Once amassed, your power must be hyper-focused. Sunzi writes of “The strike of a hawk at the killing snap.” Thoroughly prepared to unleash her power, the hawk is hyper-focused, fast and lethal. With a commanding view chosen for scanning surrounding terrain, telescope-like vision, the hawk plunges steeply downward, wings partially closed at speeds that can exceed 120 mph, all 4 talons fully extended, on contact the talons of her contracting foot driven into the body of her prey. 

It all starts with the power amassed by being thoroughly prepared. The strategic advantage and confidence that come with knowing your case. Cold. Make no mistake about it. There is no substitute for hard work, going from knowing simply what happened, to thoroughly understanding how and why it happened. Watching your focus group videos until you get a feel for how jurors see your case and finding that story you can’t wait to tell your jury. However deep you’ve been digging, dig deeper.

Not long from now you will again find yourself sitting at your desk with a mountain of discovery you fought hard to get. You will be preparing your case for trial. Likely the most important case in your client’s life. All of your work. The risk you took. The piece of your life that you left behind for your client and her case. It all comes down to this.

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.

As for telling your story, your scenes will drive your directs and crosses at trial. You’ll play out your scenes and retell portions of your story with every witness you call, and cross-examine. You will begin to see too what’s at stake for each witness.

Unless you find your story, your jurors may be bored and uninspired to act. That’s never good for a plaintiff’s trial lawyer. After all, at the end of the case you’ll tell your jurors you want things changed.

Days like this are inevitable for a trial lawyer. What do you do? Ask yourself this question. What’s really going on here? No. Really! Ask it again. However deep you’ve been digging for the past 2 years, dig deeper. You must find and you must embrace the story – your story – the one you can’t wait to tell those jurors.

You must know the handful of narrow, dispositive medical issues in your case better than their expert. Where do you start?

A Sunzi Strategy for Expert Cross: Make Their Expert Your Expert.

Let Their Expert Know Their Deposition Is Public.

You’re in healthcare to help people – not watch healthcare abuses harm people. Dangers that stay hidden can’t be eliminated. Fortunately, reporting dangerous practices is one thing you can do to keep your patients safe. When watching abuse is no longer an option, take action.

An expert, like a warrior with no way to flee, may rather make a last stand causing casualties to the enemy, your case. Fleeing soldiers are more easily killed than those with their backs to the wall, forced to fight to the death.  So have them flee.  Flee in the way most advantageous to your case and your client.  She flees as your expert.

Use Your Words To Tell Your Story. Powerful, Descriptive Words.

Get The Text The Defendant Used In Medical School.