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Attorney Speech

David L. Hudson Jr.

In a key case about the free speech rights of attorneys, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991 ruled in favor of attorney Dominic Gentile who had been disciplined by the State Bar of Nevada for violating a rule of professional conduct when making statements to the press.  The court in a narrow decision found Nevada's law too vague. Lawyers don't forfeit all rights of free speech as members of a profession, but courts have ruled they can be limited in certain ways, most notably in what they say inside a courtroom. In this photo, Gentile appears with a client in 2015 in Nevada.

Lawyers do not forfeit all of their free-speech rights as members of a profession, but their speech rights are limited in many ways.

Rules of professional conduct adopted by the supreme courts in each state, for example, prohibit lawyers from making false statements about judges, writing legal papers that are deemed “frivolous,” engaging in speech that disrupts the tribunal or engaging in direct, face-to-face solicitation of prospective clients, with a few exceptions.

In other words, attorneys’ free-speech rights often are less than the free-speech rights of members of the public. Part of the reason for this is that a lawyer is not simply a zealous advocate on behalf of her clients but also an officer of the court. Thus, for example, a lawyer’s free-speech rights are far more limited in the courtroom than they are outside of the courtroom. Even still, lawyer speech sometimes has faced regulation even though made far beyond the courthouse steps. A few types of lawyer speech have led to some interesting First Amendment controversies.

Lawyers may be limited in making certain statements to the press

Rules of professional conduct generally prohibit a lawyer from making statements to the press that have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing a pending case. For this reason, judges sometimes issue gag orders on trial participants to prohibit lawyers from trying their cases in the media rather than in the courthouse.

The U.S. Supreme Court addressed this issue most directly in Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada , 501 U.S. 1030 (1991). Criminal defense attorney Dominic Gentile was defending a man who was accused of stealing money and drugs from a safety deposit vault rented by undercover police officers. Gentile’s client was the owner of the company that offered the safety vaults. Gentile gave a press conference in which he proclaimed his client’s innocence and said that the more likely culprits were the police officers who had access to the vault.

The State Bar of Nevada sought to discipline Gentile for violating a rule of professional conduct that prohibited lawyers from making statements that have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing a pending case. However, the rule also contained a so-called “safe harbor” provision that allowed attorneys to counter negative publicity that their clients faced.

Gentile challenged the Nevada rule on First Amendment grounds. The court ruled that the “substantial likelihood” standard was valid but acknowledged that the safe harbor provision was vague . Thus, the court ultimately ruled in Gentile’s favor.

“An attorney’s duties do not begin inside the courtroom door,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion. “He or she cannot ignore the practical implications of a legal proceeding for the client .” He also emphasized that Gentile made his statements months before the actual trial took place. Kennedy also noted that Gentile’s speech did not prejudice the actual trial that eventually took place – and which led to an acquittal of Gentile’s client.

Attorney speech rights become even more limited when their speech takes place during the pendency of a trial.

Lawyers can advertise but face some limits

Lawyers advertise to increase their business and let the public know of the legal services that they offer. However, rules of professional conduct place some limitations upon attorney advertising. The U.S. Supreme Court first recognized that truthful lawyer advertising is entitled to some First Amendment protection in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona , 433 U.S. 350 (1977). In that decision, the court recognized that two Arizona lawyers had a First Amendment right to truthfully advertise their prices for low-cost legal services in a newspaper. The court emphasized that attorney advertising , a form of commercial speech , offered knowledge to persons who might really need legal assistance.

While the court ruled that a truthful newspaper ad was a form of protected speech, the court reserved the question of whether direct, face-to-face solicitation would be permissible. The next year – in Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Association , 436 U.S. 477 (1978) – the Supreme Court ruled that such direct face-to-face solicitation could be prohibited without running afoul of the First Amendment. The court focused on the potential coerciveness that might occur when a lawyer engages in such face-to-face solicitation.

After  Ohralik , the court protected attorney advertisers in a variety of cases, including:

• Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Supreme Court of Ohio  (1985) , striking down rules prohibiting a newspaper ad soliciting clients with problems related to breast implants;
• Peel v. Attorney Disciplinary Commission of Illinois  (1990) , invalidating a rule prohibiting a lawyer from advertising himself as certified as a trial specialist by the National Board of Trial Advocacy; and
• Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Association  (1988) , limiting a rule banning direct, in-person solicitation letters.

However, this clear trend of protecting attorney advertisers ended in Florida Bar v. Went-For-It, Inc . (1995). In that decision, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly upheld (5-4) a Florida Bar rule that prohibited lawyers from sending solicitation letters to accident victims until 30 days after their accident. The majority reasoned that the 30-day ban on such letters directly furthered the state’s substantial interests in protecting accident victims and preserving the reputation of the bar.

Rules prohibit lawyers from making false statements about judges

Rules of professional conduct prohibit in Rule 8.2 lawyer statements about judges that are false or made in reckless disregard for the truth. This standard seems to mirror the language from the venerable free-speech precedent of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan , 376 U.S. 254 (1964). In that landmark libel decision, the U.S. Supreme Court protected even false speech about public officials unless the speaker uttered the falsehood with actual malice – that is, knowing the statement was false or in reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of the statement.

However, many states have not applied Sullivan with full force in disciplinary cases involving attorneys who criticize or denigrate judges. Professor Margaret Tarkington explains that “[o] ne of the most jarring aspects of the cases on attorney speech impugning judicial integrity is the near universal rejection by state courts of the Sullivan standard. She explains that attorneys are often punished for speech that would not rise to the level of defamation liability under the Sullivan standard. This has led to attorneys being punished for speech critical of the judiciary and speech accusing the court of being biased, result-oriented or corrupt.

The lesser protection for attorney speech may conflict with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in National Institute of Family and Life v. Beccera (2018). In that decision, the court rejected the idea of the “ professional speech doctrine ” and wrote that “speech is not unprotected simply because it has been uttered by professionals.” In other words, the question is if there is no general lessened protection for professional speech, does it make sense to continue treating lawyer speech differently? After all, the Supreme Court warned years ago in Bridges v. California , 314 U.S. 252 (1941) – a case involving newspaper criticism of the judiciary – that “[t] he assumption that respect for the judiciary can be won by shielding judges from published criticism wrongly appraises the character of American public opinion. For it is a prized American privilege to speak one’s mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions.”

This article was published Jan. 17, 2022. David L. Hudson, Jr. is a First Amendment Fellow at the Freedom Forum Institute and a law professor at Belmont who publishes widely on First Amendment topics. He is the author of a 12-lecture audio course on the First Amendment entitled Freedom of Speech: Understanding the First Amendment (Now You Know Media, 2018).

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11 Legal Writing Tips for Powerful, Persuasive Legal Writing

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Whether or not you’re a confident writer, legal writing is an important skill for any lawyer, in any practice area. From court documents like motions, discovery documents, briefs, and memoranda, to in-office communication like letters, client emails, internal memos, and more—there’s a whole lot of writing.

Lawyers also need to ensure their writing style, tone, and voice in legal documents and communication are appropriate for a wide range of audiences such as courts, judges, and clients.

Documents filed at court, including briefs and memoranda, involve researching facts and cases, analyzing situations, presenting information, and making an argument. To be a skilled legal writer, lawyers need to be authoritative, credible, and persuasive in their writing. The following legal writing tips will help you improve your writing.

What is legal writing?

Legal writing involves crafting documents related to legal affairs, including briefs, contracts, memorandums, and motions. Its primary aim is persuasion, adapting tone and style according to the audience, whether for a judge with specialized legal language or a client with clear, understandable prose.

Whether you consider yourself a writer or not, legal writing is a necessary and important skill required for all legal professionals. From paralegals to lawyers to secretaries, legal writing is applicable to every legal professional (see, for example, our guide on communication and writing for paralegals ). 

Legal writing tips to help you get started

Tip 1: Understand your purpose

What is the first and arguably most important legal writing tip? Understand the purpose of your writing. 

Ask yourself: Why are you writing this? What are you hoping to accomplish? What is the outcome you wish to achieve?

Writing a contract may serve to inform, while court documentation may serve to persuade, and client intake documentation may serve to evaluate. The structure, tone, and voice of the document will change depending on the purpose of your legal writing. Understanding that purpose will help you write better.

Tip 2: Understand your audience

Knowing who you’re writing for will help shape the structure and tone of your piece. A judge, another attorney (including an opposing attorney), or client will have different experiences and expectations that inform how they read your work.

When it comes to your audience, keep the following in mind: their role and relationship to you, age, income, economic status, level of education, values, and how much they already know about what you’re writing about. This will help you determine the tone, style, and level of detail to include in your writing.

Tip 3: Do your research

Good legal writing requires researching and incorporating relevant legal precedents into your documents. Before you start writing, thoroughly read any material provided to better understand the legal issues. 

Every case and document is different, but keeping some basic rules for legal research in mind will set you up for success. Some helpful legal research tools include FastCase , Legal Information Institute (LII), and CourtListener .

Depending on the piece you’re writing, you may also find secondary sources such as legal dictionaries , law reports, and academic journals helpful in your research. For example, you’ll need both the primary and secondary sources to establish mandatory and persuasive authority .

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Legal document formats: everything you need to know, lawyer domain names: a guide to finding and buying the right one, how to calculate utilization rate and why you need to track it, tips for the legal writing process, tip 4: create an outline.

One of the most helpful legal writing tips to improve your legal writing skills is organizing your research into an outline. Starting with an outline will help keep your writing organized and focused.

A good outline starts by detailing the topic, putting the most important information at the top. Then, flush out the main points with the supporting details while making sure the transitions between points make sense.

Legal writing becomes much easier and less intimidating once you have an outline to help organize your ideas and guide your writing process.

Tip 5: Put words on the page

Even with a detailed outline, getting started can be difficult. Writer’s block is a real thing that even the most seasoned legal writers suffer from. But don’t worry about getting it perfect on the first try—that’s what editing and proofing are for.

On your first draft, focus on capturing the right information. Make sure the information is complete and sufficient, and the content flows nicely from one section to the next. Give yourself as many drafts as you need before your deadline. Also, give your writing some room to breathe by taking a break and coming back to it with fresh eyes.

Always remember that you can clean your writing up in the editing stage—you don’t have to get the formatting perfect on your first try.

Tip 6: Be aware of content structure

The best way to structure any piece is by writing from the top down. Start by showing the reader what you’re writing about and why, then provide the arguments to support your case.

Pick your best or most persuasive arguments to focus your writing on, then filter additional, supporting arguments thereafter. Use headings to break up sections and transition from one argument to the next, and start new sections with summary sentences. Where appropriate, it also may be helpful to use lists and bullets to make your writing scannable for the reader.

Tips to help you write better

Tip 7: Be clear

When writing any type of legal document, state your point directly and clearly within the first few sentences to help guide the reader along. Assume the reader has very little time or patience, that they hate to read, and that they’re only going to read the first 200 words. What you say in those 200 words will help them decide to continue reading.

A few other legal writing tips to keep in mind:

• Active voice: The subject did something, rather than something was done to them. E.g., “Wendy consulted with her lawyer” is an example of active voice, whereas “The lawyer was consulted by Wendy” is an example of passive voice.
• Avoid double-negatives: For example, “This is not, not the best way to write.”
• The Oxford comma : When listing items like judges, magistrates, and clients.
• Use adverbs and adjectives sparingly: Clearly, this is an exaggerated example.
• Consistent tenses: Past tense is most commonly used but sometimes present tense makes the most sense.
• Avoid split infinitives : For example, Gently push vs. push gently.
• Avoid gender-specific terminology: When in doubt, “they” is universal.
• No slang and hyperbole : This is inappropriate and unnecessary.
• Be accurate and specific: For example, use a specific date instead of “recently.”

Tip 8: Use jargon only when appropriate

Using jargon, including legal terms, is only appropriate in some contexts. For example, using too much “legalese” with a client who is not well-versed in specific legal matters may end up confusing them and muddling the conversation with unnecessary questions. 

While in court documents, it’s completely appropriate (and sometimes even necessary) to use the correct jargon and terminology, since another attorney, judge, or magistrate will be your reader.

When appropriate, strive to use plain language in your legal writing while showing that you understand jargon and can present it in easy-to-understand ways for the reader.

Tip 9: Edit and proofread

The legal writing process doesn’t just stop when the piece is finished. One of the most common mistakes writers make is not budgeting for the editing phase—a thorough editing and review process takes time.

It’s always helpful to have somebody else edit and proofread your work, but you should be able to take care of the basics yourself. Master spelling and grammar basics—lawyers who present documents with spelling and grammatical errors will be seen as less credible and lacking in attention to detail.

Understandably, it can be difficult to catch spelling and grammatical errors immediately. Once you’ve read your document several times, you’ll usually glaze over your own mistakes. Some other helpful legal writing tips for the editing process include reading your writing aloud or reading it backward to help hone your focus and spot errors you’d otherwise miss.

Tips to level up your legal writing

Tip 10: use helpful tools and apps.

No matter what medium or document you’re writing, all good writers should always use spell check at a minimum. Advances in writing technology have also made legal writing much easier. For example, writing apps like Grammarly and Ginger can help you catch grammar, spelling, and other language mistakes.

If you don’t have an editor always available to help proofread your legal writing (which most usually don’t), text-to-speech apps such as Natural Reader can help read your documents out loud. This will help spot errors and awkward passages.

While some of these services are free, many of them will have a paid version to unlock extra features. Consider investing in some of these paid versions if your job requires a lot of writing—it’s worth it to bring your legal writing skills to the next level.

Tip 11: Read other writers’ work

The most common piece of advice writers give to those looking to improve their writing skills is to read—this rings true for any kind of writing. To improve your legal writing skills specifically, find good legal and business writers and read their work. This could be legal documents, but also books , blogs , and articles . 

By studying and understanding how others write and structure their pieces, you’ll get a feel for the general format of a legal document. You can then incorporate your unique ideas and writing style. You could also ask colleagues for examples of their work or join communities and forums .

Routinely review legal writing examples

Beyond reviewing others’ work, you can further your legal writing skills by reading writing examples. Below are some legal writing examples to support you: 

• Closing letter  
• Engagement letter
• Demand letter examples
• Non-engagement letter

Utilizing a legal document template is another way to maintain consistency and have a blueprint for your writing.   

Legal writing is an ongoing journey

As you embark on this legal content writing journey , remember, no one becomes a great legal writer overnight. Like with any craft, good legal writing is a skill and ongoing process that you build the foundation for and improve on. 

The writing process is complex and extends beyond just putting words to paper. Researching, writing, and editing are all important skills for good legal writing. The more you practice writing, the easier it gets and the better your work will be over time.

Use the above writing tips as your starting point. Remember, always be open to and use feedback and constructive criticism.

What makes a good legal writer?

The best legal writers know their audience and craft their words for the reader. Sometimes, the reader is a judge; other times, it’s your client. Understanding your audience and striving to write in their preferred style will serve one well in their career.

What are the three steps of legal writing?

In its most basic form, legal writing involves three steps: drafting, rewriting, and revising. Though, it’s common to add additional editing and revision stages depending on the document and writer’s experience/preferred working style.

We published this blog post in April 2021. Last updated: April 24, 2024 .

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4 Key Steps You Can Take to Improve Your Public Speaking

Stacey Leeke | August 24, 2014

Lawyers are known for their ability to stand in front of a packed courtroom and deliver a powerful closing address. Once outside the familiar courtroom, however, many break into a sweat at the mere thought of presenting in front of colleagues or a boardroom of clients. Here are some simple strategies to help you tackle your fears, improve public speaking and present with poise and confidence to any audience.

Speaking confidently before a group is one of the most important skills that any lawyer can develop. But what if your knees turn to jelly at the sight of a lectern?

There are several ways you can improve public speaking by preparing in the weeks, hours and moments leading up to your speech. These four key steps will train your body and your mind, and ensure your delivery is engaging and memorable – for the right reasons.

1. Optimise your voice

Poor air supply and voice control can result in a weak, high-pitched or strained vocal tone. Like an athlete, however, you can train your body to properly manage your air reserves, even when nerves take hold.

Practice standing with good posture and breathing into the lower part of the lungs, then expelling the air gradually using your abdominal muscles, without tightening the throat. Tip:  this will require you to push your stomach out, so avoid clothing that will constrict your waist.

2. Control your movements

Any outward manifestations of nervousness need to be controlled for us to feel and appear poised. Be conscious of any tendencies to touch your face, shuffle your feet or clasp your hands, and consider how to avoid them.

Feeling well prepared is vital to avoiding these nervous tics, so get comfortable with your material. Concentrate on why you are passionate about the subject matter and consider how the information will be of great value to your audience.

3. Use visual contact to relax

Give yourself a few seconds to relax and compose before you begin speaking by engaging with your audience through visual contact. Throughout your speech, address individuals in the audience directly by saying a few words to each of them.

Effective eye contact is best maintained if notes are kept within glancing distance. However, be prepared to make climactic or key statements with full visual contact for maximum impact.

4. Harness your conversational quality

Attempting to ‘parrot’ a precisely-worded script often results in a stiff, formal and disjointed delivery, which will quickly lose your audience’s interest and attention. Focusing on understanding and getting comfortable with the ideas you are going to convey, as opposed to the sentences, will enable you to speak more naturally and extemporaneously.

Applying these simple strategies will improve public speaking as well as improving your poise and delivery as perceived by an audience, plus bolster your internal confidence too. While you may never eliminate the butterflies completely, with practice you can bridle them to become an engaging and dynamic speaker.

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Public speaking for lawyers: expand your reach on stage and online.

Public speaking can boost an attorney’s reputation and credibility. Delivering engaging presentations on hot topics that are central to your practice can help you build your brand and get new prospects. Additionally, recorded public speaking events can be shared online to multiply the reach of your talk and establish you as an expert in your field. 

Hearing a lawyer speak is the best way to determine whether they are knowledgeable, engaging, and persuasive. When a charismatic attorney speaks with passion, clarifies complex issues, and presents original ideas, audience members are very likely to seek the presenter’s counsel or refer acquaintances to their practice. 

Additionally, most speaking engagements offer lawyers abundant opportunities to interact with the audience, such as Q&A sessions, cocktail parties, and luncheons. If you speak in front of the right audience, these informal interactions can potentially convert into suitable prospects.

Not All Speaking Engagements Are Equal

Typically, young lawyers dream of speaking at the American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting, the American Intellectual Property Association (AIPLA)’s Annual Meeting, or another top legal conference. Many would perceive speaking at such prestigious events as the peak of their careers. In terms of marketing and lead generation, however, this would be regretfully misguided. This type of forum usually puts attorneys in front of competitors and peers. If you are looking to expand your client base, speaking in front of hundreds of the country’s top attorneys will be pointless, unless you have a referral-based practice.  

