Spence - Win Your Case: How to Present, Persuade, and Prevail--Every Place, Every Time

I TS WAR OUT THERE plain and simple war. In times past the species battled for their territory with axes and spears. The same genes are at work today. The trial lawyer in the courtroom is a warrior. The executive battling in the trenches of business is at war. The sales-man approaching the reluctant customer must conquer. The teacher, the worker, the administrator, the citizen before the city counsel, all seeking something, perhaps wanting change, perhaps simply seeking recognition, are engaged in a war.

Its a war over ideas. Ideas are the territory possessed by the power personthe decision maker. Ideas have power. In the courtroom the idea of the prosecutor is to put the accused behind barseven to execute him. The civil trial lawyer has the idea that money and justice are equivalents, and to compensate his clients injury he wants money. Jurors are the power personsthe decision makers. The executive has an idea that will forward the profit of his company. The power person may be a governmental regulatory agency, a board of directors, or the stockholders at large. The teacher or worker or citizen may seek change, but the power personthe school principal, the boss, or the city councilalways stands in the way. Their position, their viewpoint, their possession of whatever is sought from them is their territory. And this war is over that turf, the turf the power person possesses. This book is about how to win that war.

The history of man is the history of war. In the first trials, trial by duel, the winner supposedly occupied the side of right since the winner was said to have been chosen by divine powers. Such trials by physical combat were a means to settle disputes between the kings subjects short of war. And the place where these domestic conflicts were settled was a room set aside by the king in the kings court called a courtroom.

In the courtroom of old the contestants fought to submission or death. Each side engaged a champion to fight for them. The king or his lords were able to field the most fearsome mercenaries of all, and those who contested these power persons rarely prevailed. As civilization advanced, the warriors in the kings court were replaced by advocates for each side. Today they are known as trial lawyers. But the same historical paradigm is still in place. Trial lawyers fight to submission with words, not swords. And in and out of business lay persons fight a never-ending battle for the territory of ideas, for whether its a sale one seeks to close or a promotion one longs for, whether its a contest at the school board or a fight before a board of directors, all are wars in which the territory to be conquered is one of ideasideas that win.

Trial lawyers and lay persons have much in common. The methods of trial work are so similar to the best and most successful out-of-court presentations that I ask you to read and take in the whole of this book as if you were a trial lawyer yourself. If you can begin to master what I am teaching here for trial lawyers you will have absorbed the necessary stuff for winning, not only in your out-of-court endeavors, but perhaps in life itself.

For more than fifty years Ive fought these many wars for both the powerful and the poor in the courtrooms of this country. Although there are many skillful advocates at work in the law, I am convinced that most lawyers dont know how to try a case. They were never taught in law school. They were never taught because their teachers, for the most part, have been those academic drones whove never experienced a client clinging to him like a drowning person in deep water whose life depends upon the lawyers skill to convince a jury.

For over ten years Ive conducted the nonprofit, pro bono Trial Lawyers College that I established at my ranch near Dubois, Wyoming, a school devoted to the training of lawyers for the people. Weve conducted many sessions and seminars throughout the nation. We count thousands of graduates across the land whove learned our methods, methods which have magically transformed ordinary, yeoman, struggling trial lawyers, men and women who were afraid of the courtroom and who lost more than they won, into powerful advocates with skills they never dreamed they could possess.