My Interview with Erin Gerstenzang

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A new episode of the podcast of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is out. This one features an interview with Atlanta criminal defense attorney Erin Gerstenzang. Erin and I discuss the basics of marketing for lawyers. We discuss her office in a co-working space at Ponce City Market. And my favorite moment was when Erin and I discuss her decision to give her cell phone number out to clients — the number on her website is her cellphone number. It turns out that this is not a modern millennial thing. Rather, it was a lesson she learned from her father who gave out his home number frequently to clients when Erin was growing up. I have been experimenting with giving my cell phone out to a small sample of clients. And I have been surprised at how well it works. I hope you enjoy the podcast.

New Podcast from GACDL

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The Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has a new podcast up. In episode 1, I interview criminal defense attorney and author Jason Sheffield about his new novel. But we get into some other topics such as attorney-client relationships, law practice management, and the good and bad of law school education in America. This was a fun interview. And I think you will enjoy it, too.

We have another episode recorded and in production

The podcast is available on iTunes and Soundcloud. Please go to iTunes and leave us a comment or a rating. And please reach out to me to suggest a guest for an upcoming show.

In Defense of Expertise

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I recently listened to Sam Harris’s interview with Tom Nichols on Harris’s Waking Up Podcast. Nichols discussed the “Dunning-Kruger Effect.” If there is a zeitgeist for our age, it may well be the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Before I define the Dunning-Kruger Effect, let me describe the setting where you may have experienced it. Most often you observe it at a family get-together. Likely, your loudest relative on topics in the political arena fancies himself an expert is likely not much of a political scientist. And you also may experience it in client consultations in the form of the relative who comes to the office who took a business law course at one time about a decade ago. This relative arrives at the office with the client and acts as the family spokesperson. Or you may see it in the thick handwritten correspondence from the client who has been spending time in the law library.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with very little knowledge about a topic are overconfident about what they actually know. Meanwhile, folks with expertise tend to see the nuance within a topic and limit their commentary to what can be confidently known. Language may be understated and carefully precise. In the political sphere, a sizeable number of voters fall victim to the phenomenon and vote for the most vocal and confident-sounding candidate. Add to that phenomenon a bias or resentment of professionals (egg heads in their ivory tower) and a bias for “just folks” and you have the Dunending-Kruger effect.

If you are in the business of  law, the Dunning Kruger effect can be tricky. We went through a painful process as 1Ls that taught us to “think like a lawyer.” And this thinking process was as important if not more important than the topics we were learning. In many ways, torts was a vehicle that we used to learn a method of thought. And this approach to legal problems was why we spent the tuition dollars.

It is fairly easy for the client in the market for an attorney to go on FindLaw and find cases that appear to be relevant. And the client can go into a prison’s law library or contraband electronic device and have access to the same database of law that you have. But the context of a legal education and years of courtroom experience do not come with the material. And it can be easy to become bogged down or incorrectly directed when you divorce the material from all the of sleepless nights learning how to understand it in context. Add to all of this, a national ethos of distrust of experts, a suspicion of the legal system and its officers, and the Dunning Kruger effect can take hold.

To make matters worse, the law is not a computer into which we feed facts and out comes an answer. Statutes and precedent are malleable. And the client’s fate is often subject to the preferences, biases, and even mood of the trier of fact and interpreter of law — the judge and/or jury. When asked such questions as “how is it looking for me?” “was the officer wrong to do what he did?” Or “when will this be over?” We give an honest answer that speaks to the uncertainty. Ask those questions to 10 honest lawyers, and about 8 of them will answer “well, it depends.” Clients are invariably frustrated by how tentative we are about things and wonder why we aren’t “shooting straight” with them. The irony is that we would not be shooting straight if we answered their questions with the level of certainty that they want. However, the jailhouse lawyer or the “family expert” has arrived at a more definite and most certainly optimistic answer. And they state it more confidently that you will. But the client comes to you looking to hire a lawyer.

Fight too hard against the Dunning-Kruger effect and the client will go elsewhere — to the lawyer who charges a third of what you charge and who is willing to agree with anything that the family’s legal expert says. This lawyer is in the client entertainment business and does not mind that the folks in the courtroom are going to roll their eyes when the lawyer comes in the door. Go along with the “expert” for too long and you will find yourself in front of a judge who will not be amused to hear what you have to say.