Continued Learning Education courses (CLEs) may also appear as great opportunities for exposure and brand building. But CLEs attract a diverse crowd, and they have a limited potential to generate inquiries. Preparing a talk can be time-consuming, and that time is only wasted when lawyers speak in front of generic audiences. 

In order to generate leads, presentations have to be delivered in front of a targeted audience. For example, a financial attorney may speak in front of a group of financial advisors (his potential clients) to explain new SEC rules and offer compliance enhancement tips. Delivering value to a targeted audience optimizes the time and effort you have put into getting a slot, preparing your presentation, and traveling to the venue.

Audiences and Goals

Business development opportunities are immense for lawyers who can do a rocking presentation on stage. 

Attorneys may accept speaking engagements in order to:

• Reach potential clients
• Reach a group of people who can influence potential clients
• Find brand building opportunities

Trade Group and Industry Events

In the case of big law firms, industry and trade association events are ideal for finding prospects. There are many ways to find opportunities to speak at these events. Whichever industry you serve, subscribing to trade journals will keep you up to speed on upcoming events and suitable opportunities. 

The Encyclopedia of Associations is a great resource for finding every single trade association in a specific industry. Doctors’ associations, tech industry groups, financial industry organizations, and other groups are all listed in the encyclopedia, as well as in the Directory of Associations . Naturally, to be able to land a speaking spot at a trade event, you need a long-term strategy in terms of engaging with the trade associations and making connections on the inside. 

Looking for Your Target Audience, Outside The Box

If your firm serves a specific industry and are looking for groups of people who are in the same field/profession (i.e., doctors, financial advisors), trade events are the way to go. However, if you are say a divorce attorney, you may service an engineer or a broker, a doctor, or an accountant. You are basically looking for people who need to negotiate a divorce. So, where do you find them?

If you are a divorce attorney in Orange County, for example, you don’t waste your time speaking at generic events. You go straight to the annual OC gathering of the California Federation of Republican Women or the Junior League of OC. There, you can have the opportunity to speak in front of a large number of divorcees, who will make up roughly half the audience. 

Many of these women will be unsatisfied with their divorce attorneys, and if they like what they hear, they are very likely to refer you to a friend. The other half of the audience will include large numbers of women who are currently shopping around for a divorce lawyer.

If you get a chance to speak in front of potential prospects, you would be ill-advised to discuss boring technical issues. If you want to get the audience’s attention, you need to do a presentation with an edgy and memorable title. People don’t want to hear about how the new tax laws will affect a divorce and other technicalities. They want to learn about divorce settlement pitfalls and how to find their spouse’s hidden assets. And if you deliver, it will pay off.

It takes a bit of creativity to find prospects for each particular specialty. For instance, where can a criminal defense attorney find prospects? In our experience, they will have the most success at cannabis-related, civil rights, and gun rights events. A presentation with a catchy title referencing rampant police misconduct or unfair gun rules will certainly capture their attention.

The same logic can be applied to a variety of industries and specialties. Where are your desired prospects likely to go? If you cater to high-net-worth clients in Chicago, you may give a presentation at The Union League Club or another exclusive local club they frequent. 

If you are a personal injury lawyer in Florida, union events will provide an audience of engineers, constructors, and pipe-fitters; in other words, people in high-injury jobs who may require your services. The better you know your target client, the easier it will be to track them down,  secure opportunities to speak in front of them, and deliver a message they will remember.

Speaking to Upgrade Your Bio  

If you go through some of America’s top attorneys’ bios, you will find that they have many things in common: top law school, high-profile cases, a track record of involvement in their communities, etc. In this context, how do you stand out? This brings us to one of the three goals of public speaking: brand building.

A TEDx presentation will look great on your resume, but it is unlikely to put you in front of an audience of prospective clients. What TEDx can give you is a kind of rockstar status that will immediately make your bio stand out in a sea of countless peers whose credentials are not very different from yours.

Both TED events, which are national, and TEDx events, which are local, have open calls for speakers. If you have a video of a killer presentation, you have given in the past and an idea that is timely and original, you may have a chance. The title of your talk may win half the battle. Some of the most popular law-related TEDx talks are called, “ How Juries Are Fooled by Statistics ,” “ How Great Leaders Inspire Action ,” and “ The Clues to a Great Story .” 

If you are looking for the TED seal of approval, you do not necessarily have to give a presentation heavy on legalese. As long as your ideas are powerful, fresh, well-presented, and actionable, they will fit right in. Past TEDx themes have included:

• The Big Questions
• Icons, Geniuses, Mavericks
• Think Again
• The Substance of Things Not Seen
• Revolutionary Ideas
• Thriving on Turmoil
• The Essence of a Changing World

When a prospective client is looking you up on Google, one of the first search results they will find is a video of your TEDx talk. The prospect will read a lot into this. It will tell them that you are successful and charismatic enough to be handpicked to do a TEDx talk. Suddenly, you are not just another attorney with impressive degrees, you are one with a different kind of pedigree. You are not only a great lawyer, but also a cool, somewhat famous lawyer. After listening to a few minutes of your impressive presentation, your prospect will be sold.

Another forum that can endow speakers with rockstar status is South by Southwest (SXSW), which takes place in Austin, Texas, once a year. SXSW is a conference as well as a film and music festival. Recent conference topics have included:

• Government & Politics
• Health & Medtech
• Fantastic Future 
• Cannabusiness
• Media & Journalism

Finally, lecturing at a top-tier university can infuse your resume with credibility and expert-status. Even if you only lectured for undergrad students, having the likes of Yale, Stanford, or Columbia on your resume can really make a difference.

Alternatives to TEDx

Aside from TEDx and SXSW, there are many high-prospect-value speaking opportunities for attorneys across the U.S.

Based in New York, Big Think is a platform that provides, “actionable lessons from the world's greatest thinkers and doers.” Big Think’s presenters are purportedly experts “at the top of their field, or disrupting it.” If you have some big, disruptive ideas related to your field of practice, Big Think can be an ideal forum to share your vision with the world.

Experts who have created video presentations for Big Think include:

Viral TEDx Speaker, Author of “Your Money Or Your Life”

Huffington Post co-founder, creator of Thrive Global

Author, spiritual guru

Author of “Good To Great”

Evolutionary biologist  

Unlike TED talks, which are longer, Big Think’s five-minute capsules go straight to the point. Some of the most popular Big Think videos have titles like, “ The Universe in a Nutshell ,” “ Are You a Psychopath? Take the Test! ” “ Michio Kaku: What If Einstein Is Wrong? ” and “ Learn to Invest and Start a Business in Under an Hour .” Each of these videos has millions of reproductions on YouTube...certainly something to emmulate.

An annual conference, 99U focuses on creativity, entrepreneurship, and personal development. Business leaders attend this popular event to get inspiration to come up with great ideas.

Self-described as an “event series to help creatives build incredible careers, supercharge their work, and make their ideas happen,” 99U offers presentations on a variety of topics, including Big Ideas, Leadership, Productivity, and Marketing.

Past speakers include Jack Dorsey, Seth Godin, Ryan Holiday, and Cal Newport. One of the most popular 99U presentations available online is “Sucking is the First Step to Being Good at Something” by Alexis Ohanian. 

Creative Mornings

Creative Mornings is a breakfast lecture series. It was created by a small group of New Yorkers who were avid for new ideas and leadership. Today, the initiative functions on a global scale, with events in 214 cities across 65 countries. Conference themes are wide-ranging, from technology, the future, justice, and education to urbanism, freedom, and climate.

Speaking engagements are powerful marketing tools for attorneys. Public speaking facilitates connecting with both potential clients and influencers. It provides priceless opportunities to meet prospects in person, rather than online or over the phone. 

When people are shopping around for legal services, meeting an attorney with the aura of a thought leader is tantamount to a godsend. Book authors and frequent bloggers who deliver provocative stage presentations on trending topics can obtain spectacular results in terms of both brand building and lead generation. 

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• The Power of Persuasion: Effective Techniques for Lawyers

• Editorial Team
• June 13, 2023

Persuasion is a crucial skill in the legal profession. Lawyers need to effectively communicate and convince judges, juries, and even clients of their arguments. Mastering the art of persuasion can significantly impact the outcome of a case and the success of a lawyer’s career. In this blog, we will explore some effective techniques that lawyers can employ to enhance their persuasive abilities and achieve favorable results in the courtroom.

• Understanding Your Audience: Persuasion begins with a thorough understanding of your audience. Whether addressing a judge, jury, or client, it is crucial to consider their perspectives, values, and concerns. Tailor your arguments to resonate with their interests and frame your message in a way that appeals to their emotions and logic.
• Building a Compelling Narrative: Storytelling is a powerful tool in persuasion. Instead of presenting dry facts and legal precedents, weave a compelling narrative that engages and captivates your audience. Connect with their emotions by incorporating relatable characters and real-life examples that support your arguments. A well-crafted narrative can leave a lasting impact on the minds of those deciding the case.
• Strengthening Arguments with Evidence: Evidence forms the backbone of any persuasive argument. Lawyers must gather and present strong evidence that supports their claims. Utilize various types of evidence, including expert testimony, documents, photographs, and witness statements, to substantiate your arguments. Well-presented evidence not only enhances credibility but also helps the audience understand the facts and merits of your case.
• Mastering the Art of Rhetoric: Rhetorical techniques can be powerful tools in persuasive communication. Lawyers should employ techniques such as logical reasoning, analogies, rhetorical questions, and powerful language to craft convincing arguments. These techniques can help lawyers effectively address counterarguments, highlight inconsistencies in opposing views, and establish their own position as the most compelling.
• Active Listening and Empathy: Persuasion is not just about talking; it also involves active listening and empathy. Lawyers should carefully listen to the concerns and perspectives of their audience, including clients, witnesses, and opposing counsel. By demonstrating empathy and understanding, lawyers can build rapport and credibility, which can positively influence the decision-making process.
• Adapting to Different Communication Styles: People have different communication preferences and styles. Lawyers should be flexible in their approach and adapt to the communication style of their audience. Some individuals may respond better to logical arguments, while others may be swayed by emotional appeals. Understanding and catering to these preferences can enhance the persuasive impact of your message.

The power of persuasion is a vital skill for lawyers seeking success in the legal profession . By understanding their audience, building compelling narratives, employing strong evidence, mastering rhetoric, practicing active listening, and adapting to different communication styles, lawyers can significantly enhance their persuasive abilities. Developing these techniques takes practice, but the rewards can be substantial, leading to favorable outcomes in the courtroom and a flourishing legal career.

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Matthew Scott's Legal Comment Argument and Discussion. Comment Awards 2015 Best Independent Blog

The Beginner’s guide to the closing speech

I have no way of knowing how important closing speeches are. I know of no research that even begins to throw light on whether they make the slightest difference to the outcome of a trial, or whether, by the time for speeches has arrived, juries or magistrates have usually made up their minds.

So most of what I am going to say is not based on solid evidence.

Nevertheless my feeling, and one that is probably shared by most advocates, is that the closing speech is one of the most crucial parts of the case. It is where you have the chance to marshal your arguments; to make the points explicitly that previously had only been implicit in your questions; and, just asimportant, to deal with the points made by the other side.

Visual Aids

It is surprising how little impact technology has made in most court-room speeches. There are some cases in which counsel operate clever computer gimmickry but they remain the exception, usually for very complicated or serious cases, and not the rule.

The ghastly paraphernalia of the “presentation” – Powerpoint, interactive whiteboards and bullet point projections of what the speaker is about to say – have, I am glad to say, made no impact at all. This is probably because such aids actually distract from what the speaker is saying.

That is not to say that a few well chosen props cannot be quite effective. Nothing beats the drama of handling Exhibit 1, the blood-stained knife, and drama makes a jury listen. I was once fortunate enough to be led by Nigel Pascoe QC – who knows more about both advocacy and theatre than anyone – in a baby shaking case. Although he could not produce a baby for his closing speech, he did the next best thing by producing a realistic doll which he then proceeded to manhandle in a vivid demonstration of how a parent should not behave with a crying baby.

But with or without props, only two things define how persuasive your speech is: what you say and how you say it.

Different types of closing speech .

There is of course an important difference between a closing speech for the defence and one for the prosecution. As a rule the defence will be trying to ask difficult questions, while the prosecution will be trying to provide irrefutable answers.

There are also differences between both the technique and the procedure in a Magistrates Court (where generally speaking the prosecution does not make a closing speech) to that in the Crown Court. (where it usually does).

So here are some hints for advocates who have not had much experience. Many of them are, of course, of equal relevance to prosecutors and defenders. But in general the  focus will be on representing the defence.

Preparation for the speech starts when the jury panel comes into court

I don’t mean by this that you need to have started to write a speech before the trial starts, although you should, of course, have a strategy and the beginnings of a plan for how you would like to address the jury at the end.

What I do mean is that when you stand up to make your final effort to persuade the jury you must be somebody that they will pay attention to. They don’t have to like you – it is a good thing if they do – but if they don’t take you seriously, and especially if they don’t trust you, there is no way that you will be able to persuade them of anything.

So whenever the jury is in court, and preferably of course even when they are not, you must be sensible, reasonable and straightforward . It is also a great help to be polite. Amongst contemporary politicians few have generated as much vitriol from his opponents as the Education Secretary Michael Gove. Watch the way he deals with it: he is scrupulously polite to all, no matter how rude they are to him. You may or may not approve of his policies but you should copy the way his good manners disarm the fiercest opposition.

Dress properly .

A grey and scruffy collar and a rumpled pair of bands creates a very bad impression; as though you can’t be bothered.

On the other hand a battered and balding wig is better than a new white one; It makes the wearer look more experienced.

If you are defending, make a good note of the prosecution opening speech . It is surprising how often prosecutors say something in their opening speech which turns out to be flatly contradicted when the evidence is called. When that happens, what better way to highlight the fact than by quoting from the opening speech in your closing address to the jury?

When you make a mistake, admit it straight away.

When you have taken a bad point, concede it.

When your opponent makes a good point, acknowledge it.

Do not insult witnesses.

Do not interrupt or be rude to your opponent or the judge. Not only does this make for far more pleasant atmosphere in court, it also makes you seem more serious, sensible and therefore authoritative.

Many jurors will have seen American court-room dramas, some may even have watched American court TV (for legal nerds, like`me and probably you if you have read this far, it can make for very enjoyable viewing). They may, as a result, be expecting all sorts of shouts of “Objection!” and “Strike that from the record!” and probably a judge furiously hammering his gavel as grandstanding attorneys approach the bench. To start with they will be disappointed when they see that that is not really the way we do things.

But jumping up and down and yelling “objection!” is definitely not the way to impress jurors. This does not mean you have to roll over and concede every point: if something is important then of course you will have to contest it. If you are angry for good reason, as occasionally you may be, show it. But do so politely and never lose your temper. Genuine anger will be all the more effective for being deployed sparingly and only when it is actually appropriate.

Try to keep an eye on how the jury are reacting as the trial continues. It is usually very difficult to “read” a jury, but sometimes it is obvious that a particular witness, or a piece of evidence has struck home.

Some advocates have a way of cross-examining witnesses while not looking at them at all, just at the jury. The idea is that you keep in touch with the jurors – they see your face and you see theirs. But to my mind it smacks of rudeness to the witness. You are asking him questions so you should at least pay him the courtesy of attending to his answers. If the focus of your attention appears to be on the jury it gives the impression that you are putting on a show instead of seriously listening to the evidence. To put it bluntly, it can make you look like a slimy lawyer.

Put yourself in the jury retiring room. Whose arguments are going to carry more weight: those of the slimy lawyer or those of a sensible and straightforward lawyer?

Never, ever misquote the evidence

Nothing will lower your credibility with the jury more quickly and more certainly.

It goes without saying that you will not do so deliberately. But in the heat of battle wishful thinking can sometimes play tricks with ones memory. It is easy to miss the crucial word, or worse still, to imagine that something was said when it was not. Before you take a point based on what a witness has said you must be absolutely sure that you are quoting the evidence correctly.

For this reason it is essential that, if it is possible you keep, or at least have somebody behind you keeping, a good note of the evidence. Some advocates are reluctant ever to make a note, but unless you have a remarkable memory you should not be one of them.

Many beginners might think – why bother with notes? After all everything is recorded. And so it is (including, these days, conversations between counsel while the judge is out of court, so be careful what you say, unless you want a Gordon Brown style embarrassment don’t call the judge a “stupid bigoted woman” in the court-room: wait until you reach the robing room); but for practical purposes you will not be able to access the recording except occasionally to check on some particularly important disputed evidence.

You cannot expect to note everything that is said, but with practice you should be able to get the most important bits down, except of course when you are on your feet yourself. If you have no-one behind you to take a note of your cross-examination then, if you have made some progress, as soon as you sit down make a note of at least the most important answers that you received.

Should I write my speech out?

Beginners often worry about this and opinions differ. There is no right answer. My opinion is that in general you should .

Sometimes, of course, – and it is one reason why advocacy in front of the Magistrates can be much harder than in the Crown Court – there is simply no time to prepare a closing speech. You call your client, he cuts a miserable figure in the witness box; and it’s “Yes Miss Bloggins?”. Off you have to go and do the best you can.

But usually you do have at least an hour or so to prepare the speech. It is almost always time well spent.

To deliver a closing speech extempore is not easy. There are those who can do it well, and they can make exceptionally good advocates. Their speeches are likely to be lively, spontaneous and convincing, and the lack of any writing will leave the advocate free to connect with the jury. Think, for example, of Boris Johnson’s speech at the end of the 2012 Olympics. It had all the hallmarks of being beautifully unprepared and was as a result hilarious, joyful and perfectly pitched to the occasion. But only he could have done it. Nobody else could have emulated Boris’s apparently bumbling ramblings and carried the audience with them.

And in fact even bumbling Boris may not have been as unprepared as he seemed.   If you watch the speech carefully you will see that he appears to be looking at notes of some sort as he speaks.

There are some criminal advocates who can do something similar but they are invariably individuals with their own inimitable styles. You are almost certainly not one of them.

There are plenty who think they can do it but cannot. Nothing is achieved by rambling on about the burden of proof and drifting aimlessly over a few bits of evidence. You will lose your audience. Remember that unlike a theatre audience they haven’t chosen to come and watch you, they have been forced to do so. They can’t get up and leave, nor can they usually heckle (although occasionally, and very disconcertingly, they write notes and pass them to the usher as you are speaking). Once they get bored with you their main way of showing their displeasure is to give their support to the other side. You will know if you have lost a jury’s attention. It will sit sullenly silent, not smiling, not frowning, just staring vacantly. You will have the devil’s own job to get them listening to you again.

