The Litigation Consulting Report

22 Reasons Not to Use AI to Build Your Trial Slides

ken@persuadius.com (Kenneth J. Lopez, J.D.) — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 13:15:00 GMT

Imagine asking AI to turn your opening statement into a polished presentation. It returns a handsome deck: coordinated colors, matching title bars, tidy lists, and an illustration on every third slide.

You might think you have just eliminated the need for a litigation graphics consultant.

You have generated slides. You have not acquired the expertise that makes trial graphics persuasive.

The hard part of trial graphics is deciding what jurors need to understand, what might keep them from understanding it, and how each visual will help you change that. A finished-looking deck does not answer those questions.

In How Many Persuasion Errors Can You Spot in This Slide?, I deliberately assembled a terrible slide to illustrate familiar presentation mistakes. AI gives us a new reason to revisit that exercise: it can make those same mistakes look much more professional.

My concern is the assumption that familiar presentation conventions must be effective. Common practice is a poor substitute for persuasion expertise. An attorney can ask for a professional-looking deck and receive exactly that, including familiar design choices a litigation graphics specialist would reject. The attorney may even praise the very features that need to change.

The problem is deeper than proofreading the output. To recognize a persuasion error, you first have to understand persuasion. Legal expertise does not automatically supply expertise in visual attention, audience comprehension, or the coordination of graphics and spoken advocacy. Here are 22 reasons that using AI to build your own trial slides is a poor substitute for hiring specialists.

1. AI can make every slide look equally important

The same title bar. The same layout. The same amount of text. A routine background fact and the central contradiction in the case arrive wearing identical clothes. Where is the signal that something important has changed? Consistency should help jurors follow the argument; it should not flatten its emphasis. A litigation graphics specialist designs those moments deliberately. An attorney evaluating the deck for consistency may approve the very sameness that undermines them.

2. AI can eliminate useful visual surprise

A document excerpt followed by a photograph, a comparison, or a single consequential number changes the viewing experience. That change can be purposeful. As I argued in Could Surprise Be One of Your Best Visual Persuasion Tools?, variation belongs in the trial team's toolkit. A deck that treats uniformity as an overriding goal can design those opportunities away. Random decoration is no substitute for a deliberate change in emphasis.

3. AI cannot choose what to downplay without your strategy

Sometimes an unfavorable fact needs to be acknowledged accurately without receiving a dramatic visual reveal. A restrained presentation may be appropriate. But that is a judgment about this case, this audience, and your credibility. If every slide is visually subdued, the presentation may also downplay your strongest evidence. Persuasion expertise is what distinguishes intentional restraint from an accidentally forgettable presentation.

4. AI can turn an opening statement into a slide-shaped outline

Giving AI a speech and asking for slides invites a particular shortcut: divide the speech into sections, summarize each section, and put the summaries on screen. That produces an outline of what the lawyer will say. It does not necessarily produce anything worth showing. Start by asking which relationships, events, or comparisons would become clearer if jurors could see them.

5. AI can bring back the bullet points

A neat list still asks jurors to work through a list. Replacing dots with checkmarks, numbered circles, or little icons does not solve that problem. Our article Powerful PowerPoint Presentation Tips: Ditch the Bullet Points! explains the concern. If the point is that three warnings preceded a decision, show the warnings in relation to that decision. Do not merely announce that there were three.

6. AI can make jurors read while you need them listening

A paragraph on screen gives jurors a reading assignment at the very moment you are speaking. Depending on the content and delivery, those tasks can compete. As discussed in Why Reading Your Litigation PowerPoint Slides Hurts Jurors, the spoken and visual presentations need to work together. Exact wording sometimes matters enormously. Show it deliberately, give jurors time to read, and explain its significance.

7. AI can preserve too much because everything was in the prompt

Uploading a lengthy case summary does not mean every fact deserves screen time. An exhaustive deck can give minor details space that the central explanation needs. Our discussion of how much text is too much remains relevant. Ask what a juror must understand at this point in the presentation. Put supporting detail where it belongs rather than making each slide carry the whole file.

8. AI can compress several reasoning steps into one slide

Consider a slide containing a contract obligation, a notice, a response, and a damages calculation. Each may be accurate. Together, they may require jurors to solve four problems at once. A designer needs to decide what must be understood first and what can follow. Fewer slides do not automatically mean a simpler explanation. Sometimes a sequence gives the audience the necessary room to think.

9. AI can label a subject without explaining its significance

“Internal Communications” identifies a folder. “The warning reached the decision-maker before approval” identifies a proposition, assuming the evidence supports it. AI can generate either kind of headline. Your team must decide which proposition matters and whether the slide actually supports it. A short, concrete heading can guide interpretation; a generic heading can leave jurors wondering why they are seeing the document.

10. AI can add pictures that do no explanatory work

A courthouse, a handshake, or a glowing network may make a slide look finished. Ask what the image helps the jury understand about the evidence. If the answer is nothing, it is occupying space that might be better used for a relationship, a comparison, or no image at all. The standard should be explanatory value, not whether the software found something attractive to fill the rectangle.

11. AI can make a chronology stand in for a story

Sorting events by date does not establish which decision mattered, what alternatives existed, or why the consequences followed. Imagine a dispute involving months of correspondence and one consequential approval. A comprehensive timeline could bury that choice among dozens of routine exchanges. The visual story may need to begin with the decision, then show what the decision-maker knew. A litigation graphics consultant helps make that choice before the timeline is built. Faster production cannot make up for choosing the wrong story structure.

12. AI can explain the case at the wrong starting point

The lawyers may have lived with the dispute for years. Jurors have not. An AI prompt written in the team's shorthand can produce slides that preserve its assumptions: unexplained acronyms, unfamiliar processes, and distinctions that seem obvious only to specialists. In 5 Rules for How Simple a Trial Presentation Should Be, I urged teams to simplify further than feels comfortable. Begin with the audience's knowledge, not the team's vocabulary.

13. AI can confuse an accurate number with a meaningful number

Ten million transactions. Forty milliseconds. Three parts per million. A number can be correct and still leave a juror with no useful understanding of its scale or significance. A trial graphics professional asks what comparison would help and whether that comparison is fair. Asking AI to “make this statistic impressive” starts with the wrong objective. Ask what the audience needs to understand about it.

