{"id":32761,"date":"2011-03-30T15:57:30","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T19:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/closing_arguments_remember_why_you_are_there\/"},"modified":"2024-12-17T15:47:45","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T20:47:45","slug":"closing-arguments-remember-why-you-are-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/closing-arguments-remember-why-you-are-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Closing Arguments: Remember Why You Are There"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a hotly contested liability case, it is often easy for counsel to forget that the reason they are there is to achieve a favorable monetary verdict for their client.  It is tempting sometimes to spend far too much time discussing liability thereby leaving counsel with little or no time to discuss damages.  The reason we are in Court is to try to get a verdict to compensate our client for the damages they have sustained.  Obviously, we have to discuss liability.  However, we should never discuss liability exclusively and should always reserve a sufficient amount of our time in summation to devote to the subject of damages.<\/p>\n<p>If the case is a close one and it is necessary that counsel discuss liability extensively, I would suggest that counsel discuss liability at least seventy percent (70%) of the time and reserve thirty percent (30%) of his time for damages.  If counsel believes that liability is fairly strong, counsel might wish to divide his arguments between fifty-five and sixty-five percent (55-65%) liability and thirty-five to forty-five percent (35-45%) damages.  If liability is strong, the counsel might wish to reverse this percentage and focus more on the damage equation to the case.  Whatever the issues involved, however, counsel must be organized enough to allocate a sufficient percentage of his time to discuss the damage question such that the jury knows what it is counsel is asking for and why it is that the damage position of the plaintiff is both fair and just.<\/p>\n<p>When discussing money with the jury, I would recommend that counsel always give the jury a range of suggested verdicts.  If the jury is not given a range of suggested verdicts, then they have to come up with their own range and they may not pick a range that you will like.  By giving a jury a range as to what would be appropriate, this gives the jury something to rationally discuss in the jury room.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/closing-arguments-remember-why-you-are-there\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Closing Arguments: Remember Why You Are There\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a hotly contested liability case, it is often easy for counsel to forget that the reason they are there is to achieve a favorable monetary verdict for their client. It is tempting sometimes to spend far too much time discussing liability thereby leaving counsel with little or no time to discuss damages. The reason [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-32761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-injury-wrongful-death","tag-personal-injury"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Closing Arguments: Remember Why You Are There &#8212; Trial Attorney Blog &#8212; March 30, 2011<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a hotly contested liability case, it is often easy for counsel to forget that the reason they are there is to achieve a favorable monetary verdict for &#8212; March 30, 2011\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.finchmccranie.com\/blog\/closing-arguments-remember-why-you-are-there\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Closing Arguments: Remember Why You Are There &#8212; 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