So don’t be afraid of writing out copious notes, or even of writing the whole thing verbatim. Juries don’t mind if you use notes.

Churchill used to do it. In fact he would spend hours changing a word here, a paragraph there and would even practise out loud until he was satisfied.

Nelson Mandela’s famous speech in the Rivonia treason trial (strictly speaking it was an unsworn statement from the dock) was written out more or less verbatim, and fortunately his notes have been kept for posterity so we know that he always intended to end with this magnificent, courageous peroration:

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

Margaret Thatcher was writing her conference speech at 2.45 a.m. when the Brighton bomb exploded. She re-wrote it and delivered it later that day.

There have been many other great political orators and very seldom do they simply stand up and speak. Their speeches have almost invariably been painstakingly written, often over several drafts. And many, many first rate advocates routinely write and re-write their closing speeches.

Remember, though, that you are writing a speech not an essay. Keep your sentences short and your points – as far as you are able – reasonably simple. There is nothing worse than constructing an argument that might be perfectly good on paper, which is too complicated to explain to a jury. You will get lost, the jury will get lost and your client will pay dearly for your mistake.

If you have written down what you want to say you will at least have a structure and argument of sorts, and this will make it far less likely that you will lose your direction.

However, it is one thing to write it: it is another thing altogether to read it. You absolutely must not do that . Nor should you try to memorise it: you don’t have time, and even if you did a speech recited from memory is unlikely to work very well. You will sound like a ham actor delivering a soliloquy.

The point of writing the speech is rather different. You will find that the act of committing it to paper, or even to a computer screen sparks thoughts in a way that does not happen when you simply stand up and speak. Arguments present themselves, connections suddenly make sense. You can check the evidence to ensure you do not misrepresent it. If you are lucky useful turns of phrase and helpful analogies will occur to you.

All this will be of enormous assistance when you actually address the jury. If you have written it down you will know exactly where you are going and soon you will find that you seldom need to look down at your notes at all. You almost certainly won’t say exactly what you wrote down. That doesn’t matter a hoot. In fact it probably means you will sound more natural; it is easy to write something down that sounds awkward when spoken out loud. But the fact that you have written it will be a comfort. You will know that if – and it happens to almost everyone – you somehow get lost or forget where you are going you can glance down and get yourself back on track.

What do I do with my notes?

You need them to hand, but the typical court room desk or table in front of counsels’ row is far too low for most people to be able to read their notes easily when they are standing up. So you will have to prop them up with something if you are going to be able to use them. Different advocates favour variously a pile of lever arch files, an empty cardboard box or a couple of Archbolds.

Of course a lectern would be ideal but a ridiculous etiquette has it that only silks are allowed to use lecterns. As a result at many courts they are not even supplied, and at the more conservative venues you, as a mere junior, will face stern judicial disapproval if you try to use one. A notable exception is Guildford Crown Court where the legacy of a popular local barrister Frank Gillibrand has been used to purchase lecterns for every court-room. Silks are rare birds in Guildford and the lecterns are gratefully used by all.

In neighbouring Winchester a well-intentioned designer incorporated them into the structure of the 1970s court-rooms, Unfortunately, he was not a very good designer, or at least not very good at designing lecterns, and they are so awkward to use that you are almost better off without them.

What is the best time of day for my speech?

The answer is, as with so many things in advocacy not at all clear. My view is that 10.30 in the morning is usually the ideal time.

There are those who prefer last thing in the afternoon. The theory is that jurors then leave the building with your arguments ringing in their ears and reverberating around their cerebella all night long. I disagree. When jurors are tired or bored they want to go home, or start their weekends; they don’t want to listen to you. And unless they listen it does not matter how good your arguments are, they will be in vain. Most advocates would do a great deal to avoid having to address a jury on a Friday afternoon. The advantage of having the last word before a weekend is far outweighed by the fact that the jury will subconsciously resent you for delaying its start.

So the sensible advocate will generally try to ensure that his or her speech is heard first thing in the morning. Not only is that when the majority of people are most alert, it also gives you the evening before and, if necessary, the morning before to prepare your speech.

Of course whether you can speak in the morning all depends on the evidence and the flow of the trial, but there are ways of improving your chances.

You can, of course simply ask:

The traditional way is to say, perhaps disingenuously:

“ I could do my speech now, but I suspect be that it will be considerably shorter if I could have a little time to focus it on the main issues .”

There is no reason why a well prepared speech is necessarily shorter than an unprepared one. In fact the opposite is often the case, so this sounds a little insincere.

So it is better to be blunt:

“ I would like a little time to sharpen my thoughts. I wonder whether Your Honour would be prepared to rise a little early this afternoon, and perhaps make the time up by starting half an hour early tomorrow morning? ”

It would be a harsh judge who rejects such a reasonable request.

But harsh judges do exist. Such a judge will almost certainly have started sitting half an hour earlier than usual anyway. These days they are all under constant pressure to cut delay and get through their lists as fast as possible. From the point of view of the public, and indeed other litigants that may be desirable. But you do not represent the public or other litigants, you represent the defendant: you certainly do not want to cut corners if the result is that your client is even slightly more likely to go to gaol.

If you have the misfortune to appear before one of these troublesome Ministry of Justice enforcers, do not allow yourself to be bullied.

A good way of dealing with such a judge is to time your legal submissions carefully. There are few cases in which there is not some sort of discussion about the law at some point between the end of the evidence and the judge’s summing up. Indeed, the Court of Appeal strongly encourages the practice. Even if the law seems to you entirely straightforward you need to be sure that the judge thinks so too. Maybe he has missed something, maybe you have. Anyway it can get boring sitting on the bench just observing the trial. Some judges are delighted to be given a chance to play a bigger part by wrestling with a legal issue.

So you are always entitled to make legal submissions, and half past three in the afternoon, after all the evidence has been called, is a very good time to make them. By the time the jury has been sent out and a check-list of directions sorted out it should be getting on for 4 o’clock, even if there isn’t much to argue about.

Perhaps there is time for the prosecution to make a speech then, but probably not for the defence too. That, in fact, might be the perfect outcome from a defence point of view.

The Defence Closing Speech in the Crown Court

Your simple objective is to raise at least one fundamental doubt about the prosecution case.

If that is done then it will be impossible to be sure of your client’s guilt and you will be acquitted.

Broadly speaking defence arguments fall into four categories.

First, and probably most common, are those cases where the prosecution witnesses’ reliability is challenged; typically, perhaps an identification issue, or a self-defence case turning on “who threw the first punch.”

Secondly: cases where the witnesses’ honesty is challenged. Historic sex cases, for example, often leave little scope for mistake or misunderstanding: one or other party must be lying.

Thirdly: cases which depend upon disputed expert evidence . An example might be a “baby battering” case where, relying upon evidence of broken ribs, bruises and brain damage the prosecution experts assert that a baby must have been shaken, even though no-one has seen it happening.

Finally cases where the prosecution evidence is accepted but the prosecutor’s interpretation of the evidence is disputed: for example a conspiracy to supply drugs where the telephone and observation evidence is agreed, and the argument is over whether it does in fact prove a conspiracy.

Of course these categories overlap a lot. A drugs conspiracy, for example, may involve surveillance officers who are mistaken in their observations, a “supergrass” lying to save his own skin, forensic scientists making mistakes in an analysis of drug residues on bank notes and a prosecutor drawing unwarranted conclusions from the telephone evidence.

In other cases, perhaps particularly street or pub fights, it may be possible to argue that the witnesses are either unreliable or dishonest.

But identifying which type of case you are dealing with should help you to concentrate your fire where it is needed. In a sex case, for example, if the dispute is whether the incident took place at all the issue is almost certainly honesty. If so, there is no point in wasting time demonstrating that perhaps the complainant was unreliable on some of the surrounding details.

“ Members of the jury this woman couldn’t even remember if the defendant was wearing a red top or a blue top? ”

It invites, in fact demands the response:

“ So what? If that’s your best argument we’re against you. ”

How long should my speech be?

As so often, Churchill was right. “ A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest .”

Typically, in a 3 – 5 day trial this means 30 to 45 minutes; if the trial has lasted a couple of weeks then perhaps up to an hour.

What should I say?

The most important part of your speech is that which deals with the burden and standard of proof. You simply cannot take it for granted. And given its importance you should usually deal with it near the beginning of the speech; and at the end; and in the middle.

Don’t forget that being “sure” means the same as being “sure beyond reasonable doubt”. The latter is a well-known phrase with a solemn ring to it and I rather like it. One does not want to make too much of the analogy but the difference is rather akin to that between the poetic language of the Authorised Version and the more prosaic words of the New English Bible.

Unfortunately, once you have addressed ten or twenty juries on the subject of the standard of proof, it can get rather boring and mechanical. It is impossible every time to think up a new way of saying much the same thing. On the other hand, remember that what may bore you, just because you have said it all before, will not necessarily be boring to the jury.

I am regularly heartened by the seriousness with which juries take their task. Many will remember the superficially foolish sounding questions asked by the jury in Vicky Pryce’s first trial for perverting the course of justice. One of the questions it asked was “ what is reasonable doubt ?” The jurors were widely castigated for asking such an apparently stupid question: but plenty of our senior judges over the years have proved themselves equally baffled by it.

The answer, according to the trial judge Mr Justice Sweeney, is that a reasonable doubt is “a doubt which is reasonable.” That was a very straight answer. Other judges have attempted more detailed elucidation, usually by saying what it does not mean. It does not mean proof “beyond a shadow of a doubt ” 1 Nor does it does it mean “ a doubt for which you could give reasons…. ” 2 On the other hand it might mean “ the sort of doubt that might affect the mind of a person in dealing with matters of importance in his own affairs .” 3 So the jury’s question was not actually stupid at all; it simply revealed that the jurors were quite properly agonising over the meaning of a phrase, something that is, indeed, difficult to pin down. It is hardly surprising that they asked for help.

So, what do you say to the jury about the need to be sure before convicting?

As judges have found, it is much easier to define what being “sure” is not than to say what it is. For this reason many advocates give some such explanation as this:

“Being sure does not mean you saying to yourself: “I think he did it”, or “he probably did it”, or even “I’m almost sure he did it.” If the prosecution have made you almost sure then they have not proved the case to the high standard that the law requires. If there is a possibility that you could be mistaken then you are not sure, and the proper verdict is one of not guilty.”

To some extent the way you pitch this part of the speech depends on how strong the case against you is.

If it seems a very strong case then the standard of proof is probably one of your only points. You can afford to devote quite a lot of your speech to it.

On the other hand, if you have plenty of other good points to make they can seem a little devalued if you stress the burden of proof too much. There is always the danger that a jury will think:

“ Why is he going on about the burden of proof? It must be because all the evidence supports the prosecution and he is hasn’t got anything better to say. ”

Of course, if you haven’t got anything better to say, then so be it. But it is remarkable how in most cases good defence points do tend to emerge as the case plays out.

Generally speaking it is best to concentrate your fire on attacking the main prosecution points rather than trying to shore up your own witnesses. It is not, after all, your job to prove a case but to show that the prosecution case is unsafe.

Make sure you are realistic in what you say. If you take silly points the jury will think you are silly.

If you have followed my advice the jury will regard you as a straightforward, honest and sensible person. They rightly expect you to articulate the defence answer to the best prosecution points. So identify the best prosecution points and answer them as best you can.

All the best speeches have a central backbone, a spinal column to ensure that the speech stands up: the witnesses have motives to lie, the witnesses were drunk, the witnesses all contradict each other. The possibilities are endless but if you can build your speech around a theme of this sort it will be far easier to follow.

Of course exactly how you structure your speech is up to you. It will vary from case to case. But a good pattern is this:

State your argument early on.

Illustrate the argument with examples from the evidence.

Conclude by stating it again.

Make it easy for the jury to return the verdict you want

This is a principle that you should bear in mind throughout your speech.

Let me give an example: your client alleges a vast police conspiracy to convict him of assaulting his neighbour, after a dispute over noise from a drunken party. He may even be right; fact can indeed be stranger than fiction. Nevertheless, it is exceedingly improbable. The jury will consider it far more likely that both parties were drunk and lost their tempers. If your speech leaves the jury with the idea that a not guilty verdict depends upon the existence of a police conspiracy, your client will love the speech but will be convicted. On the other hand if you suggest a more mundane explanation in which both parties are as bad as each other so that you cannot be sure who is telling the truth, that will be much easier for the jurors to agree on. Your client may not enjoy the speech, but he will like it when he is acquitted.

But do be careful about being rude about your client in your closing speech. Sometimes it may be in his best interests to describe him in unflattering terms, but if you are going to do so it is always tactful to tell him first and if possible obtain his agreement. Once they have heard the evidence many defendants will surprisingly often be happy to agree that they are stupid, drunk or even nasty individuals. The jury do not have to like the defendant to acquit him and if he is thoroughly unlikeable then it is better to face the fact rather than deny it and look like an idiot.   Tell the jury that the fact that he’s nasty does not mean that the evidence proves his guilt.

Generally speaking the points that you must get over to the jury are:

The presumption of innocence means that the defendant is not guilty. You should find him guilty only if the prosecution evidence is so overwhelming that it allows of no other explanation.

The standard of proof is such that a “not guilty” verdict does not mean that the complainant is lying. You may in fact be “almost sure” that she is telling the truth, but that would still require a verdict of not guilty. On the other hand in most cases a “guilty” verdict cannot be returned unless you are sure that the defendant was lying.

It is much easier for a jury to accept that a witness is mistaken than that he is deliberately lying. Don’t allege that a witness is dishonest if his unreliability is equally explicable by an honest mistake.

A similar principle may well apply to the defendant’s evidence as well, but in reverse. Unless you are sure that he is lying, he is not guilty. Only if you are sure that he is lying must you find him guilty.

Cases can be laughed out of court. But it takes the right case and a very special advocate to achieve that. It also helps to have an interfering judge or a galumphing nincompoop for an opponent. Such a happy concatenation of circumstances comes together almost as rarely as a total solar eclipse.

A little gentle teasing of your opponent can be fine, but be careful you do not appear as a sort of David Cameron style smoothie-chops, mocking a less polished colleague. This is of course a special danger for those – and they do exist in the legal profession – who already have a tendency towards smoothie-chops snootiness.

And there are some types of cases in which humour should never, or hardly ever, be attempted. Homicides, most sex cases and serious assaults need to be taken seriously and to be seen to be taken seriously. As a rule, if someone cracks jokes during such a trial no-one laughs and the joker looks like a fool. 

This mistake was made in his opening address by Don West, defense attorney for George Zimmerman the Florida Neighbourhood Watch representative on trial for shooting dead Trayvon Martin, a harmless teenager walking through his gated community.  The case excited huge controversy.  As reported by Richard Luscombe in The Guardian

“West began his opening statement with a joke, poking fun at the two weeks of jury selection that delved deeply into what prospective panel members knew of the case. “Knock, knock,” he said. “Who’s there? George Zimmerman. George Zimmerman who? Good, you’re on the jury.”

There was little reaction in the courtroom and West acknowledged that his joke had fallen flat.”

Nevertheless, West went on to win the case but it was in spite of, not because of his sense of humour.

On the other hand in less serious or emotive cases humour can be a very powerful weapon. No-one can teach you to be funny, least of all me, but if you can make the jury laugh with you, they will often happily do most of what you ask. If the case allows it then you should try to make the jury at least smile once or twice. It won’t win you the case on its own but it will help.

Most comedians will tell you their best jokes are often the result of careful preparation: this is just as true for jokes in your closing speech.

Seriousness

It is, of course, much easier to be serious than to be funny, and fortunately juries appreciate a proper seriousness too. There is much to be said for emphasising the importance of the jury’s role and reminding them of how seriously they should take their task. Although one reads the occasional horror story about how a jury has arrived at a verdict through a ouija-board and so on, my experience is that most do seem to approach their solemn task with great care.

Sometimes you will need to take a jury through a complex argument. Don’t worry, they will follow it as long as they are listening. Tell them it is important, tell them that they need to concentrate and do not patronise them. They will listen.

It is a serious issue but you are not allowed to comment on what punishment may be meted out on the defendant if he is convicted.

1 Miller v. Minister of Pensions [1947] 2 All E.R. 372

2 R v. Stafford & Luvaglio 53 Cr.App.R. 1

3 Walters v. R. [1969] 2 A.C. 26

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17 thoughts on “the beginner’s guide to the closing speech”.

I am Law school beginner but after reading these hints i really feel like i have already have an advantage. Very well compiled details which were easy to understand and a great network of ‘legal words’ were used which i had the dictionary interpret for me. So i also added quiet a few extra words into my poor vocabulary. Well Done Matthew!

Thanks Ozy. Best of luck when you finally get to appear in court. You’ll find it terrifying, but the first time you do a good cross-examination or closing speech you’ll be hooked. Nothing like it.

Amazing! So very grateful for this article.

I cⲟuld not resist commenting. Exceptionally well written!

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I found this very interesting. As a young man, I was a law student, but hearing loss led me to switch to journalism and photography. That’s how I earned my living – freelance. In middle age, I became a Town Councillor and, in my village, became a ‘one man citizens advice bureaux.’ I took on several benefit appeal tribunals and then several cases in the small claims track of the County Court. Like all Advocates, I won some and lost some. I found the District Judges to be very kind and considerate. As far as my CAB was concerned, nothing fazed me. I take The Times and enjoy the law reports. My only case in the Magistrates concerned a mother of three children who could not afford to renew the TV licence. Instead of unplugging the thing and putting it in a cupboard out of the way, she foolishly allowed her brood and their pals to continue watching it. The licence people came round, peered in the window and knocked. Caught. In the MC she was fined £400 + £120 costs. Allowed to pay at £20 a week, but after a few months the payments lapsed. She received a nasty letter from the Clerk to the Justices warning her that she faced imprisonment the next day at court. She came to me on the Monday night in tears. She had been advised by a friend to concoct a ‘cock and bull’ story about an uncle being I’ll, etc. No, I said, and got my typewriter out. She had a £20 to take to court the next morning and I wrote her a submission. I mentioned the ‘cock and bull ‘ advice and wrote that she was ignoring this and had come to court to say how very sorry she was for not realising the seriousness of her situation. At a certain point in her (read) submission, I had told her to raise her arm with the £20 note. They were very kind. She was warned of the consequences of further default and allowed to resume paying £20 weekly provided she paid her £20 note into the cash office downstairs after the hearing was over. There was no separate penalty and no costs. I was really pleased.

An excellent story. You should have been a barrister anyway. There are some deaf barristers I believe, and plenty of hard of hearing judges who tell witnesses to speak up.