14. AI can make a chart persuasive in the wrong way

Check the axis, denominator, time period, unit, and comparison group. A beautifully drawn chart can exaggerate a difference or conceal one through those choices. The issue is not whether it looks mathematically sophisticated. It is whether it faithfully represents the underlying data and the proposition you intend to establish. Verification must reach the visual construction, not stop at checking that the numbers were copied correctly.

15. AI can turn uncertainty into a definite-looking picture

Suppose the evidence establishes a range of possible locations. A generated illustration places an object at one exact point. The image now communicates more certainty than the source supports. The same problem arises with distances, angles, timing, and sequences. Every depicted detail needs scrutiny. Visual precision is a claim, even when nobody has written that claim in the caption.

16. AI can improve the wording and change the evidence

An AI-generated summary may be clearer than the underlying email while losing a qualification that matters. “Could” is not “would.” A question is not an admission. Keep exact quotations distinct from summaries, check them against the source, and preserve the context needed to understand them. A polished paraphrase should never quietly become the document the jury thinks it is reading.

17. AI can create a document callout without a reading path

Enlarging an excerpt is only one design decision. How will jurors recognize the source? Where should they look first? How much surrounding language is necessary? Does the highlight isolate the relevant wording without changing its meaning? A crowded screenshot with a colored box is not automatically a useful callout. The design should guide the audience through the evidence without making it hunt for the point.

18. AI cannot verify courtroom readability from a laptop preview

Small labels, low contrast, and subtle color differences may look acceptable on the designer's screen. The courtroom is the real test. Check the display, viewing distance, and sightlines; avoid making color alone carry an essential distinction. No universal font-size rule can substitute for checking what the audience will actually see. An exported deck is a file, not proof that the jury can read it.

19. AI can fill moments that should belong to the lawyer

Some passages call for a visual. Others call for the jury to look directly at the person speaking. A deck built to accompany every paragraph can leave an irrelevant image on screen or encourage unnecessary slide changes. Our article 12 Ways to SUCCESSFULLY Combine Oral and Visual Presentations discusses coordinating those choices. Plan the pauses and blank screens along with the graphics.

20. AI cannot replace audience testing with its own approval

Ask AI whether its slide is compelling, and you receive another model response. You have not learned what a juror understood. Show the visual to people unfamiliar with the case and ask them to explain it back. Where appropriate, test it through jury research. Their misunderstanding may reveal that the problem lies in the explanation itself, even when the slide looks excellent.

21. AI can leave you with a deck that is awkward to change

Trial preparation rarely ends with the first export. A ruling, revised calculation, or changed testimony may require a rapid correction. Can the team edit the text, replace the exhibit, remove a section, and verify the result? A slide assembled as a single image may complicate those tasks. Inspect the actual deliverable and rehearse the revision workflow before relying on it in court.

22. AI can make unfinished strategic work feel finished

Polish creates a powerful stopping point. Once the deck looks ready, the team may shift from asking whether the argument works to debating a color or a word. In Why Lawyers Should Stop Designing Their Own PowerPoint Slides, I described the expertise courtroom graphics require. AI does not remove that requirement. It makes it easier to obtain a finished-looking product before the underlying decisions have been tested.

You are hiring the expertise that tells you what to build

The temptation is understandable. If you think a litigation graphics consultant's job is to turn your outline into attractive slides, AI looks like a replacement. But that description leaves out the most valuable part of the work.

At Persuadius, the work includes questioning the outline, identifying what the audience needs explained, choosing how to make a relationship visible, and deciding when a visual should command attention. Our litigation graphics work draws on legal understanding, design, and jury consulting. Those decisions shape what gets built in the first place.

An attorney reviewing AI-generated slides can check names, dates, and quotations and still miss the central persuasion problem. The slide may be accurate, attractive, and strategically ineffective. Asking the same tool to improve it does not supply the expertise needed to diagnose why.

Specialists may use AI as one tool in their work. That does not make their expertise available to everyone who uses the same software. Owning the tool and knowing what to do with it are separate capabilities.

Before replacing professional trial graphics with an AI-generated deck, ask what you are actually saving. Production time is only one part of the investment. The quality of the explanation you put before the jury is the part that matters.

If you are preparing for trial, contact Persuadius for a free 15-minute case consultation about your litigation graphics and presentation strategy. Prefer a confidential conversation? Email confidential@persuadius.com.

Persuadius’ Top 10 Most-Read Articles of 2026—So Far

ken@persuadius.com (Kenneth J. Lopez, J.D.) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 13:30:00 GMT

Trial preparation has a way of turning capable lawyers into reluctant experts in everything. One minute you are refining a cross-examination. The next, you are moving text boxes around a slide, troubleshooting a video, or trying to turn three years of discovery into an opening statement someone can follow in thirty minutes.

Several of our most-read articles this year ask whether all of that belongs on the trial lawyer’s desk.

Others tackle an equally demanding problem: what happens inside a juror’s head when the presentation begins? How do you hold attention, challenge an early assumption, or help someone understand why one event led to another?

10. Simplifying Your Opening Statement to Its Core

You know the case. Can a juror explain it after hearing your opening?

Part two of our Persuasion Occasion podcast series with Perkins Coie examines the work of reducing an opening statement to its essential story. It asks lawyers to think about what jurors will understand, retain, and eventually repeat. For a trial team staring at an overgrown draft, this is a useful starting point: identify the central idea before deciding which details deserve to stay.

9. The Simplest Storytelling Trick for Persuasion Might Have Come from South Park

An unlikely source offers a remarkably practical editing test. Look at the transitions between the major events in your opening. Do they amount to “and then,” or can you connect them with “but” and “therefore”?

This article explores how conflict and consequence give a story momentum. It is especially useful when an opening contains all the necessary facts but still feels like a recitation. Try the test on one page of your outline and see where the connections need work.

8. How to Break Juror Confirmation Bias (Using a Surprisingly Simple Trick)

What might make a juror pause before fitting the next fact into an opinion already formed?

Part three of our Perkins Coie podcast series explores the possibility of using a carefully chosen visual surprise or moment of difficulty to encourage closer attention. The article presents this as a technique to consider selectively; it also acknowledges the potential for distraction. Its most useful question is whether your presentation invites jurors to examine an assumption they might otherwise leave untouched.

