Recently I have had the exciting opportunity to work with younger lawyers who strive to be effective litigators. We have talked about all the stages of a lawsuit—preparing a case for filing; drafting the complaint; determining your defenses; planning and taking discovery; writing persuasive motion papers; preparing for trial; and recognizing the importance of “thinking strategically trial-wise” from the get-go. After a while, I found that for each stage I kept coming back to one overarching theme. The consistency of this theme underscored what it takes to litigate a case successfully from the outset through trial.

It boils down to this: “(1) Communicate (2) your story (3) credibly.” Those four words tell it all. If you treat that short theme as a maxim from beginning to end, you will go a long way to advocating persuasively—and to winning your cases. To elaborate:

‘Communicate’