Just For Attorneys

• Author: Faith Dianne Pincus
• Profession: Attorney and former Federal Law Clerk
• Pages: 129-129

PART TWO

JUST FOR ATTORNEYS

In the preceding pages, you read a great deal about what you should do

in a variety of settings, including the courtroom, and how you can (and

should) improve your message and your image/delivery. But you don’t

have to take my word for it.

I have interviewed many judges and justices over the course of the past

fifteen years in order to get their advice and pass that advice on to attorneys

when I speak. And I can tell you—they all say the same thing. Some of what

they say reinforces what I have already talked about in the first part of this

book, and much of it expands upon those ideas and provides deeper insight.

I’ve compiled some of their responses in the oral argument chapter of this

Part Two (see Chapter Eleven) and the trial advocacy chapter (Chapter Fifteen).

Additionally, for the appellate argument, opening statement, and

closing argument chapters (Chapters Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, respec-

tively), I invited a few trial and appellate attorneys, and a retired judge, to

share their experience and advice. All of them are highly respected in their

fields, and they are some of the most highly rated speakers at our Pincus

Professional Education CLE Programs as well.

Lastly, media relations. Since the beginning of the printing press, a

handful of attorneys have needed to know about crisis communication

and public relations. That number increased markedly with the advent of

television. But it was still a small percentage.

With the arrival of social media and most especially Twitter and YouTube,

having at least some knowledge of crisis communication and public rela-

tions skills is critical for a much, much greater percentage of the legal world.

And crisis communication—saying the right thing in a public forum,

to a reporter, on television, or on social media—is still a form of public

communication. In fact, as you will see in the last chapter of this book,

there are many communication rules that overlap between public speaking

and speaking with the media.

So the topic of media relations warrants a chapter as well (Chapter

Sixteen).

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