The names, acronyms and abbreviations
so familiar to you are not to the jurors. You may think that saying, for
example, “Acme Building Supply, which we’ll now call ABS for convenience,” is
enough to warrant saying “ABS” through the rest of your trial.
But “ABS” has no guts to it, has no
uniqueness, no personality. As laborious as it may be for you to repeat the
full name, “Acme Building Supply” has a history. It’s associated with events and
people–it has a life. “ABS” is just another bit of alphabet soup.
Be sure to use the full names of people,
entities or objects throughout your trial. Avoid the use of pronouns or
abbreviated references. Jurors often have trouble keeping track of who did what
to whom. They will be totally lost if they must also concentrate on which
“he,” “she,” or “it” you are now referring to.
Certainly, well-known abbreviations are
acceptable, but generally speaking, abbreviations used too often only serve to
confuse jurors. A confused juror is an unsympathetic juror. An unsympathetic
juror is the one who could cause you to lose your case.