I am a law student and after reading this helpful legal information, I find it really helpful for me as a future lawyer.

Really good just needed some help with a class project

I have been on my feet for 8 years and I found this piece both extremely helpful and enlightening. Thank you so much. I look forward to incorporating its elements in my next closing speech (this Tuesday coming)

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I’m doing some research for a novel and would ask in what order final summations are presented, would the plaintiff’s or accused counsel go first. Assuming a criminal case. If you can help I would be most grateful. Steve.

In a criminal case the order is normally as follows:

Prosecution opening speech Prosecution evidence Defence opening speech (only if defence are calling some evidence other than defendant & often not done anyway) Defence evidence Prosecution closing speech Defence closing speech Judge’s summing up.

The procedure varies a bit in the Magistrates Court, and if the defendant is not legally represented, when the prosecution don’t get a closing speech.

Hi! just wanted to drop by with a huge thank you for this wonderful blog. I have a mooting oral assessment quite soon and this has made me think not only of some new enlightening tips (that have truly changed my thinking and attitude to various points) but for the future as well, thank you for sharing your experience!

Hope you are staying safe and well.

Thanks Alejandra, I’m not sure if the blog will be much help in a moot, but do your research, be polite and try to answer not evade the judge’s questions and you should do well. Good luck!

Steven Oldfield Do you feel that a Prosecutor who refuses to repeat his lies by declining a closing speech and a Judge, who then includes the Prosecution speech within his summation, is something the Appeal Court should be concerned about when the Judge also falsifies the Trial Transcripts to conceal what constituted a corrupt Trial having taken place?

Without knowing all the details I wouldn’t like to comment.

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A Speech Code for Lawyers?

by Eugene Volokh and Keith Swisher

In August 2016, the American Bar Association amended its model rules of professional conduct by banning professional conduct that constitutes harassment or discrimination. Some cheer the new rule as a noble attempt to eliminate bias, while others jeer it as a pernicious speech code aimed at silencing disfavored views.

Model Rule 8.4(g), as explained in the rule’s official comments, prohibits “harmful verbal or physical conduct that manifests bias or prejudice toward others” and defines harassment as “derogatory or demeaning verbal or physical conduct.” The amended rule says it “does not preclude legitimate advice or advocacy.”

Many state high courts and bar associations follow the ABA’s lead when adopting model ethics rules for their jurisdictions. Do the ABA’s new speech restrictions responsibly aim to boost lawyer professionalism or do they unconstitutionally aim to stifle disfavored viewpoints? Ethics counsel and professor Keith Swisher   and UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh   discuss the new rule and its impact.

PREVIOUS RULE 8.4 STATED IT WAS “PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT FOR A LAWYER TO . . . ENGAGE IN CONDUCT THAT IS PREJUDICIAL TO THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE.” HOW DOES REVISED RULE 8.4(g) DIFFER?

SWISHER : 1 Rule 8.4(d) was not revised; it still broadly prohibits conduct that is “prejudicial to the administration of justice.” Rule 8.4(d) thus continues to proscribe much of the same professional misconduct that the new rule will proscribe. The difference is that the previous comment to Rule 8.4(d), which the ABA added in 1998, sought to prohibit lawyers from “manifest[ing] by words or conduct bias or prejudice” only while “representing a client,” and certain courts had further narrowed the rule’s application to misconduct relating to a proceeding before a court or other tribunal. This terminology and interpretation left unaddressed a great deal of lawyers’ conduct ( i.e. , everything that lawyers do outside of representing clients in pending proceedings). In addition, although several states adopted the comment, nearly half of the states went beyond the comment to add anti-discrimination or anti-bias language directly to their black-letter ethical rules. In light of these developments, the ABA reexamined the previous comment, determined that the comment was insufficient to address discrimination and harassment, and after circulating several drafts and soliciting public comment, adopted new Rule 8.4(g). The rule now prohibits “conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.”

This new rule is significantly superior to the previous comment, for several reasons. First, lawyers should not be permitted to harass and discriminate in the practice of law, even when they are not technically “representing a client.” Second, the previous comment was an insufficient mechanism and message for regulating discrimination and harassment. In the Model Rules, comments are merely interpretative guides, not authoritative rules, and subjects as important as discrimination and harassment should not be relegated to a comment. Third, the new rule, which prohibits and defines discrimination and harassment, is more specific and less subjective than the old comment, which purported to prohibit the vaguer concept of “manifesting bias or prejudice.” 2

With the new rule’s arrival, the ABA has fixed an omission that inadvertently permitted partners to harass associates or opposing counsel or to discriminate against staff on the basis of gender or race (for example). 3 Consistent with the Model Rules’ overwhelming influence on state ethical rules, the new rule will presumably spark the remaining half of states (or at least a significant portion of them) without a rule to adopt the new rule. The new rule might also promote uniformity across all states, including the ones that had already crafted their own rule in the absence of an ABA Model Rule.

Perhaps most importantly, lawyers and judges have a responsibility (admittedly disputed in degree) to ensure equal justice under law. The historical context adds urgency to this responsibility: The bench and bar have excluded groups in the past and significantly lag in inclusion to this day. 4 Continued discrimination or harassment in light of this context is particularly harmful, and it hinders access to justice for all.

VOLOKH: The revised Rule expressly applies not just to the courtroom, or to interactions with opposing parties, witnesses, or clients; it also applies to “bar association . . . or social activities in connection with the practice of law,” as well as many other contexts. It would thus likely cover debates at continuing legal education programs, discussions on bar panels, and even conversations over dinner at a bar function. It is a pervasive speech code for lawyers, including on matters unrelated to any pending litigation.

The revised Rule also deals with tangible employment decisions, and not just speech. But when lawyers act as employers, they should be subject to the same rules as any other employers. They shouldn’t face the state bar in addition to normal civil lawsuits, EEOC lawsuits, state fair employment commission enforcement actions, and the like. Nor should they be subject to bans on discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or socioeconomic status in those states whose legislatures have chosen not to ban such discrimination. Whatever rules Congress and state legislatures choose to impose on employers generally should be the ones that govern lawyers as employers.

State bars can legitimately regulate the behavior of lawyers as lawyers — what they do in the litigation process using the special tools that states give lawyers. But decisions about whom to hire for a legal practice (including decisions about which support staff to hire, and not just which lawyers to hire) should be governed by ordinary state and federal employment law.

PROPONENTS OF NEW RULE 8.4(g) SAY THAT IT IS CONSISTENT WITH THE BLACK LETTER OF ABA PROSECUTION STANDARD 4.16, BUT THE PROSECUTION STANDARDS ARE “ASPIRATIONAL AND NOT INTENDED TO SERVE AS THE BASIS FOR THE IMPOSITION OF PROFESSIONAL DISCIPLINE.” SHOULD A LAWYER WHO VIOLATES RULE 8.4(g) BE SUBJECT TO PROFESSIONAL DISCIPLINE?

SWISHER: The answer is yes, and discipline is consistent with other, current rules. For example, lawyers already can be (and occasionally are) disciplined for loaning money to clients in need, for not listing an office address on advertisements, or for having consensual sexual relations with clients. 5 Compared with these examples, sexually harassing or racially discriminating against employees, colleagues, or clients generally presents a more forceful case for disciplinary treatment. Even more to the point, this rule, although new at the ABA level, is not actually new. Approximately half of the states already operate under a similar disciplinary rule. Thus, claiming that this new rule moves an aspirational standard to a disciplinary rule is partly inconsistent with existing practice.

VOLOKH: No legislature, court, or state bar should impose professional discipline simply because people engage in “verbal . . . conduct” — which is to say speech — based on the supposedly “derogatory” viewpoint that it expresses. Courts and state bars already have ample power to require civility in the courtroom, and in dealings with opposing counsel, witnesses, and the like. They have no business regulating lawyers’ speech at “bar association . . . or social activities.”

PROPONENTS OF RULE 8.4(g) ALSO SAY THE RULE TRACKS THE BLACK LETTER OF RULE 2.3 OF THE MODEL CODE OF JUDICIAL CONDUCT, BUT THE JUDICIAL CODE PROVISION IS LIMITED TO CONDUCT “IN THE PERFORMANCE OF JUDICIAL DUTIES.” UNDER NEW COMMENT 4, “CONDUCT RELATED TO THE PRACTICE OF LAW INCLUDES ACTIVITIES SUCH AS LAW FIRM DINNERS AND OTHER NOMINALLY SOCIAL EVENTS AT WHICH LAWYERS ARE PRESENT SOLELY BECAUSE OF THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH THEIR LAW FIRM.” SHOULD A LAWYER BE SANCTIONED FOR MISCONDUCT, INCLUDING, FOR EXAMPLE, MAKING “DEROGATORY OR DEMEANING VERBAL CONDUCT,” OUTSIDE THE PERFORMANCE OF DUTIES REPRESENTING CLIENTS, E.G. , AT A LAW-FIRM DINNER EVENT?

SWISHER: Both the Model Code of Judicial Conduct and the Model Rules of Professional Conduct have long prohibited certain conduct outside of the court and the practice of law. 6 To be sure, certain outside conduct relates less to lawyers’ fitness to practice law, but the new rule specifically requires a nexus: It regulates conduct only “in connection with the practice of law.” Some criticism of the new rule has seemed to imply that “derogatory or demeaning verbal conduct” about a protected class should be permissible. The First Amendment might protect some comments from regulation (without of course making those comments praise-worthy), but beyond that which is constitutionally protected, it is hard to discern — and opponents do not identify — the value of such conduct. 7 In any event, the value must be weighed against the harm of discrimination and harassment in an already under-inclusive profession and against the profession’s unique responsibility to protect access to justice for all.

VOLOKH: Of course “derogatory or demeaning verbal conduct” — i.e. , speech — “about a protected class should be permissible.” This is America, where you’re not supposed to lose your professional license because you dare to express certain views at a Continuing Legal Education debate, or a bar association dinner.

Much such derogatory or demeaning speech may be wrong; if so, those who disapprove of it should argue that it’s wrong, and thus persuade the audience (and perhaps even the speakers) of their views. But that is the way that debate in our country and our profession should operate, not through the threat of a government entity stripping you of your livelihood when it concludes that some statements about religion, race, sexual orientation, sex, or whatever else are “derogatory or demeaning.” 8

A LAWYER VIOLATING RULE 8.4(g) IS SUBJECT TO PROFESSIONAL DISCIPLINE IN ADDITION TO ANY CIVIL LIABILITY IMPOSED ON THE FIRM UNDER THE LAW. KNOWING THAT NOT ALL HIRING DECISIONS END UP WELL, WILL THE RISK OF “DOUBLE” SANCTIONS INFLUENCE DECISIONS TO HIRE EITHER A WHITE MALE OR A WOMAN OR A MEMBER OF A MINORITY WHOSE QUALIFICATIONS ARE SIMILAR?

SWISHER: This concern seems speculative, in part because anti-discrimination and anti-harassment law and procedure have not been disproportionately applied to law firms. 9 To the extent the question implies that certain law firms might now consider diversity more seriously when making hiring decisions, the new rule might foster a more inclusive bar. In direct response, furthermore, the question presumes that other ethical rule violations do not risk “double” sanctions. That is incorrect. In addition to disciplinary treatment, many ethical violations may and often do lead to malpractice claims or adverse court action (e.g., monetary sanctions, disqualification, or fee disgorgement).

VOLOKH: Maybe the risk might unduly influence hiring decisions, but that’s not even the main problem; as I suggest above, the problem is that employment law for lawyers, like employment law or all other businesses and professions, should be made by state legislatures and by Congress, not by the state bar.

UNDER NEW RULE 8.4(g): CAN A LAWYER DEFEND THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH WITHOUT RUNNING AFOUL OF THE RULE?

SWISHER: The answer is yes because (as the introduction above notes) the new rule does not apply to “legitimate advice or advocacy.” The rule also does not apply to lawyers’ decisions concerning retention, termination, or withdrawal.

CAN A CIVIL RIGHTS LAWYER REPRESENT A MUSLIM BAKER WHO REFUSES TO BAKE A WEDDING CAKE FOR A SAME-SEX COUPLE?

SWISHER: The answer is yes for the same reasons noted immediately above. To be sure, certain ethical rules bind all representations, controversial or not. 10 But this rule is no impediment to the conduct in question.

VOLOKH: The lawyer could engage in “legitimate advice or advocacy consistent with these Rules.” But say the lawyer stops being a legal “advocate,” and starts just talking about the case over dinner at a bar function — or in a debate at that function, at a continuing legal education event, or for that matter at a law school. If the lawyer defends his position by expressing anti-gay viewpoints, his license would be in jeopardy: He would be engaging in “verbal . . . conduct” that “manifests bias or prejudice” toward gays, and some people might view such statements as “harmful.” Under the Rule, then, there would be a large set of cases that you could take as a lawyer — but that you couldn’t safely defend in a debate or over dinner at a bar function, for fear of being subject to bar discipline because of the supposedly “harmful” viewpoints you express.

CAN A FIRM CHARGE ABOVE-MARKET FEES TO A CLIENT WILLING TO PAY THEM, OR CHOOSE TO HIRE ONLY FROM TIER-ONE LAW SCHOOLS, WITHOUT VIOLATING THE PROHIBITION ON SOCIOECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION?

SWISHER: The prohibition against socioeconomic bias was included in the original comment in 1998. It is not new, and neither the previous comment nor the new rule would prohibit either example in the question. In particular, the firms do not appear to be knowingly discriminating (much less harassing) on the basis of “socioeconomic status.” 11 To the extent the “legislative” history is helpful in this regard, neither the drafters nor the House of Delegates expressed any intent to prohibit such conduct. To be sure, the conduct in either example might indirectly (and presumably unintentionally) discriminate on the basis of socioeconomic status. But many of the opponents have seemingly failed to read the new rule’s clarifying comments, which aim to place certain limits on the rule’s breadth. For example, the new comments note that lawyers may continue to “charge and collect reasonable fees and expenses for a representation.” The comments do not, however, directly address “tier-one law school” hiring, which of course is still a common practice. To the extent the rule does not clearly address this hiring practice, 12 an adopting state may wish to note explicitly in the rule or comment whether and to what extent the rule applies to this practice. 13

VOLOKH: No. The most commonly used definition of “socioeconomic status” — interpreting a similar ban on socioeconomic-status discrimination in the Sentencing Guidelines — is “an individual’s status in society as determined by objective criteria such as education, income, and employment.” E.g. , United States v. Lopez , 938 F.2d 1293, 1297 (D.C. Cir. 1991).Thus, the rule would on its face bar a law firm preferring more-educated employees (both as lawyers and as staffers) over less-educated ones, or preferring employees who went to high-“status” educational institutions. After all, such discrimination is deliberate discrimination based on “status in society,” status defined by “criteria such as education.”

It would likewise bar a law firm contracting with expert witnesses and expert consultants who are especially well-educated or have had especially prestigious employment. It would bar a solo lawyer who is considering whether to team up with another solo lawyer from preferring a wealthier would-be partner over a poorer one. And it would probably bar quoting some prospective clients higher rates because they are seen as wealthier, given that this is intentional discrimination based on client socioeconomic status, and discrimination that may not be necessary under the “collect reasonable fees” exception (so long as the lower fees charged to poorer clients would still be “reasonable”).

WHAT BENEFITS OR DRAWBACKS OF RULE 8.4(g) DO YOU FORESEE?

SWISHER: In many instances, lawyers may already be disciplined for discrimination or harassment. This new rule, finally, makes that fact clear to lawyers. That is a good, in and of itself, because it provides the licensees fair(er) notice of that which is prohibited. The new rule also serves as an important signal, stated as strongly as the ABA can in its flagship product, that discrimination and harassment will no longer be tolerated; such conduct will no longer be dismissed as merely a civil infraction unworthy of a disciplinary venue. Protecting those in the legal profession, and the public they serve, from discrimination and harassment was always an ethical matter — and now the rules have been amended accordingly. The next ethical evolution presumably will be to promote diversity and inclusion affirmatively, not simply through the threat of discipline for egregious conduct. 14

VOLOKH: I foresee many lawyers being reluctant to engage in honest debates about important topics, or even organizing such debates. Say you want to organize a continuing legal education event that includes a debate on same-sex marriage; or on whether there should be limits on immigration from Muslim countries; or on whether people should be allowed to use the bathrooms that correspond to their gender identity rather than their biological sex. In the process, unsurprisingly, the debater on one side may want to say something critical of gays, Muslims, or transgender people. Will he say it, and risk a complaint to the bar, a bar investigation, and perhaps public reprimand or suspension? Or will he just not make those arguments — or perhaps not participate in the debate at all?

Government agencies are increasingly finding the expression of many political opinions to be “harassment.” See, e.g., Sherman K. v. Brennan , EEOC DOC 0120142089, 2016 WL 3662608 (EEOC) (holding that coworkers’ wearing Confederate flag T-shirts on occasion constituted racial harassment); Shelton D. v. Brennan , EEOC DOC 0520140441, 2016 WL 3361228 (EEOC) (remanding for factfinding on whether coworker’s repeatedly wearing cap with “Don’t Tread On Me” flag constituted racial harassment); Doe v. City of New York , 583 F. Supp. 2d 444 (S.D.N.Y. 2008) (concluding that e-mails condemning Muslims and Arabs as supporters of terrorism constituted religious and racial harassment); Pakizegi v. First Nat’l Bank , 831 F. Supp. 901, 908 (D. Mass. 1993) (describing an employee’s posting a photograph of the Ayatollah Khomeni and another “of an American flag burning in Iran” in his own cubicle as potentially “national-origin harassment” of coworkers who see the photographs). That is a trend that needs to be resisted, rather than encouraged by creating yet another viewpoint-based speech restriction that can punish or deter expression on controversial topics.

Courts have recognized that anti-harassment rules pose potential First Amendment problems if applied too broadly. See supra note 8. Yet the revised Rule 8.4 is broader still: In most states, harassment law doesn’t include sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or socioeconomic status; and it generally doesn’t cover social activities at which coworkers aren’t present — but under the proposed rule, even a solo practitioner could face discipline because something that he said at a law-related function offended someone employed by some other law firm.

Hostile-work-environment harassment law is also often defended (though in my view that defense is inadequate) on the grounds that it’s limited to speech that is so “severe or pervasive” that it creates an “offensive work environment.” This proposed rule conspicuously omits any such limitation. Though the provision that “anti-harassment . . . case law may guide application of paragraph (g)” might be seen as implicitly incorporating a “severe or pervasive” requirement, that’s not at all clear: That provision says only that the anti-harassment case law “may guide” the interpretation of the rule, and in any event the language of paragraph (g) seems to cover any “harmful verbal . . . conduct,” including isolated statements.

