About Us

Brian K. Johnson

Brian K. Johnson teaches persuasion to trial lawyers and public speaking to transactional attorneys. His international consulting practice takes him to law firms and training programs throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as overseas to the United Kingdom and Europe. He has taught Solicitor Advocates in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Dublin, Ireland, and twice trained federal prosecutors for the Republic of Estonia.

With Marsha Hunter, he is co-author of The Articulate Advocate: New Techniques of Persuasion for Trial Lawyers (Crown King Books, 2009). That book won the Silver Medal in the Benjamin Franklin Awards from the Independent Book Publishers Association in New York City in May 2010. Their second book, The Articulate Attorney: Public Speaking for Corporate Lawyers, was published by Crown King Books in 2010.

For the past decade he has trained all new Assistant United States Attorneys at the Department of Justice National Advocacy Center. He has been a communication specialist for the National Institute for Trial Advocacy since 1981. In 2000 NITA recognized his unique contribution to the teaching of advocacy skills by presenting him with the Honorable Prentice Marshall Faculty Award. He was the first non-lawyer in NITA history to receive this honor. For 23 year in a row  his courtroom communication skills lecture/demonstration with Marsha Hunter has kicked off the NITA National Trial Skills Session in Boulder, Colorado.

His law firm clients include Kirkland & Ellis; Arnold & Porter; Alston & Bird; Duane Morris; Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi; Dorsey & Whitney; Fish & Richardson; Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; Cozen O’Connor; Stinson Morrison Hecker; Thompson Coburn; McKenna Long & Aldridge; and Borden Ladner Gervais in Canada. He has taught for the Law Society of Upper Canada in Toronto, and the Law Society in Dublin, Ireland, as well as the Institute for Professional Legal Studies in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He also teaches at the European offices of U.S. law firms.

As a trial consultant, Mr. Johnson helps lawyers prepare witnesses to testify. He has consulted on cases involving computer patent infringement, Internet browsers, breast implants, medical devices, financial services, pharmaceuticals, the airline industry, and deer scents for hunting. In 2003 and 2004, his work on patent infringement cases helped two clients win jury verdicts that exceeded $500 million each. The Republic of Ireland hired him to work with computer forensic experts who testify for the prosecution in organized crime cases. Their testimony is so valuable and confidential that he wasn’t told the experts’ names.

Marsha Hunter

Legal communication consultant Marsha Hunter teaches persuasion for trial lawyers and public speaking for corporate attorneys. She works  exclusively with lawyers. Her specialty is human factors—the science of human performance in high-stakes environments. Hunter’s expertise in cognition and communication focuses on how people think, speak, feel, and act in dynamic situations. Her teaching is both technical and practical, drawing on techniques from sports psychology, linguistics, and cognitive science.

Three times each year, Hunter is the program director for The Articulate Advocate®: Becoming More Fluent on Your Feet, a two-day intensive courtroom communication skills program, at NITA’s National Education Center in Boulder, Colorado. In the summer of 2011, as they have for 23 years, she and Brian K. Johnson kicked off NITA’s National Trial Skills 40th Anniversary Session with a communication lecture. Ms. Hunter is the communication specialist for NITA’s collaborative programs with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women, and at three regional trial skills programs annually for NITA. She teaches for the Department of Justice at the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina. Last year she served on preparation teams for lawyers appearing in multiple cases before the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court. She has taught advocacy programs for the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Law Society of Northern Ireland, and in 2012 teaches for the Tasmanian Law Society.

Hunter is the co-author with Brian Johnson of The Articulate Advocate: New Techniques of Persuasion for Trial Lawyers, published in 2009. It won a Best Business Book Glyph Award from the Arizona Book Publishers Association, and won a 2010 silver award at the Benjamin Franklin Awards at Book Expo America in New York City. Their second book is The Articulate Attorney: Public Speaking for Corporate Lawyers. Both are available for e-readers and in Spanish.

Marsha Hunter has a Master’s of Aeronautical Science degree with a specialty in Human Factors from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, and holds a commercial pilot’s license. Her undergraduate degree in Music Performance is from Arizona State University. She attended The Curtis Institute of Music, an all-scholarship international school of music in Philadelphia. She lives in Phoenix.