About half of any jury pool arrives assuming the game is rigged, and trial consultant Eric Oliver says you can't deny it. In his 41st year working with trial attorneys, Eric joins host Dan Ambrose to preview his new book, Assuming It to Be True, which tackles two hurdles jurors bring into the courtroom: unspoken assumptions and impaired attention. Eric explains why lawyers should approach every case as if it were a punitive case and frame damages as the deserved consequences of the defendant's wrongful conduct. Tune in to hear how the name you give the defendants can make their wrongdoing look worse, and how too much good evidence once cost a case against a cigarette company.

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2026 & 2027 Programming

☑️ Claude Cowork Masterclass, October 8–9, 2026, Hermosa Beach, CA

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☑️ Phillip Miller's Advanced Deposition College, Feb 18–20, 2027, Huntington Beach, CA

Episode Snapshot

• Eric cites research showing one distracted moment can cost you a juror’s attention for an average of 23 minutes — long enough to lose half of a 45-minute opening.
• Many jurors are more motivated to punish a wrongdoing defendant than to help an injured plaintiff, so Eric establishes the wrongdoing before asking jurors to value the harm.
• About half of today's jury pool are "post-truth deciders" who share a fear that the people in charge don't have their interests at heart.
• Using the story model of decision-making, Eric structures cases in the sequence every good story follows: the situation and characters, then the action, and then the aftermath.
• In a delivery trauma case, Eric explains how simply calling the defendants "the delivery room doctors" sets up a norm that makes a largely absent supervising OB look far worse.
• Most lawyers speed up on cross-examination, and Eric pinpoints the two reasons it happens.
• How do you lose a case because you have too many incriminating documents? Eric shares what a Florida tobacco case taught him about good evidence backfiring.
• When a client blows a deposition, Eric turns the question back on the lawyer and explains how the right preparation shapes how jurors see your client at trial.

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