» Entries tagged with "persuasion"

Practicing Like a Performance

Roy Black wrote yesterday about practice. He discussed Steve Jobs and his obsession with preparation and practice, compulsively rehearsing for every presentation in order to make it look effortless. This is one of Roy’s suggestions for practicing: Take notes as you practice, stop immediately when you notice a mistake or an uncomfortable moment and correct it. Analyze and re-analyze your presentation as you go. Make staging notes like cutting down on time on certain parts, and how to enunciate tricky words and phrases. It strikes me that what Roy describes is certainly an important aspect of practice, but it’s really only half of one part of the big picture of effective preparation. Although I’m sure he does it in his own preparation, in his post, he never really explains … Read entire article »

Filed under: Trial

Being Present

In yoga, the focus is often on being present.  It’s about understanding what’s going on but not judging.  You should feel what your body is doing as you stay in the moment. Most of us in the legal profession got here not by living in the moment, but through significant forethought and strong will.  Those aren’t bad qualities, but they’re only helpful in certain aspects of the practice of law. Drafting a motion is one such aspect.  The motion doesn’t really exist in time, as the reader reviews it at his own pace.  It’s more like painting a portrait than performing a concert.  The reader is going to stroll through the gallery and control his own time when he gets to what you’ve created. He doesn’t have to sit down and … Read entire article »

Filed under: Trial

Details

Jeff Gamso put up a post today that included, among other things, a portion of a detailed log about what one death row inmate did prior to his execution. For example, at 10:50:23, he asked for grape soda. At 10:55:36, he requested a “special meal” of a T-bone steak with A-1 steak sauce and a “Chief” salad with blue cheese dressing. Details like that make everything feel more real, and in this particular case, those details really humanize that man for me. Knowing his last meal does more to upset me about his execution than all the mitigation in the world. It drives home that the government killed a person. It’s hard for me to think that an evil monster would have a favorite steak sauce … Read entire article »

Filed under: Trial

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