There is no clear answer to how to handle the phenomenon in legal practice. It requires active listening and a calm and steady effort to talk the client down from the ledge. Also, to be fair, we must be careful that we are also not falling victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect in being dismissive at competing ideas. The canary in the coal mine for whether you are suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect is a sense of confidence confidence that you know the outcome. In the long term, I have to believe that authenticity is the best long-term strategy for marketing and reputation. I have to believe this, because an alternative to that view of things is frightenting to imagine.

Taking a Witness’s Testimony by Skype

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A couple of weeks ago, I had a critical witness who would be unavailable to attend a hearing. The Court insisted on a particular date, and the expert had travel plans and non-refundable plane tickets. We decided that we would take his testimony by Skype. Moments after making the decision to Skype the witness, I asked myself “How do you take a witness’s testimony by Skype?” And here is my story. Note, I refer to Skpe throughout this post. But there are other videoconferencing platforms out there.

Your jurisdiction may vary. But Georgia’s provision for taking a witness by Skype is Uniform Superior Court Rule 9.2. 9.2 (A) lists an assortment of situations where video conferencing may be done. The list includes such routine things as applications for search warrants and first appearance hearings. For my situation, there was one matter that applied to me, which was found at (A)(12), “post-sentencing proceedings in criminal cases.” And the catch-all provision applied as well.

For everything else, the place to look in 9.2 (C). There the rule provies:

In any pending matter a witness may testify via video conference. Any party desiring tocall witness by video conference shall file a notice of intention to present testimony by video conference at least (30) days prior to the date scheduled for such testimony. Any other party may file an objection to the testimony of a witness by video conference within ten (10) days of the filing of the notice of intention. In civil matters, the discretion to allow testimony via video conference shall rest with the trial judge. In any criminal matter, a timely objection shall be sustained; however, such objection shall act as a motion for continuance and a waiver of any speedy trial demand.

In a nutshell, if you want to take a witness by Skype, you should seek your opponent’s consent. And if you anticipate a problem, you should file the notice 30 days in advance. Your opponent’s objection (in a criminal case) is deemed a motion to continue. In my case, my opponent consented to take the witness by Skype.

Once you have your opponent’s consent or a court order for skype testimony, there are a few other things to worry about. Take a close look at (E), which sets out the technical mimimums for video conferencing testimony.

  1. All participants must be able to see, hear, and communicate with each other simultaneously;
  2. All participants must be able to see, hear, and otherwise observe any physical evidence or exhibits presented during the proceedings, either by video, facsimile, or other method.
  3. Video quality must be adequate to allow participants to observe each other’s demeanor and nonverbal communiction; and
  4. The location from which the trial judge is presiding shall be accessible to the public to the same extent as such proceeding would if not conducted by video conference. The court shall accommodate any request by interested party two observe entire proceedings.

In other words, when the witness appears on screen, there should be no difference between that experience and what it would be for the witness to be present in court. And, as techy as I consider myself to be, I am paranoid about technological fails in the courtroom. So, here is what I did.

Two weeks before my court date, I took my laptop and iPad to the courthouse (in a very rural area in Georgia). I used the empty courtroom to call my witness by Skype using the courtroom WiFi and my cellular connection as a backup. Everything worked. I check to see if the court had a video monitor. And the Court did. When I tested out the video, I noticed that I needed an hdmi adapter for my iPad and laptop. So I put those on my shopping list. I ran at test on Fast to make sure that I had a sufficient connection. It turns out that my cellular connection would be faster than the court’s WiFi.

In the intervening weeks, I made sure that the witness had a copy of every potential exhibit that might come up. The only glitch was that the witness was not at his office. I asked him to test out his Skype in the location he would be.

On the morning of court, I arrived early to do a final check. I made sure the court reporter could hear everything well. I noticed that there was a little lag, so I made sure the witness spoke slowly.

The judge had some questions during the testimony. And he was not close enough to the mic for the witness to pick up his voice. But this problem was largely solved by my repeating the questions. So, the next time I do a Skype witness, I will make sure that the computer can pick up the judge from across the room. This can either be solved by the location of the set up or perhaps an external microphone.

The overall experience was good. And it was great to be able to conduct a hearing with a witness off in Florida. Skype is certainly a potential solution to put up trial counsel’s testimony in habeas proceedings and in keeping down the cost of using an expert witness. However, it takes much more work to arrange for Skype testimony to pull off without a glitch than it does simply to have a witness there — particularly in more rural courtrooms where connectivity is a potential issue.

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199 W Jefferson St.
Madison, GA 30650

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tori@scottkeylaw.com