Transcription
You walk into a courtroom, you sit down, and you're getting ready to present. Your lawyer's getting ready to present. What does that judge notice in the first 90 seconds? They are making decisions, drawing conclusions, uh having judgments, just like all humans do. Underneath those black robes, they are still human beings, and they notice certain things in the first 90 seconds that I'm going to talk to you about the psychology of judicial attention in this video.
Hey there, I'm Rebecca Zung. I am The Leverage Lawyer. Welcome back to our channel. I invite you to subscribe if you haven't yet. A judge decides in the first few seconds, the first 90 seconds, if they're going to believe you, if they think that you're going to be a credible person, if they think they um you're going to be difficult, not difficult. There's all sorts of things that they're looking at even before the evidence is in, even before uh and anything is really getting started. That first 90 seconds. And what they're actually looking at is almost never what your attorney actually prepares you for.
If you have been waiting for the right moment in court, for the moment in court where you get to go in and tell your story, and the judge is finally going to see the truth, I need you to know this. And this is like a hard truth. The moment does not exist the way that you think it it it does. Judges, like all humans, have first impressions. They make first impressions or they're they are impressionable. They form those first impressions right away. And those impressions are sticky. And the vast majority of what they decide to believe about you, they decide before you even say the first few sentences.
Here's the reality of how courts work that almost nobody talks about in the courtroom or outside the courtroom rather. A judge is not reading your case the way you read it. You've lived inside this life forever, for years. You know every detail. You know the stakes. You know the history. The judge has hundreds of other cases, literally hundreds. They have maybe a few minutes with yours. They're fatigued. They're patterns. They're looking for patterns. They are looking for fast signals that tell them what kind of case this is, what kind of people they're dealing with in front of them. So, in the first 90 seconds, they're running a rapid assessment and that assessment shapes how they interpret everything that comes after. The evidence gets filtered through that impression, not the other way around.
So, here are the four specific things that judges are looking at. Number one is composure under uncertainty. Judges are trained to watch how a person behaves when they are not in control of a situation. In a courtroom, almost nothing is in your control. You don't decide the timing. You don't decide the questions. You don't decide the outcomes. The judge is watching how you conduct yourself, how you hold yourself inside that powerlessness, inside that pressure cooker. People who fidget, uh interrupt, make sigh sounds, eye roll, uh mouth words, that's too tall, that's a lie. You know, if they're saying things like that or whispering aggressively to their attorney or visibly reacting to testimony, they're communicating emotional dysregulation. And judges read emotional dysregulation as a credibility issue, not because they doubt your facts, because they doubt your reliability as a source of those facts. Composed is not the same as fake. Composed is attentive, still, measured, present. It is the person who looks like they trust the process even when it hurts. The move is to sit still, hands folded or flat, eyes on whoever is speaking, no reactions ever to anything the other side says, not even true things, certainly not to the outrageous lies. Your turn is going to come. And until then, composure. Stillness. That is evidence that the judge is going to be reading.
The second signal is language precision. Within the first few sentences that you speak, the judge is already calibrating how carefully you handle language. Are you speaking specifically or generally? Are you speaking concretely or abstractly? Do you answer the question exactly? Are you using I or you using we? Do you use words like I think, I remember? People who use precise language sound like reliable witnesses. People who use language language loosely, like, "Ah, that person's just a narcissist, just crazy." They sound less credible, and credibility in the first 90 seconds is the entire game. So, the move here is to answer exactly. Answer questions specifically, concretely, using facts. Like, "It this happened at 5:37 p.m. on June 12th." "They were late." Not, "They're so irresponsible." Got it? That gives you a lot more credibility. Never embellish, but be precise. Be precise. Don't use words like always and never.
