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Winning with PowerPoint: jurors understand better what they can see. Putting key elements of your case into a visual presentation will help you organize your thinking and enhance your powers of persuasion.

Article Excerpt
Ever watched a trial on The Practice or Law and Order? Of course, a real trial can't fairly be compared to those television spectacles, but dramatic and fast-moving trials on the tube foster high expectations in real life. Trial lawyers can't meet all those media-stoked hopes, but there is one juror expectation we can fulfill: We can be interesting and prepared.

To avoid a boring trial and help prepare your evidence, add structure and dash with presentation software. Other industries have relied on Microsoft PowerPoint for years. The program is easy to learn and use, and it gives trial lawyers a simple, polished way to present information--jury charges, photographs, deposition excerpts, video clips, animations, graphs, and sounds. Changes on the fly are a snap. It's not the only presentation product, and perhaps not the best, but it's the standard by which all others are judged.

You probably already own a copy of PowerPoint, because it came either with your computer or as part of Microsoft Office. Most users barely scratch the surface of PowerPoint's capabilities, and some err at the outset by trying to use its banal templates to structure a presentation. You can get the most from PowerPoint by forgetting the other presentations you've seen and using it--at first--as a simple way to organize, access, present, aim enhance visual evidence.

Suppose computers are not your strong point or you lack the time or interest to develop the necessary skills. You may prefer to have someone else create your presentation. Even if you don't build your own PowerPoint slides, you need to learn enough about how it's done to be able to make simple changes as needed.

Be sure you know the program well enough to reorder slides, blank the screen, add or remove text, save your changes, and restart the presentation should you need to reboot. You should be able to alter your demonstrative evidence in response to changing strategies and the court's rulings.

The thought processes that go into preparing a PowerPoint presentation for trial or mediation will make you a better advocate. PowerPoint forces you to focus on a coherent, linear presentation, while helping you define the key points of your client's case. Best of all, using PowerPoint frees you from relying on notes, so you' re not chained to a lectern or leafing madly through a legal pad.

The Internet was around for years before it leapt into the public consciousness, but hardly anyone paid attention until it acquired a new dimension: pictures. We are wired for sight and programmed early for "show and tell," not just "tell." The most compelling stories end with the assertion, "I saw it with my own eyes."

Our ability to retain information was long ago proven to be 650 percent better when we see and hear information, compared with only hearing it. (See Harold Weiss & J.B. McGrath Jr., Technically Speaking: Oral Communication for Engineers, Scientists, and Technical Personnel (1963).) Visual persuasion is powerful, and technology makes it easy.

Harnessing the power of visual persuasion and getting the most out of PowerPoint...

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