What This Case Is About – Three Bucket Strategy
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What This Case is About - The Three Bucket Strategy
The Three Bucket Strategy is a proven method to help jurors organize the facts, remember the arguments, and advocate for you in their deliberations.
Thousands of hours of preparation. 100s of boxes of documents. 30 video depositions. 15 trial witnesses. Your team has worked for months, assembling the critical facts and evidence it will need to prevail in a trial.
But this plethora of facts can often lead to a false sense of certainty. The party with the largest number of facts does not necessarily win. Experience proves that quite often, the opposite is true.
When we first engage with clients, we always ask, “What’s this case about?” The answer should be concise and straightforward enough that we could explain it to a 7-year old. If the answer is a 15-minute recitation of disconnected facts, there are significant challenges ahead. All the facts matter, but a few matter much more than others, and they need to be organized in a limited set of buckets that can be easily communicated and remembered. This strategy also provides a simple framework for “our” jurors to plead our case in their deliberations.
The power of simplicity.
There’s a saying that is often attributed to Albert Einstein - “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” A prominent plaintiff attorney in asbestos litigation was famous for how she framed her cases, “This case is as simple as A, B, C: Asbestos plus Breathing equals Cancer.”
It is necessary to put yourself in the jurors’ shoes. In the relatively short opening statements, jurors need to become acquainted with the industry, the parties, the facts, the economics, the law, and the reasons they should decide for each party. It can be overwhelming. Jurors want to do the right thing, but jurors grasp for whatever they can without a clear, understandable, and simple direction.
As litigation consultants, we provide perspective, assist in narrowing the focus to the most critical evidence, and help craft trial themes that best support our client’s narrative. By distilling all of the information and supporting evidence, the litigator can plainly and simply explain where the jury should focus its attention.
We recommend that the title of the first slide in every opening presentation says, “What This Case Is About.” On this slide are the three central concepts of the case, and the three broad “buckets” contain every fact that they will need to decide.
For example, in a construction case involving a complicated contract dispute, the three buckets may look something like this.
Each point on the slide is simple, direct, and will support the evidence.
To leverage the power of this opening, we recommend making your “What This Case Is About” slide into a physical board placed in front of the jury box during witness examinations. During testimony and evidence presentation, the attorney can point to the board and remind the jury into which bucket the testimony will fit. It reinforces the narrative and provides the structure jurors need to contextualize the evidence.
At the end of the trial, the closing becomes the summary of every fact presented and stored in each bucket and provides the structure our jurors need to help them fight for us in the deliberation room.
We have used the three buckets strategy in every one of the hundreds of trials that we have provided litigation consultation and jury research services throughout the country. It’s a proven method to help jurors organize the facts, remember the arguments, and advocate for you in their deliberations.
ROB LEGASPI
Director of Trial Services, Pennebaker Inc.
As the Director of Trial Services for Pennebaker Legal, Robert manages all aspects of trial presentation, courtroom, and litigation graphics support for the firm. He has managed and provided courtroom support for hundreds of trials, arbitrations, hearings, and mediations. Robert has supported a range of complex civil matters such as construction, energy litigation, contract disputes, insurance matters, and toxic tort cases. He has also worked in-house at a major law firm providing courtroom and graphics support for over 300 attorneys across six offices. Robert’s experience and technical expertise in the courtroom has assisted trial teams in high-stakes, “bet the company” litigation obtain defense verdicts and multi-million dollar judgments in venues across the country.
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