Many people pointed out possible problems with this proposed rule — yet the ABA adopted it with only minor changes that do nothing to limit the rule’s effect on speech. My inference is that the ABA wants to do exactly what the text calls for: limit lawyers’ expression of viewpoints that it disapproves of. I hope that state courts and state bars, consistently with the First Amendment, reject this vague and unconstitutionally overbroad speech restriction.

Footnotes :

1 many thanks to professor myles lynk, chair of the aba’s ethics committee, and dennis rendleman, the aba’s ethics counsel, for their insights, from which this piece liberally borrows. any errors are mine alone, however., 2 as the accompanying comment notes, moreover, the existing “substantive law of antidiscrimination and anti-harassment statutes and case law may guide application of paragraph (g).” model rules of prof’l conduct r. 8.4(g) cmt. 3. while the new rule’s focus on harassment and discrimination is narrower and clearer than the previous focus on lawyers’ manifestations of bias or prejudice, the new rule is broader in other respects. as a key example, the previous comment limited itself to lawyers’ “words or conduct” in “representing a client.” the new rule prohibits discriminatory or harassing “conduct related to the practice of law.” it is no longer the case that a lawyer who sexually harasses a firm colleague or discriminates against that colleague on the basis of race will escape discipline simply because that lawyer did not do so while representing a client. see generally aba revised resolution 109 and report to the house of delegates, at 10 (aug. 2016) (citing model rules of prof’l conduct pmbl. 1 & 6) (“the professional roles of lawyers include conduct that goes well beyond the representation of clients before tribunals. lawyers are also officers of the court, managers of their law practices and public citizens having a special responsibility for the administration justice. lawyers routinely engage in organized bar-related activities to promote access to the legal system and improvements in the law. lawyers engage in mentoring and social activities related to the practice of law. and, of course, lawyers are licensed by a jurisdiction’s highest court with the privilege of practicing law. the ethics rules should make clear that the profession will not tolerate harassment and discrimination in any conduct related to the practice of law.”), http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/final_revised_resolution_and_report_109.authcheckdam.pdf., 3 of course, other law might not have “permitted” lawyers to engage in such conduct, but the ethical rules did not address it. to be sure, a concerned disciplinary authority might have been able to cite a more general or “catch-all” ethical rule or (if mandatory in the jurisdiction) professionalism principle to discipline the conduct., 4 both the bench and bar are insufficiently diverse. see, e.g. , deborah l. rhode, foreword: diversity in the legal profession: a comparative perspective , 83 fordham l. rev. 2241 (2015); jason p., nance & paul e. madsen, an empirical analysis of diversity in the legal profession , 47 conn. l. rev. 271 (2014); eli wald, a primer on diversity, discrimination, and equality in the legal profession or who is responsible for pursuing diversity and why , 24 geo. j. legal ethics 1079 (2011)., 5 see model rules of prof’l conduct r. 1.8(e), (j), 7.2(c)., 6 see, e.g. , model rules of prof’l conduct r. 8.4(c) (prohibiting dishonesty); model code of judicial conduct r. 3.6 (barring judges from joining organizations that practice invidious discrimination and from using such organizations’ facilities)., 7 it is unclear what, if any, interest exists to use discriminatory epithets in legal practice or to harass those with whom the lawyer interacts. see, e.g. , grievance adm’r v. fieger , 719 n.w.2d 123, 140 (mich. 2006) (quoting cantwell v. connecticut, 310 u.s. 296, 309–10 (1940)) (“‘resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the constitution . . . .’”); see also generally aguilar v. avis rent a car sys., inc. , 980 p.2d 846, 854 (cal. 1999) (noting that the first amendment does not displace title vii and state law prohibitions against employment discrimination); robinson v. jacksonville shipyards , 760 f. supp. 1486, 1535–36 (m.d. fla. 1991) (concluding that offensive “pictures and verbal harassment are not protected speech because they act as discriminatory conduct in the form of a hostile work environment” and noting that even “if the speech at issue is treated as fully protected, and the court must balance the governmental interest in cleansing the workplace of impediments to the equality of women, the latter is a compelling interest that permits the regulation of the former and the regulation is narrowly drawn to serve this interest”); j.m. balkin, free speech and hostile environments , 99 colum. l. rev. (1999) (concluding that sexual harassment laws regulating workplaces do not violate the first amendment)., 8 even traditional workplace harassment law is subject to first amendment constraints. see, e.g., deangelis v. el paso mun. police officers ass’n , 51 f.3d 591 (5th cir. 1995) (“where pure expression is involved, title vii steers into the territory of the first amendment.”); rodriguez v. maricopa county comm. coll. dist. , 605 f.3d 703 (9th cir. 2010) (“there is no categorical ‘harassment exception’ to the first amendment’s free speech clause.”) (quoting saxe v. state coll. area school dist. , 240 f.3d 200, 204 (3d cir 2001) (alito, j.)); eugene volokh, freedom of speech and workplace harassment , 39 ucla l. rev. 1791 (1992). that goes double for the changes to rule 8.4, which go beyond traditional workplace harassment law., 9 indeed, but only anecdotally, law firms have often seemed to get a pass., 10 for example, if the lawyer’s claims or defenses are frivolous, that lawyer might run afoul of (the state equivalent of) model rule 3.1 or rule 11., 11 as indicative of a clash in the aba between those who wanted no mens rea requirement and those who wanted one (or a particularly strong one), the resulting rule prohibits lawyers from engaging in the conduct when either they know or they reasonably should know that the conduct constitutes discrimination or harassment. this latter, objective component does not seem to change the answer to the question above, but of course, reasonable minds might differ., 12 because nowadays students from almost all socioeconomic backgrounds attend tier-one law schools, it is not clear that the firm’s hiring practice knowingly discriminates on the basis of socioeconomic status., 13 of course, the state may wish to draft a rule that at least encourages more diverse hiring. the new comments explicitly note that the new rule is not designed to hinder diversity initiatives or the representation of underserved populations., 14 diversity is a compelling state interest, and diversity is particularly compelling in the legal profession, whose members are the public’s ambassadors to the courts both as advocates and (later) as judges. see generally grutter v. bollinger , 539 u.s. 306, 328 (2003) (referring to diversity as a compelling interest); bredesen v. tennessee judicial selection comm’n , 214 s.w.3d 419, 438 (tenn. 2007) (quoting edward m. chen, the judiciary, diversity, and justice for all, 91 cal. l. rev. 1109, 1117 (2003) (footnote omitted)) (“the case for diversity is especially compelling for the judiciary. it is the business of the courts, after all, to dispense justice fairly and administer the laws equally. it is the branch of government ultimately charged with safeguarding constitutional rights, particularly protecting the rights of vulnerable and disadvantaged minorities against encroachment by the majority. how can the public have confidence and trust in such an institution if it is segregated — if the communities it is supposed to protect are excluded from its ranks”); barbara l. graham, toward an understanding of judicial diversity in american courts , 10 mich. j. race & l. 153 (2004) (noting “[t]he lack of racial and ethnic diversity at the capstone, also in this edition.

• Table of Contents
• Judicial Honors (Spring 2017)
• A Model Trial Judge: U.S. District Judge Sim Lake
• Cain questions court funding, highlights best practices for proportionality
• Saving Our Profession: It’s Up to Us
• Judicial Excellence after Earl Warren
• Why We Read the Scalia Opinion First
• Foundations of U.S. Federalism
• Rebuild our Courts: State Chief Justices Call for Action to Achieve Civil Justice for All
• Mindfulness and Judging
• #Engage: It’s Time for Judges to Tweet, Like, & Share
• Hold the Parentheticals, Please
• Picking Judges: How Judicial-Selection Methods Affect Diversity in State Appellate Courts
• National Security. Civil Liberties. Can We Have Both?
• Lastly: A Judge Honors the Activist Who Brought Her to Jail
• As I See It: Updates from the Center for Judicial Studies
• Salary by Committee
• Editor’s Note: Relentlessly Relevant

About Eugene Volokh

Eugene Volokh teaches free speech law, tort law, religious freedom law, church-state relations law, and a First Amendment amicus brief clinic at UCLA School of Law. He is the author of the textbook, The First Amendment and Related Statutes (6th ed. 2016), and over 70 law review articles.

About Keith Swisher

Keith Swisher is an ethics expert, law professor, and former associate dean of faculty scholarship and development at Arizona Summit Law School. He founded the first blogs on judicial ethics and lawyer disqualification.

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Legal product reviews and business guidance from industry experts.

Lawyer Public Speaking & Teaching

By Stephanie Everett

News Articles Law Firm Marketing

If you’re comfortable on the stage (or willing to hone your skills – more on that later), public speaking can be a great way to establish your expertise in an area and grow your reach to new audiences.

Like any aspect of your strategic marketing plan, your public speaking strategy should be, well, strategic. You should understand who you’re trying to target with your speaking and how the speech fits into your overall marketing plan. 

For example, teaching a CLE to lawyers could be a way to connect with new referral sources. Conducting a lunch-in-learn at a local community center could allow you to connect with potential clients who need your services. For every opportunity presented to you, consider how this fits into your overall marketing strategy. 

How to Prepare for Presenting 

Pick a topic (and frame it well).

An audience is more likely to show up and be excited about attending your CLE or talk if it’s an interesting topic. How your frame your presentation is crucial.

For example, an overdone and mundane way to frame your CLE topic would be “Hot Trends in Personal Injury Law.” This isn’t specific enough to be enticing. A better choice would be “Three New Areas of Personal Injury Law That Every Tort Lawyer Will Need to Know In 5 Years.” Instead of a “Beginner’s Guide to Writing a Will,” try something catchier like “Want a Good Will?  Here’s the 10 Point Checklist that Every Estate Planning Lawyer Uses.”

Take the Opportunity to Learn a Substantive Area of the Law

Speak on topics that you know well or be prepared to get up to speed quickly on the topic. If your strategy includes teaching CLEs to lawyers, look for teaching opportunities that coincide with your current caseload. Are you working on an excessive force case?

Now’s the time to sign up to teach a qualified immunity CLE. This method has the advantage of honing your skills in an important area as well as motivating you to create the best possible CLE materials because they can double as case research.

Make an Outline

Like a good brief, the key to an effective presentation is organization. No one wants to listen to someone darting from one topic to another. That’s why an outline is critical.

If you start with an outline, it’s easy to see the big picture. You’ll understand how you want the topics to transition and fit together. An outline can also make it clear where there is a gap in your presentation and highlight repetitive portions of your presentation.

Spend Time Putting Together Quality Materials

Preparing materials doesn’t mean just printing out a bunch of statutes or old articles you wrote. Instead, consider your audience and what materials they’ll find most helpful after the presentation. No matter what, your content should be direct, easy to follow, and up-to-date.

If you’re presenting to attorneys, create materials that are useful and can be used as a reference later.  Highlight key cases or recently enacted statutes so even veterans in the field might pick up something new.

Ideally, you’ll cite all the major cases in your practice area and address topics that are peripheral but interesting. If there’s a law review article or a book that’s helpful, cite it as well. 

If you can turn your presentation into a short manual, attendees will keep it, which could create referrals in the future. It’s also a clear sign that you put serious effort into your presentation – great for your reputation !

If you’re presenting to potential clients, you probably don’t need to leave behind a treatise. Aim to put together checklists, forms, and other useful materials for people to use once they leave.

Get the audience members engaged by having them work through worksheets or questionnaires during the presentation. Make sure your materials are branded and have contact information so people can easily connect with you later.  

To PowerPoint or Not to PowerPoint?

After you have an outline and materials, it’s time to determine if you should use slides to enhance your presentation. First, make sure the facility has the capability of showing a slideshow. Assuming they do, think about whether you need a PowerPoint, or if you just think you need it because everyone else uses them.

Attendees almost always expect a slideshow when they attend a presentation. Without it, they may think you forgot or were just too lazy to put one together. Nonetheless, you will find endless advice on the Internet on whether slideshows are the best or worst tool ever created for speeches.

If you decide to include a slideshow, use it as a guidepost. The slides should be the starting point for a conversation. This will help frame your topic and remind people where you are.

And follow some easy rules. Guy Kawasaki implores presenters not to use more than ten slides, and only use thirty-point font or greater. Your presentation may be complex enough that ten slides are too few, but you should strive to use as few as possible.

The audience is there to hear you and not to read the entirety of your presentation from slides. Keep the information on the slides limited, and make sure you are the one giving the lesson, not the slides.

Finally, have a backup plan. Computers crash. Flash drives get corrupted. Your presentation may not work. That means you need to be ready to roll without the aid of a PowerPoint slideshow.

Practice Your Speech

Don’t write out your entire speech. If you do, you’re likely just to read it and you’ll sound formal and stiff. However, don’t memorize your speech either, because then you will spend most of your energy reciting rather than connecting with your audience. You should, however, practice your speech.

Every time you create or revise a presentation, you should practice. You should know if parts of your presentation don’t flow long before you’re in front of an audience. You should work on what to say, how to say it, and what to leave out. 

But the most important thing for you to focus on is pacing. You need to know how long your presentation will run when you don’t have an audience. With an audience, your presentation could go faster (because you’ll talk more rapidly) or slower (if there is a lively discussion).

Consider planning presentations in ten-minute blocks. If you plan out an hour, break it into six blocks. If you near the end of your first planned block and there are three minutes remaining, tell a story you weren’t sure you would have time for. If you fill time intermittently using ten-minute increments, it will be much less noticeable than filling fifteen minutes at the end of the hour.

Prepare Your Body

Yes, you need to prepare your notes, but you also need to make sure your body cooperates on the day of.

A couple of basic physical tips to get ready to present:

• Get enough sleep. Even if you have written the world’s best presentation and practiced it to the point that you know how long it will take, none of that will matter if you show up with two hours of sleep when you normally get seven. Everybody uses different techniques to ensure they get a good night’s sleep, but do everything you can to be well-rested.
• Eat right. This isn’t about telling you what to eat on the day of your presentation. Rather, it’s about telling you what not to eat: something new. The day you present isn’t the time to try a new recipe for a kale/calamari/pomegranate omelet that you’ve heard about. Only eat food your body is familiar with before presenting. The day of a speech is not the right time to start a new diet. You, and your stomach, want familiarity.
• Wear something you have worn before. It’s great if you want to get new clothes before you give a presentation, but you should test the new outfit before presenting so it feels comfortable and familiar. Shoes are a different matter. New shoes can take some real time to feel right. Try not to use this occasion as a good excuse to break in uncomfortable new footwear.

Right Before the Speech

You’ve made it to the day! Let’s make sure you’re prepared.

Here is a quick checklist of what you need to cover the day you present — but before you start talking.

Know the Room

Some people will advise that you see a room the day before (or even earlier) to get a feel for how your presentation will work. If possible, do this! If not, arrive early enough to spend a few minutes before you talk looking around the room. It’s always useful to see the views (especially of the screen if there is a PowerPoint) from multiple locations.

Double-Check the Tech

Make sure the technology you are planning on using is working, not frozen, and ready to go. You shouldn’t do this during your speech. Check the tech before you’re introduced. 

Know the Audience

If possible, look at the list of attendees before you go on stage. You may know someone in the audience who has insight into one aspect of your presentation. Talk to them before presenting to make sure it’s okay to single them out for a question or comment.

Bring Water

Never assume the host will provide water or other beverages during your presentation. You need to have this in case your throat gets dry.

Being an Effective Speaker/Presenter

And when it’s time to speak, how can you wow the crowd? Here are some tips to help you be the best speaker you can be.

Run it by Someone

You don’t need to find a colleague for this. In fact, the more removed someone is from the actual audience you will be delivering your message to, the better. Frankness and honesty cut across all fields, so it’s productive to test out your story on your significant other, your friend, or colleague.

Have them repeat back what you told them. Did what they say sound like what you said or wanted them to hear? If not, you need to sharpen and clarify your content.

Ask them if you seemed nervous, if they believed what you said, and if they were distracted by what you said or how you said it. Use these comments to focus your rehearsals.

Most people speed up when they get in front of a crowd. It’s often a combination of nerves and enthusiasm. Younger attorneys can be particularly susceptible to talking too fast.

This issue is exacerbated when you read from a prepared text. In CLEs, for example, cold text happens when you want to read a quote from a case or a part of a regulation. Try to slow down when you hit cold text.

Consider also writing SLOW DOWN across the top of your presentation outline to remind you to watch your speed continually.

Every type of audience craves genuineness from a speaker. When seeking to communicate or persuade, a speaker must ensure that the presentation is as genuine as possible. That means that you connect and engage with your audience by informing, entertaining, or inspiring them.

The more focused a speaker is on the topic—both its emotional and factual components—the more accepting the audience is.

Not every presentation is in person. In fact, more and more are done online, which have their own advantages and challenges. 

In a webinar, your audience is online. The webinar usually features a slideshow and may show the speaker in a tiny box above or below the screen. 

Your preparation for and presentation of webinars should differ from that of a live presentation. Even if you’ve given a lot of live presentations and you feel comfortable giving them, it’s not much help in getting you ready for this type of a recorded presentation.

Get Ready to Not See Faces

To start preparing, find out exactly what the audience will see. Some webinars don’t show the speaker at all, just the slides. Others show you only from the neck up. Knowing this will help you decide how to present.

Since you won’t have a physical audience, you’ll lack the immediate feedback that presenting live provides. With an in-person presentation, you can see the faces of the audience. You can sense if they are bored or excited or if they’re able to follow what you are saying. None of this works in a webinar.

With a webinar, you’re the only person who controls the emotions for the entire presentation. Even if live questions are emailed mid-presentation, they will likely only ask about specific points and not really get at the tone of your presentation or give you a sense of whether you are connecting with your audience.

Practice Your Webinar Many Times

The first step in making the presentation effective is to practice it extensively in advance. Lack of webinar preparation is almost impossible to cover up with a charming on-screen persona. Where you might be able to breeze through an in-person CLE by being charming and connecting with your audience — in a webinar, you’ll just look unprepared. 

Preparation is even more important if your presentation will be available long-term in an on-demand format. Your lack of preparation might be visible for years. Practicing the presentation multiple times is a bare necessity.

A Good Example to Follow: News Anchors

With a webinar, a good goal should be to make your presentation more like a persuasive news anchor. Here are four keys:

Use Your Visual Aids, But Don’t Read Them Out Loud

Just like an in-person presentation, using a slide show is fine as long as you don’t read the words on the slides. The slides are there to give your readers something to focus on while they are listening to you. They can complement what you are saying as well. If you want to give a full case citation, feel free to put it in a slide. Just don’t read it verbatim.

