Season 8 – Episode 7: 5 Storytelling Rules Every Attorney Needs to Know

If you’ve ever found yourself spiraling mid-trial, wondering “am I doing this right?” — this episode is for you.

Because here’s the truth:

 ⚡️ There is no “right.”
⚡️ You can’t perform your way to presence.
⚡️ You can’t think your way into connection.

You have to practice being present.

In this episode, I share 7 ways to step out of your head and into the courtroom with power and presence. 

Here are 3 to get you started:

👉🏽 STOP trying to “get it right.” That’s just fear with lipstick.
👉🏽 FOCUS on being, not performing. Connection > content.
👉🏽 DITCH judgment. Curiosity kills the critic. Ask: “What’s going on here?”

The rest? 

You’ll have to tune in to hear them. 😉

If you’re craving MORE support, I’ll be LIVE in our Portland courtroom teaching the Opening Masterclass on Nov 13–14.

Only a FEW spots left. 

Come practice presence in the room with ME.

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari 💖

P.S. Download resource doc HERE

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“If you’re going to ask a jury for millions of dollars, you’ve got to be right with it. Not ashamed. Not shrinking. Not ‘I hope they like me.’ You have to believe it’s the right thing to do. That kind of certainty is contagious and that’s what jurors follow.”

sari de la motte

transcription

All right. So, I was in my presentation skills coaching call in the H2H playground. That's one of the calls that I do, one of our hot seat calls where people sign up. I take three for that call every month and they get coached by me. They deliver about five to seven minutes of an opening and then they get presentation skills coaching and they do it in front of whoever shows up to watch. It's a great call. I love doing the call.

And most of them do part of an opening and they start from the beginning. In five to seven minutes, they could probably get through the first two to three parts of our template. The H2H opening template is only nine parts, and we say that your opening should be less than 30 minutes.

So, they can get through part 1, 2, 3 most of the time. So that is the hook, getting the attention of your audience, which in this case is the jury.

The teaching section you're talking about what should have happened and the defendant's story, talking about what did happen. And that's the part that I want to talk about today. Because I noticed that nearly all of my hot seaters, even though they're in the crew, had made some very easily avoidable, I should say, mistakes when we're talking about storytelling.

Now, you know if you follow me for a while, I say, if I turn the sound off on your opening statement and I cannot tell when the storytelling has begun, you are doing it wrong, meaning it should look very different than any other part of reopening.

You should be running around, maybe using some props, and acting things out, and all of the things. But there are a variety of different types of stories that we tell over trial. So just to make it clear before we talk about the five storytelling rules that you got to follow as an attorney, I'm telling you or you're going to fuck up your case. I don't think that that is actually the title we went with for this podcast episode, but that's basically the gist.

Let's first talk about the different types of stories that you tell over trial. So, I talk about how there are three main stories you tell over trial in the H2H method. The first one is the story of the past, and that is the story we're going to talk about today and the story that these five storytelling rules apply to.

So that is defendant's story, and when I say that, I don't mean the story that the defendant's going to come up and tell you because that's going to be some fucking bullshit. I'm talking about the story of how we got here, what happened and why were we here in this courtroom today? Right?

They did something that they shouldn't have done that caused an injury or a death. That's the story of the past because once you're in trial, it's something that has already happened.

Now there's a second story that you tell in the opening statement, that's the plaintiff's story and that's the story that really is in two parts. We talk about now and before, meaning what they're like now and then what they were like before, which, yes, is a story of the past, but in general, we talk about this story as being the story of the present. Right?

We're talking about the plaintiff and who they are and how they are today. How are they coping with what has happened? Yes, we have a story of the past, meaning what they were like before, but we do that just to juxtapose the two stories against each other so that jurors can really understand the impact on the plaintiff's life.

Now, the rules that we're going to talk about today, some of them may apply to that story, but a lot of them will not. So that's the present story. How is the plaintiff doing today? And again, we tell that before the story, as well, but only so that the jurors can see a contrast of what they were before and what they're like now.

Then in closing, we have the future stories and this is taken from something that Nick Rowley did. I fleshed it out a little bit differently, I'm sure, but I want to give credit where credit is due. And that's the story that we tell jurors of, and there's two stories there, two future stories.

The story of a jury that chooses to help this plaintiff and make this difference in their communities, and a story of a jury that chooses not to help and what that looks like. So we're projecting into the future. So past stories, present stories, and future stories.

And so, these storytelling rules, again, primarily apply, although, I'm sure they will apply in some ways to those other stories. But today we're talking about how they primarily apply to that first story, the defendant's story, and how we got here today.

