Our Services: Power Point

Power Point: A Persuasive Tool

The typical juror, judge or mediator increasingly wants to see the points the trial attorney is making, rather than simply hearing them. Years of conditioning by the news and print media have trained us to rely on visual images in our quest to understand information. Power Point, a versatile presentation software program sold by Microsoft, is moving onto laptop computers and into the hands of trial attorneys in order to inform and persuade the trier of fact.

Capabilities of the program
Most attorneys are familiar with the traditional use of Power Point to create slides for a lecture. Speakers using this program typically create text slides with bulleted items. More advanced use of the program may include clip art, animation (words that drop in from the top of the screen or fade from view), sound effects, or other special effects.

Scanned photographs, images or charts created in Microsoft Excel or other similar programs can be incorporated into Power Point.

The output of slides created in Power Point is equally diversified. They can be printed for a paper copy on a color or black and white printer, used as clear transparencies on a projector, or viewed by using a laptop computer with or without a projector.

Use for mediation or court
A paper or electronic settlement brochure is enhanced with slides created in Power Point. Essential issues of liability and damages can be presented in an easy to follow format. Recently Med League helped an attorney create a Power Point presentation that was divided into four parts: key details of the plaintiff’s life, a timeline of the medical events surrounding the liability, the opinions of the plaintiff’s liability experts, and a summary of the damages. This presentation was instrumental in obtaining a settlement in the high six figures.

The laptop computer can be brought to the courtroom to present these types of information:

• Color photographs of the plaintiff

• Photographs of the equipment needed to provide care to the plaintiff

• Key points to cover in an opening or closing argument

• Points from the expert witness’s publications, which contradict testimony or written opinion

• Photographs, maps or diagrams of the accident site

• Pieces of evidence

Advantages of Power Point
Power Point is compatible with the other programs in the Microsoft Office Suite, making it easier to add text from other programs such as Excel or Word. The text may then be reformatted to create a slide in Power Point. Changes using commands such as cut, paste, bullet points, font and page setup can be easily made because these related programs are part of the Microsoft Office Suite.

Power Point has within it a portable program that can be installed on a computer to allow you to view the slide show. This does not allow the presenter to make changes in the slides, but if hard disk space is at a premium, or the laptop has limited RAM, the final product can be displayed.

Since Power Point slide presentations typically exceed the capacity of a floppy disk, the computer used to present a Power Point slide show should have a CD-ROM Drive or Zip drive. Med League Support Service’s computers have these drives, as well as color laser printers for use in printing color transparencies or paper copies of Power Point slides, and scanners for adding photographs or graphic artwork.