Professor Gary S. Gildin presents on neuro-advocacy at Syracuse Law Review’s Advocacy and Litigation Symposium

CARLISLE, Pa.—Professor Gary S. Gildin delivered a presentation, “Neuro-Advocacy: Harmonizing Persuasion with the Operation of the Brain,” at the Syracuse Law Review’s Symposium on Advocacy and Litigation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Doctrine.

Gildin posited that the most significant contemporary advances in effective courtroom advocacy will emerge from what on the surface is an unlikely source: neuroscience. Revolutionary advances in technology for the first time allow us to see how the human brain makes decisions.

The findings are wholly inconsistent with how the trial process presupposes the finder of fact will perceive and use information delivered by lawyers and witnesses. Consequently, lawyers seeking to persuade jurors (and judges) must reframe their advocacy to align with what we have learned about how the minds of these decision-makers will receive testimony and argument and use these inputs to reach their verdict.

Gildin’s full article on the topic will be published in the forthcoming Symposium Issue of Volume 76 of the Syracuse Law Review.

Professor Gary S. Gildin teaches courses in Trial Advocacy as well as Advanced Persuasion. Both courses rely on recent findings in neuroscience to adapt the substance and techniques of advocacy to judges, jurors, and policymakers to align with how their brains will process information and reach a decision. Gildin recently published "The Neuroscience of Qualified Immunity," arguing that the United States Supreme Court’s immunity doctrine does not correspond with the process by which the brains of government officials actually choose to act. Professor Gildin is co-founder of Trial Story LLC, drawing on principles of neuroscience to consult with and train lawyers to find the single strongest story that the trier of fact will find not only predictable, but inevitable.