Most lawyers build their case around closing argument — but the trial is already decided long before that. Shane Read, jury consultant, trial trainer, and author of six books on trial advocacy, joins host Charla Aldous to break down the brain science of trial storytelling. A former assistant U.S. attorney who tried more than 100 jury trials in 30 years, Shane explains why modern juries — digital natives and digital immigrants — process information differently, why pictures outperform word-heavy slides, and how the "curse of knowledge" blinds lawyers to their own case's weaknesses. He reveals the three questions every winning story must answer and his WIN acronym for keeping the jury's needs front and center.

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More Likely Than Not, that 0.01% is all it takes to tip the scales of justice. Join us as inner circle legend Charla Aldous, Eleanor Aldous, and Caleb Miller walk you through the critical moments, big decisions, and bold strategies that win high stakes cases and show you how to turn that 0.01% into a game-changing verdict. You're listening to the podcast where winning is More Likely Than Not. Produced and Powered by LawPods.

Hi, I'm Charla Aldous. Welcome to another episode of Aldous Laws Podcast More Likely Than Not. We are so happy today to have my good friend Shane Read participate in this podcast because you guys are going to learn a whole lot from him. Shane was, first of all, he's an author of six different books. Yes, I said that right. Six. He just brought me these two. I'm excited. Turning points at trial, winning at persuasion for lawyers, winning at cross-examination, winning at deposition, turning points at trial. I've already said that one. So read them and you will learn a lot about the practice of law and trying cases. Shane was an assistant US attorney as I understand it, were you not?

Yes.

And tried, get a load of this, over 100 jury trials during that.

Yes, that's correct.

How in the world does a human being try over 100 jury trials?

You stay too long at the US Attorney's Office, so that's how you get it.

And did you try criminal and civil, Shane? What was your experience in the trials?

Yeah, so I guess the majority, well, more criminal than civil, but I was a civil AUSA for almost 24 years of my 30 years being an assistant United States attorney. So I had a wide variety of both defending the government when he gets sued and also doing some affirmative civil cases. So I had a wide variety of trials.

And you were always in federal court?

That's where all my trials are except a couple, yes.

And see, that intimidates me to this day. I hate federal court because you have to stand behind that podium.

That would limit you, Charlie, a little bit. I think you'd find still a way to be very charismatic, but I love federal court because you know you're going to trial. That's the one benefit of it. When you have a trial date, you're going. And so that's really nice. And the start to finish from the beginning of a lawsuit to the end is a lot shorter.

I've never thought about that. You do know when in federal court, if you've got a trial setting, you're going.

You're going and don't try and get a continuance because you're set aside time for you.

You're going or you're going to jail pretty

Much. Just something like that. Yeah.

So you were there for so long. What caused you to decide to leave the US Attorney's Office, Shane?

Well, I spent the first six years in DC at the US Attorney's Office, then the last 24 in Dallas, and I just felt I needed to grow a little more. And 30 years probably too long anywhere, but it felt good at the time. Felt like the right amount of time when I was there and just kind of urged to broaden out. So that's why I'm doing jury consulting now, helping other lawyers, train lawyers at law firms, which you can't do as an assistant United States attorney. So that was completely limited me. That's

Fascinating. Did you grow up in Texas?

Grew up in Dallas, yes.

And then went off to an Ivy League school.

Went to Yale. People say, "Why'd you go to Yale?" Well, I got in.

That's a good reason.

That's why I went. No other reason that than Texas Law School, then Aiken Gump for a couple years. Realized the big firm was not for me, wanted to get trial work. And so I went to DC because I always wanted to live in DC.

Let me ask you this, Shane. Growing up, did you always know that you wanted to be a lawyer?

My dad wanted me to be a lawyer because he was a stockbroker and thought, oh, having this law degree was kind of a ticket to a show that other people can't have. So it's a limited group of people that can be lawyers. So he wanted that. And I originally went to get into politics. I thought, "Oh, great politicians are lawyers." And then I got to law school and realized, oh no, politics is not for me, but I love the courtroom. So that's why I became a trial lawyer.

Did you do a court and mock trial in law school?

Did not because that didn't feel right for me even though I respected the people that were doing it just felt... And plus I didn't want to spend the extra time. I was already studying so much trying to get into a big law firm that having an extracurricular just didn't fit right. But as soon as I got to a big law firm and realized, oh, they don't go to trial so much, I wanted to go to the US Attorney's Office.

See, I did it kind of opposite. I didn't study that much. And the only reason I got through law school is because I loved mock trial and moot court.

That's a better route. So next time I will do that.

So you have been gone from the US Attorney's Office, and I think you taught trial ad at SMU for a good number of years,

Didn't you? Yes, most 25 years.

And I thought you were still teaching it, but you told me you have now resigned from that part of your career.

Yes. So I think 25 years of every Monday night was a lot of commitment and I enjoyed it while I was doing it and it's just kind of time to have a little more flexibility.

And you have been, even when you were teaching a trial ad at SMU, you were a jury consultant or a trial consultant, I guess you would call it, for trial lawyers.

No, that was afterwards. So what happened was while I was at the US Attorney's Office, I was training lawyers at our National Advocacy Center. So I trained lawyers there, maybe what you're thinking of. And then I wrote these books on weekends away from the work. So I wrote the books there and I was an adjunct professor, a practicing assistant United States attorney. And then once I left the office, I was able to start doing training at law firms for lawyers and then also jury consulting because you can't have two jobs when you're working for the government.