You’re Better Off With a Script Then Ad-libbing

With a live presentation, it’s a bad idea to read from a script. You can appear robotic and uninterested. But with a webinar, it’s better to read verbatim from a page than to be underprepared.

This is especially true if the audience can’t see you or your image is so small that it doesn’t matter that you’re reading from a page. As long as you practice the presentation enough, an entirely written presentation can be an effective approach to a webinar.

However, you need to sound like you’re not just reading. Watching a professional news anchor will show you how. You need to pause occasionally, with different lengths of pauses for effect. It’s also useful to modulate your voice when asking a rhetorical question or punching a key point. Avoid a monotonous delivery and plan for a key point roughly every five minutes.

Timing is Everything

If you promise your audience a ninety-minute presentation, you owe them ninety minutes. You should assume there will be no questions. 

As with in-person presentations, you should follow the ten-minute rule and break your presentation into several ten-minute blocks. Timing your practice presentations in advance should tell you if you have enough material. Keep in mind that most people go at least ten percent faster in the actual presentation than they do in their rehearsals.

Audience Questions? Trust Your Assistant

With most live webinars, the audience can email questions as the presentation is being recorded. Talk to whoever will be helping before your presentation about how to deal with these questions.

Watch enough webinars, and you’ll notice speakers are easily distracted by the mere possibility of an emailed question. It’s their only real audience interaction, and some will simply stop their presentation and bluntly ask, “Is that a question?” This can derail the rhythm of the presentation.

Trust that the person getting the questions will know whether they should pass them on to you or not. Some questions have already been answered by the time they reach you so they should be disregarded.

Some are nonsensical or even mini-presentations that may not relate to your topic. Some are merely technical questions about watching the webinar. Trust that your assistant will be able to tell the difference between a good question and one that isn’t.

Don’t Dwell on What Your Audience is Doing While They’re Watching Your Presentation

Webinars fundamentally require the audience to be on their honor. But we all know that some people are probably multi-tasking while watching these online presentations. Some may be checking emails or reviewing a brief while they are watching. Some may be at home, still wearing their pajamas. Some may be working out on an elliptical.

It doesn’t do you any good to try to compete with any of these possibilities. The best you can do is create and deliver a professional presentation and expect that your audience will recognize at the start of the presentation that it’s worth watching. If you convince them early, you’ll hopefully have their attention for the rest of the presentation.

For every presentation you plan to give, make sure you have a solid plan to promote the event before and after.

Marketing Channels 

Here are some marketing channels you should consider:

Social media. Create a Facebook Page or Facebook Event for the presentation  List the presentation on LinkedIn Events . Send notices to your Twitter community and create a specific hashtag that people can use to follow along. Create a short promotional video and post it on YouTube.

Advertising with associations and law blogs that serve your target audience. The ratio of sales per impressions will probably be low, but you’ll also be building relationships, recognition, and trust.

Mail and email. The old-fashioned way is still effective in getting the word out to a target audience. This will take some analysis and evaluation besides just purchasing large email lists.

Should You Pay to Present?

Many CLEs and events do not pay speakers. The exceptions are (sometimes) nationally-known speakers, experts in a particular field with significant recognition, and keynote speakers at conferences.

Most other speaking gigs, including your typical bar association CLEs, do not pay the speakers. Some organizations, however, actually ask speakers to pay to present.

One reason providers charge speakers is that they get access to a fresh audience. The host is selling the speaking opportunity as a way to try out your sales pitch while facing an audience full of potential clients and referral sources. If you ultimately get a few paying clients, that could make the price of speaking worthwhile. Where speaking is viewed as an advertisement for your business, a speaker’s fee may seem reasonable.

At the same time, the idea of paying for a speaking gig is a bit offensive, especially when the host is already profiting from attendees. The audience gets information and potentially CLE credits. The speaker just gets a bill.

If you are the type of speaker that leverages presentations to get new business, paying to speak may be worth it. But after a cost-benefit analysis, you might want to look elsewhere.

Regardless, go after speaking opportunities. Not only are you establishing yourself as an expert in your field, but you’re also getting your name, firm, and brand out there. It’s worth it.

And hey – you’re not alone. This is exactly what we cover in our coaching communities . Want some extra help? Set up a time to learn more.

Stephanie Everett

About the Author

/in/stephanieaeverett/

Website: https://lawyerist.com/about/stephanie-everett/

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Last updated October 7th, 2022

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Communication for Lawyers: How to Be Memorable & Achieve Speech Goals

• June 9, 2021

The legal profession demands excellence in communication. In litigation, of course. But it’s also critical to business development and success in every other practice area too. There are client pitches and updates, CLE presentations, other industry and community events, and more. For all these settings, here are some quick tips to be memorable, influential and achieve speaking goals.

1. Prepare like we used to early in our legal career, for moot court or any other time healthy “fear” motivated us to action. After years of law practice, confidence in our speech skills grows. That’s great, but it also makes winging things extremely attractive. We probably get by. But is it good? Is it the best we can do for our clients?

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2. Wrap up, sooner. It can be difficult to land the plane when speaking. Remember to trust ourselves (we conveyed the point), trust the audience (e.g., the judge understood it), and then sit down. No one respects a rambler.

3. Be specific, especially in a pitch for new business. Potential clients are unlikely to simply “catch our drift.” They are too busy thinking about the day’s next 12 meetings. We must therefore cover with specificity how we are best positioned to help them and then make an explicit ask for business that details next steps. This is critical because specific requests are what force people into thinking. Maybe they still say “no,” but at least we’re in the game.

4. More structure. When presented with information that is all over the place, the brain’s primary goal is to “order it.” This gets in the way of being able to really listen, hear the words, reflect on the message substantively. It’s also really annoying. Do that work for the audience. If an audience knows where we are headed and the turns make sense, they can sit back, take it all in, and enjoy the ride.

5. Stay conversational and ditch the script (usually). Except in the rare cases where the precision of each word is vital, a good presentation is more akin to a “purposeful conversation.” We know exactly where it should go, but we never take the audience there like a robot reciting prayer. Prepare with purpose, then go with the flow. Remain humble enough to adapt as necessary yet confident enough to keep pressing our goals.

6. Consider asking for less. Good persuasion often is incremental, especially when we seek to establish a new business relationship, change minds on thorny issues, or seek big action. Maybe “less” is the better ask right now, for more later.

7. Edit it way down, then again. We know this in writing, and it’s even more important in oral communication. Clients, industry colleagues, even judges, they are a lot like hostages that want to go, no matter how into you they are. We all appreciate concise speakers because they demonstrate respect for our time. Concise also reads as confident, credible. Plus, too much information is an invitation for the listener to tune out. Our best points risk getting lost.

8. Two fundamental questions for visual aids: do we need it, can they see it? Be selective for maximum impact and remember audiences hate being shown things they can’t see!

9. Be the you that’s most like them. Except for other lawyers, most do not find us very relatable. People have an easier time listening to, believing, and following people to whom they feel similar. We can usually switch up our dress, vibe, minor things to create more of that similarity with clients, and most other audiences. But never at the risk of authenticity, dignity, personal comfort level.

10. If they aren’t critical to our goals, ignore the one ‘jerk’ in every audience scowling at us, arms crossed. Don’t believe whatever message we think they are sending, and the rotten attitude probably has nothing to do with us anyway. Give all our focus and energy to the people who matter and the vast majority of good people who will give us a fair shot.

11. Address “the other side” and likely objections. We do this in court because we must, but it also matters in client pitches, industry talks, most any other speaking. Volunteering a perspective against our interest boosts credibility. It also enables us to control the narrative and have a chance to refute opposing views. This is far better than leaving any gap or open question, which is almost always decided against a speaker’s interest. Finally, an objection not addressed is an objection not overcome.

12. Transition more sharply than in writing. A presentation is not an essay; for example, there are no paragraph indentations. Over clear transitions are therefore critical to help an audience follow along. There’s a bonus too: sharp transitions wake the audience up. When they can tell we are moving on, most who hated our first idea will tune back in for a minute to see our next trick. Maybe we get them back!

13. All settings will neither allow nor warrant it, but we should strive to be unique where possible, like at industry or community events. Audiences are bored and distracted before we even begin. If something has been done or heard a gazillion times, we shouldn’t bother. None of us are entirely novel and most topics aren’t either, but with some effort the thrust, angle, style can be.

14. In the end, the end matters. How we conclude a presentation may determine our success, and whether we will be remembered and if so, for what. More than content matters. Maintain energy until the last word, the conviction in our client’s position, the passion for our topic. This final display of confidence can seal the matter in our favor. Conversely, no matter what happened or how we feel, never slink off defeated unless we are trying to be remembered as a Slinky.

Tim Giordano

Timothy K. Giordano, Esq. has been active in private practice and the business of law since 2002. He also teaches in the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University.

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Speak to a lawyer now: (416) 999-8389

First time speaking to a lawyer let’s make this easy, start with “hello.”.

Calling a lawyer for the first time can be intimidating, uncertain, and frustrating.

It doesn’t have to be, nor should it.

This short article is written to help you communicate with a lawyer for the first time, in a way that will benefit you both. Lawyers are there to help you through your legal problem and a few small changes in your approach will make it a lot easier for them to reach your goals as a client.

Don’t be afraid.

Lawyers want to help and they will not charge you for merely calling them. Lawyers are a business like anywhere else. Starting a conversation costs you nothing but is valuable in placing you on the right path in your legal journey.

Start with a hello. Tell the lawyer your name. “Hello, my name is Corine, may I speak to a lawyer?”

After reading the article below, your next conversation with a lawyer will be easy, effective, and helpful.

There is no such thing as a quick question

The law is immensely complicated. If answers were quick or easy, then lawyers and courts would be unnecessary. Put another way, there is no such thing as a “quick question” on legal matters. Approaching a conversation with a lawyer like this will be frustrating for both the client, and the lawyer. Do not assume your question is quick or easy, it never is.

Think of it in your own life. When a customer, patient, or client says “I have a quick question.” we know, it rarely is.

When a potential client calls me on the phone and says “Hi, I have a quick question.” it is often followed by a detailed, run-on explanation of what is happening or has happened to them.

As an example,

“Ok, so the other night I was arrested for assaulting my spouse but it didn’t happen and she doesn’t even want me charged, and now the police are saying I have to go to court and deal with this and I also have to get my fingerprints done but I can’t have a criminal record because I have never been charged before, so I don’t even know what is happening and I am not even allowed to go home or see my kids or anything right now.”

As you can see from this typical encounter, there is rarely even a question, let alone one that is quick.

This common occurrence is fuelled by a client’s assumption that they will get an “answer” to their problem. As I often say to clients “It seems you are not after an answer; rather, you seem to seek a solution. “

The answer to what has happened is easy. Getting to the solution of “what to do” is the hard part and why a person needs professional legal counsel. It is the difference between being diagnosed with an illness (“you have diabetes”) and seeking medical assistance to set a course of action in pursuit of a solution to your illness – the same applies to legal assistance.

Keeping in mind it is solutions clients are typically seeking, approach the conversation with an intent on finding answers on how the process works and how solutions are achieved rather than “an answer” on how to quickly solve the legal issue.

Collect your thoughts, find the time, and find the place to have the conversation.

For a conversation with a lawyer to be effective, there are a few essential starting points.

To start, a lawyer can’t listen to your problem and try to offer advice if they literally cannot hear you. Your issue is important to them. They want to help. They need to understand the issues and consider what you are saying carefully. This cannot be done if they can’t hear you.

All too often, clients will call from a cell phone while on speaker, on a bus, with excessive background noise, under unrealistic time pressures, or other distractions that make it impossible for the lawyer to properly listen to the complicated issues the client is trying to express.

Find a quiet room, ideally a land line, and put aside 15-20 minutes to have a conversation without interruption so that the lawyer can listen carefully and work towards solving the problem. Imagine you are going to visit your doctor. We will give you our undivided attention; we only ask the same and the ability to do so.

Secondly, collect your thoughts if you can.

Legal issues are complicated. Fortunately, lawyers are highly effective in identifying and solving them. Getting there is a lot easier if the client can first identify a short  summary of what has happened to date, and what outcome they would like to see. If it helps, take a moment and answer these three simple questions on a piece of paper, in one sentence or less to each answer:

• What happened?
• Why are you calling a lawyer?
• What do you want to happen?

For example, if a person is charged with a criminal offence, the ideally prepared client would call and say

“Hi, my name is Colten and I was charged with having cocaine in a car the other day. I am hoping you can help me understand where to go from here and how to try and fight these charges.”

Or, in a family law context:

“Hello. My name is Morgan. I am thinking of getting a divorce from my spouse. We have three kids so I am concerned about how all this goes down without affecting the children too much. I am also on a limited budget.”

These simple starting sentences allows the lawyer to quickly spot what the issue is and start asking relevant questions. Which brings me to the next part of this article: let the lawyer lead the conversation.

Let the lawyer lead the conversation and ask the questions

By calling a lawyer, you are already wisely recognizing that you need professional help.

Let that lawyer help you, let them ask the questions, and let them determine what information is immediately important. Chances are, what you think is important right now, isn’t – and what you think doesn’t matter, matters a lot.

At some point, everything is important in your case. However, before the lawyer can get you to the final destination, they need to look at the map of where you need to go. At the start of the conversation, let the lawyer lead the questions and conversation.

Just like a hospital, lawyers need to understand some basic stuff first. For me, as a criminal lawyer, I need to know things like:

• When were you charged?
• What are you charged with?
• When is your next court date?
• Do you know what disclosure is and do you have it yet?
• Are you on bail or released from the station?
• Do you need a variation of those conditions?
• Is this a domestic violence allegation?
• Have you been charged before?
• Are you under 18 years old?
• Do you have a criminal record?
• Are you intending to hire a lawyer through Legal Aid or privately?

There are many questions like this that the lawyer needs to understand before they can do anything.

Understandably, clients want to quickly jump to the stuff that matters to them most like “I want my charges withdrawn” or “I am innocent” or “I need to leave my spouse.” All of this is indeed important, but we need to understand the most basic of matters before we can tackle the complex. Let your lawyer lead the conversation.

Don’t worry, important things will not get missed but we need to start from the beginning.

Patience. The law moves at a pace we are not used to in today’s fast-paced world.

In today’s modern digital society, we can obtain virtually anything within moments and often without even leaving our home. Want a car? No problem, we can have you in one today fueled up and ready to go! Need a meal? Uber Eats is on its way! Want a home? You may have to wait a couple of days, but no problem.

Want your legal issue dealt with?

Time to wait – and wait – and wait…

The law moves at its own pace. So much so that the Supreme Court of Canada has held that a constitutional right to a “trial within a reasonable time” is 18 months for smaller matters and 30 months for more serious ones.

It is ironic indeed that in the leading case of R. v. Jordan setting out these timelines they shame the inferior courts for their “culture of complacency” and in the same judgment, provide acceptable timelines that extend beyond what even the most complacent of industries would consider laughable. But I digress…

As a participant in the justice system, you are now living in that culture of complacency and your timelines and what others might think as “reasonable” are not relevant. Understand that as much as your lawyer wants to help you, things take time. Courts take time. Opposing parties or prosecutors take time to respond. To further frustrate matters, the merits of your case (for example, if you are innocent) have no bearing on these timelines.

As a client, you need understand your lawyer must work within such a system.

If it sounds too good to be true, then it likely is. Speak to several lawyers.

When speaking to lawyers and making your own assessment of whether they are right for you, listen for substance. What are they actually saying or advising you on?

Here are some valuable questions to ask yourself in determining whether a lawyer is dealing with your honestly and will be effective for your case:

• What are they actually saying?
• Do they have specific knowledge of the issues you are discussing?
• Do they add anything other than what you already know or hoped for?
• Are they re-stating your wishes, or offering objective (perhaps difficult to hear) advice on the issue?
• Do they promise a lot with no substantive plan on how to get there?
• Do they rely on self-professed and unprovable skills or relationships to obtain your result?
• Do they acknowledge the uncertainty of the proceedings at early stages?
• Do they acknowledge the things not preferable to hear (such as it will take a while, it may be expensive, uncertain, etc.)?
• Are they listening to you?
• Are they telling you only what you want to hear?
• Do they ask questions (like those above) or just tell you things?

Finding the right lawyer is a difficult task. Above all, speak to many of them. Choosing a lawyer is one of the most important decisions you will ever make in your life. Do not do so lightly. We are not all the same. In speaking with multiple lawyers, you will come to realize the actual situation you find yourself in and who is treating you with honesty and candor.

Hopefully, this article helps to improve your initial consultation with your potential lawyer and gets you closer to the goal of finding counsel that is right for you.

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Public Speaking Tips for Law Students and Lawyers

Here, we have some public speaking tips for law students and lawyers. Law students and lawyers are frequently expected to speak in public. It is a skill that law students are forced to develop early on in law school – whether they want to or not.

Law students are “called on” in class and are required to answer questions about the cases they are assigned to read. They are usually expected to present arguments or motions during their 1L year to professors or judges. Many law students also participate in moot court where they have to argue publicly even more. Thus, throughout law school, law students will be expected to speak in front of their classmates, their professors, and – many times – even real judges.

Many lawyers continue to hone the skill of public speaking throughout their careers.   Litigators frequently have motions to argue and depositions to take. Some give presentations about hot topics in their field of law. Others become law professors, judges, or politicians – all who frequently interact with and speak to the public. 

Many people fear public speaking. They get nervous before they have to speak and usually try to avoid it if possible. What are some tips on becoming a better public speaker? We constantly speak in front of groups — ranging from five people to hundreds of people. We speak in front of students, law school faculty, and firms. We frequently work on becoming the best public speakers we can!

Here are some public speaking tips we have found useful. They are by no means a comprehensive guide on how to structure a speech or how to speak. They are just some tips that have helped us.  Some are more appropriate for traditional speeches (arguments and motions); others are more appropriate for spontaneous speeches (being called on in class or questioned by a judge).

