Over a decade ago, I wrote an article for this blog titled, Could Surprise Be One of Your Best Visual Persuasion Tools? In it, I made the case that well-executed surprise — not ambush, but carefully designed moments of cognitive disruption — can be one of the most powerful tools a litigator brings into the courtroom. Since then, I've seen that insight validated over and over again in real-world trials. And as the research around cognitive science and juror decision-making has advanced, my belief has only strengthened: surprise remains one of the most underutilized jury persuasion techniques available today. If

Last week I wrote about a master storyteller at Boeing who taught me a lesson about juror attention. But there was something else on that tour that stuck with me—a single image tucked into a hallway near the visitor center. It was a chart comparing the size of Boeing’s Everett Factory to some of the world’s most iconic landmarks. Versailles. The Pentagon. The Taj Mahal. Places that live large in the public imagination. And there it was—this red outline showing the Everett plant, dwarfing them all. It reminded me of something trial presentation companies like ours face all the time:

This past weekend. I went to the Boeing factory in Seattle to see planes. I didn’t expect to come away with a lesson in persuasion. The place is staggering—airplane sections the size of office buildings, precision assembly lines that look like they were choreographed by NASA, and enough rivets to hold together a continent. But what struck me most wasn’t the machines. It was a man named Christopher Summit. Christopher Summit was our tour guide, and he is not easy to forget. He has a thick Irish accent, long white mutton chops, and a storyteller’s glint in his eye that