I love that. I mean, that actually sounds like a really fun job to train young lawyers and to be a jury consultant. Do you enjoy it?

I do. I love empowering people to be their best. I love trying to make complicated ideas easy to understand, and there's a real need for lawyers to learn because they don't get the experience that they used to 20 or 30 years ago.

And that's something that, and it's unfortunate, I see it all the time, but young lawyers just don't get inside of the courtroom. They often ask me, "How do I do it? " And I said, "Try anything." Heck, I tried traffic tickets in Sherman,Texas. I mean anything that would get me to the courtroom.

Pro bono work is a great way to do it because you have a little more control on whether to go to trial or not.

So let's start with teaching at the law firm. What do you do a classroom setting? Talk to us about how you train young lawyers at law firms.

So usually it's a two or three-day course either on depositions or trials. And the first day is a lot of content. How to take a deposition, how to form your outlines, how to ask the right questions, how to have a case strategy. Day two is all exercises. Mock depositions where we have a case file, we have witnesses, people playing defense of the opposing counsel, and they get on their feet taking a deposition and get a lot of reps that they wouldn't get otherwise, or they get reps when it doesn't matter so much and you can make mistakes and it's a good place to make mistakes when you're practicing and not when it counts.

I knew you taught young lawyers, but I didn't know it was in that format. I love it. Do you videotape them when they're doing this?

Yeah. Oh

Wow, that's intimidating.

Intimidating for them. And they always say, "Oh, I don't want to be videotaped." And I always tell them, "You're a lot better than you think you are. " So that's true. And another thing I do, I'll do mock trials where the third day we'll have a full out mock trial with either partners as judges or we'll bring in judges.

Maybe you can tell me this or not. Did you do a training for Norton Rose?

Yes.

There's a young lawyer over there that I used to practice with her dad and she texted me one day and said, "I'm doing training on depositions." And they showed a clip of you of how not to let them squirm out of answering the question. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, that's embarrassing."

That was me, yes.

That is fascinating. So how many students are in the individual classes?

So the course is limited generally eight people because I can't do more one-on-one in a larger group than eight, but it can expand if we get partners involved and they kind of help take the other groups and then I lead it.

And so you do depositions, cross-examinations. Do you do actual mock trials ever?

Do mock trials. Just did a three-day one with two big law firms in Texas or national law firms. And then also do a course on persuasion, how to speak confidently, how to maybe sit up in my chair a little better. How to persuade at hearings because a lot of hearings, people get on their feet more at hearings than at trial, so it's all about public speaking. That's more of a one-day course.

Do you ever have classes where they're not for specific law firms, but where just young lawyers could come and go to one of your classes and learn these things?

Maybe that's on the horizon. So I haven't done that yet, but maybe your law firm will open up some space and won't do that. I

Tell you what, I'm thinking. Literally, I'm sitting here thinking the young plaintiff's lawyers aren't at big firms and they need that training as well. Heck, maybe we could do something together. There you go. So I haven't thought

About it. It's something I've thought about, but not implemented.

We got to level the playing field with these big firms versus the mom-and-pop shops, Shane. It's true. That's true. So in your jury consulting work, I assume that you consult with lawyers that are working on specific cases. Yes. At what stage do you normally get involved in that process?

Well, I bet you know when that stage is. It's at the end when it should probably be at the beginning.

Start to say it's at the end when it's too late.

A little, not too late, but not as helpful as it could be. So generally it's a month before trial and they want to do a focus group or it's even closer to trial and they're saying, "I need help with an opening statement. I need to tell my story better. Give me some themes for my cross-examination." And there's still time to work on it, but it's always better to do it sooner because it affects discovery and everything else.

Do you actually do the focus groups?

Yes.

I did not know that you did those. Okay. And then when you do them, how do you handle your focus groups? Do you have several different panels arguing over an issue or is it a one jury focus group?

So it depends on what the lawyer wants. So I've done three at a time where we have three different groups, maybe 30 divided into three groups of 10 or so. I've done half day or I've said, let's do a focus group in the morning, learn from that focus group and do a focus group that same day, but tweak everything. So now you've got two focus groups, but you've only given up one day of time to theme your story, what's working well, what exhibits you think are really great, and the jurors go, no, that doesn't make sense. Or God, we really want to know this about the case and it's something you've spent two years on and haven't though about. So it's that live feedback that I think is so helpful and it gives you practice because now you're in front of a live group. Just this opening, it sounded really good on my computer, but not so well when I'm staring to 12 people in the face.

And you know what else it does for we pressed procrastinators out there. It makes us get our stuff together and put our case together early on, which is a huge, huge benefit I think.

I think a reason a lot of people don't do it because it does take time, but the time you put into it is what you get out of it.

So worth it. When you're teaching, back up for just a second. When you're doing these seminars at the law firms, are those just limited to Texas firms or do you do this nationally?

Well, no, I've been all over the country. So national firms with different offices. I haven't really been to a local office somewhere else because I wouldn't have made that connection from Dallas. But yeah, I've been in New York, Los Angeles, DC, generally from large law firms that have these offices in different places.

And then my question is, do you train the people in New York City the same way you do in Texas? That's a good question.

