I have been a business litigation lawyer in the Los Angeles area for nearly 25 years.  One thing for sure is that anyone who has been a party to a lawsuit knows it is all about winning.  Clients want results and results to them is being the winning party.

But when a jury is deciding your case consisting of 12 strangers who do not know you or much about the law you realize quickly that you have little control over your destiny.  Your fate is in the hands of the jury.

There are things that you can do however, that can tilt the jury in your favor.  First, you need to hire an attorney who is knowledgeable in the area  of law involved in your case.  If the issue in your lawsuit is trade secrets, you need a lawyer who is familiar with trade secret law and unfair competition.  The second thing you need to do is hire an attorney who has trial experience.  Someone with a proven track record of success in presenting cases before a jury.

What I do when I get a case is first establish my theory of the case.  The theory of the case is a short statement about one paragraph stating the facts favorable to your client that explains what happened, why it happened and why your client should prevail.  Once you refine your theory of the case you only put on evidence at trial consistent with your theory of the case.  If you add extra evidence it becomes the kitchen sink approach.

After you establish your theory of the case based upon a review of the evidence including documents and interviewing witnesses, I next select theme phrases or theme lines.  A theme phrase is a short phrase or even a single word that is the essence of your theory of the case.  For example, if you are trying a fraud case and your theory of the case is that the other side was in a desperate financial situation facing bankruptcy and the only way to avoid bankruptcy was to defraud your client, a theme line would be “desperate people do desperate things”.

At every phase of the trial you repeat your theme phrase in order to condition the jury.  If they associate the theme line with your theory of the case you are on your way to winning the trial.  I have had jurors come up to me after a jury trial repeating my theme line.  There truly is an art of the trial.

Robert G. Klein is a Los Angeles based business litigation trial lawyer specializing in business disputes, trademark infringement litigation, trade secrets, breach of contract actions and business torts.  He has been lead trial attorney on approximately 60 trials and successful obtained multi-million dollar jury verdicts.  He can be reached at (213) 996-8508.