Federal Practice Manual for Legal Aid Attorneys: 6.7.8 Opening Statement
The opening statement must be tailored to your audience. Judges presumably read pretrial briefs and are familiar with the issues, but juries certainly will not. From the jury’s perspective, trials are like impromptu theater, and you are on stage at all times. In your opening and throughout the trial, you must tell a story that rings true and resonates with the jurors’ own life experiences.