The (All To Common) PowerPoint Presentation - Are You Putting The Jury To Sleep?

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Charles Perez

Everybody knows what a PowerPoint presentation is - right? Both of my daughters were taught the basics of presenting in PowerPoint in 6th grade and were required to use it for science and history projects in high school.

The fact is, I'd say it's safe to assume that almost everyone has seen at least one PowerPoint presentation - former Vice-President Al Gore re-emereged into the public consciousness with his award winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth"  which is really only a PowerPoint presentation on film.

Now, let's assume you've become quite comfortable with PowerPoint and it's your first line of presentation in your practice.

So...what's the problem?

Consider the fact that your "audience" is already quite familiar with watching a PowerPoint "slide presentation" (quaint isn't it? A  PowerPoint "slide presentation" - not quite what we had when I was a kid, but, I digress).. anyway - think for a minute..

  • How many PowerPoint presentations have they, your audience,  been exposed to? 
  • How does your presentation "stack up" against the "competiton" (opposing council)?
  • Are you still using "Bullets" in your presentation? (Yikes!)
  • Do you read everything that is on the screen or,
  • Does your presentation support / reinforce the topic / argument you are presenting?

If you're preparing your PowerPoint presentations "in-house" and still using PowerPoint with it's built-in templates you're probably creating a lot of glazed looks in your audience as soon as you start.

 I'll bet you're reading each line to them which they can read for themselves. How DULL is that?

My advice is to STOP IMMEDIATLEY!

If your budget doesn't allow for outsourcing to a service like ours ( LitigationAssist.com )invest a few hours (and a few dollars) on the following reference manuals and spiff up your presentation within a few hours:

Lee F. Peoples, Associate Director, Oklahoma City University Law Library has written an easily referenced nine page guide entitled "PowerPoint in The Courtroom" that highlights topics in "PowerPoint For Litigators" . This is an excellent "easy read" reference guide that all attorneys relying on PowerPoint should review.

Additional references include:

Any of these books will elevate your presentation. If you're going to rely on PowerPoint to tell your story there's no excuse for doing it the same way year after year.

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