Plaintiffs' lawyers are intelligent, capable, and a compassionate group of people. Yet on average, we win only slightly more than half of the time, and the majority of those wins barely cover fees and time spent. Why are we losing so many cases?
Tort reform has cost us the battle for public opinion and the jurors' hearts and minds. We face the foregone conclusion that trial lawyers are in it for the money. Yes, it's about justice. But what we have trouble admitting to ourselves, and even deny, is that it's about money too. We hide from ideas, feelings, and thoughts that make us uncomfortable. The facts of our cases, if they aren't perfect. The moral issues behind them. Our motivations. Jurors can sense this.
In this DVD, Rick Friedman, author of bestselling books Rules of the Road™ and Polarizing the Case, explains how if we look at every part of the case—the good, the bad, and the ugly—we will come out on top. You and your client have the moral high ground. Learn how to cultivate the moral high ground and juxtapose it with the repugnant morals of the defense. Take your case in its entirety—the good and the bad—and win without shame.
Please Note: If you choose the Audiobook option, you can access it through the Trial Guides App for Lawyers button on your account page.
Disc 1 [60:26]
- We Are All Heroes
- Why Are We Losing Cases
- Case Scenario 1: Child Wrongful Death
- Case Scenario 1: Moral Examination
- Case Scenario 1: Your Moral Strength
- Case Scenario 1: Exposing the Defenses Moral Position
- Other Examples: Unmasking the Defenses Moral Position
- Case Scenario 2: Plaintiff with Prior Criminal Conviction
- Case Scenario 3: Long Term Care—Home vs Facility
- Final Thoughts on Moral Advocacy
Total running time: 60 minutes
Also included in package: CD of the same content
What Legal Leaders Are Saying
— David Ball, author of Reptile and David Ball on DamagesRick Friedman does it again. Moral Core Advocacy isn’t some philosophical or moralistic tract. It’s about superb strategy that comes out of the best part of what drives the work you do.
— Robert Spohrer, member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, listed in Best Lawyers of America, Professor at Florida Costal School of LawIn Vancouver at the AAJ Convention I stopped at the Trial Guides table and picked up Rick Friedman’s new lecture, Moral Core Advocacy. I listened to the CD on the plane ride home. I was so moved by the lecture that yesterday I pulled all our lawyers into the conference room to watch the DVD as a group. This prompted two hours of animated discussion about our cases and how they will benefit from Rick’s powerful insights. This is an important and empowering message and I recommend it to all of you and your firms.
— Steven Langer, Langer and Langer, Valparaiso INPhenomenal. I purchased Moral Core Advocacy at a seminar and listened to it on my iPod on the way home. Rick’s strategy for dealing with some of the more difficult– yet commonplace– aspects of our cases is great. Just as with Rules of the Road or Polarizing the Case, this is something you’ll want to incorporate into your case preparation.
— George Sidiroplis, Esq., Wheeling, WVMoral Core Advocacy is refreshing, useful and inspiring. Rick Friedman’s hopeful and uplifting approach to client-advocacy provides a practical and thoughtful response to the pervasive anti-lawyer sentiments that harm the results we achieve for our clients.
— Robert T. Hall, author of Grief and LossMoral Core Advocacy, one of Rich Friedman’s recorded lectures, is a must hear/must see [it comes in CD and DVD]. Our clients and their cases have too long suffered the slings and arrows of juror skepticism and indifference. Rick, in one short hour, can show you how to make juror resistance the defense’s problem to solve. From opening statement to adequate verdict you will be playing offense against a defense struggling to find a message, any message, in the ruins of its all too familiar insinuations. Before the evidence begins, the “uninjured plaintiff gaming the system to get something for nothing” will have shed the slur and sit astride a large white horse while the defendant, afoot, tries to explain why it refuses to do what’s right. Rick Friedman show us how to shift the burden of persuasion to the defendant—in a way it may not be able to overcome. It may be malpractice not to have these disks.
— Chuck Zauzig, Past President VTLAOnce again Rick Freidman has given us a powerful truth that will resonate with jurors. We come to trial with the moral high ground, now we can lay out that reason for our being there.