News
In Hidalgo County, Texas, attorneys Michael Cowen and Malorie Peacock of Cowen Rodriguez and Peacock obtained a just multimillion-dollar verdict for the widow of a man who died during a trench collapse. Read more about how they obtained the verdict.
The following article is adapted from Carl Bettinger’s Twelve Heroes, One Voice: Guiding Jurors to Courageous Verdicts.
All too often, the question “What is your case about?” is met with responses filled with jargon, medical terms, and professional indifference:
“It’s a med-mal case for failure to diagnose breast cancer.”
“It’s a birth-injury case with CP.”
“My client is charged with being a felon in possession.”
We choose this language because it contains familiar shorthand that other attorneys will understand. But our courtroom audience is not a sophisticated legal audience; it’s a mishmash of teachers and tech writers, grandparents and grad students: people for whom common courtroom terms like plaintiff and defendant are often intimidating and ambiguous.
Book Review by Kathleen Nastri in Trial Magazine (July, 2012)
Trial lawyers committed to their craft will be taken to the next level by Twelve Heroes, One Voice: Guiding Jurors to Courageous Verdicts. Carl Bettinger’s book acknowledges some of the best resources on trial practice and then takes another step. He shows us how to use our storytelling skills and passion to make convincing presentations and win jurors’ hearts.
