By Karyn J. Taylor
There is only one true measure of a good legal graphic: does it persuade the jury to "buy in" to your client's point of view? That, after all, is the point of any courtroom presentation and it makes no sense to spend your time (or your client's money) creating graphics that won't have a positive impact on the judge's opinion or the jury's vote.
Even with the best of intentions, however, many graphics fail to deliver. They simply have not been designed to change jurors' hearts and minds. To discover where the problem lies, let's look at the panoply of legal graphics.
The most commonly produced type of courtroom graphic is the Reiterative Graphic. Like its name implies, it reiterates key case information.
Reiterative Graphics are great for:
 Presenting statistics or tracking trends.
Providing tutorials on virtually any subject, or
Condensing case facts and information into one simple image
that jurors can easily absorb and remember.
But Reiterative Graphics rarely convince judges or juries to see the case through your client's eyes. The reason is simple: reiterative graphics typically appeal only to the intellect.
To have an impact on the verdict, you must forge an emotional bond between fact finders and your client. That's the job that Conceptual Graphics are designed to do.
Conceptual Graphics...
Deliver your key case themes & messages
Reinforce your case story
Translate your case story into indelible images, and ideally...
Provoke an emotional response
A graphic that delivers your key case themes and reinforces your case story is of obvious value. So, too, is a graphic that turns words
or concepts into memorable images.
But why is provoking an emotional response so critical? Because decades of research have shown that people are ruled by their emotions, not their intellect.
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