12 Jul 09 Lawyers – Did You Hear The One About

Lawyers – Did You Hear The One About

• Three Бойлеры partners of a law firm were flying out of town to attend a convention. Halfway through the trip, one of the partners said to the Optimus cameras second partner, “Oh The Elephant Man no, I forgot to lock the office safe”. The third partner quickly responded, “Don’t worry all three of us are here”.

• Question – “What’s wrong with telling a lawyer joke”? Answer – “Lawyers don’t think they’re funny and no one else thinks they’re jokes”.

• Question – “What do honest attorneys and UFOs have in common”? Answer – “You always heat about them but no one has ever seen one”.

Chances are you have heard numerous jokes pertaining to attorneys, and admittedly some are actually funny! However, while some can be taken lightly, others are almost gruesome. The love/hate relationship between attorneys and clients has been going on for a long time. Unfortunately, some attorneys probably deserve to have a joke written about them but most are good, honest, and reputable people trying hard to make a difference in a person’s life and society.

Although there are a number of negative perceptions associated with attorneys, the one that seems to keep hanging on is actually
slightly misguided. Much of the public believes that all attorneys squeeze clients dry, charging them for every dime spent, often associated with outlandish lawsuits. Believe it or not there are industry standards and state bar guidelines as to how attorneys charge clients and are paid. The best way to avoid billing surprises купить NeoNode is to agree in advance on how and what you are charged for and the expected timelines and outcomes.

The media has played a huge role in our overall perception of lawyers from news reports involving attorneys to attorneys (fictional and reality). If you were to turn on any major news SeaLife cameras channel, the majority of issues being reported whether they involve attorneys or not are often negative. We don’t hear news stories about attorneys doing their job, but we do hear of the isolated case of bad behavior. Therefore, the public assumes that one story pertaining to a crooked attorney represents all attorneys, which is simply not the case.

We кошки и дети also have the perception that many attorneys are hard nosed sharks. We love to hate this type of attorney but it’s also exactly the kind of representation we want on our side of the bargaining table! In a купить Grundig recent example Nancy Grace accused the mother of a missing child of holding back information. купить стиральную машину Liberty The mother committed suicide shortly after the hard hitting interview and the family partly blamed Grace. While Grace may have doggedly sought the truth, it’s unlikely that her decided клатч кожаный lack of sympathy caused the woman’s death. The public was horrified at the behavior, and yet if you needed legal representation, would you want someone unsympathetic to the other side? Someone who would aggressively pursue justice on your behalf?

Presentation Skills - Presenting with PowerPoint - Where’s the Power, What’s the Point?

It’s Friday afternoon, after lunch and you are about to watch a colleague’s presentation. As the lights dim and the dull purring sound of the projector lulls you into a semi-comatosed state, feelings of despair begin to take over, as the presenter introduces their 30 slides. You brace yourself for the endurance test that lies ahead.

Recognise the scene? It is becoming an increasingly common scenario in the business environment and we now need to take stock and ask ourselves of PowerPoint - “what is the purpose of this presentation aid?”

At first, PowerPoint seemed to be the answer to all our presentation concerns. To the less experienced presenter it Пылесосы для сухой уборки became a great way to put a presentation together. With its neat gadgets and easy-to-follow structure, PowerPoint provided a ‘quick fix’ solution to our presentation anxieties - all the presenter needed to do was to ‘deliver’ their slides.”

So why then doesn’t the audience evangelise about it in quite the same way? I am often asked by those who attend my workshops how can they engage more with their audiences when they are presenting with PowerPoint and why do their audiences seem indifferent or even disinterested in what they are trying to present?

One reason for this emerging reaction lies in the presenter’s misinterpretation of the verb ‘to deliver’. Only too often this word has become replaced by the phrase ‘to read out aloud’ and even by the phrase ‘to hide behind’.

Who wants to listen to someone reading out aloud – don’t we all know how to read already? Wouldn’t it be easier if we just give the slides to our audience to take away and read at their leisure –in more amenable surroundings?

The slick and polished nature of PowerPoint has weakened the human input in presenting to such a low level of insignificance that now, the presenter’s role is often reduced to no more than the ‘PowerPoint Operator’.

So where has it all gone wrong and how can we re-address the balance?

One of the key factors in the demise of the art of presenting is down to our basic human phobia of public speaking and our lack of motivation to address this issue. Public speaking is in fact one of the most common public fears – almost as strong as fear of death!

So PowerPoint became our knight in shining armour – it gave us the crutch we needed to get over our fears by hiding behind the technology. The screen became our shining armour – it protected our feelings of insecurity by taking the audience’s attention away from us - the presenter and directing their attention to the big screen behind us which was something far more ‘exciting’ to look at.

Unfortunately, the shine of