Paying Close Attention Always Pays Off

By Ronald R. Rossi

April, 2014

In the past 25 years practicing real estate law, I haven’t gone to trial without first consulting Dr. Deborah Hansen and working with her to select the jury. Her track record is impressive – whenever she’s helped me evaluate potential jurors and pick a jury, we’ve won the case.

As a licensed attorney with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, Deborah brings an unparalleled combination of legal expertise and people-reading skills, plus robust common sense, to the table. As we go through the voir dire process for each trial, she sits with me in court and, as each juror is questioned, she helps me evaluate each individual’s verbal and nonverbal behavior with amazing clarity and insight, picking up on cues that most, if not all, of us would miss.

Deborah is so skilled in assessing that critically important first impression we all make when meeting someone that a few years ago, she and I teamed up to give a class for real estate professionals, “You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression.” Just as she is able to glean a great deal of information from a juror’s responses to initial questioning, she can work with witnesses to make their testimony as clear as possible, unhampered by nervous tics or unconscious behaviors that interfere with effective communication.

Below is an article Deborah published recently regarding the art of listening. As she says, we are all in the business of communicating, brokers and agents no less than lawyers, and while lawyers tend to communicate pretty well, everyone suffers occasionally from not actively listening to what another person is saying. Both parties lose when that occurs.

In this article, Deborah explores effective listening tools and techniques, and I hope that you’ll find, as I did, that her insights are invaluable with regard to all aspects of communication.