Daquipa, Donabella P.

LLB-4 Practice Court

To Be A Trial Lawyer

F. Lee Bailey’s book taught me how to develop skills necessary to make a good
trial lawyer. The same skills are also helpful in making an effective office advocate,
negotiation advocate, or consumer advocate. His book provided a checklist of sorts for
lawyers confronting trial.
The first part of the book helped me understand the function of a trial lawyer.
Lawyers he said, are the people who create things legal and interpreters of documents
and statutes who are asked to advise how certain language should be construed. The
book also dealt with evidence which the author considers as the cornerstone of all trials.
He emphasized the importance of the role of the trial lawyer – he is the last resort, the
last hope for justice. If he is skilled, talented, thorough, and ethical, justice has a pretty
good chance. If he is not and his opponent is, he may lose a case he should won.
I also learned what kind of person makes a good trial lawyer. He said trial
lawyers are extraordinary people who possess a whole panoply of special abilities. They
take confidence, discipline, and determination. If one wishes to become a good trial
lawyer, he must learn to read, write and speak English. The ability to handle language
effectively is the trial lawyer’s lifeblood for the language of persuasion is his only tool.
Perhaps the cardinal personality trait of a good trial lawyer is that of easy self-reliance, a
willingness to act swiftly based on one’s own counsel, with little or no time to consult
with or be advised by others. In order to make hard decisions rapidly, confidently, and
correctly, trial lawyers must develop strong skills in analysis and logic, they must have
the ability to understand the nature of a problem or issue, and to reason out the various
solutions or options which present themselves. A trial lawyer must also be a creature of
resourcefulness, initiative, and imagination. He must be a “real” person – one with a
good comprehension of what life is all about, and who is what he seems to be, and a
“people” person - one who is comfortable with other people.
Bailey also discussed what preparation really means for trial lawyers. The
foundation of good preparation is good investigation. One should also learn how to
manage a trial. The presentation of evidence must be carefully thought out and well
organized, to make the overall presentation as interesting as possible. When managing
a trial of lawsuit, one should always bear in mind that the greatest vice of appearing on
court is the inconvenience it causes to the participants. A lawyer who is well-prepared,
well-organized, and considerate can do great deal to ease the burden of inconvenience.
It is also important to build good reputation to be trusted and respected by court judges.
To be held in esteem, Bailey enumerated these time-tested rules:
1. Show respect for the court, not only in words but also in the manner of
delivering them.
2. Try to understand the judges’ point of view.
3. Give the court all the help you can.
4. Always make sure that your word is as good as solid gold when speaking to
the judge.

One of the most important part of the book is the author’s discussion on cross-
examination. As a trial lawyer, the ability to cross examine will be the largest weapon in
arsenal, larger than the ability to speak fluently and persuasively without notes. Cross-
examination was described in the book as the engine of truth, and a bulwark of liberty. It
is nonviolent substitute for the gun and sword. Good cross-examination has a long list of
ingredients, the primary ones are: control, speed, memory, precise articulation, logic,
timing, manner, and termination. The target of cross-examination are the areas of
perception, memory, articulation and candor. Bailey enumerated good rules of cross-
examination:
Rule One: Don’t cross-examine. Don’t cross examine unless you have thought
your objective through and decided that you have something to gain.
Rule Two: Don’t ask questions when you don’t know the answer – the truthful
answer, at least.
Rule Three: Do not ask questions that begin with what, when, where, why, or
how.

At the end, the author gave me an insight into the world of a trial lawyer, what he
does, and how he must learn to do it if he expects to be one of the best. I learned that a
trial lawyer is invested with tremendous power to affect lives of my fellow human beings
and that most often you will be their only hope to obtain their legal rights. Power is an
exhilarating sensation, but it can also be corruptive and mean unless it is balanced with
a rock-solid personal integrity.