7. Humor, Demonstrative Evidence, and the “Monster of Evidence”

Every additional exhibit has an advocate inside the trial team. Someone remembers why it matters. Someone worries about leaving it out. Eventually, the presentation becomes a creature with hundreds of attachments and very little room to breathe.

This article considers the cost of that accumulation and explores how appropriate humor and memorable demonstratives can help address audience fatigue. It is a useful read when your team’s answer to every presentation problem has become another document, another chart, or another slide.

6. Why Attorneys Should Not Run Their Own Trial Technology

A lawyer questioning a witness already has plenty to monitor. Adding exhibit retrieval, video playback, and screen management creates another set of demands at precisely the moment attention matters most.

This article makes the case for experienced trial technicians and hotseaters. It examines how dedicated courtroom technology support helps attorneys maintain their focus and the presentation’s rhythm. For teams making staffing decisions, it offers a practical way to think about what the person at counsel table should be concentrating on.

5. Why Fear Beats Logic in the Courtroom: Insights from a Perkins Coie Podcast (Part 1)

An argument can be carefully reasoned and still leave an audience unconvinced.

The first article in our Perkins Coie podcast series explores the role of fear and perceived risk in courtroom persuasion. It asks trial lawyers to consider the concerns jurors bring to the evidence and how those concerns may shape its meaning. The practical challenge is to build a presentation that addresses the audience’s underlying questions as well as the trial team’s factual points.

4. Why Trial Lawyers Should Consider Outsourcing Their Opening Statements

Knowing a case intimately can make it difficult to hear it for the first time.

This article explores how an outside collaborator can help expose unexplained assumptions, strengthen narrative structure, and connect an opening statement with its visuals. The lawyer’s voice and judgment remain central throughout drafting, testing, and rehearsal. Published on September 3, this piece reached fourth place by September 23—a striking position for the newest article in the countdown.

3. Why Lawyers Should Stop Designing Their Own PowerPoint Slides

PowerPoint makes it easy to put information on a screen. Deciding what belongs there takes a different kind of work.

This article examines the time and attention lawyers invest in making their own slides, along with the communication problems that can survive all that effort. It explains the value of litigation graphics designed around what the audience needs to understand at each moment. Read it before assigning another associate a weekend of aligning boxes and shrinking type.

2. Why Bullet Points Are Killing Your Persuasion: Lessons from Our Conversation with Perkins Coie

The familiar bullet-point slide gets another hard look in this installment of our Perkins Coie conversation.

The article examines how text-heavy presentation habits can interfere with the work of persuading a jury. It focuses on the relationship between spoken explanation, trial graphics, and attention. For anyone revising an opening presentation, it raises a useful question: what should jurors see while they listen to this part of the story?

1. OnCue vs. TrialDirector: How One Trial-Presentation Platform Took Over (and the Other Quietly Vanished)

Our most-read new article of 2026 so far examines trial-presentation software from the perspective of the people operating it under courtroom pressure.

Drawing on reports from our trial technicians, I discuss their preference for OnCue and the importance they place on speed, stability, workflow, and video handling. This is a firsthand account of our team’s experience and preferences. For lawyers evaluating trial technology support, it provides a useful introduction to the operational details that matter when the next exhibit needs to appear immediately.

One Series Worth Reading Together

The articles about designing slides, running trial technology, and developing opening statements all finished in the top six.

Read together, they invite a practical review of how your team allocates its time. Which tasks need the trial lawyer’s direct attention? Which would benefit from a specialist? Where would an outside perspective reveal something the team has stopped noticing?

Those questions belong early in trial preparation, while there is still time to act on the answers.

Put One Idea to Work Before Your Next Trial

Choose one presentation you are developing now. Review its opening for a clear central story. Examine the transitions for cause and consequence. Look at the slides from the perspective of someone encountering the case for the first time. Decide who will manage the technology when you need to concentrate on the courtroom.

Our work at Persuadius brings together jury consulting, litigation graphics, trial technicians, and opening statement support to help trial teams make those decisions and carry them through.

Schedule a free 15-minute case consultation to discuss your upcoming trial.
Prefer a confidential email conversation? Contact us at confidential@persuadius.com.

Why Trial Lawyers Should Consider Outsourcing Their Opening Statements

ken@persuadius.com (Kenneth J. Lopez, J.D.) — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:45:00 GMT

There are certain parts of a trial that lawyers instinctively believe they should do themselves.

Writing the opening statement is near the top of the list.

I understand why.

The first chair knows the case.

The first chair knows the witnesses.

The first chair has lived with the documents, depositions, expert reports, motions, bad facts, good facts, and opposing counsel—sometimes for years.

So when trial approaches, it seems perfectly natural for that lawyer to sit down and write the opening statement.

But I would ask a different question:

Does knowing the case better than anyone else necessarily make you the best person to decide how someone hearing the case for the first time should hear it?

Those are not quite the same skill.

In two recent articles, I argued that lawyers should generally stop designing their own PowerPoint slides and stop running their own courtroom technology.

My reasoning was not that lawyers are incapable of either task.

Of course they are capable.

My point was that highly specialized work should often be performed by people who specialize in it—particularly when millions or billions of dollars may be riding on the result.

I think the same principle applies to opening statements.

Trial lawyers should at least consider getting outside help drafting them.

Not because the trial lawyer should surrender control.

Quite the opposite.

The right collaboration can give the lawyer a clearer, simpler, more persuasive version of the case to make entirely his or her own.

Nobody Is Suggesting That Someone Else Should Give Your Opening

Let's dispose of the biggest objection immediately.

I am not suggesting that a consultant should write an opening statement, hand it to a trial lawyer the night before trial, and say:

“Here. Memorize this.”

That would be terrible.

The opening statement has to sound like the lawyer giving it.

The language has to feel natural.

The themes have to be believable coming from that particular advocate.

The lawyer has to understand why every section is there, where every transition is going, why certain facts are emphasized, why others are omitted, and how the opening fits into the larger trial strategy.

The lawyer must own it.

But owning an opening statement and drafting every sentence of it yourself are two entirely different things.

