true?" This places the responsibility for correct answers on the person on the stand, and keeps them from rambling on into things that are neither relevant nor particularly helpful to the case. It also keeps you from "leading" a witness, since you aren't putting words in their mouth or anything, and can be used to come at an issue in several directions, should the opposing council get a sustained objection at some point. Fascinating.
The author also advocates speaking in a respectful manner to all involved in a case, and especially those that you don't care for. He specifically proposes not showing disdain, even for opposing participants in the trail process who may seem especially atrocious in their handling of the case. He uses the example of a time in which, as a young lawyer representing a plaintiff seeking money for injury sustained, he spewed his wrath on a witness whom he thought was particularly dirty and low. The jury turned around and sided with the defendant, and his client went away without monetary compensation. When he asked one of the jurors, after the trail was over, what happened, the person responded: "why did you make us hate you so much? Some of us felt you were right, but your malice lost you the case" (I'm paraphrasing part of that, but you get the idea). A helpful lesson. Don't make yourself the bad guy when trying to win your case.
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| Mr. Spence was the lawyer who defended Randy Weaver (successfully) at his trial. This fact is mentioned a couple times in the book. This case was especially interesting to me as I remember seeing the news footage on TV when I was younger, with the accompanying hullabaloo that came with the supposedly botched actions of the Federals. / Source: WRAMsite.com |
What I didn’t like about it:
I've actually touched on a couple things that I didn't like about this one already. First, the whole approach to defending accused criminals, for one. The book was a double-edged sword on this one. I admired his tenacity and his skill, as I have said. But I also... well, attorneys defending people who you just feel in your gut have hurt somebody mercilessly are hard to find lovable, you know what I mean? Who wants to admire and respect an apologist for Satan? That's over-dramatizing it, but you get the idea.
While it is commendable to do your best to help people who are accused of committing crimes, and likewise commendable to believe in your cause, I can't shake the feeling that Gerry Spence did such a good job of making me think about the other side of the coin (the plight of the "innocent" person who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time) that perhaps he is just a shyster. A couple of times, despite his excellent rhetorical skills, I couldn't help but hear the paraphrased quote "methinks he doth protest too much" in the back of my mind. Know what I mean?
More importantly, I don't particularly agree with the concept of psychodrama as he was applying it. Explained as simplistically as I am able, the idea is that you gather a group of people, from experts directly involved in a particular case or matter, down to acquaintances whom you feel comfortable bouncing ideas off of, and ask them to role-play a situation in order to come up with possible counter arguments and motives and general "feel" for how an argument might go. Gathering ammunition through collective brain-storming, you might call it. This supposed ammunition is meant to be used against the facts presented by the opposing side; that is, the prosecution in a criminal case (I believe it's called a grand jury, but my law knowledge is limited to TV dramas and a scattering of things I've picked up through harmless run-ins with the justice system), and the defense council when it's a civil suit seeking monetary damages.
The problem I see is that when you let people's imaginations run wild, they can come with all kinds of crazy junk that is not Germain to the case, and can be downright manipulative. If psychodrama were used with a judicial eye (ooh - there's a good word for this review!), it could be used effectively. If it is done with discretion and skill. But my fear is that, based on the description of the free-flow manner in which Mr. Spence approaches it, psychodrama could turn into a lot of psycho hooey.
Last, and I'll only touch on it, the man puts a bit too much of his personal point of view in a book that is supposed to be a sort of "self help" text. Your opinions on the justice system or the role of paid experts or any of a dozen other matters are all fine and well and such, but when you spend great chunks of your book telling us about how things are really messed up, you sort of loose some of your credulity. At least that's how it ended up with me. I was impressed by his arguing skills, and even more so that they made me question my preconceived notions on the subjects he brought up. But his "soap-boxing" wore a bit thin after awhile. If the argument is good enough and the facts are sound, the case speaks for itself. I think Mr. Spence would agree with that sentiment, even though he breaks that law himself on multiple occasions within his book.
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| The author, Gerry Spence. / Source: LegalNewsline.com |
What I learned, if anything:
I learned d a lot about the other side of the criminal justice system, i.e.: the defense of suspects in criminal cases, and the pursuing of civil court cases when monetary recompense is sought. I even learned an interesting point of view on how to approach the issue of why a person can ask damages in a case where they lost a part of themselves, or a loved one, in a civil case. The argument goes like this: we can't fix the problem, and we can't bring back what was lost, so what is that person's loss (be it by injury or death of a loved one) worth? The smart attorney asks for the full amount of damages, not because of greed for the sake of the client, but because you can't say "well, my daughter was only worth a measly $10,000. She was a real pain in the butt sometimes." I wouldn't have had any idea on how to address such a question.
There were other things that I learned from the book, but I'll save those for the reader to find out for themselves. Let's not give it all away here, huh?
Recommendation:
I would recommend this book to those who are interested in learning how to present an argument more effectively. Whether you are lawyer or layman, there is certainly something in here to learn, unless you already happen to be an expert trial lawyer and world-class argument winner. The book is definitely slanted toward those who are in the profession of law. Truly, if I was accused of a crime or trying to get damages in civil court, I'd want my attorney to have read and understood this book.
Win Your Case also paints an interesting side of the issue when thinking about the role that defense/civil prosecution lawyers face. Made me think, and that is worth the time, in my estimation. But the personal philosophy does get a bit thick, in places. Bottom line: This one isn't for everybody, but it may just be up your alley if you fit the description I've given in this recommendation. And please, if you're a lawyer, tack this on to all that expensive law school you've suffered through. Can't hurt too much, despite what you may end up thinking of Mr. Spence's off-sides ramblings.
Learn more about Win Your Case: How to Present, Persuade and Prevail-Every Place, Every Time, on Amazon.com
The parting comment:
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| Source: LolSnaps.com |
This would never work. Just the same, you could get a good lawyer to defend you at your trial. And if not, read Mr. Spence's book and then defend yourself, "pro-se." But don't be surprised if you end up paying a hefty fine for speeding and then lying to the cops.
I hope this doesn't mean you're going to try to win more disagreements with wifey...because we all know how that will end. ;)
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