Brian K. Johnson coaches more than 1,000 trial lawyers annually to improve their persuasive skills. His international consulting practice includes teaching advocacy skills to trial lawyers and public speaking to transactional attorneys who need to be articulate, fluent, and confident communicators. He recently co-authored a guidebook for practitioners, The Articulate Advocate: New Techniques of Persuasion for Trial Lawyers (press release).

Johnson has worked as a freelance communication consultant to the legal profession for over thirty years. Since 1981, he has served as a communication specialist for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), and in 2000 he was awarded the Honorable Prentice Marshall Faculty Award for his work with the organization. Johnson remains the only non-lawyer to receive this distinction. He has delivered the opening presentation for NITA’s National Session in Colorado for 20 years, and Temple is proud to welcome him each year to the Academy. Temple’s small class sizes allow Brian to offer highly-tailored, hands-on training programs that directly complement Academy curriculum.

Methodology and Academy Experience

Working with the Academy for over 10 years, Johnson’s communications training has become an integral part of the program. Participants often overlook the communications aspect of courtroom performance, where solid legal arguments are lost to a distant jury. Johnson’s extensive experience with lawyers allows him to make this communications sentiment tangible: student exercises reveal the dangers inherent to an unconscious, singular focus on legal analysis.

Johnson provides individual, hands-on training in the Academy’s intimate environment. Students practice delivery pace, non-verbal communication, and other elements critical to jury persuasion. Johnson provides performance feedback, elicits critiques from other participants, and trains students in effective self-criticism. Students learn to speak with confidence and establish direct connections with the jury and other courtroom players.

Additional Biographical Information

As a trial consultant, Johnson works with trial lawyers preparing witnesses to testify at trial. He has consulted on cases involving computer patent infringement, internet browsers, breast implants, medical devices, financial services, and the airline industry. In 2003 and 2004, his work on patent infringement cases helped two clients win jury verdicts that exceeded $500 million each.

Johnson’s clients in the U.S., Canada, and Europe include:

Alston & Bird
Arnold & Porter
Borden Ladner Gervais (Canada)
Dorsey & Whitney
Duane Morris
Fulbright & Jaworski
Hogan & Hartson
Institute for Prof. Legal Studies (Belfast, Northern Ireland)
Kaye Scholer
Kirkland & Ellis
Law Society of Dublin (Ireland)
Law Society of Upper Ontario (Canada)
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
O’Melveny & Myers
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi
US Department of Justice (Nat’l Advocacy Center, Columbia, SC)
Woodcock Washburn

*Johnson also teaches at the European offices of U.S. law firms.

Brian K. Johnson
Courtroom Comm. Consultant