Trial lawyers—that is, attorneys who regularly argue cases before juries—attain excellence in their work by learning how to perform for the only audience whose opinion finally matters: the twelve ordinary citizens of the community who make up the jury. Skilled lawyers know how to engage these men and women as a trial unfolds, how to appeal to them and move them while the opposing attorney attempts to do the same, until by the end of the trial they have communicated their version of the truth so well that these people decide to believe it and reject the other side's.