I do just because I think the principles of persuasion are the same. And yes, people can be different because that's a different style, but the same brain science of persuasion works for storytelling in Dallas as it does New York City or LA. I

Can tell you this from being a woman in this profession. I think that female lawyers in New York or California can get away with a little bit more than you can in Texas, at least in the initial phases of the trial. I've noticed that because the more liberal states expect the women to be a little bit more aggressive. Whereas in Texas, if you come in guns blazing, you're not Annie Oakley, you're the B word, which is interesting.

I think that's such an unfair burden on women that you have to make those calculations that a man doesn't have to make. It

Is. And it doesn't surprise you that we have to, but I love training young females and working with them. And I tell them, I hate to tell you this, but you cannot go in the courtroom as your male counterparts and be aggressive at first. The jury needs to get mad first. And I got to tell you too, Shane, 40 years ago when I started is a lot worse than it is now, but that's fascinating. That's why I was wondering if you train people differently in the different states, different regions.

I don't, maybe from your advice, I'll keep that in mind. I will say having watched you a lot in trial, you're so passionate that I can see why you might have to dial it back. I do. And others who aren't as good as you or passionate might not have all that much tweaking to do.

I'm glad you said passionate rather than aggressive or obnoxious or that some of the other things you could say, but I literally have to in my mind, okay, I've been living this case for two years. The jury hasn't. Settle down here, Charla, and let's take it a step at a time. Well, that's fascinating. I love the training that you do and the jury consultant. Okay, here's a loaded question. Which do you like best? Being the jury consultant or training young lawyers?

They're both. The advantage of being the jury consultant, it's a real case that's got real consequences. The teaching the young lawyers, you're kind of giving them a blueprint for their career so they have different goals. I love them both just because I love helping people, so it's hard to say which I like more. So I don't know, but they're -

Equally challenging.

Equally challenging and equally rewarding.

I know and I haven't done that much work with young lawyers, but when I have, I love the zest they have for the law and the innocence somewhat that they have about it before they kind of get tainted a little bit along the way. Now in your jury consulting work, do you also go to trial, Shane, and help lawyers pick the jury? Yes,

I help them pick juries. I haven't done as much of that recently. It's been more focus groups, but yes, I do that as well.

Wow. And how about witness preparation?

Yes.

Do you enjoy that?

The witness prep, I think it's a little harder to move the needle, so not as gratifying, although I know it's important. I mean, I think getting the right story, you can change it from a loss to a win very quickly. Witness prep, yeah, you can move it. It's hard to change people.

I had to tell you this. It reminds me of a case. I was defending a hospital in my hometown in Sherman, Texas one time, and the primary caregiver of whose conduct was in question was an intensive care unit nurse. And I had to accept the fact that he was born dumb, he was going to die dumb, and he wasn't going to be smart here in a trial. And I'm not going to say the name of the hospital. I'll say it's hospital ABC and he's up on the stand and he turns to the judge when he is just getting cross-examined to death. He goes, "Judge, this lawyer keep asking me the questions. Ain't none of these people want to go to ABC." And I'm like, "You got that straight, buddy." So I completely understand what you're saying. There's only so much you can do with witnesses.

But I agree that the framing of the case and the storytelling of the case is absolutely a game changer. Well, given the fact that you're around the courtroom, around trials so much, probably more than we that are actually out there just trying the cases, what trends or changes, Shane, have you noticed with modern juries?

So I think with the modern juries, one mistake people do is they have stereotypes of demographics that, oh, this is a certain type of juror who's going to lean certain way. And the way I view jurors is they're either digital natives or digital immigrants, meaning digital immigrants are you and me. We are the baby boomers. We were born before digital technology was integrated in our lives. We're immigrants to this technology in life. And the millennials and the Gen Z born 1980 or later, they're digital natives. Their whole life has been consumed or has been integrated with digital images. And the reason that's important is people learn differently. And if you or I were trying a case in 1970 or 70, 80 to baby boomers, the idea of having pictures being important and having a coherent message that's tied and integrated with pictures would've been foreign to us because no one really was doing that.

The digital natives who grew up with pictures, iPhones, streaming videos, they are expecting to learn that way at trial. So if you get up and just tell a great story, you're missing what they are yearning for, which are the pictures because that's how they learn and that's how they stay interested in your story as opposed to the digital immigrants before 1980 that are used to seeing information presented the old school way. So I think that's one neat way to look at jurors now is how are they processing the information and knowing, oh my gosh, half my jury, which is the younger people, are processing completely different than people like you and me who processed information differently because we didn't have all the pictures.

Yeah, mine's a flip chart with a big magic marker.

Right. But the flip chart is visual so that's still fantastic and that works. It's the person who doesn't even have the flip chart who just thinks, oh, I can tell an oral story very well. And yes, they might be successful, but not as successful as they could be if they integrate it with pictures. Lip chart always show and tell because that's what the younger generation is expecting. That's how they learned.

And I guess when you're going in to pick a jury and you're going to need to assume that at least half of your juries are going to be digital natives that learn something new.

Yeah, right.

Let me ask you thinking about that. How do you feel about PowerPoints in voir dire, opening and closing?

