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Do You Know What Makes a Trial Lawyer Good?

By George Khoury, Esq. on May 29, 2018 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

There are two types of trial lawyers. Good ones and others.

And just because an attorney may not make any technical errors during a trial, that doesn't mean they're good, or even that they know what they're doing. Trial is about so much more, and only so much trial and error is going to be helpful in making a trial lawyer good at their job.

Plain and simple, if you want to be a good trial lawyer, you need training, and you need to keep up on your training.

Trial Training From a Source You Can Trust

While most training happens under the tutelage of more senior attorneys and mentors, there's more than one way to train, and no, "training by fire" isn't actually training (it's experience, and often bad experience at that).

If you want to get good, taking an actual course can often bridge the gap between what you've already learned, and what you have yet to discover. For experienced attorneys, training (or, more aptly, re-training) can potentially unlock epiphanies that have been years in the making, that can take you from just good in the courtroom, to great.

Fortunately for California attorneys, The Rutter Group, a name you've grown to know, love, and trust, thanks to their amazingly easy to use practice guides, has an upcoming training geared towards both experienced and novice trial attorneys. (Disclosure: The Rutter Group is part of Thomson Reuters, FindLaw's parent company.)

A Boot Camp for Trial Lawyers

The Rutter Group's seminar Jury Trial Boot Camp: Tips, Strategies and Techniques from Jury Selection to Closing Argument provides training on the critical tactics every trial lawyer needs to know to be good. Also, don't be fooled by the name, Rutter knows that you're busy, the course is only a few hours. The training will be held in the evening in San Francisco on Thursday June 14, and again in Los Angeles on Thursday June 21.

Justice Carol A. Corrigan of the California Supreme Court and noted trial attorney Michael D. Stein will teach attendees how to impress and win over the jury before the first witness is even called. And that's not all, the 3-hour, 3-MCLE credit course provides training on how to prove your case succinctly on direct and destroy your adversary during crosses, as well as presenting winning opening and closing statements. Included in the CLE credit is 0.5 of legal ethics credit.

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