Litigation Support

Opening Statement Presentation ? NO BULLET POINTS ? $16 Million Verdict

By Blake Boyd

Most attorneys, paralegals and litigation support staff don’t understand that Legal PowerPoint / Keynote presentations are supposed to be used to help support the story, not tell it. The attorney is Batman and the PowerPoint, Robin.

I was excited to learn I was being given freedom to design the Opening Statement without a single bullet point. I spent a couple hours with the attorney gathering his ideas and put this presentation together without much direction.

During opening my client only referred to the slides as a guide on what to talk about next, the actual slides only gave a visual reference to his story (or facts of the case). I think it went over very well, the jury was listening to him, not reading the screen.

(This was a trucking accident where the truck driver was drunk, traveling the wrong way down the highway causing a mild traumatic brain injury.)

Full post as published by The Trial Technologist's View on February 01, 2011 (boomark / email).