Trial Advocacy

This book prepares you to be a highly professional, responsible, and competent advocate. You will face times of success (!), failure (#%?), enjoyment (yea!), weariness (sigh), fun (yes!), anxiety (oh, no), satisfaction (ahhh), frustration (ah, me), and peace (it’s over).

Welcome to advocacy. Trial Advocacy Before Judges, Jurors, and Arbitrators is a craft manual for lawyers who try cases — civil and criminal, in federal and state courts, in arbitrations, and before administrative tribunals. Written by three veteran advocates, the text walks through the full arc of a trial: planning and preparation, motion practice, jury selection, opening, direct and cross examination, exhibits, experts, summation, verdict, and appeal. Each chapter pairs the working theories with the tactics and techniques that produce them — so an advocate can locate a specific move, review the principle behind it, and apply it the next morning. The book sits between textbook register and lived courtroom experience, and it is designed for advocates who must sometimes do the work before they have finished learning it.

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Trial Advocacy GPT

A Custom GPT trained on Trial Advocacy — ask for case-theory craft, jury selection, opening-statement structure, direct/cross examination strategy, and exhibit foundation.

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About the Book

Overview

Trial Advocacy Before Judges, Jurors, and Arbitrators is a long-form craft manual — the volume the courtroom advocate keeps within reach. Written by three veteran trial lawyers (John Sonsteng, Roger Haydock, and Damien Riehl) and grounded in decades of practice and teaching, the book covers the full arc of a case across judicial, arbitral, and administrative forums. Each of the twelve chapters pairs a thesis statement with the underlying tactics, techniques, and procedures, so a working advocate can locate a specific move and apply it under deadline. The companion AI tool surfaces the same material on demand — citation-aware and grounded in the source pages you are reading.

Chapters

  1. The Advocate — advocacy as a humanistic helping profession; the theories, strategies, and skills that guide effective practice across courts, arbitrations, and administrative tribunals.
  2. Planning and Preparation — stages of a case, winning case theory, evidence analysis, and the integrated plan that distinguishes prepared advocates from improvising ones.
  3. Trial Procedures and Motions — scheduling, decision-maker assignment, courtroom conduct, and the procedural backbone that governs what an advocate may do at every stage.
  4. Evidence and Objections — the procedure for opposing inadmissible evidence and improper questions, preserving error for appeal on a good-faith legal basis.
  5. Jury Selection — identifying jurors who can reach a fair verdict while educating the panel and introducing case theory under tight time limits.
  6. Opening Statement — telling a compelling story, explaining convincing evidence, and shaping the early positions that jurors tend to vote with reliably.
  7. Direct Examination — the primary source of evidence; questions that let the witness recreate events so the fact finder can see, feel, hear, and perceive them.
  8. Exhibits — combining verbal and visual evidence to make the case understood and remembered, with proper foundation across real, demonstrative, and visual-aid categories.
  9. Cross Examination — leading questions that develop supportive evidence and discredit opposing witnesses through impeachment.
  10. Experts — qualifying experts, framing scientific and technical opinions, and adapting direct- and cross-examination strategy to specialized testimony.
  11. Summation / Final Argument — the culminating opportunity to summarize the factual story and explain why the fact finder should rule for the client.
  12. Verdict and Appeal — final jury instructions, deliberations, post-trial motions, awards, and the appellate processes that conclude and preserve a case.

About the Authors

John O. Sonsteng

John O. Sonsteng is a legal educator and reform advocate known for advancing experiential, skills-based legal training.

He co-authored A Legal Education Renaissance, a widely cited work proposing a practical, client-centered model for modern legal education. His scholarship critiques traditional law school methods and emphasizes preparing students for real-world practice. He has also written on teaching methods and evaluation tools for legal education, focusing on improving how law students learn and develop professional skills. Through his writing and teaching, Sonsteng has influenced national conversations on aligning legal education with the needs of practicing lawyers.

Roger Haydock

Roger S. Haydock is a nationally recognized authority in trial advocacy and dispute resolution with decades of experience in teaching and practice.

He has authored or co-authored dozens of books and treatises on litigation, arbitration, mediation, and negotiation. Haydock has served as a mediator in hundreds of cases and has played leadership roles in arbitration organizations and dispute resolution institutes. His work spans courtroom advocacy, alternative dispute resolution, and legal education, making him a prominent figure in shaping modern litigation practice and training. Trial Advocacy carries his long arc as both practitioner and teacher of advocates.

