Win Your Case: How to Present, Persuade, and Prevail--Every Place, Every Time

311 Pages·2005·1.29 MB·English

by  Spence

Also by Gerry Spence
Gunning for Justice
Of Murder and Madness
Trial by Fire
With Justice for None
How to Argue and Win Every Time
From Freedom to Slavery
Give Me Liberty
The Making of a Country Lawyer
Gerry Spence’s Wyoming
Boy’s Summer
Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom
Half Moon and Empty Stars
The Smoking Gun
O.J.: The Last Word
WIN
YOUR CASE
How to Present, Persuade, Preveil—
Every Place, Every Time

GERRY SPENCE
St. Martin’s Press New York
WIN YOUR CASE. Copyright © 2005 by Gerry Spence. All rights reserved. Printed in the
United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spence, Gerry.
Win your case : how to present, persuade, and prevail—every place, every time / Gerry
Spence—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-33881-3
EAN 978-0-31233881-7
1. Persuasion (Psychology) I. Title.
BF637.P4S67 2005
153.8′52—dc22 2005040704
First Edition: June 2005
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to our grandchildren:
Tara Spence
Lana Spence
Margana Suendermann
Dawa P. Doma Sherpa
Charlie Hawks
Rio Suendermann
Ariella Spence
Cade Hawks
Henry Hawks
Dylan Spence
Emma Hawks
Ulises Spence
Senia Spence
and
To my great and loyal partner, Edward Moriarity, who with skill and wisdom fought side
by side with me in many a winning courtroom war.
Contents
Who Needs This Book?
Where I’m Coming From
Part One GATHERING THE POWER TO WIN
(Preparing Ourselves for War)
1. The Power of Discovering the Self
2. The Indomitable Power of Our Uniqueness
3. The Magical Power of Feeling
4. The Power of Listening
5. The Power of Fear—Ours and Theirs
6. The Dangerous Power of Anger
7. Understanding Power
8. The Power of Helping Ourselves
Part Two WINNING
(Waging the War—Presenting the Winning Case)
9. Discovering the Story
10. Discovering the Story Through Psychodrama
11. Preparing the Decision Makers to Embrace Us—The Voir Dire
12. Telling Our Story—The Opening Statement
13. Telling Our Story Through Witnesses—Direct Examination
14. Exposing the Hidden Truth—Cross-Examination
15. Closing the Deal—The Final Argument
Acknowledgments
Index
WHO NEEDS THIS BOOK?

and losing too often? Consider
RE YOU A TRIAL LAWYER
A
the possibility that it’s not the jury system, or a bad
judge, or a witness that turned on you. Maybe you
need to take a new look at what you’re doing both
in and out of the courtroom. Isn’t there a better
way to deal with jurors, with judges, and yes, with yourself?
What you’ve been doing may have worked once, but it’s not
working now. There might be something in these pages that
will help. This book may save your bacon.
Going to court? You should give your lawyer this book. Is
your lawyer representing you before a jury or a judge at his
full, exploding capacity? Or is your lawyer making his
presentation in the old, ineffective ways of most trial lawyers—
his brittle, intellectual, nonfeeling, unemotional, passionless,
stiff enunciations burdened with those big words? Is he
conducting a distant, hostile examination of jurors and
witnesses that make him look good but leave him distrusted by
the jury? Worse, is he putting on a show that even you know
doesn’t come from his heart? Your lawyer should read this
book.
Are you preparing to make a presentment to the board or
your boss? You’d better read this book. A principle theme of
this work is that the techniques of a trial in court are as much a
part of the presentation of your case before boards and bosses
as the genes of the primates are a part of us. The means and
methods and mental sets I teach in presenting a case in court
are often parallel to those that should be employed in
presenting a case to a board, a boss, a commission, or a
customer. I’ve discovered in over fifty years in the courtroom
that the most effective presentments out of court take on the
format of a winning trial in the courtroom. You don’t have to
be a trial lawyer to learn these methods. But you do need to
acquire a winning state of mind, an approach that opens up
both you and the decision maker to your presentation. If it’s
time for you to present your cause to a power person, the
decision maker, this book will show you how.