When Bad Things Happen To Good Attorneys!
My last few blogs highlighted a couple of programs designed to assist the in-house counsel present their cases, unassisted, in a courtroom. I caught some flack for that from fellow presenters who thought I was shooting our industry in the foot.
I'm happy to report that my recommendation, at least on the local level, went unheeded.
Over the past few weeks I've had the opportunity to assist in multi-document as well as basic presentations. In the case of the multi-document case our services were there from the start, from scanning each exhibit to preparing the video depositions with synchronized text. The opposing counsel arrived with his "dog and pony show" as well, complete with his home DVD player and his PowerPoint presentation and a woefully inadequate projector. The case began, we opened first, all went well - easy peezy.
NOTE: To those of us in this industry who do this on a regular basis, this is not "Rocket Science". After all, we're the geeks you remember as the "Audio-Visual" guys in high school and college. The nerds with their heads buried in their computers. You know us -you pretended to hate us, but deep down you sat in awe of our abilities.
It's what we do. It's our calling.
When the opposing counsel's opportunity to open came up the results were somewhat predictable: dim projector (which needed to be focused), a "PowerPoint Read-a-Long" that put everyone to sleep and a errant DVD player. Right on cue something went amiss in the PowerPoint presentation. I couldn't see the screen because I was sitting back in my usual position but, I could tell by the "deer in the headlights" look of the opposing counsel that something was amiss. I love this part.. you know, when they have that look of hoping for divine intervention or that the jury would somehow overlook this fluke. But they really wanted to be anywhere but here.
My message here is - if you're not comfortable with the presentation processes save you and your client the embarrassment of appearing incompetent - do what you do best - be a lawyer - leave the fun stuff to us professionals!
PS- Let us slay your dragon! - I can be reached, toll-free at (800)261-7266 or, check out our web site at http://www.VRLegal.com!
Great piece, Charles! I just had a similar experience in a closing argument in which we (plaintiff) had full-on technology, one defendant had nothing but small blow-ups, and the other displayed everything we've been taught not to do with PowerPoint, including text fly-ins, random transitions and even random backgrounds. I feel an article coming on...
---Ted