by Ken Lopez Founder & CEO A2L Consulting

by Ken Lopez Founder & CEO A2L Consulting

by Ken Lopez Founder & CEO A2L Consulting

by Ken Lopez Have you ever seen the President of the United States give a PowerPoint presentation? Probably not. But he's actually quite good at it, as you will see below.

In a previous article I told you about five surprises I found in moving from my previous position as an IP litigator to my current position as a litigation consultant. After a few more weeks on the job and a bit more day-to-day experience as Managing Director, Litigation Consulting for A2L, I find that there is another big surprise: the amount of thought, time and work that goes into each and every trial graphic.

I want our readers to be among the first to hear some good news and download a free copy of a useful guidebook. A2L Consulting was voted a Best Demonstrative Evidence Provider by the readers of the National Law Journal. We are very proud. It's the second time in less than a year we have been honored with a similar distinction. At the end of 2011, the readers of LegalTimes also voted and named A2L the Best Demonstrative Evidence provider. I believe that this guide just published by the National Law Journal is a valuable one to keep. We all know one thing about litigation: you only get one shot to get it right, and thus it is critical to hire the right support team. The NLJ's best of guide is a good guidebook for anyone looking to hire a litigation support firm or other legal services firm. Frankly, it's a credible reader-driven survey that's been missing for a long time. I think the NLJ's work is especially reliable and useful since over 450 companies were nominated and votes were only tallied for known members of the legal industry. Below is a link to download the guidebook. I hope you'll take a moment to leave a comment below or ask a question. Thank you for your support of A2L Consulting and The Litigation Consulting Report.

In most trial presentations, the trial timeline is often the single most critical demonstrative exhibit used at trial. Much like an effective opening statement, the trial timeline: Orients the viewer; Provides a framework around which facts can be organized; Allows for easy comparison of events occurring in sequence or simultaneously; Builds trust and credibility by sharing a believable story; and even persuades when built correctly.

One of the most important jobs of the trial lawyer and of the litigation consultant is to make highly complex and technical issues understandable to the average juror who does not have a scientific, engineering or technical background. In technology cases, especially patent cases, using demonstrative evidence is normally a good tactic. Here's why. The trial lawyer has spent months or probably years delving into every aspect of the case, and by the time it gets to trial, even the most arcane subjects can appear simple to him or her. Of course, that doesn’t mean they are easily understood by the general population of which the men and women in the jury box are a representative sample. Think of the challenge as needing to explain a complicated subject to a kid or to your grandparent; it takes creativity (and visual presentations - e.g. demonstrative evidence) to make the concept digestible to all audiences.

Very often, trial lawyers face what feels like an impossible dilemma. The case that they want to present is extremely complex, intensely tedious or worse yet, both.

Demonstratives can frequently be used very effectively in product liability litigation, in which the issue is whether a product was manufactured negligently, causing harm – or in some cases, whether a product that was manufactured and used properly still caused harm to a consumer that leads to liability on the part of the manufacturer or seller.

Electronic presentation tools such as PowerPoint and Trial Director have changed the way in which lawyers and trial consultants present evidence to juries. These programs and others like them are so flexible and helpful in presenting numerical data, timelines, biological processes, the workings of machinery, and other information that in many ways they have displaced the old-fashioned methods such as printing words and graphics on foam core trial boards.