Perceptive practitioners know that whomever is speaking when he puts his pen down will probably lose. Another local jurist takes notes on your closing argument if she is still up in the air about the result. If her mind is made up, she listens intently, pen and notepad unused. Learn a judge s messages and react to them. Shut up when you are ahead.
Good lawyers are able to be empathetic from a distance.
They understand and can express their client s position, but at the same time can see how it sounds to a neutral fact-finder. The young lawyers I was watching could do the former, but not, apparently, the latter. Go to others arguments and, as you listen to them, watch the judge and court staff. Learn the signs they give when they are listening, and when the decision has been made. What, in baseball, would be stealing the opposing coach s signs is, in our business, good lawyering.