All right. So before we talk about the five rules, first let's talk about what do I mean by story? Because we tend to throw that word around quite a bit in trial practice because we talk about the story of your case, for example. And that's not what I mean here.

When people often say the story of your case, they're usually talking about what I tend to think of as the theme. Right? What's the gist? What's the moral or the big meaning of the case? That's not what I mean by story.

When I'm talking about storytelling, I'm talking about actually telling a story like you would tell a story to a child. And in fact, one of the things that I have my clients do quite a bit is practice telling stories to your kids using different voices and acting it out and whatnot. That's going to help you here.

So, just a real quick, what I mean by storytelling, when we're talking about storytelling here. Excuse me. So, one more thing, before we get into the rules. Let's talk about the importance of storytelling.

Because the way y'all are doing it is not storytelling and, therefore, you're not getting these benefits. And I want you to get these benefits and I want you to know what these benefits are so that that will at least get you thinking that maybe you should take my advice and actually do proper storytelling.

Proper storytelling, like I said, is voices and doing a narrative, and making it really easy for the listener to understand, and maybe using props, and all of the things. And when we do that type of storytelling, the brain loves it. That's the first piece I want you to understand.

The brain loves stories primarily because stories are the easiest way for the brain to organize information. Now we know that there is a lot of information going on during the trial. So if we can put into a story and do it in the right way, that's going to be a really easy way for the juries to organize all of the information that they're going to hear through at trial.

Which brings us to the second piece, at least today, there's so many beautiful things about storytelling and how the brain loves storytelling. But for our purposes today, the second piece I wanted to point out of why storytelling is so important is that it's memorable.

We are more likely to remember a story, especially one that's acted out with the different voices and the props and all the things that you feel silly doing that the jury loves. They always love it. But that becomes more memorable and that's what we want them to do is remember what we said.

I often ask my clients or my members here, my clients that come out to Command the Courtroom, for example, the one that's going on in November, what is the purpose of opening? They'll give me a variety of answers. "We want to influence the jury, we want to preview the evidence," which is the quote, unquote, "correct answer."

But I always say that the purpose of an opening is to hum or sing the tune of yours, now, let's use that bigger story of your case. Right? It's the one chance that you have that jurors get to understand what they're there to do and what this is all about. And that story is going to get repeated throughout the trial, but it's going to be sung by different people, different singers, often out of tune, often out of order.

And so your opening is your one chance to really say, "Here's this tune. You're going to hear it sung badly throughout the trial, but here it is, and then you're going to hear it again at the end before you go and try to piece it together." So if that's the purpose of opening, we, of course, want that to be organized well and memorable and that's where storytelling comes in.

All right. So let's get into these five rules of storytelling. Sari's five rules of storytelling. There's lots of things, of course, that I want you to be doing in your stories, especially the defendant's story, in the opening statement. But these five, I think, are really, really supremely important.

So the first rule is that you must tell your story in chronological order. Verbal information is the most difficult information to give and to follow. And so, many of you, your answer to that is to then have lots of pictures, or PowerPoints, or all of the other things. And that's not the answer in my mind.

The answer is to sharpen your storytelling skills so you don't need those things. But because, or I should say, one of the ways to sharpen your storytelling skills is to do it in order.

Now, there are no hard and fast like always or never with this. Some openings, maybe you do go out of order, but that, in general, is very rare. And that's because if we believe, like I just told you, that stories are a great way for the brain to organize information, you don't want to mess that up by having that information be disorganized right out of the gate. Because it's hard to follow when you are doing things at different times and in different orders.

So, the question that I want you to ask yourself before you start to put together your defendant's stories, where does this story really begin?

Sometimes it starts right where the actual incident occurred. But in many cases, I might even venture to say most cases, it starts earlier than that. I was just saying in a podcast when I was a guest that most plaintiff cases, I'm finding these days, outside of your small car crash cases are systemic failure cases.

This thing happened because somebody way back here didn't do the thing they were supposed to do, or didn't set up the process that they were supposed to set up, or the people didn't follow the process, or whatever it may be. So really think through that. I'm not saying to do this, to add more length to your opening statement.

Dear, Lord, I'm not saying it for that reason. Believe me, I don't want your openings to be longer. But if you do want to capture a systemic failure or something that kind of sets everything in motion, you may need to start back farther than you thought.

And that doesn't mean you have to tell us every single detail to get us up to date. Maybe you just go forward in time. But in terms of the brain, you're going to have to be chronological. That's the first rule. And that's really kind of, if you want to look at these rules of, where does Sari get confused when you're delivering your opening? If it's not in order, I absolutely get confused. So that's rule number one.

Rule number two is to not use names. Now this one I see a break all the time and I keep reminding you not to use names. Here's what I mean by that.

