Legal Eagle: Don't Forget the Jury is Smarter than You Are
One of the lasting legacies left by a renowned Chicago lawyer who died last week at age 82 is a book that went on sale today. Entitled, Your Witness: Lessons on Cross-Examination and Life, it describes the techniques that helped R. Eugene Pincham become a legend in the city’s courtrooms.
Pincham, for example, liked to have his wife—described as a country girl from Tennessee with a lot of common sense—come to court with him when he tried a case. “She will critique me when we recess, when we go out in the hall,” he recounts in an excerpt from the book published by the Chicago Tribune. “She doesn’t tell me how much she loves me because I know that already. Instead, she tells me how I am messing up.”
A trial lawyer is effectively a 13th juror, he writes, discussing the art of cross-examination. And, while the attorney must dominate, he or she must also remember that the other 12 members of the panel are the smartest folks in the courtroom. The lawyer’s job, thus, is to inform and persuade them; “a lawyer cannot outsmart them,” he explains.
