Over at Military Underdog, Eric Mayer tells the story of the lawyer who loved too much.

A fellow attorney was lauded for his use of tech (particularly PowerPoint slideshows) during closing arguments. He used pictures and music to portray a very touching scene designed to get the finder of fact to sympathize with his client. In one case, he used it in a Involuntary Manslaughter case where the client drank, drove, wrecked, and killed the passenger in the car. The case was actually a negotiated plea for 2 years. The judge sentenced his client to 4 years. So, his client did the 2 years as negotiated.

He felt like he was on a roll, and a lot of folks complimented him on using a very emotional PowerPoint in his closing. As a result, his boss encouraged everyone to find ways to incorporate technology into their openings and closings.

In another case, a marijuana case, the lawyer was urged to take a good plea.

“Cut your losses,” we said. “Military juries get pissed about this stuff. Go with the judge.”

He didn’t listen. He wanted to make music. He wanted to extract emotion. And he wanted to try it on a jury.

His client was guilty. They all knew that. For sentencing argument, the attorney rambled for 50 minutes, then presented a musical powerpoint as the finale’. The lights turned on after the song, and the jury’s faces told a simple story.

They were pissed.

Not even an hour passed for deliberations. 5 years, bad-conduct discharge. It was 3 years harsher than a guy caught with 35 child pornography videos some months earlier.

In  the comments that follow,  Carolyn Elefant argues that, like it or not, technology has come to the courtroom.

Look, it’s one thing to rail against the focus on technology to the exclusion of practice skills and judgment. And I will grant you that in your example, the use of Powerpoint in this case seemed both misguided and unfortunate.

But technology is coming to the courtrooms – perhaps not criminal or military courts, but federal courts and state courts in more metropolitan areas. And if solo and small firm lawyers are not familiar with how to use it in their cases, they will be at a serious disadvantage.

To which Eric replies :

I’m not railing against the use of technology. I’m railing against reliance upon the same.

The guy in my anecdote centered his case around the PowerPoint presentation. It guided his argument and was even the focus of his choice of forum. Much of his overconfidence came from others (particularly superiors) gushing over his use of tech. They should have gushed over his use of tech to SUPPORT his argument.

Rarely do we see such a fundamental issues played out so clearly.  Eric is hardly a Luddite:

When I arrive in court, I have a laptop (sometimes 2), iPad, iPhone, and MiFi (this doesn’t include the stuff brought by my co-counsel). This is in addition to the tech already in the military courtroom, which is substantial (Have you seen the size of the defense budget in this country?)

How much of this hardware he needs or uses is hard to say, but clearly he doesn’t fear it.  At the same time, he’s not blinded by love.  Many are.  Whether its the encouragement of  superior or the high tech choir on the internet, where things are so crazy that  there are blogs dedicated to lawyers who use Macs, some hear the message that cases are won by flashy presentations and shiny hardware.  If there’s a small “i” somewhere in your bag, you’re golden.

We all have anecdotes about technology, how it worked well in one instance, enabling a jury to see images with the circles and arrows and marks that made them understand an argument that might otherwise have been incomprehensible, and how the PowerPoint inexplicably failed during summation, leaving the lawyer stymied, confused, embarrassed and empty handed.

But Eric’s story is apocryphal not because of a technical glitch, but because it shows how we can come to adore technology too much.  So much that it confounded our judgment and makes us forget that tech is just a tool in our box, to be pulled out when it suits the job and otherwise to lay there untouched. 

Carolyn is right, that technology is a fact of life.  It would be foolish to ignore the existence of potent tools that can facilitate our efforts.  Only an idiot would use the butt of a screwdriver to drive home a nail when there’s a hammer available.  But technology should be used because it suits what we do, not the other way around.  We don’t develop our case to make it tech friendly, but take advantage of tech because it furthers our defense.

It can be very difficult not to fall in love with the tools available to us, to come to believe that these tools can do anything, win anything, make every case a winner.  Talk about them, that failure to use something like a PowerPoint presentation spells disaster in the courtroom confuses the tool with the craftsman.  Some cases will have no use for tech.  Some cases won’t be won no matter how many small “i”s you have in your bag.  Some cases demand skills for which there are no technological substitutes.

Which case is which is a matter of lawyerly judgment.  There’s no tech substitute for judgment.

And no matter how many small “i”s you have in your bag, there is no case that can be won with a bag filled with hi-tech and devoid of the basic lawyering skills that have been used to defend the accused forever.  Those who love tech too much may forget that the ability to examine and cross, open and close, voir dire and object, will always be more important that the shiniest of gadgets.