In this video, we're talking about how to write an opening statement, which means
I'm going to be giving you the ten step formula so you can have the perfect
opening statement. I know "bold assertion." Let's see if I can follow
through. Keep watching...
Welcome to Law Venture. My name is Jarrett Stone. Now I'm making this video about
opening statements because I just released a mini E-Book, which you can see
right here. Titled the ten step formula for the perfect opening statement. This
is how you can win the jury over without ever presenting any evidence. Now if
you're interested in getting the e-book and getting the download, be sure to look
in the description, click the link, type in your email address, it'll get sent
directly to you. Now what makes this ten step formula super powerful is that you
can use it in any opening statement. In fact, you should use it in all your
opening statements because it really doesn't matter the area of law that you
practice and doesn't matter the case complexity. If you apply this ten step
formula, you're going to be well on your way to winning the jury over before the case
even begins. So without further ado let's go ahead and dive into step one. The
first step is super simple, super straightforward. And it's mainly a
formality -- especially in federal court. But, I recommend you say these magic
words even if you're in state court because it makes you look kind of fancy --
which is the judge is going to ask you to proceed with your opening statement.
So you stand up, you go to your starting point where you're going to address the
jury, but -- instead of immediately diving in -- turn to the court. Acknowledge the
court by saying, "May it please the court." Turn to opposing counsel. Say, "Counsel." And
then turn back to the jury and at this point say, "members of the jury." Now the
caveat is if you have the burden of proof to where you're wanting the jury
to collectively rule in your client's favor, then you want to have "members of
the jury." You're planting that psychological seed to where everyone's
going start thinking the same way. On the flipside, if you don't have the burden of
proof and you want to divide the jury up and you want to plant, again, that
psychological seed, then you may want to just refer to the jury as, "ladies and
gentlemen of the jury." And then further direct each part of your open
statement to individuals. Instead of the collective jury because that'll begin to
divide up their thinking. On the flipside, again, back over to having the burden, you
may want to take it a step further to unify people by saying "Members of the
jury, residents of Travis County." PS shout out to Austin, Texas." Using the fact that
the jury members are from the same County is a great way to bring unity. The
person sitting in the jury box who knows they're representing this county also
knows that the person who's on their left and is on the right is not a
stranger. In fact, they're more like a neighbor and that is a great way to
bring unity. So whether you have the burden or you don't, try and start
planting that seed in this first step. Now let's go on to step two. So the
second step is probably my favorite part of opening statement but at the same
time it's weirdly enough probably the most controversial because I know a lot
of lawyers are about to disagree with what I'm about to recommend... which is
that you need to start your opening statement with being personable and
being likable. This is going to be controversial for some because a lot of
lawyers recommend that you have a two-minute window in order to capture
the attention of the jury members and a tell your story and to win them over in
two minutes. So they recommend that you come in, bring the fire, bring the
explosions, and capture that two-minute window and win it in two minutes. But,
jurors are actually really good at paying attention. Especially whenever you
consider the fact that whenever you're making your presentation or your opening
statement that you're about three feet away from them. They don't really have
anything else to focus on. They don't have a cellphone distracting them. And
it's not like YouTube where I have to bring maybe some fire and some
explosions in order to keep you entertained in the first two minutes to
potentially watch a five or ten minute video. PS, by the way, if you're still
watching this video *thumbs up*. Given all this, my recommendation for your opening
statement whenever you get it started is to be personable be likeable maybe even
make a joke. And I know that can be a little bit out of the norm for most
people but it's a fantastic way to segue from your jury selection (or voir dire
for the fancy people) and to carry that mood and that tone
into your opening statement. Hold back on the fire, hold back on the explosions
just a little bit because what you need to have is continuity from jury
selection to your opening statement. I talked about this in another video which
I think will be sliding here or not but check that out if you have it in that
video I mainly convey the fact that if you have this really great jury
selection and you're able to develop a bond with the jurors and you're able to
maybe even develop inside jokes with the jurors and then you throw that away by
not keeping that bond going during opening statement by just bringing the
fire in the explosions then the jury's gonna see two very different sides of
you and what you end up doing is one may be losing credibility but two you're
definitely gonna throw away that bond you develop during jury selection so
given that just go ahead and just continue the mood a little bit
develop that continuity from jury selection to the beginning of your
opening statement and then get serious with step three so this third step is