Damien Riehl

Damien Riehl is a lawyer-technologist whose practice spans complex litigation, cybersecurity, and applied AI. He clerked for chief judges, tried federal and state cases, led global digital-forensics teams, and now builds AI-driven legal systems at Clio. He co-authors this book from the working bench.

Admitted in 2002 and coding since 1985, Riehl co-chairs Minnesota’s Connected and Automated Vehicles Council and chairs the MSBA AI Committee, where he advances access-to-justice initiatives. He helped develop SALI’s 18,000+ legal data standards and contributes to FOLIO’s legal ontology. At Clio he integrates AI into large-scale legal datasets. He engages AI ethics work with global Catholic leaders and created the public-domain “All the Music” project. Across teaching, scholarship, and practice, his contribution to Trial Advocacy is the lived-courtroom register — the cadence of an advocate who has tried the case and is willing to admit what trying a case feels like.

Chapters

  1. 1 Chapter 1: The Advocate Advocacy is a humanistic, ethical helping profession in which the advocate prepares to navigate success, failure, anxiety, and satisfaction in turn — and this chapter introduces the theories, strategies, knowledge, tactics, procedures, techniques, and skills that guide effective practice across judicial, arbitral, and administrative forums.
  2. 2 Chapter 2: Planning and Preparation Before trying a case, an advocate must effectively plan and properly prepare it: this chapter walks through the stages of a case, the development of a winning case theory, the analysis of evidence, and the submission of jury instructions and verdict forms — the integrated plan that distinguishes prepared advocates from improvising ones.
  3. 3 Chapter 3: Trial Procedures and Motions Effective advocacy depends on knowing the trial-procedure rules and practices that govern scheduling, decision-maker assignment, preliminary procedures, courtroom conduct, and the taking of evidence — the procedural backbone that determines what an advocate may and may not do at every stage of a case.
  4. 4 Chapter 4: Evidence and Objections Objections are the procedure for opposing inadmissible evidence, improper questions, and inappropriate conduct — they preserve error for appeal, control opposing counsel and witnesses, and must always rest on a good-faith legal basis rather than tactical harassment.
  5. 5 Chapter 5: Jury Selection The primary purpose of jury selection is to identify and select jurors who can reach a fair and just verdict, and the de-selection process — using peremptory challenges and challenges for cause — is also the lawyer's first opportunity to educate the panel, build rapport, and introduce the case theory under tight time limits.
  6. 6 Chapter 6: Opening Statement An opening statement allows the advocate to tell a compelling story, explain the convincing evidence, and describe the desired outcome — and because jurors tend to vote reliably with the early positions formed during opening, a captivating opening has significant impact on a case's outcome.
  7. 7 Chapter 7: Direct Examination Direct examination is the primary source of evidence in our justice system: the advocate's questions must let the witness recreate events so the fact finder can see, feel, hear, and perceive them — producing testimony that is legally sufficient, credible, compelling, and resistant to cross-examination.
  8. 8 Chapter 8: Exhibits Well-planned exhibits help witnesses and attorneys present an interesting, persuasive case — combining verbal and visual evidence makes the case more likely to be understood and remembered, and proper foundation determines admissibility across real, demonstrative, and visual-aid categories.
  9. 9 Chapter 9: Cross Examination Cross-examination uses leading questions to develop supportive evidence that buttresses the advocate's case and to discredit the opposing party's witnesses through impeachment — strengthening the advocate's case and revealing damaging information that weakens the opposition's positions.
  10. 10 Chapter 10: Experts Expert witnesses provide scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge that helps fact finders understand evidence and resolve issues — and this chapter extends the direct- and cross-examination strategies of Chapters 7 and 9 to the particular discovery stages, qualifications, and opinion-foundation requirements that experts demand.
  11. 11 Chapter 11: Summation and Final Argument Summation is the advocate's culminating opportunity to summarize the factual story, explain the significance of the evidence, and present reasons why the fact finder should rule for the client — an act of advocacy rather than mere argument that draws together everything the trial established.
  12. 12 Chapter 12: Verdict and Appeal After the parties rest, a structured set of post-evidence procedures — final jury instructions, deliberations, verdicts, judgment orders, post-trial motions, arbitration awards, administrative decisions, and appellate processes — determines how the case is concluded and preserved for review.

Buy the book

Amazon West Academic

Contact

Reach the authors with questions about Trial Advocacy, the companion AI tools, or suggested tactics for a future edition. Messages route to Damien Riehl; expect a reply within a business week for practitioner questions and within the semester for course-adoption questions.

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