Thanks to technology and the vanishing jury trial, every complex case risks becoming a quagmire of disorganized data. To quote Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The facts aren’t everything. At least half the case is in knowing what to do with the facts.”
Salvation for lawyers and jurors lies in summaries. Just ask the Enron Task Force. As The American Lawyer reported last year, the prosecutors struggled over how to present their case. The solution: They hired a graphic artist to teach the jury through “visually persuasive storytelling.” With the artist, the prosecutors created graphics showing how former Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling hid losses, sold stock and deceived employees and shareholders.