what I like to call the tone shift and I've talked about this in another video
hopefully that's sliding right now it may or may not be doing that let's see
if I figure that out later but with this tone shift you take it from we're joking
we're having a good time but unfortunately what brings us here
together is something very very serious and then you start kind of going into
the facts but this tone shift really starts making the jury think and more
important that's when they start paying attention right you don't really need to
bring the fire in the explosions in order to get them to pay attention you
just need to basically almost ruin the party and ruin the fun that we're all
having and the jury starts wondering okay what's causing this person we
bonded with for the last 30 minutes or an hour to start to switch his mood a
little bit they get curious and then you start satisfying that curiosity I'm
moving on step four now with this step we're gonna be talking about the theme
and the purpose of the theme is to set the mood for the entire case this
going to be the theme that you're gonna refer to over and over and over and over
again during trial now you need to take some time and figure out what's gonna be
a good theme in fact you need to also be critical of your theme and figure out
how the other side can maybe flip your own theme into something that's
beneficial to them here's an example if your theme is about bad choices that's
kind of vague and it's kind of broad and the other side can actually flip that to
say okay but opposing counsel made the bad choice about doing X Y & Z or the
other party made the bad choice about doing a B and C that's something that
can be flipped very very well if you just make it a little bit more specific
say the theme is about gambling right a lot of people are very very critical of
somebody who gambles at the expense or risk of other people now with gambling
it's a little bit harder to flip because it's a little bit more of a serious
theme and it's not as simple as choices like choices you do every single day
gambling has this implication of high-risk high-reward so that's just an
example off the top of my head but what you need to do is find a theme that
works for your case and definitely does not work for the other side's case and
all you have to do at this step is just use a simple sentence saying and this is
a case about and implement your theme and then what you do after you've
implemented your theme go ahead and transition to this next step step 5
so at this point you have primed the jury to be hypercritical and they're
asking questions they're wondering who or what has brought everyone here today
and who are what's causing things to be so serious what's going on
if they're asking questions and guess what you have their attention so you're
gonna provide the answers to the questions that you know the jury has and
in order to do that what you need to do is to actually start talking about the
other party's actions you start telling the story but allowing the jury to be
critical of the other party what you don't want to do is start talking about
to your client in your client story because the jury like I said they're
being hypercritical at this point there pride and you don't want them to start
basically focusing the Eye of Sauron Lord of the Rings reference right there
on your client that's the last thing you want you don't let them start poking
holes in your clients story instead just focus and hone them in on the conducts
and the actions of the other party so in order to do that in order to tell that
story be sure to speak in an active voice right don't speak in past tense to
speak actively that'll keep the jury more engaged be quick
be short and to the point kind of like this step now after you're able to do
that and you tell that story we're moving on to the next step step six
we're talking about the burden of proof so at this point we're coming from
here's what the other party did incorrectly and here's how we can either
satisfy or how the other party can't satisfy their burden and if you
basically had a really good jury selection a really good forward dier and
you were able to already talk about the burden of proof and I recommend with
opening statement be short be succinct and if you've already talked about the
burden of proof during jury selection just go ahead and touch on it for maybe
30 seconds just have a very brief overlay how those facts that you just
told about the other party's actions either satisfy or don't satisfy the
burden and then move on to the next step so if you weren't able to talk about the
burden during jury selection now's the time to do so and be sure to make it
make sense it can be kind of this abstract esoteric
line of thinking use examples make it more concrete and really drive home the
fact that it either can or can't be satisfied based on the other party's
actions in the previous step if you're able to do that and kind of interweave
it then you move on to the next step so with step seven you're providing an
answer to the question that the jury has and you know they have they just heard
the burden of proof they understood it and they're wondering okay how is this
lawyer going to satisfy the burden of proof or how's the other side not going
to satisfy it so you're going to answer that with step 7 by talking about the
anticipated evidence the evidence that you expect to come
for Thor come to light during the course of trial so you can talk about the
testimony the witnesses or the exhibits that will be presented and shown to the
jury here's a warning though and hope flashing lights are going off right now
if you aren't comfortable or if you aren't confident that certain testimony
