The Plaintiff continued with their sixth day of opening statements as the week ended. Roxanne Conlin is expected to turn over the opening to her co-counsel soon for a discussion regarding damages. According to reliable sources, Microsoft does not plan on taking nearly as long to lay out their side of the case.
It is interesting that Conlin has taken so long in delivering her opening statement. It is widely believed people are used to getting information in short bursts from television, computers or other technology and therefore their attention spans as jurors is much shorter. Most lawyers would say you need to keep trial shorter, not longer. Yet many fantastic trial attorneys, such as Gerry Spence, believe it is most persuasive to tell the entire story in detail – even if that means taking hours or days to complete an opening statement.
So far Conlin has focused on the history of the computer industry and her stories of nine companies she alleges were injured or destroyed by Microsoft’s conduct. She has referred to emails and lots of internal memos in a very. very detailed manner. At this point I am told six months is an underestimate for this trial.