That distinction matters.

Great speeches are routinely collaborative.

Great books have editors.

Great CEOs have communications professionals.

Great filmmakers have screenwriters, editors, cinematographers, and producers.

The person delivering the message remains responsible for the message.

But sophisticated communicators understand that outside expertise can make the final product considerably better.

Why should a major trial be different?

I Have Been Doing This Collaboratively for Decades

In 21 Secrets From an Opening Statement Guru, I described how opening statement development has worked throughout much of my career.

Sometimes the first-chair lawyer does 80 percent of the drafting and I or others contribute 20 percent.

Sometimes those percentages are reversed.

Sometimes we begin with a nearly complete opening.

Sometimes we begin with thousands of pages of case materials and a conversation about what the case is really about.

But the process is almost always collaborative.

And I think that is precisely why it works.

The lawyer brings something the consultant cannot possibly replicate: intimate knowledge of the case, legal judgment, courtroom instincts, knowledge of the judge, relationships with the witnesses, and personal credibility.

An experienced litigation consultant brings something different: perspective.

That difference is enormously valuable.

You May Know Too Much About Your Case

One of the great paradoxes of trial preparation is that expertise can become an obstacle to communication.

You have lived with the case for three years.

The jury has not.

You know that “the March 14 email” matters because you have seen it 200 times.

The jurors have never heard of the sender.

You understand why Exhibit 437 changes the meaning of Exhibit 212.

The jurors do not yet know what either exhibit is.

You know which of the twelve disputed contract provisions actually matters.

The jury does not yet understand the contract.

This is the curse of knowledge in action.

Once we understand something deeply, it becomes surprisingly difficult to remember what it was like not to understand it.

That creates a dangerous tendency in opening statements.

Lawyers explain what matters to lawyers who already know the case.

They do not always explain what matters to people encountering the case for the first time.

An outsider can keep asking the questions the jury will silently ask:

Who is this person?

Why should I care?

Why are you telling me this?

What does this document prove?

What is this case actually about?

Who did something wrong?

What should have happened instead?

Why does this matter?

Those questions can feel almost insultingly basic after years of litigation.

They are not.

They are the questions on which persuasion depends.

Great Opening Statements Are Usually the Product of Subtraction

One of the most difficult things we do with trial teams is simplify.

Lawyers tend to believe that important facts deserve inclusion.

That sounds logical.

Unfortunately, there may be 600 important facts.

A jury cannot absorb 600 important facts in an opening statement.

So somebody has to decide what survives.

That is why I have repeatedly emphasized one principle in our opening-statement work:

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

The best trial lawyers I have worked with understand this instinctively.

They do not demonstrate mastery by telling jurors everything they know.

They demonstrate mastery by deciding what jurors actually need to know.

The opening statement is not the trial.

It is the framework through which the jury will understand the trial.

And frameworks work because they leave things out.

An experienced outside consultant has one tremendous advantage here:

We are less emotionally attached to the material.

We did not take the deposition.

We did not spend three weeks fighting over the document request.

We did not write the summary judgment brief.

We do not care that an issue was incredibly difficult to litigate.

We care whether it advances the story.

That makes subtraction easier.

Lawyers Often Confuse Chronology With Storytelling

There is another pattern I see repeatedly.

A lawyer knows the chronology exceptionally well.

So the opening becomes:

This happened.

And then this happened.

And then they sent this email.

And then there was a meeting.

And then the contract was amended.

And then somebody complained.

And then litigation began.

Everything may be completely accurate.

And completely forgettable.

As I recently wrote in The Simplest Storytelling Trick for Persuasion Might Have Come from South Park, one useful test is whether the major parts of the opening are connected primarily by “and then.”

If they are, you probably have a chronology.

Not yet a story.

Stories are built around conflict and consequence:

But.

Therefore.

The company promised X, but internally it knew Y.

Therefore, management faced a choice.

Management chose Z, but concealed what had happened.

Therefore, the consequences became unavoidable.

Now the facts have direction.

A skilled opening-statement consultant should be looking for exactly those connections.

Not simply:

“What happened next?”

But:

“Why did what happened next matter?”

That is where chronology begins turning into persuasion.

Your Opening Statement Should Be Written for Jurors, Not Lawyers

Lawyers are trained to qualify.

To distinguish.

To hedge.

To anticipate exceptions.

To define.

To footnote.

To preserve arguments.

These are enormously valuable legal skills.

They can produce terrible oral communication.

A brief might say:

“The evidence is expected to demonstrate that, notwithstanding Defendant's representations concerning its compliance program, senior management possessed contemporaneous information tending to establish that certain procedures had not been implemented consistently across all relevant operating units.”

That may survive partner review.

Nobody talks that way.

Especially not to jurors.

An opening statement might instead say:

“They told everyone the safety system was working. Their own documents show they knew it wasn't.”

Same case.

Different communication.

Outside drafting support can be particularly valuable because somebody has permission to say:

I know that sentence is legally precise.

But nobody will remember it.

Let's say what you actually mean.

The Economics May Make Sense Too

There is a strange assumption inside some law firms that drafting an opening internally is free.

It isn't.

Suppose a partner and several associates spend dozens or even hundreds of hours drafting, reorganizing, rewriting, editing, and building the opening.

Those are extremely expensive hours.

More importantly, they are finite hours.

Every hour spent rewriting the fourth version of the introductory chronology is an hour that cannot be spent preparing the CEO.

Or refining cross-examination.

Or anticipating evidentiary disputes.

Or preparing for the judge's likely questions.

Or learning the weaknesses in the opponent's expert testimony.

This is essentially the same economic argument I made when discussing lawyers designing PowerPoint presentations.

The question is not:

Can the lawyer do this?

The lawyer almost certainly can.

The better question is:

Is this the highest-value use of that lawyer's time, and will doing it entirely in-house produce the best result?

Sometimes the answer will be yes.

Frequently, I think the answer is no.

Outside Drafting Creates Something Every Trial Team Needs: A Fresh Set of Eyes

There is another reason I like involving someone who has not lived with the case.

Surprise.

After thousands of hours of discovery, the trial team stops being surprised by the case.

That is dangerous.

Jurors are going to be surprised by it.