Basic Public Speaking Tips for Law Students and Lawyers: 

• Our number one tip if you are giving a speech you can prepare for ahead of time? Practice, practice, practice. Practice in the morning when you get up. Practice when you drive. Practice while you’re getting ready for the day. Practice out loud. Practice in your head. Practice until you are absolutely sick of it. Before a big motion or speech, I will practice it twice a day the week before the event.
• Pay attention to fillers – “um,” “like,” “you know,” etc.  Consciously try to replace them with silence.
• Give your audience some idea of how your speech is organized. If you are going to make three arguments, say it right in the beginning then number them throughout the speech. This helps the audience have an idea of where you are in your speech. Reiterate your major points in your conclusion.
• Does your dad, spouse, or friend owe you a favor? Have them watch your speech and give you feedback. They can be a source of invaluable information and point out good and bad things that have managed to escape your radar. Positive feedback will also help to boost your confidence prior to giving a speech.
• Videotape yourself. I used to hate this tip and would adamantly not do it. However, recently I started videotaping myself frequently for the law school preparatory course I teach online. I noticed that in the beginning I would use fillers (“okay” and “you know”) and shrug a lot. This made me look as though I really wasn’t that confident in what I was saying. I would have never noticed that I was doing this until I started taping myself. It is a painful but necessary part of the process!
• Visualize success. Visualization is a powerful, often overlooked tool. If you visualize yourself doing well (and prepare well, of course) it can very easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Note: the opposite can happen if you constantly visualize yourself failing or forgetting what you wanted to say – be sure to counter any negative visualizations with positive ones!)
• Watch this Ted talk about body language by Amy Cuddy . It is not directly related to public speaking but it shows how body language can make you more confident. I have used the information I learned in the talk to improve my own speaking skills. If you are interested in this concept of body language making you look and feel more powerful/confident, I recommend look up information on power poses and how you can use those to your advantage.

Tips for Improving your Speech Even More:

• Pay close attention to how you open your speech. Audience members pay the most attention – and decide if they are going to listen to what you have to say – in the first ten seconds of your speech. A good introduction is crucial. Start with a question, a story, or something attention-grabbing.
• Speak conversationally and clearly to your audience.  Don’t use legalese when possible – You’ll be sure to lose your audience quickly if you do.
• Get used to making eye contact with the audience rather than staring at your notes or off into the distance. This helps people to engage with you and pay attention to what you are saying.
• Slow down. Many speakers rush through their speeches and speak really fast. If you notice yourself doing this, slow down.
• Make use of silence,  pauses, and volume. A pause at just the right moment can help get a message across and call attention to what you are saying. Don’t be afraid to raise your voice a little bit in some instances and speak quieter to draw attention to what you are saying in other instances. It helps to practice this ahead of time and even include pauses and volume indicators in your speech notes so you remember to do so.
• Use humor if it’s your style. Ask questions that force listeners to truly consider what you are saying. Use stories. Try to make whatever you are saying enjoyable to the listener. People tend to remember personal stories much more than they remember facts or data.
• For more traditional speeches (rather than arguments): Identify with your audience. What do you have in common with them? How can you relate to them? Have you been in their position before? Explicitly state it. Also, state why you are qualified to speak. Did you start a fantastic business? Are you an expert on the subject you are talking about. Have you been researching the topic you’re talking about for years? Say it.

Tips to Remember the Day of Your Speech:

• Look your best the day of your speech. It will help boost your confidence.
• Get to the room early. Getting to the room five or ten minutes before everyone else arrives can help relieve any anxiety that has built up to that point. Some people find it very helpful to visit the room a few days before their speech as well.
• If you get nervous, it is helpful to remember these things: First, remember that most people want you to succeed and do well. If the speaker is nervous, generally the audience is sympathetic and tries to be encouraging. So if you are nervous – even if it shows –that’s okay! Second, remember that people are there to hear your message. Focus on your message rather than focusing on yourself. After all, the audience is not there to judge your public speaking skills; they are there to hear what you have to say. This should help to relieve some anxiety.
• Start with the same amount of energy that the people in the room have. If everyone is groggy, it is probably not a good idea to start off with a peppy overly-enthusiastic introduction or you risk isolating yourself from the audience. Instead, start with the same energy that everyone in the room has, and gradually change it to make it more peppy/enthusiastic if that is your goal.
• Don’t pay attention to people who are not engaged. Every time I give a speech I see someone texting, on facebook, or staring off into the distance. It is always discouraging and it almost always throws me off track. But I started to make mental notes not to look at anybody who is not engaged and instead pay attention to the people who are nodding or who look more interested and engaged.

These are a compilation of tips that have helped me. If you have any public speaking tips for law students or lawyers of your own, please feel free to share in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you.

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Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository

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Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Free speech for lawyers.

W. Bradley Wendel , Cornell Law School Follow

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Publication date.

Winter 2001

First Amendment, Freedom of expression, Matthew Hale, Joseph McCarthy, Baird v. State Bar of Arizona, Judge Easterbrook, Judge Kozinski, In re Sawyer, In re Snyder, Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada, Chicago Seven, Paul Converse, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, Alexander Meiklejohn

• Disciplines

Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility

One of the most important unanswered questions in legal ethics is how the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression ought to apply to the speech of attorneys acting in their official capacity. The Supreme Court has addressed numerous First Amendment issues involving lawyers, of course, but in all of them has declined to consider directly the central conceptual issue of whether lawyers possess diminished free expression rights, as compared with ordinary, non-lawyer citizens.

The arguments of this Article are synthetic in structure. I do not aim just to criticize reported cases, but rather to show how the regulation of lawyers' speech fits within the various doctrinal complexities that characterize First Amendment law and within the ethical norms that govern the practice of law. This synthesis has three features: First, although the focus is on the application of free speech principles to the legal profession, the issues considered here are also implicated in other contemporary constitutional debates, such as the regulation of hate speech on college campuses and elsewhere, and the application of the First Amendment to "hostile environment" sexual harassment claims under Title VII. Second, this Article integrates constitutional principles that bear on lawyer-speech cases, but which have their origins outside the First Amendment. Finally, I consider not only the constitutional dimension of lawyer-speech regulation, but also the ethical and disciplinary context that informs the practice of law. Being a lawyer means participating in a social practice which has its own unique traditions, history, and conceptual difficulties.

This article pre-dates the author's tenure at Cornell Law School.

Recommended Citation

Wendel, W. Bradley, "Free Speech for Lawyers" (2001). Cornell Law Faculty Publications . 477. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/477

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Published in: Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 2 (Winter 2001).

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Georgia high school student, 14, kills 4 and wounds 9 in campus shooting

A 14-year-old boy killed two fellow students and two teachers and wounded nine others in a shooting at a Georgia high school on Wednesday, jolting the United States with the first mass campus shooting since the start of the school year.

University of Virginia School of Law

In Memoriam: Professor Frederick Schauer, a ‘Giant’ in the Legal Academy

Professor Frederick Schauer joined the UVA Law faculty in 2008 and wrote some of his seminal works at the Law School. Photo by Jesús Pino

Professor Frederick Schauer , a world-renowned legal philosopher and scholar of freedom of speech, constitutional theory, evidence and jurisprudence at the University of Virginia School of Law, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 78.

Schauer joined the faculty in 2008 as the David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law, and was Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment, Emeritus, at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Over the course of his life, he wrote more than 300 works on constitutional law and theory, freedom of speech and press, legal reasoning and the philosophy of law. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was a founding editor of the journal Legal Theory and a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

“Fred was a giant in the legal academy, one of the foremost scholars in the world in both jurisprudence and freedom of expression,” said Dean Leslie Kendrick ’06 , who is also an expert on the First Amendment. “His immense body of work on free speech, evidence, rules and the nature of law has had a major impact on legal thought for 50 years and will continue to do so for decades to come.”

Schauer was also an accomplished photographer and woodworker, and treasured friend and mentor to many, including to Kendrick.

“His brilliance was matched by his unassuming manner, his mentorship of students and junior scholars, and his incredible generosity as an institutional citizen. He was both a globally renowned scholar and a first-generation high school, college and law graduate, who delighted in supporting first-generation students and helping all our students succeed. In so many ways, he was one of a kind. Fred’s passing is a deep personal loss.”

While on the Virginia faculty, Schauer wrote some of his most acclaimed work, including dozens of articles and book chapters and the books “ The Proof: Uses of Evidence in Law, Politics and Everything Else ” (2022), “ The Force of Law ” (2015) and “ Thinking Like a Lawyer: A New Introduction to Legal Reasoning ” (2009). He also co-edited “The Oxford Handbook on Freedom of Speech” (2021) and a previously unpublished book, “ The Theory of Rules ” (2011), by Karl N. Llewellyn, a founder of legal realism.

Schauer, who was born in Newark, New Jersey, earned both his A.B. and M.B.A. at Dartmouth College before graduating from Harvard Law School in 1972. He stayed in Boston, becoming what he called “a smut lawyer” — a litigator defending against obscenity prosecutions in state and federal courts.

By 1974, he had turned to academia, joining the faculty of the West Virginia University College of Law. He wrote his first treatise, “The Law of Obscenity,” in 1976, in which he defended the constitutionality, “if not the wisdom,” of obscenity restrictions, as detailed in a  Virginia Journal profile of Schauer. Soon after the publication of his first book, he was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University, and from there, became the James Goold Cutler Professor of Law at the College of William & Mary Law School.

His 1982 book, “Free Speech: A Philosophical Enquiry,” helped shift scholarship from advocating for free speech to recognizing competing interests. Though the United States values free speech highly, as Schauer pointed out, other countries do not protect it to the same extent.

“That does not necessarily mean that the rest of the world is right and the United States wrong,” Schauer said in the Virginia Journal, “but it does suggest that it is a mistake to assume that free speech does not compete with other legitimate concerns, and a mistake to fail to recognize that we protect speech not because it is harmless, but despite the harm it may cause.”

Over time, Schauer’s interests expanded to include constitutional interpretation, comparative constitutional law and theories of constitutionalism, judicial review and judicial interpretive authority.

After seven years on the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, he moved to Harvard, where he spent nearly two decades as the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at the Kennedy School of Government. While at the Kennedy School, he also served as academic dean and acting dean, and in 2004, received a university-wide Distinguished Teacher Award. His role at Harvard included teaching courses at its law school in evidence and the First Amendment, and supervising graduate students in jurisprudence and comparative constitutional law.

While there, he wrote another seminal work, “Playing by the Rules: A Philosophical Examination of Rule-Based Decision-Making in Law and in Life” (1991).

It "remains the best thing ever written about the nature of rule-based decision-making,” Professor Caleb E. Nelson said of the book  when Schauer joined the faculty .

Schauer continued to influence legal thought throughout his life. In 2021, he was listed as one of the  top 20 most cited legal scholars of all time . “The Force of Law,” published in 2015, inspired scholarly events around the world analyzing the ideas Schauer put forth.

In a UVA Law School  article announcing the book , Schauer said he had not written much about jurisprudence, or the philosophy of law, until he arrived at Virginia and started teaching a course on the subject.

At the time, the prevailing view in the field — that force and sanctions were not key to understanding the basic idea of law — was an idea he wanted to challenge.

“If we actually look at how law operates and how people obey the law, we will understand that what differentiates law, what makes law special, is that it tells us what to do and threatens us with bad stuff if we don’t do it,” he said. “Obedience to law just because it is law is very rare.”

The book “reinvigorate[d] the idea that law is coercive, thus breaking with the dominant strand that has denied the importance of force,” said Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, a legal philosopher at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School who previously served on the Virginia faculty, in an  article about the book .

Schauer “contends not only that coercion is important to our understanding of law but also that the jurisprudential quest for essential characteristics of law is misguided,” she said. “He has changed the nature of the debate for generations to come.”

Schauer won the 2023 Scribes Book Award, which honors the best work of legal scholarship, for “The Proof: Uses of Evidence in Law, Politics, and Everything Else.”

“This book is a way to help people ask about evidence and answer questions about whether things in the world of fact are actually true or not,” Schauer said in an  article in 2022 . “There’s more information out there, and because there is more information out there, more of it is wrong. Especially in the internet era, there are fewer informational filters out there. And it’s easier to just say stuff and more people, to their credit, are trying to say, ‘Is there evidence for that?’”

Professor John C. Jeffries Jr. ’73 , who was dean when Schauer was recruited, said “he was an academic star but always and unfailingly accessible to his junior colleagues. He was a great scholar and a great citizen.”

Professor Lawrence B. Solum , also a renowned legal theorist, had known Schauer for the past 40 years.

“At the very beginning of my academic career, Fred provided comments on my very first law review — an act of great kindness and intellectual generosity,” Solum said. “One of my most important scholarly projects, the development of virtue jurisprudence, originated with a paper I wrote that responded to a paper of Fred’s. Throughout my career, I have consulted Fred's work again and again on multitudinous topics. He is one of the greats, a scholarly giant and a wonderful human being. He is irreplaceable and his loss is a heavy blow that will be felt far beyond the University of Virginia.”

Professor Deborah Hellman , who directs UVA’s  Center for Law & Philosophy , with which Schauer was affiliated, said his lack of pretension made him a generous mentor and colleague, even before she joined the Virginia faculty in 2012.

“He didn’t care about where articles were published, where people went to school or about other external markers of achievement or success,” Hellman said. “Instead, he cared about the quality of people’s work. When I was an unknown legal academic, he encouraged me to develop my ideas about the normative foundations of discrimination law into a book. When I had a draft ready, he gave me feedback, pushed me to consider arguments I had missed, and helped me to find a publisher. I am so deeply grateful for his support and his friendship.” 

When fellow legal theorist and UVA Law professor Micah Schwartzman ’05 heard Schauer was joining the faculty, he thought, “I couldn’t believe our luck.”

He had read Schauer’s work and knew him as a “tremendous” legal philosopher.

“But I didn’t know him personally and so couldn’t have known then just how lucky we really were. Fred was the best of colleagues and a wonderful friend,” he said. “Fred would probably have denied it, which would have been characteristic, but he was special — in his intellectual accomplishments and in the kindness, integrity and humanity he showed to the rest of us.”

Schauer was Professor Richard M. Re’s undergraduate college thesis adviser at Harvard. They kept in touch over the years, as Schauer visited UCLA when Re taught there earlier in his career, and they served on the faculty together at UVA.

“He had a huge effect on how I thought about everything in the law,” Re said.

One of Schauer’s former Jurisprudence students, James Nelson ’09, is now a professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

“Fred was a brilliant teacher and scholar,” Nelson said. “He was also an incredibly supportive mentor as I became a law professor. We only overlapped for a year at the Law School, but for the next 15 years, he always made time to give advice, read a draft or help in any way he could. He was an inspiration to his students and colleagues alike, and I will miss him dearly.”

Students also praised Schauer’s ability to explain complex topics.

“Even though he was one of the world’s leading scholars on free speech and First Amendment law, he made the doctrine accessible to all and patiently explained every concept,” said third-year law student Nimrita Singh, who took his class Constitutional Law II: Speech and Press in the fall of 2023. “His enthusiasm and his curiosity were infectious in the classroom — I didn’t want the course to end at the close of the semester.”

Schauer collected many accolades during his career. He  received an honorary doctorate from the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration in 2019. In 2020, he was  elected a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, an honor fewer than 10 American legal scholars have garnered. At UVA, he received the Roger and Madeleine Traynor Faculty Achievement Award for his scholarship in 2011. In 2009, he won Green Bag’s Exemplary Writing Award for “ A Critical Guide to Vehicles in the Park ,” an article published in the New York University Law Review. He  delivered the HLA Hart Memorial Lecture , considered a highly regarded mark of achievement, at Oxford’s University College in 2017.

Schauer has been a visiting professor of law at Columbia Law School, the Fischel-Neil Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, the Morton Distinguished Visiting Professor of the Humanities at Dartmouth College, a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, Distinguished Visitor at New York University, and Eastman Professor and fellow of Balliol College at the University of Oxford.

He was chair of the Section on Constitutional Law of the Association of American Law Schools (1985-87) and of the Committee on Philosophy and Law of the American Philosophical Association (2006-08). He served as vice-president of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy (1996-98), and on the boards of numerous academic journals. During 1985-86, he served as commissioner of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography. The resulting report documented the growth of the porn industry and recommended ways to halt its spread.

Schauer lectured and taught around the world. His works have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese and Turkish.

His work was so influential that it became the subject of other scholars’ work through numerous special issues of journals and law reviews, and three books: “Rules and Reasoning: Essays in Honour of Fred Schauer,” edited by Linda Meyer; “A Demokracia es a Szolasszabadsag Hatari,” edited by Andras Koltay; and “The Force of Law Reaffirmed,” edited by Christoph Bezemek and Nicoletta Ladavac.

Schauer’s wife, Barbara A. Spellman , is a professor of psychology and a professor of law on the UVA Law faculty. She and Schauer wrote many articles together that drew from both disciplines.

The Law School Foundation has established the Professor Frederick Schauer First-Generation Fund, which will benefit first-generation students. Gifts can be made at law.virginia.edu/gift . In the gift designation box, indicate the gift is for the Professor Frederick Schauer First-Generation Fund. Checks can also be made payable to the University of Virginia Law School Foundation, with the fund’s name in the memo portion of the check. Checks can be mailed to the University of Virginia Law School Foundation, 580 Massie Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903.  

‘An Energetic and Committed Teacher’

UVA Law School alum Seth Stoughton ’11, a law professor at the University of South Carolina and faculty director of the Excellence in Policing & Public Safety Program there, pays tribute to his mentor.

My first experience with Fred Schauer was as a student in his Evidence class in the fall of 2009. He was an energetic and committed teacher, who constantly encouraged us to think about the rules of evidence not just as young would-be lawyers, but as legal thinkers. Knowing the rules of evidence was important, but Fred wanted us to understand and think hard about the why — or, as Fred led us to appreciate, the multiple, competing, and sometimes contradictory why’s — that underlaid those rules. He pushed us to identify principles and concepts, and to realize how those principles and concepts shaped rules and practice. And he did it while being witty, encouraging and self-deprecating in a way that turned him from a metaphorical giant in the legal academy to an approachable teacher, eager to engage with his students. And he frequently mentioned the work of Professor Bobbie Spellman, whom he referred to, with pride and characteristic good humor, as “My girlfriend, if that’s the right word for anyone my age!”

Although I got glimpses of his passion and stature among legal scholars in Evidence, it was not until I took Jurisprudence with Fred in the fall of 2010 that I really began to appreciate how renowned a legal philosopher he was. As we students looked further into the ideas and articles discussed in class, Fred’s name was, quite literally, everywhere . And yet, he introduced his own work only cautiously, ensuring that we had ample context to engage and critique ideas that he had been pondering for decades. He was working at the time on “The Force of Law,” which he later published to academic acclaim, and had yet to be recognized as one of the top 20 most-cited law professors of all time, but his brilliance was always clear in the classroom.

As my relationship with Fred developed, encouraged by a shared love of woodworking, he became one of my go-to mentors as I began to pursue an academic career. Fred was always available and always helpful. I can still hear much of the advice he gave me, the wisdom of Socrates combined with the punchy delivery of Mel Brooks. We discussed academic writing projects, before I received tenure, for example, and he passed along this sage advice: “At this point in your career, there is a right number of articles to co-author. And that number is between zero and one.” That, for me, was Fred in a nutshell: generous with his time, brilliant in his insight, thoughtful with his advice and simply fun  to interact with.