or certain exhibits may not come in then don't mention them last thing you want
to do is over promise and under deliver on what you're going to present because
that'll end up costing you credibility and credibility is king in the courtroom
so let's pivot a little bit because you also want to talk about the weaknesses
of your case I promise you the other side can't wait to start talking about
them but at the same time if you're able to talk about them on your terms that
can take a lot of the sting out of bad facts or bad witnesses let's say there's
a document you have the burden of proof and you're trying to satisfy that burden
there's a document that's missing but what you can do is explain to the jury
that yeah it would be great if we had this document it'd be fantastic it would
make things super simple but we don't have it but we don't actually need it in
fact we have this witness we have that witness we have this document we have
this document all of that satisfies the burden of proof you can do the same
thing with witnesses if you know a witness just simply isn't going to play
well but the witness is an eyewitness who saw maybe a car wreck or he saw a
crime you can maybe take the sting out of the fact that okay we can't pick the
witnesses and we can't pick who ends up seeing a crime or a car wreck but he's
going to come up here and he's gonna testify to seeing X Y & Z and doing that
allows the jury to be prepared mentally for that and it also puts him
perspective to the jury of like okay yeah it makes sense they don't really
need that document I wish they would have had it and make my job easier but
they're right I understand the burden and they don't need it on the flip side
even if you don't have the burden you need to address bad facts and you need
to explain to the jury that yes these witnesses will say this or yes these
documents will say that but even with all of that evidence the other side is
not going to be able to satisfy their burden and
need XY and Z and so you can address the bad facts and then spin it in your favor
and then this takes us to the next step so we're at step 8 now and at this point
we have primed the jury to be critical of the other party's actions you've also
set the theme of the entire case so the scene is set and the jury understands
the burden of proof and knows the anticipated evidence that's going to be
presented and you've also taken the sting out of any bad facts at this point
after you've done all of that now you're gonna talk about your client you may
want to end step 7 by saying also you're gonna hear from my client who's gonna
take the stand and he or she is gonna tell his or her story and with that
story you're gonna hear yada yada yada that takes you to step 8 but step eight
you want to talk about how the other parties conduct and actions have
negatively affected your client again speak an active voice keep it very
engaging but your client is something wrong
own up to it address it but also maybe use passive voice at that point to where
maybe the jury gives your client a little bit more slack now after you've
told this story let's proceed to the next step step 9
so with this ninth step the second to last step let's call like it is
nobody likes a complainer especially the jury they can find it very off-putting
so if you were to end on step eight which is basically your client story of
how your client has been negatively affected then your client runs the risk
of coming off as a complainer and that's not good
that's when step nine comes into play which is to paint your client in the
picture of basically the comeback kid overcoming these negative situations and
coming out better and stronger than ever before and what that'll do is that'll
give your client a ton of credibility before your client even takes the stand
if you can do that that means you're on your way to the perfect opening
statement and you just have one step left step 10
we're at the final step step team we're here we've made it for those still
watching now my recommendation in order to end with a perfect opening statement
is to end with what I like to call the soft pitch a lot of lawyers default to
the same simple request of just rule in my clients favor but the jury at this
point is primed they know their jobs they know there's a burden of proof they
know evidence has to be presented so it's a really big ask to go ahead and
ask the jury during opening before any evidence has been presented to rule in
your clients favor what I don't want you to do is to ruin
this perfect opening statement that you've accomplished through the first
nine steps by just over asking with stepped in instead you need to do
this soft pitch you need to make it very clear to the jury that it would be
unfair for you to ask the jury to rule in your clients favor but you know that
after they see the evidence that you talked about after they've determined
the credibility of the witnesses after you've done a closing argument and
you've put a bow on everything after all of that there's gonna be one simple
decision and that's the rule in your clients favor but you're not gonna ask
that until the jury is presented with all of that evidence and that evidence
will make it super clear and they'll be super comfortable ruling in your clients
favor a little bit of a ramble but you get the gist of it if you have any
questions about this be sure to leave a comment below I'd be happy to answer it
for my go-getters who want to take their courtroom skills to the next level be
sure to check out trial ad Academy the links in the description it's an online
course that I put together that's gonna take your trial skills to the next level
and if you made it this far and you haven't given this video a thumbs up
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the next video