An outsider may read one email and say:

“Wait. He knew about this before the meeting?”

Everybody on the trial team responds:

“Yes, of course.”

Stop.

That reaction matters.

The outsider just experienced something much closer to what a juror may experience.

That moment may belong in the opening.

Or an outsider may ask:

“Why didn't your client just terminate the agreement?”

Everyone around the conference table knows the answer.

Wonderful.

The jury won't.

Put the answer in the opening.

Fresh eyes expose assumptions.

Assumptions left unexplained become openings for opposing counsel.

Outsourcing Also Makes Testing Easier

I do not believe important opening statements should emerge fully formed three days before trial.

They should evolve.

Draft.

Present.

Cut.

Reorganize.

Test.

Rewrite.

Rehearse.

And, when the stakes justify it, test the competing stories with mock jurors.

We have written previously about using mock trials to develop opening statements because mock jurors often reveal something the trial team simply cannot see from inside the case.

The theme everyone loves may fall flat.

The fact everyone thought was devastating may barely register.

A supposedly minor bad fact may dominate deliberations.

The explanation that seems obvious may confuse everyone.

Or a phrase someone almost deleted becomes the language mock jurors repeat to one another during deliberations.

That feedback is gold.

And it reinforces a larger point:

An opening statement should be developed, not merely written.

AI Makes This Argument More Important, Not Less

There is an obvious new player in opening-statement drafting.

Artificial intelligence.

AI can summarize testimony.

It can reorganize facts.

It can propose themes.

It can produce twenty different introductions before lunch.

Those capabilities are useful.

But generating language is not the same thing as developing a persuasion strategy.

AI does not sit behind a one-way mirror watching a mock jury misunderstand your favorite argument.

It does not notice the subtle expression on a juror's face when your client is described a certain way.

It does not have decades of accumulated courtroom experience watching which lawyers connect and which lawyers lose the room.

And most importantly, AI does not know which version sounds authentically like you unless a human trial team shapes it carefully.

I expect AI to become an increasingly valuable tool in opening-statement development.

But I see it as another tool.

Not the strategist.

The Trial Lawyer Should Still Be the Author in the Most Important Sense

By the time opening statement begins, something interesting should have happened.

The consultant's words should have disappeared.

So should the associate's words.

So should the partner's edits.

There should only be the lawyer and the story.

The lawyer should know where it is going.

The lawyer should understand why each piece is there.

The lawyer should be able to depart from the exact wording without losing the structure.

The lawyer should be able to look at the jury instead of reading.

The opening should feel so natural that nobody could identify which sentence originated with whom.

That is successful collaboration.

The goal of outsourcing opening-statement drafting is not to make the lawyer less important.

It is to free the lawyer to concentrate on the part nobody else can outsource:

Being the advocate.

Lawyers Should Not Have to Do Everything Themselves

There is a larger theme running through these last several articles.

Trial lawyers do extraordinarily difficult work.

Their highest-value contribution is judgment.

Strategy.

Examination.

Credibility.

Connection.

Persuasion.

They do not also need to be graphic designers.

They do not also need to be courtroom technicians.

And they do not necessarily need to stare at a blank Microsoft Word document and personally manufacture every sentence of an opening statement from scratch.

Sometimes the best thing a trial lawyer can do is bring specialists into the room.

Let the graphic designer help visualize the case.

Let the trial technician run the technology.

Let experienced persuasion and storytelling professionals help develop the opening.

Then rehearse it.

Challenge it.

Rewrite it.

Test it.

Make it yours.

And when the judge turns to you and says:

“Counsel, you may proceed.”

Stand up.

Look at the jury.

And tell them the story.

Need Help With an Opening Statement?

Persuadius works collaboratively with trial teams to develop, draft, rewrite, test, and refine opening statements for high-stakes litigation.

We can begin with your existing draft, an outline, or the case materials themselves. The objective is not to replace the trial lawyer's voice. It is to help make that voice as clear, credible, memorable, and persuasive as possible.

Schedule a free 15-minute case consultation to discuss your opening statement and trial strategy.

Or, if confidentiality and conflicts are your first concern, submit a confidential conflict check before sharing case details.

Why Attorneys Should Not Run Their Own Trial Technology

ken@persuadius.com (Kenneth J. Lopez, J.D.) — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 13:15:00 GMT

There is a particular moment in trial that I have seen far too many times.

A lawyer is standing in front of the jury. The lawyer is prepared. The question is good. The witness has just given exactly the answer everyone hoped for.

Now the lawyer wants Exhibit 237 on the screen.

And suddenly the trial stops.

The lawyer turns toward the laptop.

Clicks something.

Nothing happens.

Clicks again.

The wrong document appears.

Someone at counsel table whispers something.

The lawyer looks back at the screen.

The jury looks at the lawyer.

And a moment that should have been about the evidence has become a moment about the technology.

This is almost entirely preventable.

Just as I recently argued in Why Lawyers Should Stop Designing Their Own PowerPoint Slides, lawyers should generally not be spending their time designing their own courtroom graphics.

I would take that principle one step further:

Trial lawyers should not be running their own trial technology either.

Not because lawyers cannot learn the technology.

Of course they can.

The question is why they would want to divide their attention between two completely different jobs at precisely the moment when their powers of persuasion matter most.

The Trial Lawyer Has One Job: Persuade

Trial is cognitively demanding.

During an examination, a good trial lawyer is simultaneously monitoring the witness, listening for nuances in the answer, watching the judge, anticipating objections, thinking several questions ahead, assessing the jury's reaction, remembering the evidentiary record, and deciding whether the original examination plan should change.

That is quite enough.

Now add:

Where is the exhibit?

Which window is active?

Did the video load?

Why is the document appearing on the attorney monitor but not the jury monitor?

Which button produces the callout?

Did I accidentally advance the PowerPoint?

Can I get back to the previous slide?

Where is the impeachment clip?

Why isn't the audio playing?

The problem is not simply that technology can malfunction.

The larger problem is that operating technology consumes attention that should be directed toward advocacy.

A professional trial technician—sometimes called a hot-seater—removes that cognitive burden.

The lawyer thinks about the witness.

The trial tech thinks about the screen.

That division of labor is enormously valuable.

Relinquish the Clicker. Really.

