Down a Great Opening Statement — Mock Trial Film Sessions

[00:00:00] Luke: Welcome to Mock Trial Masterclass, your guide to controlling the courtroom. I'm Luke and I want you to be a mock trial master. Let's talk about how you can make that happen. In this video, we're going to be taking a look at an example of a really, really good opening statement. Now it's one thing to hear about what makes a good opening statement, but it's another to see that in practice and that's exactly what we're going to do here. We're going to take a look at an opening statement from a mock trial tournament from an attorney named Travis Harper who's super talented. And what we're going to do is we're going to pause throughout his opening statement and talk about what is making it so good. That way you can have some tips and tools to apply to your own opening statements. Sound good? Let's hop in. [00:00:52] Speaker 2: May it please the court, Ms. Grant, members of the jury, they took risks. [00:01:06] Speaker 3: They risked her life. [00:01:08] Luke: So I'm going to go ahead and pause right off the bat because that statement that Travis just made, they took risks, they risked her life. What that's called is a theme. And every opening statement needs a theme. It's really just a slogan, a memorable phrase that gets to the heart of your case, the sort of main reason that the jury should ultimately rule in your favor. And is also memorable. Like Travis's clearly was right as we're going to hear throughout the opening statement. He's probably going to repeat that. And it's going to be really easy for the jury at the end of the case to take this with them when they're evaluating the team or if this was real life, evaluating the case, but you got to have a theme in every opening statement. Don't always have to say it right off the bat like Travis did, but sometimes that works. I think it was effective the way he did it. It's a great way to start and you got to have one in your opening. So love that he has that right off the bat. [00:02:03] Speaker 2: This is Jessica Marks. She was a daughter, a college student, a friend. But you're going to learn that about three years ago, Ms. Marks got into a fatal car accident. She was driving drunk. [00:02:29] Speaker 3: You see, she had just been out drinking with a friend at a local establishment here in Southern California. It's called Sonny's Rooftop Bar. [00:02:39] Luke: So one thing that every opening statement needs is you've got to tell the story of the case, because whether it's real life or mock trial, a jury is coming in with no knowledge of the case itself. And every case has a story, whether it's someone killed someone or someone breached a contract and didn't do something they were supposed to do. Right? Every case has a story and it's your job right out of the gate to tell that story to the jury, but you don't just want to tell it to the jury. You want to tell it in a manner, in a way that is captivating and interesting for the jury as if you were watching a movie or reading a really good book. And that's what Travis is doing such a good job of here. He's telling a story of this girl goes to a bar, she got drunk and all of these things, but he's not just listing a series of facts. He's giving us or giving the jury the story in a really engaging way that's fun to listen to. And that's exactly what every opening statement needs to have. You've got to tell the story of the case, but you've got to make it interesting just like what Travis is doing here. [00:03:37] Speaker 3: You're going to hear that over the course of three hours, Miss Marks drank over four drinks. She had beer, wine, hard seltzer, even shots. That within just a few hours, Miss Marks was stumbling, slurring her words. Her eyes were bloodshot, but the bartenders, they kept serving her drinks. Not only that, members of the jury, you'll learn that Miss Marks was underage. But the bartenders, they kept serving her drinks. [00:04:18] Luke: Do you notice how often Travis is using pauses within his speech? It's one of the most important things you've got to learn as a speech attorney in Marks trials. You've got to be comfortable with pauses. I see a lot of young students who are uncomfortable with pauses because they think they have to fill every second with something, but it's really okay to let the air breathe, if you will, to pause and let the things you're talking about sink in. In fact, what we're seeing Travis do is when you pause as he is, it sort of creates a drama in the air. It makes what you're saying seem more important. It lets the things you're saying sink in a little bit more and almost seem like they matter even more than maybe they really do. So you've got to employ the power of the pause as a speech attorney in mock trial on opening or closing and Travis is doing such a great job of that here. And if you're uncomfortable with pausing, just listen to how he's doing it and you'll start to realize, okay, not only is it not bad when I pause, it can actually be super effective as it is here. They took risks, members of the jury. [00:05:35] Speaker 2: When they took risks, they risked Ms. Marx's life. [00:05:41] Speaker 3: You're going to hear that they let her get into a car, drive down the street, and within moments she had crashed, fell into a ravine and died instantly. But you see, businesses like Sunny's, they can't just take risks and they can't ignore the health and safety of their clientele. And when we let restaurants serve alcohol, we trust that they'll do it responsibly. And when they don't, we can hold them accountable. That's why Ms. Marx's family has actually brought a lawsuit against Sunny's rooftop bar today. They brought a claim of wrongful death. Well, as the plaintiff, we carry something called a burden of proof. [00:06:31] Luke: Do you see how Travis is really teaching the jury here? He's not talking over their heads, even though he is having