First of all, I don't want you to say, "We are here at Walgreens and in walks Philip Johnson." I don't want you to use the name, Walgreens, and I don't want you to use the name, Philip Johnson.

Now, don't think we're never going to say that. Remember where we are in the template, we are very early, we're on part three, right? We've talked about what, let's say it is about Walgreens, what stores should do in general in our teaching, we're not using names there, either. We don't want to make it Walgreens specific. We wanted this to be about their specific communities and that stores, in general, need to do these things to keep their patrons safe.

So, later, actually right after this in part four, we're going to use names. But here I don't want you to use names because when you use names, the story then becomes about your plaintiff or this particular Walgreens. And what I want you to do is tell it in a way that jurors can insert themselves and their loved ones into the story.

And I also want jurors to think about, this could be any store, any hospital, any fill in the blank, whatever your case is about, and, therefore, their job is so important. It's not trying to nail this one little store and how horrible we are to bring a judgment against them.

It's a safety rule across the board. And, yes, we're applying it here, but it really does apply to any store or any hospital. That's why I don't want you to insert the names.

So, again, remember, verbal information is the most difficult information for the brain to follow. If you name the hospital in your city that you're in, what a juror's brain will do is go, "Oh, this is about St. Vincent's? I had my knee surgery there. Wow, I really had a good experience there, and I don't want to..."

And boom, we don't want that because now as that is happening in their brain, thinking about their experiences at St. Vincent's, or their experience shopping at Walmart, they've missed however many seconds of content. Because, of course, you're not in their brain. You're still talking, you're still delivering information. And they're gone because they're thinking about the last time they were there.

So, it's a way, also, to keep them kind of with you and on track, versus you say a name that's familiar to them on one hand, the store or the hospital, and now they're thinking about the last time they were there. Or, you say a name that's unfamiliar to them, somebody they don't know, Philip Johnson, and now they're like, "Well, who's that guy? I don't know who that is. Do I know that person?" And their brain is off going that direction, too.

You want to make this as easy as possible, and you also want them to insert themselves into the story. So that's why we don't use names. We're working with the brain and keeping everything as smooth as possible.

Rule number three is you want to avoid pronouns. Pronouns are a very big thing right now in the world and people are like, "I don't use pronouns." Yes, you do. Everyone has pronouns. Pronouns are part of the English language.

But thank you, David Ball, for this one because he really talks about this or used to talk about this quite a bit. I don't know what he does nowadays, but when you start saying things like, "So he went here and then they did that, and then she was over here," again, the brain cannot follow.

I mean, this is like trying to follow my husband's texts. I cannot follow what he's saying because I'm like, "Wait, who? What?" To make things even more difficult in our family life, my daughter has come out as non-binary, not because they don't present feminine or they're trans or any of that, they just don't want to be labeled as a she or he. So they're they, right?

I kind of feel like it's our culture's time. Like the Ms. was in my time. I don't want to be Miss and I don't want to be Mrs. Just calling Ms. At least for her, that's kind of what this is. I'm not saying that's how it is for everybody.

And that just makes it even more confusing because sometimes I'm like, they? I'm thinking plural, but no, they are now my kids. Anyways, as you can see, that's a problem when you're telling a story. So you're going to decide on those names ahead of time.

So, if your story involves the driver of a pickup truck and the driver of a sedan, that's what you're going to say every single time. It does make it a tiny bit clunky, but that's the risk we take so that jurors are not confused.

So the driver of the pickup truck is now waiting at the light and before he turns left, a driver of a sedan runs the red light and hits the driver of the pickup truck, or hits the pickup truck.

So, you decide. Maybe it's the doctor, the nurse, and the patient, and that's it. And so, every time it's not, "And then the doctor says to her," it's, "And then the doctor says to the nurse, can you go get me this thing? When the nurse brings it back, the doctor says to the patient, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the patient asks the nurse," so you're always saying the name.

So we always know who is who and who's talking about what in your story. So, avoid pronouns. Decide on the names before you start telling your story, and then use those names even if it's a little clunky so that your listener always knows who you're talking about and it's not, "Who's she and who are they?" And all of the things.

Rule number four. Rule number four is no teaching. Here's my rule on this.

If you have to stop and explain something in your story, you're no longer storytelling. So you have to stop. You're like, "Okay, we're at this intersection and you see this person," I always think of this one because of one of my favorite clients ever.

But, "You see this tractor pulling a hay rake." And then you have to stop and you go, "Okay, well here's what a hay rake is. It's this big thing and it's painted red and they use it for this reason." Boom, you're out of storytelling.