The University of Virginia, the academy and the legal world more broadly has truly lost one of its greatest thinkers. I miss him very much.

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• Speech-to-text dictation: A 21st-century…

Speech-to-text dictation: A 21st-century twist to a traditional law firm tool

By Nicole Black

August 23, 2019, 6:30 am CDT

Nicole Black.

Technology is a blessing and a curse. For some lawyers, cutting-edge technologies can seem overwhelming; however, with just a little research and know-how, you can incorporate modern technology into your law firm to streamline your practice and increase efficiency.

Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? The problem many lawyers face is determining which tools to research and invest in first. If that’s an issue you’re facing, then speech-to-text dictation is a great place to start.

How does it work? It’s simple: hit the record button and then start talking—the software does the rest. It registers your words and inputs them into your document. When you’re finished, stop speaking and your file is ready instantaneously. You can edit the document once you’re done dictating. Importantly, input errors will diminish over time as the software adapts to your voice.

Voice-recognition technology is one of the easiest ways to cut hours out of your daily workflow and is an especially useful tool for small firm lawyers who have moved toward a paperless office. This cost-effective efficiency driver has truly come of age in recent years. Gone are the days of dictaphones, miniature cassette tapes and the time-consuming back-and-forth between you and your administrative assistant. The advent of voice-recognition dictation has ushered in an entirely new and streamlined way to dictate documents. And the good news is that today’s lawyers have more choices than ever when it comes to 21st-century digital dictation tools.

Some may hesitate to use these tools due to perceived security issues or concerns about waiver of attorney-client privilege, given that this type of technology typically sends your recorded speech to the provider’s servers in order to process it and convert it to text. And in some cases, the providers may also seek to retain the voice data in order to allow their speech processing programs to “learn” from the speech input provided.

While these concerns are understandable, I would suggest that they should not be an outright barrier to using this method of dictation.

To the best of my knowledge, no ethics opinions have been issued on the specific issue of whether data sent to and retained by third-party providers for voice processing purposes constitutes a violation of legal ethical obligations. Even so, I would argue that based on prior ethics rulings that address analogous situations, using speech-to-text dictation may be permissible in many jurisdictions.

For systems where the text is stored and processed locally on your firm’s servers, it’s clear that it’s permissible. But even where the voice data is sent to cloud servers to be processed, there are arguments in favor of it being ethical.

The processing of speech by third party servers is similar to the way that Google scans emails sent via the free version of gmail to deliver relevant ads. Notably, in 2008, the New York State Bar Association, in Ethics Opinion 820 , gave this practice its blessing, concluding that it was ethical for lawyers to use the free version of gmail for most confidential client communications. The rationale was that it was permissible since the contents of emails were being processed by a machine, not a person, for the limited purpose of serving up relevant content.

Similarly, the third-party servers that process voice data are arguably analogous to the third-party servers through which emails between lawyers and clients travel. And, the use of email by lawyers to share most confidential information with their clients was given the green light by ethics committees as far back as the late 1990s. (See, for example, ABA Formal Opinion No. 99-413 ).

That being said, a more recent ethics opinion has indicated that unencrypted email may be insufficient for certain types of client communication ( ABA Formal Opinion 477 ). In this opinion, the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility advised lawyers to assess the sensitivity of information on a case-by-case basis and then choose the most appropriate and sufficiently secure method of communicating and collaborating with clients.

Additionally, it’s always important to review and fully understand the applicability of your jurisdiction’s ethics rules. Whenever you entrust your law firm’s data to a third party you have an ethical obligation to thoroughly vet the technology provider that will be hosting and storing your data. This includes ensuring that you understand how the data will be handled by that company; where the servers on which the data will be stored are located; who will have access to the data; and how and when it will be backed up, among other things.

But don’t let that scare you off. After carefully considering your ethical obligations, including the sensitivity of the information about which you’ll be dictating, consider giving the voice recognition tools discussed below a chance. They’re convenient time-savers, and for some lawyers, especially those in small firms, they’re sure to have a positive impact on firmwide productivity and your firm’s bottom line.

With that in mind, here are a few of the more popular speech-to-text tools that are worth taking a look at.

There are a number of free options available if you’d rather not invest in this type of software prior to trying it out. For starters, you can use your smartphone or tablet to access its free, speech-to-text dictation. Both iOS devices and Android devices include this feature. This method leaves a lot to be desired, in part, due to the small screen size or mobile devices. Even so, it’s a great option to consider when you’re on the go.

Additionally, both Macs and PCs now have built-in voice recognition tools, which can be used in conjunction with certain applications, including Word and Pages. You can find information on using speech recognition in Windows 10 <a href=”https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4027176/windows-10-use-voice-recognition>here , and the speech-to-text Mac tool, Dictation here . Both offer the option to set up your computer so that speech processing can occur locally, on your device, rather than in the cloud. This allows you to dictate even while offline and also addresses the security concerns that you may have regarding the voice processing occurring on a provider’s server. Note that the dictation isn’t always as accurate when it occurs locally versus on a cloud server.

If you’re interested in a more robust system, then the most obvious contender is Dragon Speech Recognition , which is the arguable leader in the voice-recognition software category. Depending on the version you choose, it will cost at least a few hundred dollars. But it’s worth the price you pay since you’ll be investing in a quality product that gives you the option to have your speech immediately processed locally. The company offers legal-specifics options ( Dragon Legal Individual and Dragon Legal Group ), and a cloud-based mobile option, Dragon Anywhere .

There are a few other options available if your larger firm is seeking legal-specific dictation software other than Dragon. It will cost you, but depending on your firm’s needs and size, the additional features offered by some of these providers may be what your firm needs. A deep dive into the systems is outside the scope of this article. But if you’re interested in speech-to-text tools that can also be used alongside more traditional digital-dictation tools as well—for some of the more seasoned attorneys in your firm who may be reluctant to test the waters with voice recognition software—then the voice-recognition offerings of BigHand , Winscribe or Philips might be a good fit.

So your firm has a lot of options when it comes to speech-recognition software. By investing a bit of time up front and carefully researching your options, you’re sure to find a speech-to-text tool that’s a good fit for your firm. And once you do, you’ll be on your way to a streamlined and cost-effective document creation process.

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York, attorney, author, journalist and the legal technology evangelist at MyCase, legal practice management software for small firms. She is the nationally recognized author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers and is co-author of Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier , both published by the American Bar Association. She also is co-author of Criminal Law in New York , a Thomson Reuters treatise. She writes regular columns for ABAJournal.com, Above the Law and the Daily Record, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. Follow her on Twitter @nikiblack , or she can be reached at [email protected] .

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The University of Chicago The Law School

Meet the class: simon whiteman, ’27, former professional baseball player ready to take on business law.

As a former Major League Baseball player with a chemical engineering degree from Yale, Simon Whiteman, ’27, has an unusual CV. The Trumbull, Connecticut native is excited to put his intellect and the skills he learned as an athlete to work in the legal field.

Please describe your professional background and path.

I graduated from Yale University in 2019 with a degree in chemical engineering. One month later, the San Francisco Giants selected me in the ninth round of that year’s amateur draft. I played professional baseball in the Giants’ organization for five years across four levels as high as AA.

What key experiences have shaped you?

Playing professional baseball exposed me to a host of different personalities, backgrounds, and cultures. I learned how to collaborate with peers from many walks of life. Living in various states and playing on many teams with players of assorted ages, I learned how to communicate and compete alongside many different teammates.

What motivated your decision to go to law school?

My approach to problem-solving is extremely analytical, stemming from my engineering background as an undergraduate. Studying law will give me an entirely new toolset to tackle problems at the intersection of business and policy.

Why did you select the University of Chicago Law School?

I am looking forward to learning from brilliant faculty who are at the top of a myriad of fields. Additionally, the University’s commitment to the pursuit of truth through free speech discussion excites me.

What do you plan to do with your legal education?

I’d like to work as in-house counsel for a corporation, executing strategies and making decisions while using my law background to structure business solutions.

What is the thing you are most looking forward to about being a law student?

For the last five years, I’ve been training and competing physically, using my intellectual abilities in service of optimizing my physical strength, mobility, and efficiency. I’m looking forward to competing intellectually using my mental skillset for its own benefit.

What are some of your hobbies or interests?

Outside of baseball and physical fitness, I’m interested in psychological horror in both literature and film, and the gothic genre.

What is a “fun fact” about you?

In my last year of professional baseball, in AA, my top sprint speed of 31.3 ft/sec would have placed me top three in the Major Leagues. I stole ninety-seven bases with the Giants and another seventy in a four-year college career.

The Best Commencement Speeches by Lawyers

Sometimes, commencement speeches are actually worth sitting through. Apropos of the season, NPR recently launched a website that collects some 300 of the most memorable commencement speeches dating back to 1774. I dove in searching for memorable speeches given by lawyers.

Larry Lucchino is on the list. You may recognize his name as president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox, but he is a Yale Law School graduate who formerly practiced law with the Washington, D.C., law firm Williams & Connolly. He makes the list for his 2008 speech to Boston University’s graduating class, in which he urged graduates to help others:

Life is not about warming yourself by the fire, life is about building the fire. And generosity is the match. To consider yourself – and to be considered – capable is good. To consider yourself – and to be considered – loving is even better. But to know yourself as generous is best of all. Generosity is its own reward.

Another lawyer who made the list not for his legal accomplishments is Tim Russert , the TV journalist and long-time host of Meet the Press who died in 2008. He is there for a 2000 speech given at Niagara University in which he urged graduates to help children achieve a better quality of life.

We can build more prisons and put more police on the streets, and we will. But unless we instill in our young the most basic skills and cultural values, we will be a very different society in the next century. We must motivate, inspire – yes, insist that they truly love and respect one another.

The only Supreme Court justice who made the list is Warren Burger , for a speech he gave in 1983 at Pace University. Burger devoted his speech to urging reform of the nation’s prison systems.

Our system provides more protection and more safeguards for persons accused of crime, more appeals and more reviews than any other country in the world. But once the judicial process has run its course we seem to lose interest. The prisoner and the problem are brushed under the rug.

From my review of the list, I found only one lawyer there who who made his name not by virtue of political or business achievements, but through the actual practice of law. That was William Kunstler , the self-described radical lawyer who defended a who’s who of left-leaning clients over his long career. He spoke in 1995 — just a few months before his death — to graduates of the State University of New York at Buffalo. His topic was the erosion of civil rights and ethics in the United States and about challenging the status quo.

Michelangelo’s David is a good example for all of you. This is the only representation in art of David before he kills Goliath. All the rest– Donatello’s bronze, the paintings–show him holding up the severed head of Goliath, as Goliath leads the Philistines down the hills of Galilee toward the Israelites. Michelangelo is saying, across these four centuries, that every person’s life has a moment when you are thinking of doing something that will jeopardize yourself. And if you don’t do it, no one will be the wiser that you even thought of it. So, it’s easy to get out of it. And that’s what David is doing right there. He’s got the rock in the right hand, the sling over the left shoulder, and he’s saying like Prufrock, “Do I dare, do I dare?”

Other lawyers I found on the listed include  Al Gore , Angela Davis ,  Edward W. Brooke  and  Michelle Obama . Perhaps there are others I missed. But I’ll close with a quote from lawyer and long-time Massachusetts U.S. Rep. Barney Frank , who offered this advice to Harvard University graduates in 2012:

The notion that you should try to overcome your weaknesses and force yourself to do what you’re not good at has never made a great deal of sense to me. It always reminds me of the scene in  Blazing Saddles  where the protagonist points a gun in his own head and marches himself off to jail to save himself from an angry mob.You can’t live holding a gun to your own head. Try and go with your faith.

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What famous speech — by a lawyer — was given exactly 152 years ago?

Hint: The speech was inaccurate in one respect in that the world did note, and long remembered what was said there.

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Highlight the below text with your mouse for the answer. Answer : The Gettysburg Address was given by Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863.

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Public Speaking Tips & Speech Topics

Law, Legal, Legislation Speech Topics [Persuasive, Informative]

Jim Peterson has over 20 years experience on speech writing. He wrote over 300 free speech topic ideas and how-to guides for any kind of public speaking and speech writing assignments at My Speech Class.

Persuasive and Informative speech topics about legal issues, laws, legislation.

In this article:

Informative

• Should it be legal for people to own exotic pets such as tigers or chimps?
• Is the fast food industry legally accountable for obesity?
• Should the U.S. government add an extra tax for fatty snacks and junk food?
• Should it be legal to smoke in parks and other similar outdoor locations?
• Would you support English being the official language of the USA?
• Do you think abortions should be legal?
• Should the government declare gambling and sports betting illegal?
• Do you believe the government should recognize same-sex marriage?
• Do you believe that not wearing a seatbelt should be illegal?
• Would it be better if the voting age was lowered to thirteen?
• Should minors who commit serious crimes be charged as adults?
• Should people who play music too loud face fines?
• Bullying should be taken seriously and be illegal.
• Should people who fail to recycle be obliged to pay a fine?
• Do you believe medicinal marijuana should be legalized?
• The age to be eligible for Social Security benefits should not exceed 62.
• Should abortions be considered illegal?
• Do you think immigration laws need to be revised?
• Why smoking should be illegal in public places.
• Why the U.S. should have mandatory military service.
• Drunk driving laws don’t seem to be working.
• Should homosexuals have marriage rights?
• Should a hunting license be necessary?
• Why we should have capital punishment.
• Child labor should be banned.
• Assisted suicide should be legal.
• Why we should legalize drugs.
• Lower the drinking age.
• Drinking and driving needs tougher laws.
• Gay marriage should be protected.
• Malicious computer criminals should face life imprisonment.
• Spam and disruptive commercial messages should be outlawed.
• Federal laws should change to intercept text messages used to rally enemies.
• Bars should be closed on Sundays.
• Capital punishment should be mandatory for all life crimes.
• No right to vote for convicted felons.
• Current child custody laws cause further harm to already broken families.
• Fifteen years should be the new legal drinking age.
• Front passenger seats are not meant for children.
• Government should have the authority to decide who can have children.
• Heavier fines should be issued to bikers caught not wearing safety helmets.
• Impose sanctions on countries that do not prohibit child labor.
• Juvenile delinquents should be sentenced to bootcamp.
• Mothers have the right to breastfeed where ever they need to.
• No amnesty for illegal immigrants.
• Our constitution should protect hate speech.
• Plea bargaining weakens the position of a defendant.
• Police should always be held accountable for roughing-up nonviolent activists.
• Police should further investigate all complaints of domestic violence.
• Prisoners should be put to work in community services.
• The CIA’s ‘torture flights’ really did exist and are a shame to our nation.
• The Bill of Rights should be updated and refurbished.
• The criminal justice system has too many shortcomings.
• The FBI should get court permission before monitoring e-mail traffic.
• The fear of making capital punishment mistakes conflicts with justice.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not universal at all.
• Tighten paparazzi regulations to protect celebrities.
• Trial by a citizen jury is not objective.
• We should not elect our local judges.
• Welfare mothers should be treated as working mothers.
• Legalizing the sale of human organs will reduce the lack of organ donors.
• Opt-out system increases organ donations.
• How laws are made.
• How volunteer attorneys help low-income clients access the civil justice system.
• Responding to campus massacres according to law.
• The importance of international courts.
• The purpose of espionage sedition acts.
• What forms of evidence are allowed in criminal investigations?
• Wire-tapping needs permission.

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Crime and Public Safety | California lawmakers dismiss bill to give…

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Crime and public safety | teen arraigned on attempted murder in shooting of san francisco 49ers rookie says he is very sorry, crime and public safety, crime and public safety | california lawmakers dismiss bill to give convicted murderers serving life without parole a chance at release, sb 94 would have offered those serving life in prison without the possibility of parole petition for for re-sentencing.

Sen. Dave Cortese, a San Jose Democrat, authored SB 94 in 2022 in hope of offering inmates who were convicted of murders committed before June 5, 1990, and who already have served a minimum of 25 years, opportunities to seek parole.

“After two years of negotiations and over a dozen deliberated amendments, I am incredibly disappointed that SB 94 was not granted the opportunity to be heard and the amendments considered for vote by the full Legislature,” Cortese said in a statement. “The bill, like those it would’ve helped, did not get its day in court.”

The bill was opposed by victim-rights and law enforcement groups and Republican lawmakers.

“Far too often, we hear about the rights of criminals here in Sacramento, while the rights of victims are trampled upon,” Assemblyman Juan Alanis, a Modesto Republican and former sheriff’s sergeant, said in a statement. “I am proud that we were able to help ensure the wounds of victims and their families for crimes as horrific as murder and rape will not have to be reopened by the release of criminals who have been rightfully sentenced to life in prison.”

The bill was sponsored by the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which referred to it as “a modest reform that allows judges to give a fresh look at sentences that are at least 25 years old.”

Had the bill been passed and signed into law, those convicted killers would have been able to ask a judge to change their sentences to 25 years to life with consideration of parole. The bill would not have applied to those convicted of first-degree murder of an on-duty law enforcement officer, or of certain sexual offenses in conjunction with homicide.

It quickly raised hackles among victim-rights advocates like Vanetta Perdue, a North Carolina woman who nearly lost her life in 1982 when her mother’s estranged, abusive husband broke into their home near Monterey, doused Perdue’s mother with gasoline and set her on fire, killing her and leaving their children to die with her in the flames. She spoke out against the bill at the state Capitol in Sacramento a year ago, saying “Life without parole is supposed to be just that.”

During the legislative session that concluded Saturday, the bill did not have the votes to pass and was placed on “inactive file.”

Cortese was not available Monday for a comment. But his statement late last week he said he remains troubled by the inconsistencies in existing law that allow some notorious inmates a chance to petition for parole, while others who were minor participants in a deadly crime get no chance. SB 94 followed a host of criminal justice reform measures that the state’s Democrats have pushed in recent years.

“We must continue the conversation and revisit racist, inconsistent and harmful sentencing that has disproportionately impacted Californians for over twenty years, and will continue to wreak havoc until fixed,” Cortese said in a statement.

But state Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Murrieta Republican who serves as vice chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, said the bill “would’ve been disastrous for public safety and victims’ rights” and that many of Cortese’s fellow Democrats who hold supermajorities in the legislature agreed. “We know that when voters come together and demand to be heard, even the supermajority has to take it seriously and listen to the will of the people.”

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Crime and Public Safety | San Jose: Ninth Circuit rejects qualified immunity for officer who shot activist in groin at George Floyd protests

Crime and Public Safety | ‘They kept hitting me until I broke loose’: Weeks before he was shot dead, Antioch man sought restraining order against his suspected killer