Trial Theme Series #2: Rhetorical Rules and Powerful Patterns (by Sulaymaan Ali)
In this part of the series, we dive into rhetorical rules and patterns that can make your trial themes more persuasive and memorable. I’ll draw on a variety of examples, including some from themes my teams and I have used, as well as many others I’ve seen or heard successfully deployed at every level of competition—from scrimmages and invitationals to regionals and national championships. I encourage you to look out for rhetorical techniques that reappear across examples.
Alliteration.
Alliterative themes use words that begin with the same sounds or letters. I think alliteration is the Sriracha sauce of themes: you can put it on almost anything. Here are some examples:
The fire, the fraud, and the fatality.
His rage became revenge
Profits over people
She cared more about her career than her client
She’s her mother, not her murderer
This case is about the conversation, the keychain, and the confession.
Carelessness cost a life
The flash decided his fate
Antithesis.
Do you notice a similarity between the following themes?
When the guards walked out, the robbers walked in.
The plaintiffs could not have known what the defendants would not say.
S/he couldn’t stop what s/he couldn’t start.
His life ended in tragedy, because that’s how it began.
S/he was overconfident and underprepared.
The defendant would stop at nothing to avoid losing everything.
You might have noticed there is a kind of balancing going on:
guards/robbers
walking out/walking in
plaintiffs/defendants
not knowing/ not saying
starting/stopping
ending/beginning
over/under
nothing/everything
This is called antithesis -- balancing different or opposing ideas. It is incredibly powerful. Many folks might have an intuitive grasp of balancing but don’t have a name for it. Speaking from personal experience, after I learned what this was called, I was able to recognize and look up more examples of it, which helped me get better at coming up with my own original, balanced themes. If this is your first time hearing about antithesis, I would encourage you to look up famous quotes that use antithesis; you'll find a ton of examples, and many of them might even sound familiar to you! For example, Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” or Martin Luther King’s “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” Once you see antithesis, you can’t unsee it.
Doublets.
The neglected little brother of the triplet. A doublet relates 2 ideas together. For example:
It wasn’t fair, but it wasn’t his fault.
They promised to deliver test results. Instead, they delivered lies.
The pilot’s condition caused the crash.
[This is a case about] resentment and revenge.
[This is a case about] jewelry and jealousy.
S/he was intoxicated and infuriated.
They needed a suspect. So they created a scapegoat.
Cause and Effect.
The underlying pattern in these themes is a cause-and-effect relationship that emphasizes consequences for actions. Each theme reflects a situation where a decision or event leads directly to a negative outcome.
If you’re reckless, you cannot recover.
He knew the reward, so he took the risks.
When an engine fails, a plane crashes.
She lost touch, so she lost.
Negations.
Another theme pattern is what I call the "negation” pattern, where the defense negates one or more key issues that the defense believes is essential for the P to prove. These themes can be an excellent way to reframe the case for the jury. For example:
This wasn’t negligence. This was nature.
There was no signature, so there was no contract.
No profits. No poison. No police officers.
This case isn’t about cocaine. It’s about a coverup.
This was human error, not human trafficking.
I consider these themes to be special, not only because of their effectiveness, but also because it is easy for them to be recycled while still sounding original. You can recycle out and replace the key issues in the examples with key issues from ANY other case and it will work. For example:
Let’s take the theme “This wasn’t negligence. This was nature.” When I saw it used, the Plaintiff’s claim was that a hiking company was responsible for a hiker getting lost and dying on their climb (the negligence). The defense responded by pointing to an unforeseeable blizzard that hindered rescue efforts (nature). Can we reframe the issues like this for another case?
Suppose there was a fire that burned down a building, and your client is accused of intentionally causing it. If there is exculpatory evidence that the fire was caused by someone forgetting to turn off the stove, you might recycle the issues into the theme “This wasn’t arson. This was an accident.”
Suppose your client unwittingly spoke to several gang members shortly before they planned a crime. Now your client is being charged with conspiring with the gang members. Perhaps your theme might be “It wasn’t a conspiracy, it was a coincidence.”
Similarly, take the theme “No profits. No poison. No police officers.” Without even knowing what the case is about, this theme seems to be highlighting a missing motive (No Profits), weak evidence (No Poison), and a bad investigation (No Police Officers). Similarly, in a case where the state has different weaknesses— let’s say they don’t have a murder weapon or strong eyewitnesses— you can just as easily recycle it into something like “No weapons, no witnesses, no wrongdoing.”
The possibilities for recycling are endless! Also, negative themes are typically very easy to integrate into fact structures, questions, and pocket headers, which should always be your goal for any case. For example:
In your opening statement you can start off by simply stating “No weapons. No witnesses. No wrongdoing.” Then when you give your roadmap of the facts, you can say “first, you’ll learn that the police didn’t collect any weapons from the crime scene… next, you’ll learn that the police didn’t speak to any witnesses …finally, the evidence will show that my client committed no wrongdoing…”
If your theme is, for example, “This was human error, not human trafficking,” you can preview your cross examination or direct examination questions with headers like “Let’s talk about the possibility of human error…. Now let’s talk about whether there was actually any human trafficking.”
Repetition.
This is another powerful theme pattern. Here, a word or phrase is repeated throughout the theme. For example:
He drank too much, he drove too fast, so she died too soon.
The engine was too old, the owner was too cheap, so two people died.
No promise. No payment. No Plan.
Wrong Turn, Wrong Place, Wrong Time.
Symbolic Facts.
Always ask yourself if there is a single key fact in the case that you really want the jury to remember. For example:
“She took her eyes off the road” was used in a car accident case to emphasize the driver’s distraction and culpability.
“Alone.” was used in a negligence case to highlight the horror and tragedy of a scuba diving company’s decision to leave one of its divers to die by themselves in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
I have heard from several attorneys that a theme which simply states a key fact (without any other rhetorical flourish) is very common in their practice areas.
Triplets.
A bread and butter rule of rhetoric is the rule of three. A triplet is a highlight of three ideas: three points, three pieces of evidence, three questions, etc. You’e already seen plenty in this article, so I’ll throw in just a few more examples:
He was where she died, when she died, with the murder weapon.
This case is about the blood, the bottle, and the business
She had access, she had power, and she didn’t care who got hurt.
They had a chance, they made a choice, and they failed.
The most effective trial themes are more than clever phrasing—they shape a narrative that resonates with the jury and supports the facts of your case. Whether through alliteration, antithesis, or any other tool, your goal is to make the theme memorable and persuasive. Keep refining your themes until they fit seamlessly with your case and reinforce your central message.
