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Practice Tips: Starting Your Opening with the Silver Bullet
The Advantage: 12.04: V.1, 3rd edition
Our April 2004 Newsletter article, “The Case Story and Juror Reasoning,” explained why composing your opening in the form of a story is so important. We have long recommended condensing that story to a single, high impact paragraph we call a “Silver Bullet.” Using the Silver Bullet to preface your opening is the best technique for controlling how jurors assemble the facts of the entire case into a story. A Silver Bullet gives the jury a roadmap for the information rich content of the opening. By knowing where the story is headed, they can concentrate on retaining your key facts and arraying in the best possible way to support your client’s position.
The goal of the Silver Bullet is to:
- Introduce your version of the story
- Reframe the opposition’s story
- Provide the “big picture”
- Provide a roadmap from start to finish
- Satisfy juror initial curiosity
- Answer jurors’ initial questions
The goal of the Silver Bullet is not to:
- Respond to the opposition’s story
- Tell your entire story
- Lay out all your evidence
- Introduce all the witnesses
- Provide specific details
- Explain the law
The best vehicle for writing a Silver Bullet is to outline a 10-point story, or the 10 chapter headings that chronologically tell your story from start to finish, then turn each point into a one sentence explanation of that point. Sound daunting? That’s what many of our clients say. In our strategy sessions, we often hear attorneys say, “My case can not be condensed into one paragraph. It’s just too complex.” To prove our point, we endeavored the “daunting” task of writing a 10-point story and Silver Bullet of the History of the United States. We figured if we could do this, then you can write a Silver Bullet for any case you try.
This History of the United States 10-Point Story:
1. The spectacular array of native cultures
2. The establishment of colonies
3. The revolutionary movement to independence
4. A new kind of democracy
5. The westward expansion and ensuing conflicts
6. The union victory, industrial expansion and war
7. The great depression and the new deal solution
8. World War II and the postwar American engine
9. Decades of change
10. Forging into the new millennium with courage, commitment, and innovation
The History of the United States Silver Bullet:
The North American continent was home to a spectacular array of native cultures before European settlers established colonies along the eastern seaboard. A hundred years of taxing English rule galvanized a broad-based revolutionary movement that resulted in the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and the successful American Revolution. The newly created United States of America marshaled some of the greatest political philosophers in history to create a new kind of democracy that was able to weather significant early challenges. Fueled by a sense of destiny and undaunted courage, the young nation bargained and fought to control the stunning lands and resources from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. Deep divisions over slavery and politics resulted in the bloodiest war the country ever saw. The Union victory ushered in a period of enormous industrial expansion that survived economic uncertainty, political upheaval, and World War I before running headlong into the jaws of the Great Depression. Relentless economic stagnation was eased by new federal government programs, but it was not swept away until the Second World War restarted the American industrial engine. The remarkable human sacrifice and ingenuity that won that war set the stage for an unprecedented period of technological innovation and economic growth. Issues raised by people of color, women, the anti-war movement, environmentalists, anti-tax activists, and an increasingly urbanized society had deeply divided the country by the dawn of the 21st Century. The destruction of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001 by Muslim extremists signaled the beginning of a perilous new chapter in the American saga. Its successful conclusion demands the same qualities of courage, commitment, and innovation that have marked the nation’s history to date.
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