I made essentially the same argument years ago in Trial Lawyers, Relinquish the Clicker.

The clicker looks harmless.

It isn't.

I have watched excellent lawyers accidentally jump ahead in their presentations, struggle to return to the correct slide, lose their place, become frustrated, and eventually abandon portions of presentations they had spent weeks preparing.

And the technology problem rarely stays a technology problem.

The lawyer gets flustered.

That changes body language.

The pace changes.

Eye contact disappears.

The lawyer begins looking toward the screen or laptop rather than toward the judge or jury.

Momentum disappears.

The audience notices.

That is why giving up the clicker actually produces more control, not less.

A lawyer who has rehearsed properly with a trial technician can simply speak.

The exhibit appears.

The photograph enlarges.

The key sentence highlights.

The deposition clip plays.

The timeline advances.

The lawyer does not visibly command any of it.

To the jury, the visual presentation simply seems to follow the lawyer's thoughts.

When it is done well, it can look effortless.

Of course, it isn't effortless at all.

It is rehearsed.

Great Trial Technology Should Be Almost Invisible

Some lawyers worry that using a sophisticated trial technician makes a presentation look overly produced.

In my experience, the opposite is usually true.

Badly operated technology calls attention to itself.

Great trial technology disappears.

The jury should not be thinking:

"Wow, they have an impressive computer system."

They should be thinking:

"I understand what happened."

The best trial technician operates almost like an invisible member of the advocacy team.

As we explained in What a Great "Hot Seat Operator" Can Add to a Trial Team, an experienced technician contributes much more than computer skills.

The best trial technicians spend enormous amounts of time in courtrooms. They see what works. They see what fails. They see what irritates judges. They understand courtroom rhythm. They learn how different lawyers communicate. And they become extraordinarily good at anticipating what is likely to happen next.

When the relationship between lawyer and trial technician is working properly, the technician may be pulling up the next exhibit before the lawyer has finished asking for it.

That is not technology support.

That is teamwork.

TrialDirector Was Once State-of-the-Art. Trial Technology Has Moved On.

There is an important update to some of our older writing about trial technology.

In 2012, we published 5 Tips for Using TrialDirector and Trial Technicians Effectively.

At the time, we described inData's TrialDirector as state-of-the-art trial presentation software.

And at the time, it was.

But 2012 might as well be another technological era.

Today, Persuadius trial technicians overwhelmingly prefer OnCue for modern courtroom presentation. In a more recent article, OnCue vs. TrialDirector: How One Trial-Presentation Platform Took Over, I discussed why our technicians have moved so decisively toward OnCue.

TrialDirector is still commercially available, so it would be inaccurate to say the software literally no longer exists. But within our own trial technology practice, OnCue has become the preferred modern platform. Reveal continues to market TrialDirector, while OnCue continues actively releasing and supporting its current courtroom presentation software.

But here is the important point:

The software itself is not the competitive advantage.

The person operating it is.

Giving OnCue to someone who occasionally presents exhibits is not the same thing as putting an experienced trial technician in the hot seat.

It is like handing someone a professional camera and calling them a cinematographer.

Tools matter.

Mastery matters much more.

Trial Is a Terrible Place to Learn Technology

One of the mistakes we identified years ago in The 14 Most Preventable Trial Preparation Mistakes was asking associates or paralegals without sufficient trial-presentation experience to serve as trial technicians.

We described a case in which a trial team had insufficiently experienced personnel running the presentation and the courtroom sat waiting for roughly ten minutes during opening statements while the technology problem was addressed.

Ten minutes may not sound like much.

Try standing silently in front of twelve jurors for ten minutes while your opening statement has stopped.

It feels like an eternity.

And it creates an impression.

Prepared versus unprepared.

Organized versus disorganized.

Confident versus rattled.

Professional versus amateur.

Jurors may not understand what caused the technical failure.

They don't need to.

They experience the failure.

Trial presentation is performance, and timing is part of persuasion.

A Trial Technician Does Things a Lawyer Shouldn't Be Thinking About

Modern courtroom technology involves much more than advancing a PowerPoint.

A trial technician may be responsible for displaying and enlarging exhibits, highlighting portions of documents, creating document callouts on the fly, coordinating multiple monitors, playing synchronized deposition testimony, moving instantly among exhibits, handling audio and video, preparing impeachment material, coordinating with courtroom personnel, troubleshooting connections, maintaining redundant systems, tracking changes to demonstratives, and adapting when the judge suddenly rules that something can—or cannot—be shown.

OnCue can make many of these tasks remarkably fast in the hands of someone who knows it well. The software is specifically designed around presenting case evidence, deposition clips, documents, annotations, and other trial materials.

But the operative phrase is "in the hands of someone who knows it well."

The trial technician may perform these operations hundreds or thousands of times.

The lawyer may conduct a trial every few years.

Who should be pressing the buttons?

The answer seems obvious.

The Economics of DIY Trial Technology Don't Make Much Sense Either

There is also a financial argument.

In last month's PowerPoint article, I pointed out the strange economics of having expensive lawyers perform graphic-design work.

The same logic applies here.

Imagine an associate billing hundreds of dollars per hour spending dozens of hours building trial databases, troubleshooting video formats, preparing deposition clips, configuring courtroom equipment, learning software shortcuts, and rehearsing technical workflows.

Perhaps the associate can do all of those things.

But is that the highest-value use of the associate's time?

Probably not.

Those hours could instead be spent preparing witnesses, studying testimony, improving examination outlines, anticipating evidentiary problems, developing themes, preparing impeachment, or refining the story of the case.

That is legal work.

Trial technology is a specialized discipline.

Using specialists is not an indulgence when the stakes are high.

Frequently, it is simply efficient allocation of resources.

Good Trial Technicians Also Handle the Unexpected

This may be their greatest value.

Trials do not follow scripts.

A witness unexpectedly denies something.

Opposing counsel opens a door.

The judge changes a ruling.

A lawyer suddenly wants an exhibit that nobody expected to use until Thursday.

A deposition clip becomes relevant that nobody planned to play.

The lawyer says:

"Pull up the March 14 email."

A strong trial technician does not say:

"Give me five minutes."

The technician finds it.

Displays it.

Highlights it.

