It is
that you may know how best to get the truth of your case to him. How
to get your theory, your cause, before each juror should be your only
concern.
Never try to be "eloquent." Never be funny. Wit may cause laughter, it
never produces conviction. A joke may divert, it never persuades. It
is unnecessary even to arouse a jury's sympathies. _Forget everything
except making the juror understand your case._ The result will be that
he will understand your case, and if he understands it, and it is a
case you ought to win, his understanding of it means that you will win
it.
Take at least one excellent legal periodical. There are four or five
"law" magazines published in America, some of them very good indeed.
Do not pay any attention to the digests of cases with which some of
these periodicals burden their pages, except to see if there is a
recent decision on some case you are trying. You cannot remember them,
and the effort to do so will only confuse. But you will usually find
in each number one serious and profitable article, and possibly more,
on matters of real interest to the profession. Read such articles very
carefully.
The methods of scientific scholarship are now invading the law, and
many of these legal essays are superb pieces of work.
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