Tyler Goldberg-Hoss and I recently shared some of our perspective regarding Zoom trials at the Washington State Association for Justice’s Winter Conference. The second day of the two-day conference focused on Trial Skills. Our presentation, titled “OK Zoomer: The future of trial is here (please unmute yourself),” shared takeaways from our experience of winning a five+ week Zoom trial earlier this year. Other presentations included taking on present day polarized viewpoints, juror psychology, and even attorney psychology.

As Tyler stated when introducing the presentation, there are many ways to put a trial on via Zoom, just as there are many ways to put a trial on in person. There is no right way to do it, “but this was how we did it.” The presentation shared how our thinking and planning had to evolve as we prepared our trial to present it on small screens in peoples’ homes rather than filling up a courtroom. We shared some tips for how to effectively do so without spending tens of thousands of dollars in video and audio production.

One of the recurrent goals was trying to present a lot of information into bite sized – or, rather iphone screen sized – pieces. That meant we had to distill a lot of the information we were presenting to its bare essence.

In a “surprise” for the audience, we shared a video of an interview with one of the members of our jury. He was, and is, a trial attorney who has taught trial advocacy in the past. He was able to provide valuable perspective on what worked and didn’t work over the Zoom format for the jurors.

There were certainly some benefits to be had in presenting a trial via Zoom. Most noticeably were the logistics: we, and the jurors, had only to head down the hall or to another part of the house to be in “court.” Which saves everyone a lot of time.