And the examination continues.

That responsiveness can dramatically change the rhythm of a cross-examination.

The evidence appears while the point is alive.

The jury sees the contradiction immediately.

The lawyer retains momentum.

There is an enormous difference between eventually showing something and showing it at exactly the moment it matters.

Technology Problems Become Credibility Problems

Lawyers sometimes describe trial technology failures as inconveniences.

I think that understates the problem.

Courtroom presentation communicates preparation.

If one side repeatedly struggles to display exhibits, searches for files, apologizes for technical problems, turns toward the laptop, or asks the jury to wait, people begin forming impressions.

Maybe consciously.

Maybe unconsciously.

By contrast, when evidence appears instantly and naturally, the trial team looks organized and in command of the case.

That does not mean a slick presentation wins a weak case.

It doesn't.

But poor execution can absolutely interfere with the presentation of a strong one.

Technology should amplify credibility, not consume it.

The Best Trial Lawyer Should Look Like Nothing Else Exists

Watch an exceptional trial lawyer supported by an exceptional trial technician.

The lawyer is looking at the witness.

Or the jury.

Or the judge.

Not the laptop.

Not the projector.

Not the clicker.

An exhibit suddenly appears.

The lawyer continues speaking.

A critical paragraph enlarges.

The lawyer continues speaking.

A photograph replaces it.

The lawyer continues speaking.

A deposition clip plays.

Then the screen goes dark because the visual has served its purpose and the jury's attention should return to the lawyer.

That coordination is extremely difficult to reproduce while simultaneously conducting the examination and operating the computer yourself.

And why would you try?

The lawyer should be doing the thing the lawyer uniquely knows how to do:

persuade.

Everything else should support that objective.

Lawyers Should Practice Law. Trial Technicians Should Run Trial Technology.

My argument here is essentially the same one I made about lawyers designing their own PowerPoint presentations.

Knowing the technology is good.

Understanding what is possible is essential.

Being able to communicate intelligently with your trial technician is valuable.

But understanding a tool and personally operating that tool during the most important moments of a multimillion-dollar trial are entirely different things.

If your client has millions—or billions—of dollars at stake, ask yourself a simple question:

Do you really want your first-chair lawyer thinking about which button to press?

I don't.

I want that lawyer thinking about the next question.

The next objection.

The witness.

The jury.

The story.

And ultimately, winning the case.

Let somebody else run the technology.

Need Trial Technology Support for an Upcoming Trial?

Persuadius provides experienced trial technicians and hot-seat operators for trials, hearings, and arbitrations nationwide. We can also integrate trial technology with litigation graphics, jury consulting, and opening-statement support so that your courtroom presentation operates as one coordinated persuasion strategy.

Book a free 15-minute case consultation to discuss your upcoming trial and the right courtroom technology team for it.

For matters requiring discretion, you can also contact Persuadius directly for a confidential conflict check.

Why Lawyers Should Stop Designing Their Own PowerPoint Slides

ken@persuadius.com (Kenneth J. Lopez, J.D.) — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:15:00 GMT

The billable hour is expensive. So why are so many litigators spending it doing graphic design?

Every trial lawyer I know has done it.

The witness outlines are finished. The opening statement is coming together. Trial is three weeks away. Someone says, "I'll just build the PowerPoint myself."

It feels efficient.

It almost never is.

After nearly three decades of watching courtroom presentations succeed and fail, I've become convinced that one of the most expensive mistakes lawyers make isn't a bad objection, a weak cross-examination, or even forgetting an exhibit.

It's believing that because PowerPoint is easy to use, effective courtroom persuasion is easy to create.

Those are two entirely different skills.

Great trial lawyers are not necessarily great presentation designers

Nobody expects a talented litigator to also be an architect.

Or an accountant.

Or a cinematographer.

Yet somehow we've convinced ourselves that because Microsoft PowerPoint is installed on every laptop, every attorney should also become a visual communicator.

That's a strange assumption.

The best trial graphics combine psychology, storytelling, graphic design, cognitive science, and an understanding of how jurors process information. Those disciplines aren't taught in law school, and they aren't mastered by clicking through PowerPoint templates.

The irony is that many lawyers spend years mastering the Federal Rules of Evidence while spending almost no time learning how people actually absorb visual information.

Your audience isn't reading your slides—they're deciding your case

Most attorneys create slides as though they are preparing notes for themselves.

Jurors don't see them that way.

Jurors experience every slide as part of a story.

A cluttered slide tells them the case is complicated.

Tiny text tells them the lawyer isn't confident enough to simplify.

Bullet points tell them they're about to be lectured instead of persuaded.

Every visual choice communicates something—whether you intended it or not.

Research in cognitive psychology has repeatedly shown that people remember information better when visuals reinforce a spoken narrative rather than compete with it. When audiences are forced to simultaneously read paragraphs while listening to a speaker, comprehension and retention suffer because attention is split between two competing tasks.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what many courtroom PowerPoints ask jurors to do.

Lawyers optimize for accuracy.

Graphic designers optimize for understanding.

Those aren't always the same thing.

Lawyers understandably want every qualifier, every exception, every citation, every date, and every fact on the screen.

Professional presentation designers ask a different question:

"What does the audience need to understand right now?"

Those are radically different objectives.

A persuasive trial presentation isn't a written brief projected on a wall.

It's visual storytelling.

The hidden cost of DIY PowerPoint

Many firms assume they're saving money by having associates create demonstratives.

Are they?

Let's do the math.

Suppose an associate bills $450 per hour.

If that associate spends 40 hours building slides—and that's conservative for a major trial—the firm has invested $18,000 in graphic design.

Not legal strategy.

Graphic design.

Now ask another question.

Did those forty hours produce graphics equal to what experienced litigation designers produce every day?

Usually not.

Even worse, every hour spent aligning text boxes or searching for icons is an hour not spent preparing witnesses, refining themes, anticipating objections, or strengthening the case itself.

Lawyers should practice law.

Designers should design.

Everyone wins.

Good PowerPoint isn't about making things prettier

One misconception refuses to die.

People assume professionally designed slides simply "look nicer."

That's missing the point.

Good courtroom graphics aren't decoration.

They're persuasion.