Signal number three is your posture toward authority. Judges are trained to read how comfortable a person is with institutional authority, meaning the judge. How do you address that judge? How do you address opposing counsel? How do you respond to the court reporter? You stand when you're supposed to stand. And and do you re- uh refer to the judge as your honor without being reminded? People who carry themselves with with that deference, they appear to be trustworthy by default. This is very, very subtle. But if you're uncomfortable or too deferential or combative, then they're not going to trust you as much. This doesn't mean that you grovel. It means you carry yourself like someone who knows how to be serious in these formal types of settings. Steady, respectful, not you know, like you're a servant or anything, but but not resistant, either. Present. The move is to go with the the protocols of a courtroom, which is formal, but also respect yourself, carry yourself. You know when to stand, how to address the court, when to wait, when to speak. This is formality, it's but it's not performative. It's the It's being It's being credible in these legal settings. Right?
So, I want you to drop in the comments which of these first three signals feels the hardest for you right now. Being composed, being precise, or your posture, being respectful in that courtroom. The one that feels the hardest is the one that you need to start preparing for right now.
All right, three down, one to go. The fourth signal is the one that carries the most weight, it more weight than the other three combined. So, here's what it is. It's proportionality. Judges form impressions based on whether a person's emotional response matches the stakes of what's being discussed. So, proportion means matched. Dis- Disproportion means the reaction is bigger or smaller than the moment warrants. I remember a time in the courtroom where a mother was not allowing a uh the dad and the son to travel for Thanksgiving. So, the they had to go to court for it. When the father won that hearing, the mother threw herself on the floor, started screaming and crying, and went into hysterics about her son and it wasn't even like she lost custody. It was that the son was going to get to go to Thanksgiving with his family. So, when a person is outraged over something minor like that, the judge reads that excess. They they just think that they're just an unreliable person. And if a person is totally emotionless over something that should be emotion filled, then the judge might see that as also unreliable. Like, what are they hiding? What's wrong with them? Um so, you just want to come across as credible. And so, your emotional temperature should match what's actually happening. Um and definitely be calm when you're discussing procedural things, but you know, get serious if it's serious. You can be sad if it's sad. You can be angry, but have it match, okay? This is the single most important signal in the first 90 seconds because proportionality is the signature of mental stability and judges, consciously or not, are scanning for stability at every moment. And here's the hard truth about this signal. If you walk into court carrying months or years of accumulated rage, betrayal, and exhaustion, and that emotion leaks out disproportionately in the first 90 seconds, the judge does not see a wronged party. They see an unstable one. Even if every word of your story is true. The move here is preparing. Understanding, anticipating what's going to happen, anticipating what they're going to say. It's managing your nervous system. Arrive early, breathe. You know, do not review inflammatory documents an hour before the hearing. Walk in calm, proportional, measured. Save the depth of emotion for the moments that that it require that.
Okay? Here's a reframe that's going to change how you prepare for every court appearance for the rest of your life. Hopefully, you don't have that many. But, understand that the judge is not there to believe you. I know that's a kind of a belief flip, but that's not what they're there they're not they're not deciding whether to believe your case or all of that. They're looking at the facts and how well the facts and do you have proof? Does does all of that line up to the law? Right? These are different questions. The evidence in your case doesn't stand alone. It does get absorbed through the lens of the the judge forming opinions about you. And a weak case can win if the person is more credible than the other person. A strong person a strong case with a person who just seems unstable often loses even if they're right, even if everything is on their side. This is not about charm or charisma. It's about carrying yourself in a way that makes your evidence easier easier for that tired overloaded judge to accept. So, composure, precision, posture, proportionality, these are the four signals that frame your case, and it means everything to your case.
So, if this helped you, go ahead and like this video and share it with somebody who needs to see this today. The next video that I want you to watch is the anatomy of a narcissist deposition, what they do at minutes 1:15 45 and 90. I said watch that video next and if you haven't subscribed, make sure you do that now. And also, to get started building leverage for your case that you can have those patterns, be specific, start with Slay AI today cuz that is exactly what I built it for. It's a private platform that helps you start building leverage from scattered documentation today. You can start for free today at slaypro.ai. Just go there and get started and remember that I'm Rebecca Zung, I'm the leverage lawyer and you can stop reacting and start building leverage today.
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