The Lawyer and PowerPoint

I recently attending an superb National Speakers Association session on Intellectual Property for Speakers by Wheaton attorney Eric R. Waltmire of the Erickson Law Group. He provided excellent advice on how to keep us speakers out of court or jail!

Just as impressive though was his use of PowerPoint which was one of the reasons why he kept his audience engaged (and that ain’t easy when you’re lecturing on IP and copyright.)

My basic view on PowerPoint is you should never use more than one slide, and that slide should read “Do not use PowerPoint.” Eric didn’t exactly follow that advice, but he wasn’t far off it. Most of his slides contained only one word. The use of a key word to reinforce whatever point he was making was much more powerful than the standard long list of bullet points we normally see. And not once did we hear those memorable words “This is an eye chart.”

Steve Jobs believed ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.’ If only PowerPoint Users would live that mantra and the example of Eric Waltmire.