Matt Lectures at Indiana Law Seminar

I lectured today at the Indiana Law Survey for Indiana lawyers sponsored by the Indiana Court of Appeals.

September 15, 2017

The law survey is a continuing legal education program with a large audience of lawyers from all different practice fields across the state. It was held at the Indianapolis Convention Center. 

Most of time I get asked to lecture it's about some technology topic. Back in the day - when I first started getting asked to lecture - I would talk about some pretty geek oriented topics like networks and programs. As the years passed, I become much less interested in the details of technology and more interested in how to use it to inform, communicate, and persuade. I think it's a natural outgrowth of my trial practice.  

So, when a program asked me present on technology, what they are really going to get is about 10% technology, 30% psychology, 20% neuroscience, 30% creative stuff, and a remainder of whatever random topic interests me. My job is to weave them all together in a way that gets people thinking in new ways. 

The topic of the presentation was E-filing. Courts have gone to filing documents electronically rather than in paper form, and a lot of lawyers have struggled with it. I spoke mainly on how to apply typographic and design principles to our documents that take advantage of the fact that the reader will see them on a screen rather than on paper. The presentation combined communication, the neuroscience of e-reading, how the brain maps and processes paper documents, and the aesthetics of good looking written material. 

Click on this link for full access to the animated, 3-d, zoomable presentation. I used Prezi, a unique new presentation method, to try and capture the attention of my audience. https://prezi.com/view/MLdTQhLFQsjM3W8DsaVr/