The Verdict Begins Here: The Science, Art & Strategy to Win in the Opening

Dominic J. Gianna, Shareholder, Vice President & Director | Aaron & Gianna, PLC

Dominic J. Gianna is a shareholder, vice president, and member of the board of directors of Aaron & Gianna, PLC in New Orleans, where he chairs the firm’s civil litigation practice. A trial lawyer for 36 years, he has tried more than 150 cases in state and federal courts across the United States, from both the plaintiff and the defense side, in matters spanning complex commercial litigation, product liability, toxic tort, employment law, medical malpractice, major construction disputes, and antitrust.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Gianna received his B.S. in chemistry from Manhattan College, his M.A. in organic chemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1971, and his J.D. from Loyola University School of Law in 1974, where he was elected editor-in-chief of the Loyola Law Review. He is admitted in Louisiana and before the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Louisiana and the Northern District of Texas, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and Tenth Circuits, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He is AV-rated by Martindale-Hubbell. Before entering the law, he worked as an organic chemist, professional athlete, and professional actor.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Gianna received the Robert Keeton Award from the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), the American Bar Association’s teaching arm, as the best teacher of advocacy in America, and he has been listed in Louisiana Super Lawyers for civil litigation since 2008. He was selected — alongside President Bill Clinton and Justice Scalia — as a Blockbuster Speaker at the Defense Research Institute’s annual meeting, and he chaired the American Bar Association Section of Litigation Annual Meeting in 2001. He has served as District Judge pro tem by appointment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana and as court-appointed Special Master in complex matters, including Turner v. Murphy Oil, the Norplant class action litigation, and Scott v. American Tobacco Company.

• Professional Involvement

For 25 years, Mr. Gianna has served on NITA’s national faculty and as a NITA program director, leading interactive training programs in all 50 states, Canada, Mexico, England, Scotland, and Wales. He is Director of Trial Advocacy at LSU School of Law, principal faculty of the Professional Education Group and of the Louisiana Association of Defense Counsel Trial Academy, and a member of the New Orleans Bar Association, the Louisiana State Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association, and the International Society of Barristers. His books on advocacy and persuasion include Opening Statements 2d, Opening Statements: Winning in the Beginning by Winning the Beginning (with Lisa A. Marcy), Advocacy for the Ages (with Lisa A. Marcy), Winning Before Trial, and Reel Justice!

• Experience

Mr. Gianna’s trial practice spans complex commercial, product liability, toxic tort, employment, medical malpractice, construction, and antitrust matters for a client list that ranges from Fortune 500 companies to medium-sized national businesses and small local organizations. As principal faculty for the Professional Education Group, he has delivered and led more than 400 lectures and seminars throughout the world, and his training programs — including “Reel Justice,” “Winning Before Trial,” “A Day on Trial,” and “Advocacy for the Ages and Sexes: Persuading Genders and Generations” — have changed the careers of thousands of trial lawyers.

SESSION 1 – How Jurors Decide: Persuasion Science, Bias and Mental Scripts | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

Learn how to turn persuasion science, cognitive bias, motivation and story into an opening that begins shaping the verdict before the first witness takes the stand. Jurors do not wait until closing argument to begin deciding a case. They begin with the opening statement.

What makes an opening statement persuasive before the first witness ever takes the stand? The answer lies not simply in what the lawyer says, but in how jurors think, judge, feel and construct a story.

In this fast-moving two-hour program, Dominic Gianna, veteran trial lawyer and nationally recognized master teacher of advocacy and persuasion science, combines persuasion science, cognitive-bias theory and script theory with the practical lessons from his acclaimed seminar, One Story. One Choice. One Moral., and his book, Opening Statements: Winning in the Beginning by Winning the Beginning (Thomson Reuters, 2025), already considered a modern classic on opening statements.

Participants will learn how to practice audience-centered advocacy, understand the biases and mental scripts jurors bring to court and show knowledge, control, motivation and choice—the factors jurors use to assign fault. They will also learn how to turn facts into a compelling people story, create a memorable theme, logline and moral, build an opening that begins shaping the verdict from the first word and thread one story, one choice, one moral, on theme from beginning to end.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – From Facts to Story: Building the Verdict-Shaping Opening | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

Accompanied by state-of-the-art visual storytelling—not boring, text-heavy PowerPoint—this program delivers an extraordinary amount of practical, immediately usable advocacy in just two hours.

In just two hours, participants will gain a practical framework for building an opening statement that does more than preview the evidence. They will learn how to make the evidence meaningful, make the people matter and give jurors a persuasive story through which they can understand the case—from the very beginning.

Learn how to turn persuasion science, cognitive bias, motivation and story into an opening that begins shaping the verdict before the first witness takes the stand.