Finding The Story - Part 4

Your trial will likely include inanimate objects too. For inanimate objects ask yourself what is most important about your defendant hospital, for instance? Is it when it was built? Where in the City it is located?  Its patients’ demographics? What about who runs it, who owns it, and who’s employed there? Where do they get their patients? Knowing the answers is as important—perhaps even more important—when your characters are hospitals, hospital corporations, and drug companies as when they are surgeons, nurses and x-ray technicians.

In your opening you’ll introduce the main witnesses, the time period, place, and scope of the plot. For trial lawyers, the buildup includes unfolding subplots, introducing evidence to prove your case and exploiting witnesses to show the jurors what’s at stake. The relationships between the plaintiffs and other witnesses create a narrative arc, or plot, for your trial as much as it does for a work of fiction. There are times too when the plaintiffs have only a minor role at trial. Embrace that too. Finally, the verdict—that moment in a trial when the jurors find themselves agreeing with you about what is at stake.

Until next time, 
James Hugh Potts II
We Win.  Things Change.