Creativity in the courtroom - Creative Confidence #24
Lauren Weinstein, a law school student, felt for some time that she didn’t see eye to eye with the other students in her class. They were laser-focused on getting good grades and on learning all the legal precedents. At every turn, they seemed to ask, “What do previous cases suggest?”
She understood the importance of the rule of law but also found herself wondering about other matters. Who were the people in the case? What were their personal histories? Could that affect the outcome of a case? When she asked those kinds of questions aloud, she would get funny looks from her colleagues.
But after signing up for a class around creativity, Lauren proved to herself she was creative, could handle uncertainty, and could initiate change in the world around her.
Instead of being pressured to recite back case law to get the right answer, she could experiment, and iterate toward a better solution. She didn’t have to censor herself or be afraid of getting an answer wrong. It was as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
That confidence eventually showed up in the courtroom.
She was preparing for a mock trial held at the Palo Alto Courthouse, to be argued before a judge and jury. The case concerned a construction worker who had been hit by a train. Lauren was assigned to argue the side of the victim.
She knew the odds were against her. The facts of the case favored the train company. In previous mock trials, the same details were presented in essentially the same way, and the outcome was always the same.
So Lauren came up with a new approach. When she shared her plan with her partner on the case, he tried to talk her out of it. But she was determined to try.
During closing arguments, Lauren approached the jury box. She asked the jury members to close their eyes. “Imagine that you are having a nightmare. And in this nightmare, you are trapped on a train that is speeding down the tracks …” She had them picture the situation from the point of view of not only the people on the train but also the man who was hit.
The case was no longer a straightforward recitation of facts and precedents; it was about what the construction worker experienced.
The jury ultimately voted in her favor, and the judge said afterward that she had given the best argument he’d ever heard in that mock trial.
Lesson:
Don't be afraid to try and fail. The worst thing you can do is to play it safe, stick with the familiarity of the status quo, and not try at all.
[Creative Confidence Newsletter: 24 of 25]
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