Essential, but not your text, not your bullet points, not words that are exactly what you're saying anyway. They are pictures that are supporting what you're talking about. So you have a visual picture and then you're telling your story. So it's essential. There's studies that show four days after seeing a picture, the recall is 83%. Without the picture it's 10%. So why would you do an opening statement when they're only going to remember 10% of it if you can add pictures to it and they're going to remember it 83% better by having that picture associated with it? Now see,

The way you just put that makes sense to me because a lot of times I've seen lawyers put up the words and I think they're reading that they're not listening to you.

Exactly.

So you have them put up pictures and so the jury can just look at the picture and then listen to the lawyer.

Because it supports what you're talking about. But you're exactly right, Charley. You know this. As soon as you put words, they're reading and now you've lost them and you're saying something important.

And they're not hearing you.

And they're like, "Oh, I'm still trying to figure out what's up there and has she read it correctly like it's stated up there?" So yes.

Okay. Let me ask you this. What about if you're talking about a particular document or something in a case, would you put the document up or just a picture that reflects what you're talking about the document?

Either a picture that reflects it, whether it's greed, so you might do money. But I think if you highlight the document on a document camera and focus them on the exact words of that document, that's perfect. So I would lean towards the latter. That's where a picture works. A lot of people just put up a document.

I've seen it.

And they're reading it and you're on paragraph two, line one and they're still at the beginning and you say, "Well, look, it's so obvious on this admission." No, they're reading something completely different.

That is very interesting. How about voir dire? Do you think PowerPoint during voir dire?

Depends what the PowerPoint's for. So I think pictures are helpful. I think it's better to use scaled questions to put the scaled question up there. Yes, I think that's perfect. And that's a visual image that supports what you're talking about, right? So it's okay for them to read the question like, do you think there are too many frivolous lawsuits? Scaled question on a PowerPoint perfect because you're asking them that scaled question. That's perfect. But if you want to put up an image to get their feelings about something, that can be very powerful because they're used to... I mean, the worst thing, I know you've seen this happen, the attorney gets up to the podium and just starts reading questions, checking them, writing notes, making no eye contact with the jury, not engaging them. And you've not only lost the old jurors, but the young jurors.

Or one thing that I tell people do is row number one, shake your head or any hands or row number. I'm like, "Come on, let's talk." Right. You got to

Connect. Right. You got to connect with a jury. And I think another important point, we always think voir dire's jury selection or de - selection, however you want to think about it. The jurors are selecting you and they're finding out who is the most likable lawyer. And if you're organized, well-prepared, showing an interest in them and not just taking down data, then you're making that connection and you're starting your story from the very beginning as opposed to the attorney who's just taking down data and the jury's going, "Well, are we just a means to an end or are you connecting with us to make a difference?" And I know you do that so well, Charlie, but a lot don't. If they see that, then it's hard in opening statement to come around and say how important this is and connect when you haven't connected for a whole day.

It's

Like you weren't really interested in me when you're standing up there for a day.

Or you tell them something vulnerable and they do in jury selection and you just kind of take it as a fact as opposed to, "Oh, I disagree with your thinking this. I disagree with your opinion completely, but I value it because I'm connecting with you and the other jurors say, Oh, she does care about everyone, not just the people who are going to be on her side. Does that make sense?

Absolutely it does. And another thing, Shane, tell me if you've had this experience over the years. Back when I started, I always kind of though voir dire, I'll win or lose my case in voir dire. Now I look at voir dire of getting the bad people off. And sometimes you just have to take a licking and keep on ticking. Let them just abuse you. I did the DBA mock trial seminar last week. I said something about a case that I picked a jury in Odessa and Dickie Gregg, my dear friend, who's one of the funniest human beings in the world. It was a tough case and that panel was tough. And I mean, they were getting after me. They hate lawyers. They hated personal injury lawyers. They pretty much hated my case. They hated me. They hated my children. They hated my future grandchildren. And I just kept, okay, thank you.

Who else feels that way? And I sat down and Dickie said, Boy, you took a licking on that one. But it's hard to do because you think, oh my God, why do you hate me? You don't even know me. But you have to bring that poison out in people.

Yeah, you can't be scared of it. And the more that they're comfortable talking about how much they don't like your client, your case or the whole environment, you're learning. But if you shut it down or show that you disagree with them, then others are not going to voice that opinion and then you've lost.

And that makes sense, but sometimes it's harder to do when you're up there feeling the vitriol. But I mean, you have to just get a tough skin and say, I'm doing my job here. Okay, I completely understand. Who else hates me? It's crazy, but that's been a big diference that I've seen in jury selection that I don't try to win my story. Even when I'm talking about millions of dollars in mental anguish, let's say I have a quadriplegic client. I don't tell the panel that they're quadriplegic. I want them to assume they have a stumped toe because I want to know the people that automatically when they think millions of dollars or hundreds of millions of dollars, they just can't do it. And that's the tough thing to get comfortable standing up in front of people and doing.

That's right. And I think you're right, you got to develop thick skin so you get that information.

Do you do both sides of the docket, plaintiff and defendant?

Yes.

And personally -

Does that offend you?

No, I love it. No. Let me tell you, I started out as a defense lawyer. People ask me when I switched from being a defense lawyer to a plaintiff's lawyer, they asked me, "How do you feel about the lawyers you're up against?" I said, "The ones I trusted before I still trust. The ones I didn't trust, I still don't." I mean, we're all doing our job as long as they don't lie to me. If they lie to me, Katie bar the door.

I think that's fair.

I do. And let me ask you this, what about personal injury versus commercial or business litigation? Do you do both?