So in that case, we had to put what a hay rake is in our teaching section. Guess what? That's why the teaching section goes before the defendant's story. There's part two and part three of the H2H template.

So, as you're telling your story, if you're using a term that jurors won't understand, or you have to explain something in your story, that's going to go back into your teaching section. So that when you're storytelling, you don't have to stop, you can say, "And then the hay rake is being pulled," and everyone knows exactly what you're talking about.

I always say, keep your story clean. So you're not talking in your story. You guys try to use it as all-purpose, right? "I'm going to use this story to teach the jurors and to show them who is wrong, and to talk about the bad doing and to persuade and..."

No. That's not what it's for. You're telling a story to tell a story. Now, when you juxtapose that against the teaching section, that does a lot of those things like persuade and show them the wrongdoing and all of the things, when things are in their proper place.

But you can't use the defendant's story as a catch-all for all the things. It's just the story that you're telling in chronological order. And you're not using names. And you're avoiding those pronouns. And you're not teaching. And that is how good storytelling is going to help with that memory and help them organize that information in their brain.

Rule number five, this is a big one, is once you know where the story's going to start, you are going to not use those names. You're going to avoid those pronouns because you've already chosen what you're going to call everybody. You put anything you need to teach about in your teaching section that comes before. Then you're going to act it out.

This is that part. If I turned off the video camera and I couldn't tell if you were storytelling, you're doing it wrong. This is the part that you hate. And I will tell you right now, this is the part that jurors utterly love and want more of, every time with all of our mock jurors. They love this part.

They want you to act it out. In fact, there are so many things that you can do in storytelling. People have come out and worked with me. They're like, "Oh my gosh, we want to say this, but we know we might get in trouble or be objected to."

I'm not trying to sneaky things. I'm just like something that's maybe right on the line. But we can show it in the story, in our tone of voice, or the way that we hold our body, and it does the job for us. You guys are missing that when you're not acting out the story.

So, what does that mean? It means you're going to use different voices. So maybe if you're a little girl, you're going to use a voice like this, even if you're a full-grown man. Or if you're like a doctor who thinks he knows everything, maybe you're going to use a voice like this.

It's using props. There's very few stories that I've ever helped my clients put together that don't use props, and that's usually a clipboard. Or we're using chairs for something. We're MacGyvering it out here. We're like, what can we make with a tampon and a lighter?

You know? I mean, we're like, just how can we tell this story with just the things we have in front of us? There's great stuff you can have made, too, but you don't always need that. It doesn't always have to be fancy.

And then use of space is a huge way to act it out so that you're walking and this part is the hospital room, or this is where they wheeled them into surgery, or this is the recovery room, or that's the high school and now we're in the ambulance. Use of space.

There's so many things you are missing out on when you're not taking the time to really tell your story with the props and the voices and the using of the space, the gesturing, and all of the things. I don't mean just for entertainment value, although the jurors love it. I mean things that you can't necessarily say out loud, but you can show through great storytelling.

So, again, there's lots of things to talk about in storytelling. These are the five big ones that always bother me when I'm watching someone attempt to tell the defendant's story. You got to do it in chronological order. You have to make sure that there's no names. I'm not sure I'm doing this in order. Yep, avoid those pronouns. Don't teach. And act it out. And those are the five main storytelling rules.

Now, if, you are trying to do this perfectly and you really have a good idea and it's making sense and you've tested it out on some people and it goes against one of these rules, and you think to yourself, "But Sari said," I want you to take your hand and I want you to slap your own face because you are the expert in your case, not me.

I'm not there with you. Maybe it does work better. Rules are made to be broken.

In general, 90 plus percent of the time, percentage of the time, these rules are going to absolutely save your ass. But there might be times where you do want to do things a little bit differently, and I want you to feel like you have the freedom to do that.

Now, if you want to download these rules, you can go to Sariswears.com/storytelling rules. It's all one word. Just put it all together, storytelling rules, and you're going to have to give us your email to get it. But you can download it there and you can have that as a handy reference the next time you put your defendant's story together.

Well, I hope that was helpful and we will talk soon. And I hope that you end up coming to our two-day Command the Courtroom masterclass on opening. It's going to utterly change your life. Talk next week.

Have you registered, yet, for our Command The Courtroom Opening masterclass? Well, what are you waiting for? It's happening November 13th and 14th. It's our last one of the year. Go to Sariswears.com/opening and enroll today.

Ever wish you had a place to practice your trial skills and connect with other lawyers who get it, and connect with me? Grab your seat in the H2H Playground. It's where you get real coaching, community, and strategies to actually grow your practice. Head to Sariswears.com/play and get enrolled. Until next time.