A well-designed timeline can clarify years of events in seconds.

An animation can explain a technical patent issue more effectively than fifteen minutes of testimony.

A scale graphic can instantly communicate the size of a manufacturing plant or the microscopic dimensions of a medical device.

A simple sequence diagram can eliminate confusion that would otherwise linger throughout deliberations.

Professional design isn't about aesthetics.

It's about reducing cognitive effort.

Every unnecessary second jurors spend figuring out your slide is one less second they're thinking about your argument.

The best lawyers simplify.

They don't complicate.

One habit I consistently see among outstanding trial lawyers is restraint.

They aren't trying to impress jurors with how much they know.

They're helping jurors understand why the case matters.

That often means using fewer words.

Fewer slides.

Stronger visuals.

Cleaner narratives.

Ironically, simplifying takes far more work than filling a slide with text.

As Blaise Pascal famously observed, "I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."

The same is true for courtroom presentations.

But I know PowerPoint...

I'm not suggesting lawyers shouldn't know PowerPoint.

Every trial attorney should.

Just as every lawyer should know enough about e-discovery, jury consulting, demonstrative evidence, and courtroom technology to collaborate intelligently.

Knowing how PowerPoint works is valuable.

Believing that makes someone a presentation expert is another matter entirely.

It's similar to owning Photoshop.

That doesn't make someone a professional illustrator.

Judges are noticing, too

The trend toward text-heavy, slide-filled presentations hasn't gone unnoticed.

Several federal judges recently criticized excessive PowerPoint use during complex litigation, observing that lawyers often force judges and jurors to read slides instead of listening to the advocate. One judge memorably compared slide overuse to kudzu, calling it "a sin" because it distracts from the presentation rather than strengthening it.

The problem isn't PowerPoint.

The problem is how it's used.

The real question

Whenever a lawyer tells me they're designing their own slides, I ask one question.

"If this were the single most important presentation of your client's life, who would you want designing it?"

Usually, they smile.

Because they already know the answer.

The Litigation Consulting Report

22 Reasons Not to Use AI to Build Your Trial Slides

1. AI can make every slide look equally important

2. AI can eliminate useful visual surprise

3. AI cannot choose what to downplay without your strategy

4. AI can turn an opening statement into a slide-shaped outline

5. AI can bring back the bullet points

6. AI can make jurors read while you need them listening

7. AI can preserve too much because everything was in the prompt

8. AI can compress several reasoning steps into one slide

9. AI can label a subject without explaining its significance

10. AI can add pictures that do no explanatory work

11. AI can make a chronology stand in for a story

12. AI can explain the case at the wrong starting point

13. AI can confuse an accurate number with a meaningful number

14. AI can make a chart persuasive in the wrong way

15. AI can turn uncertainty into a definite-looking picture

16. AI can improve the wording and change the evidence

17. AI can create a document callout without a reading path

18. AI cannot verify courtroom readability from a laptop preview

19. AI can fill moments that should belong to the lawyer

20. AI cannot replace audience testing with its own approval

21. AI can leave you with a deck that is awkward to change

22. AI can make unfinished strategic work feel finished

You are hiring the expertise that tells you what to build

Persuadius’ Top 10 Most-Read Articles of 2026—So Far

10. Simplifying Your Opening Statement to Its Core

9. The Simplest Storytelling Trick for Persuasion Might Have Come from South Park

8. How to Break Juror Confirmation Bias (Using a Surprisingly Simple Trick)

7. Humor, Demonstrative Evidence, and the “Monster of Evidence”

6. Why Attorneys Should Not Run Their Own Trial Technology

5. Why Fear Beats Logic in the Courtroom: Insights from a Perkins Coie Podcast (Part 1)

4. Why Trial Lawyers Should Consider Outsourcing Their Opening Statements

3. Why Lawyers Should Stop Designing Their Own PowerPoint Slides

2. Why Bullet Points Are Killing Your Persuasion: Lessons from Our Conversation with Perkins Coie

1. OnCue vs. TrialDirector: How One Trial-Presentation Platform Took Over (and the Other Quietly Vanished)

One Series Worth Reading Together

Put One Idea to Work Before Your Next Trial

Related Articles and Resources

Why Trial Lawyers Should Consider Outsourcing Their Opening Statements

Nobody Is Suggesting That Someone Else Should Give Your Opening

I Have Been Doing This Collaboratively for Decades

You May Know Too Much About Your Case

Great Opening Statements Are Usually the Product of Subtraction

Lawyers Often Confuse Chronology With Storytelling

Your Opening Statement Should Be Written for Jurors, Not Lawyers

The Economics May Make Sense Too

Outside Drafting Creates Something Every Trial Team Needs: A Fresh Set of Eyes

Outsourcing Also Makes Testing Easier

AI Makes This Argument More Important, Not Less

The Trial Lawyer Should Still Be the Author in the Most Important Sense

Lawyers Should Not Have to Do Everything Themselves

Related Persuadius Articles & Resources

Need Help With an Opening Statement?

Why Attorneys Should Not Run Their Own Trial Technology

The Trial Lawyer Has One Job: Persuade

Relinquish the Clicker. Really.

Great Trial Technology Should Be Almost Invisible

TrialDirector Was Once State-of-the-Art. Trial Technology Has Moved On.

Trial Is a Terrible Place to Learn Technology

A Trial Technician Does Things a Lawyer Shouldn't Be Thinking About

The Economics of DIY Trial Technology Don't Make Much Sense Either

Good Trial Technicians Also Handle the Unexpected

Technology Problems Become Credibility Problems

The Best Trial Lawyer Should Look Like Nothing Else Exists

Lawyers Should Practice Law. Trial Technicians Should Run Trial Technology.

Related Persuadius Articles

Need Trial Technology Support for an Upcoming Trial?

Why Lawyers Should Stop Designing Their Own PowerPoint Slides

Great trial lawyers are not necessarily great presentation designers

Your audience isn't reading your slides—they're deciding your case

Lawyers optimize for accuracy.

The hidden cost of DIY PowerPoint

Good PowerPoint isn't about making things prettier

The best lawyers simplify.

But I know PowerPoint...

Judges are noticing, too

The real question

Related Persuadius Articles

Need Help With Your Next Trial Presentation?