I do it all. I just think there's brain science supports how to tell a story, and so we've all got it. Whether it's personal injury, complex business litigation, or on the defense side, there's a story to tell. And so the winner, it's who has the most coherent, complete, plausible and unique story is going to win that trial. So are you telling the good, bad, and ugly? Is it complete? Is it coherent? Does it make sense? Is it plausible? And then finally, is Charlie your story the unique story or is it my story that's unique story? And whoever has the one that resonates the truth the most is going to win.

So do you want it to be unique or not?

You want it to be unique because you want to be the singular story that the jury goes, "That's what happened in this case." So if you could have two good stories, one that wins is the one that they all agree that is the truth. So that's what I mean by unique story as opposed to just a powerful story, compelling story. It's what the 12 jurors or however many you need find is the unique one that sums it all up.

I've always believed if you're a really good trial lawyer, you should be able to go in and try anything. Yes, right. I mean, if people ask me, I've tried some business cases, but I've said, "You're going to have to show me what I need to get the witness to say. I'm not going to worry about what my burden of proof is or what the law is, but just tell me what the goals are and what I need to prove." Do you agree with that?

Yes. That

Different people, just because I do personal injury cases doesn't mean I couldn't go in and do a complex business.

I'm always suspect of people who limit themselves saying, "I can only do one type of case or one side." We could all have a capacity of growth to tell the story, whatever it is, as long as you believe it. So you couldn't take a case you didn't believe in. I wouldn't want to work on a case that I didn't feel I was on the right side.

That's one thing beautiful about what you do, Shane. You can pick and choose. You can do something or not do it. And the reason I switched from doing defense work, one of the reasons to plaintiff's work is when I did insurance defense, if the insurance company called me, I had to take the case. Now I get to pick and choose.

Yeah, I love that.

Which is absolutely wonderful. So tell us about the fundamentals of storytelling at trial. I'll tell you this, I think Jim Perdue Sr. Is one of the best storytellers I've ever heard. We had him on this podcast and I could just sit there to this day and listen to the man. And he told me many, many years ago, he said, "Charlie, you talk too fast. When you talk to a jury, talk like you're singing a romantic ballad or a country and Western song."

So you just slowed down and that was better actually.

Oh, absolutely. I talk fast in depositions and stuff. I'm much slower in trial.

Did you notice that contrast you just made? It was better.

I did not. It was?

Yeah. You talked about depositions talking fast and then you said trial I speak slower. It was better.

I did not even notice that. And I talk about whispering, sometimes whispering. I mean, have the jury lean up. There's an art to it.

Right. The pause can be the most effective thing you say.

And you teach that to the young... That's just invaluable experience for them.

Right. You don't want to be monotone. You got to change the pace. So the story, it would be you have to ask yourself first, why should I win? Second, why should the jury care that I should win? And then third, why should they trust you? So if you go into trial and answer those three questions, why should I win? That's the evidence, the facts you have. So you've got all the facts, the law on your side. Well, great. Question is why should the jury care that you should win? What's the human value? Is it denial? Is it recklessness? What is your theme? Why should the jury care that Charlie, your client, should win even though you've got facts? I mean, why should we care about it? And then the third one is, why should we trust you, Charla, as opposed to the other attorney? If you get those three things right, you're telling a very persuasive story.

And the trust, as you know, is everything. But a lot of people think, "Oh, I can just send all my facts and stuff into AI and repeat it and tell a compelling story." Well, maybe you have, I don't think AI can do all the first two things, but the trust is everything. Are you going to admit the bad facts of your story so that we trust you on the good facts? And a lot of lawyers gets very scared to do that and denial about it. And as you know on the plaintiff's side, when the defense does that, it's a home run because all you want is really the denial.

I've always said if you lose credibility, you've lost. I did a speech on top 10 trial tips at the Midwest Lawyers Association up in Detroit a couple of weeks ago. And one of my tips was embrace the bad stuff. You have to embrace it from the get - go because if you don't, they'll kill you with it. Do you agree with that?

Oh yeah. And the hard thing is when you think, well, maybe they won't bring it out, you just got to bring it out.

Absolutely.

I tell you, I had another funny story. Shane, I was a wonderful physician who delivered all four of my children in my hometown in Sherman. And he called me and said, "Do you love me? " And I said, "Yes, what? " He goes, "I need you to represent my brother in an offshore tax shelter case." And I'm like, "Okay, it's not really my forte, but I will." I met his brother and he was not the most likable, fuzzy, warm person. And he talked like this. So in jury selection, I told the jury, I said, "Number one, I'm not crazy about my client and you're not going to like him either. And number two, his voice is going to annoy you. He talks like this. " And then went in, how many of you could set that aside just because that happened doesn't mean it can be stolen from when he got on the stand and I had prepared him there might be some humor.

And I said, "Tell us your name. And he said his name." And the jury just died laughing because I was honest with him. I said, "You're really not going to like him and you're certainly not going to like how he talks." And I think that just gives you a connection with people and it gives you credibility.

That's everything. So I love that example. It's kind of hard to do because you've got a client there and you're talking, I mean to say you might not like my client so much, not many lawyers have the courage to do what you do, but it is the way to do it.

If you want to win, you kind of have to.

You got to be authentic, right?

