What’s it take to be a really good trial lawyer? The fol­low­ing is based on my 27 years’ as a trial lawyer.

There are as many kinds of lawyers in Amer­ica as there are fla­vors of ice cream. Many lawyers labor away at drone jobs in great dun­geons of the law; many are involved in inves­tiga­tive work from behind a desk­top; any num­ber of them whit­tle anony­mously away at con­tracts for cor­po­rate Amer­ica. But for mil­lions of Amer­i­cans, the world ‘lawyer’ can only mean one thing:

Jack McCoy of Law & Order.

He’s cagey. He’s eth­i­cal. He’s hand­some, in a frumpy sort of way — which mil­lions of women find attrac­tive. Did I men­tion that he’s cagey? We love Jack McCoy, and when­ever the Law & Order scriptwrit­ers throw moral ambi­gu­ity at us, we ask, “What Would Jack Do?” Because we are, after all, morally unam­bigu­ous crea­tures. And lawyers bring that out in us, because, well .… they’re ambigu­ous. In fact, deep down we know they’re snakes.

But as the dis­tance from Hol­ly­wood to real­ity is a march few Friends of Jack will ever make, this is as good a time as any to set aside a few mis­con­cep­tions about what it takes to be a great trial lawyer. Hav­ing been a trial lawyer for as long as I have, I’ve had the priv­i­lege of know­ing some really great trial attor­neys. Herein is my attempt at con­dens­ing the ele­ments of a truly fine trial lawyer —

1. They are geniuses at con­vinc­ing folks that their client is an “us.” When it comes to win­ning jury tri­als, the secret is turn­ing your client into an “us”, because if the jury sees your client as a “them”, you’re in trou­ble. And, as all good trial lawyers know, there are some clients who can­not be made into an “us” no mat­ter what you do. So you waive jury and let the judge sort it out. Judges deal with “thems” all day.

2. Good lawyers know that peo­ple WANT to be manip­u­lated. That may sound cyn­i­cal, but there’s noth­ing peo­ple love more than a good story with a magic trick thrown in. One of the best trial lawyers I ever met learned that les­son the hard way, early in his career. He grew impa­tient as the defense attor­ney con­tin­ued his detailed cross-examination about how the police offi­cers removed the back­seat of a car before search­ing the car. The jury was trans­fixed by this drama. The defense attor­ney had them con­vinced this was the heart of the entire case. It wasn’t, but it didn’t mat­ter. The jurors were get­ting the show they wanted, and it took their minds off the evi­dence of the defendant’s guilt.

3. Every really great trial attor­ney I’ve ever known reads the sports page. Although sports hardly ever comes up in jury selec­tion, peo­ple seems to sense who’s up on sports — and seem to believe that is important.

4. All really great trial lawyers under­stand that “jus­tice” and moral­ity hardly ever eat at the same table. Every juror comes in with a notion that some­one best be dan­gling from a rope by the end of the day. Lawyers who get billion-dollar ver­dicts out of juries for the widow whose beloved smoked him­self to death work on this prin­ci­ple. Sure, the deceased smoked 14 cig­a­rettes an hour, BUT THE CIGARETTE COMPANIES LIED ABOUT THE DANGERS OF CIGARETTES!! Aver­age peo­ple may not think that stan­dard to them­selves, but put a good look­ing lawyer with a $200 hair­cut in front of them, and let him talk for three hours — while they braid the rope.

5. All really great trial lawyers believe, deep down, they are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence. The per­sonal injury lawyers I know believe cor­po­ra­tions must be dealt with; their coun­ter­parts for the defense despise malin­ger­ing plain­tiffs. No mat­ter how triv­ial the case, both believe they are res­cu­ing the world from some evil and, in fact, they are. In Amer­ica the best incen­tive to not steal from peo­ple is the fear of lawyers.

In the com­plex world of jury tri­als, there are never any cer­tain­ties. Any­one who has tried 100 or more jury cases in his or her life will tell you there’s very lit­tle sci­ence to it. Almost always a jury trial is a Hail Mary pass. But the edge an attor­ney has to get is to make his client an “us” because he knows, deep down, facts and morals have almost noth­ing to do with it.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BRUCE HANIFY 2012