Articles about Eric

Advocate
January 2010

Ready, set – Uh oh!

 

If you don’t frame your story for the jury, they will frame it for you.

And it’s not always done with words. 

by Eric Oliver

 

Many trial attorneys are familiar with all these spooky research studies about influence in which people seemingly do the job of persuading themselves. Terms like priming, anchors, framing, conditioning, schemas, recency, norming, availability, mindsets and others are used to describe the subject matter being studied. But, whatever terms are used to tag these phenomena, they all share a common attribute: the persuasion that takes place seems to happen with little argument required, typically with no words at all. Click here to read more.

 

Lawyers USA
February 2007

Facts can't speak for themselves

 

Turning case stories into winning trial strategies

By Nora Lockwood Tooher

 

Trial consultant Eric Oliver has come up with a new twist on the old "story model" for juror decision making. "In the past, most trial lawyers have thought, 'I have to come up with the right kind of person to listen to my story to come up with the right outcome," Eric said. He continues by saying that focus groups are given just the barest facts about a case subconsciously rewrite the story in their heads. And they don't stop at one story. Click here to read more.

 

Lawyers Weekly
June 2002

Understanding Body Language Can Give Lawyers An Edge In The Courtroom

By Sylvia Hsieh

 

Lawyers as a species tend to rely more on words than on any other means of communicating. But body language can be a powerful tool for lawyers who know how to interpret it in others and employ it when expressing themselves.

 

"Like riding a bike, martial arts or dancing, communication is a skill,” Eric says. “It can be taught. It's like fixing your golf swing – you're not going to be Tiger Woods, but you're going to improve." said trial consultant Eric Oliver. Click here to read more.

   

Lawyers Weekly
June 2002

Images, Sounds & Feelings: It Takes All Three To Communicate With The Jury

By Sylvia Hsieh

 

Many lawyers are improving their communication skills with juries by using a decades-old learning theory borrowed from linguistics and human behavior.

 

"Lawyers receive zero training in interpersonal communication, so they end up putting together cases in a way that makes them the least accessible to an ordinary person," said trial consultant Eric Oliver. Click here to read more.

 

ABA Journal
September 2001

Secret Sway

More lawyers are using neurolinguistics to present their cases to jurors,

with winning results

By Terry Carter

 

Watch plaintiffs lawyer Howard Nations. You can keep your eye on him, but if you are a juror it is possible that your conscious, rational mind lost sight of Nations as he slipped inside your head and planted his client's story, helping you see that it is right and good. Nations is one of a small but growing number of lawyers using the subtle communication technique of neurolinguisic programming (NLP).

 

"You need to deliver a story in a way that's compelling and done through something other than conscious appeal," says Eric Oliver, one of the better-known proponents of NLP among trial consultants. Click here to read more.

   
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