You know what? I can't believe you said that, Shane. When young lawyers ask me what is the number one trait for a trial lawyer, I said, "Be authentic. Not your lawyer self, be yourself because juries can smell a fraud 10,000 miles away." And I also tell them, "Forget yourself because I see so many young lawyers or older lawyers that come in, they're so worried about how they look. Does their hair look okay? Does their suit look okay? Do they sound important? Do they sound smart? Yada, yada, yada. It's not about you, it's about the client. And if you can kind of forget Get about yourself and just think about your client and think about the jury. It helps. It helps with that authenticity, I think.

I think the two things, if you can channel your client and then keep in mind, I have this acronym WIN, what is the need of the jury? So you're channeling your client and you're thinking, what does that jury need? Oh, I

Love that. What is the need of the jury?

So what is the need of the jury with your opening statement, with your first witness, with your cross? Are they hearing words for the first time? Do they understand this concept? Are they trying to figure out if this witness is believable or not? All those things, if you put your mind in the jury box, how are they receiving this information? It'll help you present your information instead of, "Oh, I've worked on this for three years and this is what I think I want to get out. " No, it's not about you. It's about what they need.

I love it. That's exactly what I was saying. Get out of yourself and think about them. Have you ever read Mark Mandel's book on case framing?

I've heard about it, but I haven't. I'd like to read it.

It is. He's a good friend of mine. It is a fabulous book and he talks about the, "I just can't get over it. " And he said, "Yo focus on the three to five on your side, I just can't get over it. That's the good things for your case." And the three to five, "I just can't get over it, the bad things for your case." And you synthesize your evidence to those things.

Yeah, I love that.

And you deal with both of them equally. And he talks about case framing. How do you frame your case? He helped me so much in a dram shop case. You'll love this where we represented a Dallas cowboy who was driving intoxicated and killed his best friend. You probably heard about it in the news who was also intoxicated. The problem that we had was at the Beamers at the bar where he was, this guy was as big as a refrigerator and he did not look in the video intoxicated. And when he left, there was a construction area outside the bar and he drove it perfectly. He didn't look intoxicated. And in Texas, you have to show that they were obviously intoxicated and nevertheless, establishments served them. What we did is six minutes after he left the bar, the single car accident occurred. The police officer said he was so intoxicated had he tried to leave the site of the accident, he would've arrested him.

So we framed our case from that point backwards. And we called the police officers, our first witness to say he was so drunk to me before I ever gave a sobriety test. You know what I'm saying? It was beautiful because the jury was thinking, well, if he was that intoxicated six minutes after he left the bar, he had to have been obviously. I bet you do that on the sequencing of witnesses and

Things. Right. So the worst thing, one of the worst mistakes I see is lawyers put on witnesses in a scheduling order like, oh, this is when they're available or chronology. It's all about the story you're going to tell. See,

I love that, Shane. I get excited about that because it is. Scheduling and chronology. When did this happen and what happened next and what happened? Now, forget that.

I like to think it depends on how your trial's set up, but after opening statement and my first witness, I've won the case and I think it's that important.

You believe that?

Well, I think jurors are making up their minds very quickly. I think

Closing argument is way overrated.

Way.

We love it because lawyers like people to come in and watch it. And how important are you? It's over by then.

Whenever I'm dividing a trial and I have co-counsel, they all want closing.

Oh,

That's fine. It's all been done by then. So the opening is everything.

And the first witness.

And the first witness.

I oftentimes call an adverse witness as my first witness and prove your case through them.

And people are scared to do that because they think there's an unknown. Well, then you shouldn't be going to trial. You

Ought to be so tied up that it doesn't matter how they answer it, you have the documents to show them.

And what I love about that is jurors are told, oh, keep an open mind until throughout the whole trial. We know that doesn't happen, but if you take the courage to call an adverse witness first, you really are deciding the trial. Right there, they're seeing the big battle, the defense's key witness, and you're tearing them up completely. And okay, now you've won. As opposed to someone who's going to support your side, obviously the plaintiff or expert, whatever. Well, of course they're going to say what they're going to say. Oh, but you've just decimated their case, so it is all over.

I think it's fun. It's my favorite thing. I don't let people have that witness. They can have closing all day long. But Shane, about 30, I guess it was 30 years ago. I tried a case out in Wilmington, North Carolina. It was a methyl tertiary Butyl Ether case, MTBE. And Conoco had poisoned my clients. They lived in a trailer park under storage tank. Well water. It's water.

You're talking a little fast.

Okay. I got to think we're running out of time, but I am. They polluted my client's willwater. And our team, I was brought in two weeks before trial. Our team had, thank you for that, had about three or four people on our side. Well, Conoco had probably 20 lawyers. I'm sure they all went to Yale. They had seer sucker suits, bow ties. They had probably 30 legal assistants who were in this majestic federal courthouse in Wilmington. The judge said, "Call your first witness." I had not told my team I was going to do that because I knew they would have heart failure. But I said, "Your Honor, I call whomever on behalf of Conoco is going to tell this jury if they take responsibility for polluting my clout's well water. Will they all stand up and converge with each other? And the jury's looking over there at them and they said, Can we get a name?" I said, "Well, Judge, I'll take anybody on that side of the courtroom.

This case has been going for three years. Whomever's going to... " Well, I had a plan B if the judge said to have a witness, but he said, "She has a point, counsel. Why don't you just put somebody up there?" Well, from that point on, they were so off guard they didn't know what was going to happen next. And it didn't matter what the witness said because we had the documents. So you actually tell lawyers that that is a positive thing to do.

