"Trying a case is an incredibly exciting and terrifying experience. While thorough preparation is crucial to performing effectively in court, the trial is a dynamic process that often requires even the most comprehensively prepared attorneys to adapt on the spot to the shifting sands in the courtroom. This book teaches fundamental trial advocacy skills, and it helps readers both prepare systematically for what they can expect to face in the courtroom and handle those sands as they shift. The authors offer tips on how to sharpen and shape one's advocacy for different settings as well as creative strategies for trying a case with limited financial resources. An entire chapter devoted to using courtroom technology is also included.A CD, Casefiles for Becoming a Trial Lawyer, authored by Steven Grossman and Michele Gilman, accompanies the book. It contains five full casefiles and three mini-cases designed to let readers practice the skills and strategies discussed in the substantive book.These realistic simulations include both civil and criminal cases and include a summary of the case, the relevant law, witness and expert depositions and statements, and a wide array of exhibits. The CD's detailed teacher's manual includes suggestions for how to use these materials, summaries of the particular skills that each casefile is intended to develop; and comprehensive analysis of the direct and cross-examinations of every witness in each case. Taken together, Becoming a Trial Lawyer and the casefiles provide invaluable materials for readers wanting to take that significant first step on the road to becoming an effective courtroom lawyer."

In Strong Advocate, Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri’s history, chronicles his adventures as a contemporary personal injury attorney. Though the profession is held in low esteem by the general public, Strong entered the field with the right motives: to help victims who have been injured by defective products or through the negligence of others. As a twelve-year-old in rural southwest Missouri during the Great Depression, Strong bought a cow, then purchased others as he could afford them, and eventually financed his education with the milk he sold. After graduating law school and serving in the Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps, he rejected offers to practice in New York and San Francisco and returned to his hometown of Springfield. Strong exhibited his lifelong passion to represent the underdog early in his practice, the “trial by ambush” days when neither side was required to disclose witnesses or exhibits. He quickly became known for his audacious approach to trying cases. Tactics included asking a friend to ride on top of a moving car and hiring a local character called “Crazy Max” to recreate an automobile accident. One fraud case ended with Strong owning a bank and his opponent going to prison. When he sued a labor union for the wrongful death of his client’s spouse, he found his own life threatened. With changes in the law that allowed discovery of information from an opponent’s files as well as the exhibits and witnesses to be used at trial, Strong and fellow personal injury attorneys forced a wide array of manufacturers to produce safer products. When witnesses of a terrible collision claimed both roadways had green lights simultaneously, Strong purchased the traffic light controller. After three months of continuous testing at a university, the controller failed, showing four green lights, and Strong learned that fail-safe devices were available but had not been implemented. These fail-safe devices are now standard on traffic lights throughout the country. In his last venture, Strong represented the state of Missouri in its case against the tobacco industry, culminating in a settlement totaling billions of dollars. He reflects on the changes—not always for the better—in his oft-maligned profession since he entered the field in the 1950s. Thomas Strong’s story of tenacity, quick wits, and humor demonstrates what made him such a creative and effective attorney. Lawyers and law students can learn much from this giant of the bar, and all readers will be entertained and heartened by his victories for the everyman.

"Aiding in helping young lawyers develop the art of trial advocacy"--

For more than a decade, criminal lawyer Barry Slotnick never lost a case, no matter how notorious or dangerous his clients—because everyone deserves the best defense. ​ Known for his sharp mind, sharp suits, and bold courtroom strategies, Bronx-native Barry Slotnick is known as the best criminal lawyer in the US. He calls himself “Liberty’s Last Champion.” Slotnick mediates Bette Midler’s bathhouse contract and represents John Gotti, “The Dapper Don.” He defends “Subway Shooter” Bernie Goetz and negotiates future First Lady Melania Trump’s pre-nup. His unparalleled legal brilliance defines a profession, a city—and an era.

Damages 3 provides step-by-step guidance on how to prepare opening statements; how to handle cross-examinations and defense "expert" examinations; and new, key methods that explain the relationship between liability and damages. Ball explains why jurors give, why they do not, and how to motivate them to provide a large verdict. -- from publisher.

The core question of this book: how a great lawyer who comes to represent important causes, emerges out of the racist, paternalistic, and self-perpetuating establishment of rural Georgia in the 1950s? What about Tommy Malone led him to take on the power structure in his community and begin representing people who were injured against prominent doctors and hospitals? It wasn't money because there wasn't any money to be made at that time. There is nothing specific in his background that would cause anyone to predict that he'd become one of the first white lawyers in the Deep South to represent the black community and reach out to a struggling handful of African American attorneys and ease their passage into the mainstream. A kid who grew up in the Jim Crow era in Dougherty County, who went off to college-not an especially progressive young man-came back home after he finished law school and began representing African Americans against the ruling class? It just wasn't done. Somehow, this same young man went on to become one of the greatest trial lawyers of his generation, representing those who had their lives turned upside down-the catastrophically injured and the families whose loved ones needlessly lost their lives and futures due to the failures of others. The answers are as varied as human experience, but undoubtedly, Malone sensed a ""guiding hand"" directing him to the good. There was no teacher or mentor to illumine the path forward, just the gradual accretion of experience, knowledge, insight, and pain on a sensitive soul, kindling fierce passion and righteous anger. Viewed through this lens, Tommy Malone becomes a very important figure in the history of the South, and in some respects, the history of the country.