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Continued... Page 2 > Story Boards

These and many other questions are bouncing around the walls of the jurors' minds as they stare back at the lawyer silently from the jury box. A lawyer must provide verbal and visual answers to all of these questions or the client will suffer the consequences. Controlling the visual field of play is the power path to victory, increasing the odds in favor of the client.

There is a very real hazard that jurors will not "get it right" if the lawyer relies on words alone. For example, in an auto collision case at an intersection the lawyer must have not only photographs and drawings of the intersection, but also visualize what field of view was available to the parties and the events leading up to the accident. Nature abhors a vacuum and jurors will supply mental pictures of the intersection and how the accident happened from their own imagination and experiences if the lawyer does not do it for them. Juror supplied images may not favor the position of the client, which is why a lawyer should not leave visualization to chance by relying on words alone. Words are only a triggering mechanism to stimulate common experiences in the mind of the audience. They cannot describe with the precision of pictures and drawings what actually happened.

Storyboards - A New Visual Format for Trial Lawyers

As a consequence, the visualization of cases has become increasingly sophisticated and now includes day-in-the-life videos, photographs, medical illustrations, models and computer generated images, etc. However, in a personal injury case many of these visual formats show only the results of an accident. But what about the events leading up to an accident? Certainly this information plays a critical role in the presentation of a case as well. Storyboards are a relatively new tool in the area of trial practice which can effectively visualize the actual events of an accident.

In essence, storyboards are black and white or color drawings that illustrate a sequence of events. They are similar to the life-like action scenes in comic strips. The history of storyboards can be traced over sixty years to Walt Disney, who used them to plan the action sequences in cartoons prior to filming. Since that time, storyboard use has grown tremendously in the motion picture industry as a whole. Every film now made has the visual action planned on storyboards prior to actual production. In addition, every advertisement on television is first planned through storyboards by the agency responsible for it.

In trial advocacy, storyboards can be used to visualize and bring to life the testimony of the plaintiff and witnesses. The storyboard is a proven medium of planning and executing visual communication that meets a number of needs of the trial lawyer.

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