by Ken LopezFounder/CEOA2L Consulting Not all lawyers are created equal. It's amazing how hard it is for those outside the legal industry to understand this. Many people regrettably believe that those human aptitudes that require creativity and skill are binary. Either you can design a house or you can't. Either you can knit or you can't. Either you have a singing voice or you don’t. And in that same vein, either you're a lawyer or you're not. This is the wrong way to look at it. In all these areas, there are variations and gradations of skills. This is never more

Ken LopezFounder/CEOA2L Consulting This is the fifth consecutive year that I've written a new year economic outlook article focused on litigation. Please review some of my previous articles that were focused on 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. While I believe that 2017 will be a very good year for litigation, it will not be good for everyone. From where I sit, things look and sound remarkably different during this current economic expansion than they did in previous years. A2L's litigation consulting business, one focused almost entirely on trials, is thriving. We've grown more than 50% in each of the past two years, and

by Ken LopezFounder/CEOA2L Consulting We recently had the opportunity to interview three top trial lawyers. We asked them for their views about the practice of law and about what really works at trial. Collectively, more than 100 years of wisdom are speaking in these interviews. I couldn't agree more with these trial lawyers’ positions, and over the coming weeks, we will share some of these interviews, edited for clear and quick messages and understanding. These three lawyers, Patrick Coyne, Rob Cary, and Bobby Burchfield, are at the top of their field. Let's hear what they have to say about storytelling

by Tony KlapperManaging Director, Litigation ConsultingA2L Consulting At first glance, antitrust cases seem like unlikely venues for the successful use of litigation graphics. Antitrust law has the reputation for being arcane, abstract and statistical, and to some extent the reputation is justified. After all, this area of law deals with the workings of supply and demand and other economic questions, and the issue is often whether competition (or potential competition) in a market has been suppressed in some way. These matters aren’t remotely within the daily experience of jurors. How can a litigator use graphics in antitrust cases to make

by Tony KlapperManaging Director, Litigation ConsultingA2L Consulting Ken Lopez, the CEO of A2L Consulting, and I were talking the other day about some good books to read for the holiday season.  I suggested a current best-seller, Thomas Friedman's Thank You for Being Late - strongly recommended to me by my dear friend and mentor, Jim Hostetler. But Ken guided me to another book, a best-seller written 15 years ago by Jim Collins, called Good to Great.  It was a great read. Although the book is principally a heavily researched analysis on what differentiates a great company from just a good company, I believe that many of

by Tony KlapperManaging Director, Litigation ConsultingA2L Consulting If anyone thought the era of toxic tort litigation was coming to an end, they were wrong. The Environmental Protection Agency recently announced its priority list of 10 chemicals, including asbestos, that it is considering banning under the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. Although it remains an open question how aggressive the Trump administration will be with safety regulations, the reality is that regulatory lists like this, and the inevitable studies that follow, often become a treasure trove of “support” for a plaintiffs’ bar eager to add scientific

by Ken LopezFounder/CEOA2L Consulting Tony Klapper joined the A2L team after a vibrant and successful career as a litigator at law firms like Kirkland & Ellis and Reed Smith. One of the reasons that he has meshed so well with the culture here at A2L is his penchant for storytelling, particularly as it applies to persuading in the courtroom. In the past year, I've had the pleasure of watching Tony deliver private storytelling training sessions to litigators at many of the very top litigation law firms. And I have also had the distinct pleasure of watching him work with our

by Tony KlapperManaging Director, Litigation ConsultingA2L Consulting Quite often, law firms hire companies like A2L before trial to do jury research. That research usually takes the form of bringing in a mock jury, exposing the mock jury to the story that will be presented by both sides, and then engaging the mock jury in a single-day (and sometimes multi-day) focus group exercise to find out what aspects of the two sides’ presentations worked and what didn’t. The central part of these mock jury events is the dueling “clopenings” that are put on by different attorneys from the trial firm –