to use some legal terminology like wrongful death, burden of proof, bringing a claim, right? A lot of those legal terms you can't always get around, but he's educating the jury. He's not using those terms to make himself sound smart or talk over their head. But he's using them and very quickly defining them and bringing himself down their level and saying, let's talk about what these words mean. Let's get on the same page. Really, really good stuff there. [00:07:05] Speaker 3: All that means that it's our job to prove by preponderance of the evidence that three things are true. On March 24th, 2019, Ms. Marx was underage too, that Sunny's rooftop bar served her drinks while she was obviously intoxicated. And third, that she died as a result. So, we're going to meet our burden today, members of the jury. [00:07:35] Luke: So, the second thing you need to do in an opening statement, once you've told the story of the case, is you need to preview the case, usually through either witnesses that you're going to call or the law. We just watched Travis do that with the law. And it's just really important to accomplish that. And I feel like I'm about to talk even more about that. But previewing the law, previewing the case, that's a must also for your opening statements. [00:07:56] Speaker 3: Because we're going to ask you to pay attention to three questions throughout the duration of today's trial. [00:08:03] Luke: So, those three questions is going to keep previewing the trial for us. [00:08:06] Speaker 2: First, how drunk was Jessica Marx that night? Second, did the defendant know she was drunk? And third, what did the defendant do about it? [00:08:24] Speaker 3: First, how drunk was Ms. Marx that night? Today, we're actually going to hear from the friend that she was drinking with that night. Her name is Morgan Levin. She's going to tell you that Ms. Marx had been drinking before she even stepped foot in Sonny's bar. And when she was there, the bartender served her drink after drink after drink. And so you're going to ask yourself, did the defendant know she was drunk? You'll hear that the answer is yes. Today you're going to hear that Ms. Marx was actually stumbling. She fell down the stairs. You're actually going to see a video of Ms. Marx today. And the owner of that bar will tell you himself, she looked drunk in that video. [00:09:16] Luke: So, in an opening statement, you're not allowed to argue. You're not allowed to say, you should believe this, here's what all the facts are, and here's the conclusion based on that. You're only allowed to preview the trial. Talk about things that you expect to come out. And what Travis is doing such a good job of here is staying in that lane of he's not arguing, right? He's saying, you're going to hear this. You're going to see this. You're arranging the information in such a way that your mind is already starting to shift to agree with his side. So, in a good opening statement, you don't just list facts that you expect to come out, right? This guy's going to say that. This guy's going to say that. Because that's not really interesting. You do what Travis is doing. You preview the trial, right? You're not arguing, but you do it in such a way and you organize the information where those connections are maybe already starting to form in the minds of the jury. [00:10:09] Speaker 2: So, finally, what did they do about it? Today, you're going to learn that the answer to that question was nothing. [00:10:22] Speaker 3: They kept serving her drink after drink after drink when it was obvious that she was intoxicated. Members of the jury, the fact of the matter is they took risks. They risked her life. [00:10:42] Luke: There's the theme again, bringing it back at the end. They took risks. They risked her life. You want your theme to be throughout the opening statement. I maybe would have liked to hear it another time in the middle, but certainly at the beginning like Travis did, and then here at the end to reinforce the point so that it's more memorable for the jury. [00:10:59] Speaker 3: That's why at the end of this trial, I'm going to come before you again. I'm going to ask that you find the defendant. Everybody's rooftop ball. Right. [00:11:10] Luke: And like Travis is doing here, you always want to close your opening statements with a future tense call to action to the jury. Right? When you give your closing argument at the end, you're going to say, you know, right now, find in favor of our side because the jury is literally about to go deliberate. Right. Well, they're not about to make the decision in an opening. So you're not saying, you know, find in favor right now. You do what Travis is doing. You say later on, or, or, you know, we're going to ask at the end of this case that you find in favor of our side. And that's always a really effective and useful way to end your opening statements. Thank you. And that's it. So really, really good opening statement for Travis here. It's a great one to watch. It's a great one to model yours after for the reasons that we talked about. And if you want some more tips for how to structure your opening statements, how to make them really, really good, like Travis's, in my book, Mock Trial Masterclass, I go over really everything I know about making an opening statement great, all the way from content to rehearsal and the way you need to move around a little bit. So all of that is in this book. If you want to take a look at those tips, if you want to order yourself a copy of the book, you can do that on Amazon by clicking the link in the description on YouTube or in the show notes on podcast platforms. Otherwise, I hope that watching Travis opening statement together has given you some ideas for how you can improve your opening statements this coming season or whenever your next tournament is. And I know that if you do that, you'll be well on your way to opening like a Mock Trial Master.