Yes.

I mean, not to have a name, but -

Right. You got to be prepared, but it's how you tell your story and that's the perfect way to do it.

I love that. I always love it when I hear that I am doing things you think the right way, but I'm serious.

I think your track record is proving you're doing it the right way.

Okay. Tell me this. In all the trials that you have watched, tell me the mistakes you've seen lawyers make that you think are really bad and the great things that you've seen lawyers do that are really good. Did you see I slowed down a little bit there?

You did. That was perfect. Well, we've talked about the storytelling. So a lot of lawyers, the mistake they would make is they just tell what happened, particularly defense lawyers and even planners. They just tell you the definition of a story is an account of what happened. I've interviewed great storytellers, great trial lawyers for my books. The difference is the why. Why does this story matter? And if you don't get to the why part, which a lot of attorneys don't, then why should the jury ever be empowered to vote for you at the end of the case? So it's the why that takes a lot of time and effort to get to, and that's how you begin to tell your story. So a lot of lawyers just don't get, they just give all the facts.

Okay. Give us an example of the why.

The why would be the most recent one I was thinking of, Mark Lanier did the trial in LA where he was suing Meta, Google and Facebook. So he had to figure out what the why of his case was. And he boiled it down to ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this case is as simple as A, B, C. It's addicting the brains of children. So with that, and he had blocks of ABC, children's blocks to reinforce this image of children. And so that's a story that gets the jury motivated to the why it mattered that his client had all this body shaming and addiction to social media that caused her all this harm when the defendants were saying, "Hey, it was all her parents' fault. She could have not been on social media. That was the parents who didn't monitor their children's usage of social media." And his point was, this is a case about addicting the brains of children.

And then he went on. Another way he framed it was to say they pretended to create apps, but they were really creating traps. So it's this metaphor of this isn't just an innocent ap, it's a trap to capture addicted people and keep them addicted. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the question is the three whys, did he have the evidence to back that up? And yes, he's got documents from the inside that proves that was their playbook. So that's how you get the why to be very important. Instead of just saying she was on social media since she was six years old, she spent this amount of screen time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. No, it was addiction of the brains of children. Okay, now the jury is motivated to listen and now the challenge is, can you prove it?

See, I love that. The why. And you know what? That kind of ties into the reptile theory of jurors thinking fight or flight. If I don't rule in favor of the plaintiff in this case, either I or someone close to me could be in danger. The why, this could be my child addicted.

Yeah. And I always say though, it's so important. You can't have a story. You've got to have the proof to back it up. So you have the most sympathetic plaintiff, but if you don't have the proof there was a legal harm that was broken, then you're in trouble. So got to have the evidence also. That is

Fascinating. I love that. I've never thought of it in terms of the why, but that's helpful. It really is. What have you seen mistakes through the course of your consulting work that lawyers make?

So the other one mistake, I'll do a quick demonstration. They have the curse of knowledge. When you've lived with a case for two, three, four, five years, you think you know the case, but you've just been surrounded and you're so in the weeds that you can't explain it simply to people who've never heard the case before or you can't see the weaknesses because you think you know them, but you've heard so many positive things from your client that you can't see the reality. So that's the curse of knowledge. So here's an example. I'm going to tap a very famous tune. This will be very easy for you to guess. All right, here it is. That's super easy. I know you got it.

I don't know.

Okay. So there's a famous study where they had people tap famous songs like this and guess what the percentage of the participants would guess correctly to the song. So that was Twinkle, Twinkle, The Little Star. Little Star.

Okay. Yeah, I love this.

But the problem is I know the tune. I've lived with this tune. You have no clue what the tune is, so how would you guess it? But I've got this curse of knowledge because I can hear the melody. Okay, do the

Tap again.

There's just kind of random beats, but I know the tune and you don't. So the study proved that they predicted that the listeners would guess it 50% of the time. You know how often they guessed it? 2%. So that's this curse of knowledge. We think, oh, this jury understands this case. It's so simple. It's because you've lived with it so long. They don't have a clue whether that's Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Old McDonald Had the Farm, which is the same beat or a completely different song that they can't guess. So that's this curse of knowledge. And the way to overcome that is either focus groups that are formal or casual ones, but you've got to explain your case to people who've never heard of it and keep working on that so when you get into a courtroom, you don't mistakenly think you're doing a great job when you really aren't.

I love that curse of knowledge.

Yeah. So that's a curse of knowledge is a problem. I think another thing you've probably seen a lot is people cross-examine on 20 points instead of three, four, five really good ones and they lose it and no one knows what the most important point is. I mean, I could go on and on. Closing arguments. Well, they spend too much time on instructions and they start just kind of getting lost in the weeds and instructions instead of simplifying it. This is the most important phrase. Of all the instructions you're going to hear from a judge, this is the one I want you to pay the most attention or this is the one I think is the most important. I know you go through the verdict form. A lot of attorneys don't tell the jury how they want them to answer the question. And so they get back there with a verdict form.

What is this and what do we do with it?

They're lost. They don't know the significance of the questions. You can interrupt me anytime. Another one is you have 500 exhibits and you've marked number 300 because it's just... I don't know how people do it different ways. Exhibit one is the most important exhibit in your case because if they have a binder, that's the first thing they're going to open. That's what

We do. Organize them what's most important.

