The Trap of Vertical Speaking Notes

I coach one-on-one with hundreds of lawyers each year. When they plop their legal pads on the table as we work, I can see the notes they have created for public speaking or trial advocacy. With just a glance, it’s immediately obvious how unhelpful those notes are for the task at hand. Written too small and illegibly, they lack any discernible visual structure. Like a newspaper without headlines over articles, the topics often have no headlines, and no beginning or ending. A speaker making a presentation or conducting an examination of a witness cannot possibly find such notes very helpful. What would Donald Trump do? ... READ THE REST

Originally published January 27, 2016 0 3