Last week , I wrote a tip of the day about wiretaps. Now , I move on to criminal law trial tips. Granted , I have lost my fair share of cases , but we are always growing as a trial lawyer. Interviews , discovery and legal issues are just the tip of getting ready for trial. How do we get started ?

You must boil down the case to the basic premise. Remember we are in the world of Twitter and the judge telling us to move on. So faced with jurors and judges wanting to streamline the process, here is my suggestion;

1. Write down the top five things that the citizen wants to tell the judge or jury. Have you noticed I am not using the term client ?

2. The attorney must write down the five things he or she wants to tell the judge or jury. Warning they might not be the same.

3. Have the accused write down the five most dangerous things about the case .

4. The attorney must write down the five most dangerous things about the case

We boil down the case to these danger points and the points we want to make. It is a building block. We start a process of compressing the good and the bad so we can tell a story. Maybe our theme of the trial comes from this or our central defense. I recently tried this . We came up with five things the citizen wanted to tell the jury. The five topics were perfect because it made sense. It became like the chapters in a book but with names. So if you are the accused or the lawyer start your case with the seeds for the defense.

By the way , I hate using the term "My Client." Any suggestions ?