Tweet That Closing Argument!

In retrospect, it occurs to me that normal people probably do not try to cram all 13 required annual CLE hours into their heads in a 2 1/2 day conference. But then, I've never been a normal person. Besides, I had plenty of company; there were over a hundred of us running around, trying to choke down as much information as possible.  Joan came with me, and while she relaxed and visited friends I--choked down information. 

What made it easier was that I had a snazzy new tablet for recording important information. Well, we have a snazzy new tablet; I acknowledge only partial ownership of this tablet.  The rest of it belongs to Joan.  I was forced to buy it (forced, I tell you) because my current tablet would not download the conference app.  And the conference app was important.  It contained all the speakers' PowerPoint presentations and other necessary things.  It also has a nifty cover that looks like the Horsehead Nebula.  If you don't know what the Horsehead Nebula is, you might want to Google it. 

Okay, I confess; the new tablet was actually free, or almost free. The Galaxy Note just came out, so the Galaxy Tab A is passe.  My phone company, evidently wanting to get rid of them as soon as possible, was handing them out to anybody who would pay the requisite taxes and an additional $15 a month for an LTE account.  This means you can use your tablet anywhere you can get a phone signal, which, you must admit, is pretty cool.  I haven't had a chance to use that feature much, since practically everywhere I go has wifi (I live in Dallas, after all, not the far surface of the moon). But it sure came in handy at the conference,  where the hotel wifi just kind of came and went depending on what room you were in.

 Anyway:  I went to seminars on the buying and selling of LLCs and I went to seminars on accounting. I went to seminars on ethics and I went to seminars on the new Texas Supreme Court decision that is spreading confusion and havoc among attorneys for first-party insurance claimants.  And most of it was pretty esoteric and I'm not sure how interested you'd be, but one seminar stood above them all: How To Communicate With Clients, Judges and Insurance Adjusters in the Era of Twitter. 

Because the times, they are a'changin' and you just can't write 8 page long settlement demands anymore (I have done that). Or file 100 page motions (I have done that, too).  Nobody is going to read them.  They will read the first few paragraphs, and if you don't capture their attention by the end of those paragraphs, you're going to lose them.  Nobody's going to listen to a three-hour-long closing argument either.  Back in the days of Lincoln, presidential candidates held six-hour-long debates with each other, several times, in front of a crowd that was just rapt.  Twitter tweets are 280 characters long.  That's about three average sentences.  That's it.  That's all you get. You have to think of communication in terms of tweets.

Now, we can have differences of opinion as to whether this is good or bad, but it's just the way things are and we, the legal professionals, gotta adapt.  You could sort of see the consternation spreading through the room as our speaker explained.  Let's face it, a lot of people got into the legal profession because they like to stand up and talk.  To tell them they have to do a lot less of it in order to get the job done is to make them not very happy.  I can't wait to see how all this will go over when I do my presentation to the law firm in a few weeks. 

(Oh yeah.  I have to give this presentation. Part of the deal.  But I'm okay with that, mostly. I write a mighty PowerPoint slide.)

So our speaker suggests we all get comfortable with the idea of clients having our cell phone numbers.  (Again, consternation spread through the room; one poor lady broke out in hives).  Why? Because clients that are ignoring your calls will, for whatever reason, text right back when you text them. I call the cell phone the secret weapon of the paralegal; if your cient is dodging you, and you call them from another number that isn't the law firm phone number, they will sometimes pick up.  It sounds silly, but it sometimes works when nothing else will. Yes, clients will then call at odd or inconvenient times, but you have voice mail for a reason. Besides, if you don't answer the phone, the client might just text you with whatever it was you needed to know.

And in filing motions, briefs and other pleadings with the Court, our speaker suggested we follow the tripartate Rule of Successful Arguing, which probably has many applications outside the courtroom as well:
1. Tell them what you're going to tell them.
2. Tell them.
3. Tell them what you just told them. 
My friend Tera said it first, but I'm gratified to report that it still works.   Start out your pleading with an introductory paragraph that tells the Judge what all you have to say.  If you can break it down into two or three bullet points, so much the better.  (Actual bullet points. In a pleading.  The pearl clutchers were having histrionics.)  Make your argument after the bullet points.  Then sum up your argument in the same two or three bullet points. Better yet, insert a photo or another illustration to sum up whatever it is you're trying to say.  Yes, you can insert photos and the Judge will still speak to you. 

Finally, the jury.  Consider the plight of the juror here.  He or she is not only going to sit through a two-week trial, he or she is going to do it without a cell phone.  For a lot of people, this is the longest they've been away from their cell phones since they first took them out of the box, and by day three or four they're kind of losing their minds.  Do you suppose the lawyer who uses graphics and videos copiously throughout the trial is going to get more attention than the one who just talks and brings out documents?  Yep, I think so too.

To sum up, the average attention span is getting smaller all the time, and our opportunities to get anybody's attention are getting smaller as well.  And there's no better way to lay all this brevity out than a lengthy blog post.   So, if y'all will excuse me, I gotta go work on my 500-page novel.  Have a nice day, now.