the trial lawyer what it takes to win

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The Trial Lawyer: What It Takes to Win, Second Edition

Learn how Joe Jamail won a $10.5 billion verdict in Pennzoil v. Texaco - and how you can use these trial tactics to your advantage!

The Trial Lawyer: What It Takes to Win, Second Edition

Learn how Joe Jamail won a $10.5 billion verdict in Pennzoil v. Texaco - and how you can use these trial tactics to your advantage!

The Case of the Skull-Shaped Bottle

Alexander, a renowned landscape artist, had an idea—an idea totally out of keeping for a serious artist.

Pennzoil v. Texaco

Next, let’s look at Pennzoil v. Texaco. The case began with the wheeler-dealing of two giant oil companies vying for a third oil company’s assets, and ended in double-dealing. Litigation followed, and the result was the largest verdict ever affirmed on appeal: $10.53 billion.

Using Hypotheticals

Jamail once told me that hypotheticals were his favorite kind of questions because they allowed him to argue his case. What he did not say was just how much more than that they allowed him to do.

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Pound for pound, this is the best book about how to try a case. The trial bar owes David Berg a debt of gratitude for this fine work. Probably for students the current version of Mauet is appropriate to introduce broad concepts, but for the practicing attorney, Berg's work will be hard to beat.

About the author (2006)

David Berg knows how to win cases. And he knows how to tell a story. In the Trial Lawyer: What It Takes To Win Berg puts both skills to dazzling use in an engaging and instructive guide to winning at trial.

How to make a promise to the jury?

You are the one who made promises to the jury. They look to you to deliver, no one else. Besides, you have waited a long time for this opportunity, so take advantage of it. Argue your case in the words the jury will read in the charge. Tell them, without apology, how much you want and why.

How many times out of 10 do you strike a jury?

Nine times out of 10, you will have saved a peremptory strike. Now comes the difficult, almost mystical process of striking jurors. Given the huge stakes involved, the judge tells you to take 15 minutes. You plead and get 20, grab an empty jury room, and begin talking with the trial team about each panelist.

What to say when a jury retires?

When the jury retires, you want your clients to be able to say, “No matter how this comes out, I know you did everything you could for my case.” More important, you want it to be true. Nonetheless, if you lose, there is little comfort in the compliment or consolation because you didn’t make the facts. We write our history from our last verdict forward. The object of the exercise is to win.

Why did the judge reject the defense counsel's sixth motion for continuance?

The judge rejects defense counsel’s sixth motion for continuance because America does not celebrate St. Swithin’s day. Finally, the panel shuffles silently into the courtroom. It is an awkward moment as you rise to address them, like a mass blind date.

What did the Supreme Court write in 1979?

In 1979, the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court wrote an opinion affirming not only a verdict but our tradition of zealous advocacy as well. The issue was a particularly vitriolic closing argument in a personal injury case, including the assertion that the plaintiff drove by a “thousand [legitimate] doctors between the Astrodome and Spring Branch,” clear across town, to get to the quack who testified. Justice Pope wrote, “Hyperbole has long been one of the figurative techniques of oral advocacy. Such arguments are part of our legal heritage and language. . . . In The Tempest, Shakespeare wrote ‘Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground’; … in Hamlet, ‘To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.'”