Yeah. And you work it the way back. Most attorneys don't do it because it takes time. It takes effort. Another big mistake, they wait till Friday on a Monday trial to work on their opening statement. I think, oh, that should have been your whole week. And everyone's worried about the witness prep and the cross and the direct. No, opening statement is everything. Now in the opening statement, the first minute of opening statement, I spend 80% of my time on opening statement, 80% is on the first minute and the last minute rest of the 20% is on the rest of the... Well, the first minute is everything, right? Attention spans, studies show people are making up their mind about you, your case in the first seven seconds, 30 seconds, depending on what study you look at. So if you don't get them in the first minute, they're thinking about dinner, why they're here and not at work, childcare, everything else.

I know you do that very well because I've seen you, but others don't. Keep going. They read their opening statement. They don't make eye contact.

So you're really passionate about this case that you're reading. And this is so important because you're looking down and this is what the case is all about instead of looking someone in the eye. And I saw you recently in the Lopez case, you said what's so great about this courthouse is this is where juries get to decide a plaintiff is on the same footing as a corporation. That was one of the first things you said in your closing and kind of gives you goosebumps. They go, "Oh, we're going to pay attention to her because she is reaching us as opposed to the lawyer who's just stating facts."

I could listen to this all day. As long as I've been doing this, I still find the whole process absolutely fascinating. So if somebody is going to retain Shane Read to come in and help with a jury consultant develop a case, what all do you have to look at in the case? Do you read the depositions? How do you do it? Good

Question. So I asked them what are their 10 most important documents and 10 most important facts? Oh, we haven't thought about that. Like okay, so we're two years into this, so this is a good time to be doing this. Let's figure this out. And then I'll analyze that and then figure out what are the worst facts. And then I don't really read depositions because that is just not efficient for my use of time. But from that it's then, well, Charla, what do you need to get ready for trial? Do you want a live focus group just working on themes? Do you want a full day mock trial where you watch them deliberate in three different groups and videotape it and see how that's going to play out? So it depends on what the need is the lawyer because they have different levels of preparation and different questions they need answering.

Have you ever been involved in shadow juries where people come and watch? I've only had people do that against me two or three times. It's very strange.

Yeah, I haven't done that. I know how they work and they can be valuable. They're uber expensive to do and in some ways a little late. You can kind of know how you're doing, but it's a little hard to correct mid-trial.

In North Carolina, the Conoco had a shadow jury. It was kind of creepy because I was watching them. I'm like, do I watch them or do I watch the real jury? What do I do? It's fascinating. So Shan, if you were going to give a piece of advice to young lawyers, what would it be?

I love the Carlos Santana. So when I teach lawyers, I have this great clip of Carlos Santana doing an ad for his masterclass on guitar and he's an 11 time Grammy award winner because I believe there's brain science. We can learn a lot from the arts and other avenues of persuasion to see how we can be best in the courtroom. And he says, which I firmly believe, don't look for greatness in others, look for greatness within yourself. And if you do that and learn to develop that, you will grow into the best you as a lawyer as opposed to me trying to copy Caleb or Charla or any other great lawyer. I mean, that would be an idiotic, right? But if you look for the greatness within and not others, that's how you grow. That doesn't mean I don't learn from some of the good things that you do that I could replicate, but if you copy people, imitate, you'll never You're not authentic.

You're not authentic and you won't be as good as you could be. So that's the main point. Be authentic and look for it within, not from others.

Okay. Very importantly, if our listening audience wants to find Shane's books, where do we find them?

Not surprisingly as Amazon.

Everything

Is

Amazon. So just type in Shane Read and six different books will come up.

It'll come up. Yeah. All

Right. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this. It's really been fun. Can you think of anything else we need to talk about?

I don't think so. Well, I did want to say how other lawyers can learn. I think going to CVN where you can watch videos of trials or getting to a courthouse is the best way because we talked earlier about how young lawyers get the experience. That one way is to watch trial. So either on CVN or going to a courthouse treating depositions as a trial, that's a great way to get cross experience because depositions often are the trial. And if you need public speaking experience, join a Toastmasters group. You'll get on your feet once a month in a different setting. So for young lawyers who are learning for ways to get experience when the trials are hard to come by, I think those are the three best ways.

I love that. To this day, if I hear about an interesting case going on at Dallas, I go down there and watch it and I always learn something. Sometimes it's learning what not to do, but a lot of times you're learning really, really clever things from great lawyers.

Yeah. If we keep growing, you never want your last trial to be your best trial,

Right? That's exactly right. I'm a full throttle trial junkie. All right, Shane Read, thank you so much. I've thoroughly enjoyed this. For those of you watching, we appreciate you watching another episode of More Likely Than Not. If you have any questions of us, you can send it to [email protected]. Thanks so much. Bye-bye.

I think you can tell, and we at Aldous Law here, we actually kind of like each other and we absolutely love, love what we do. And we work a lot of our cases up from the get - go, but we're brought in on cases a lot. We try cases all across the nation. If you have a case that you're interested in talking to us about, we'd love to hear from you. We've tried everything from trucking, workplace injuries, explosions, and burn cases, dram shops, rideshare sexual assaults, birth injury, your personal injury cases.

If you need a partner to help you with your case, please call us. We can be contacted at aldouslaw.com. We'd love to hear from you.

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