The chief tools of the litigator's skill are expressions, and the legal representative

who uses them adeptly in his point of view maintains a diverse benefit over his
antagonistwhether in the courtroom, in debate, or in writing an appellate brief.
A litigator starts with the prose of statutes, judicial opinions, contracts, and the
innumerable other sources of language that in due course lead to proceedings. A
successful activist then strives to lawfully dissect and construe those proses to the
benefit of the client, and he does this by means of his own verbal skill to strengthen a
concrete argument that will attest persuasive in interactions with the court.
Borrowing the discussions of Cecil C. Khune III in his book Building Your Best
Argument, only when you see clearly what is central to the argument can you persuade
the court to focus on those points, instead of dispersing attention over morass of details
where nothing significant stands out.
As discussed in the book of Cecil Khune III, several principles were emerged in
establishing a firm persuasive argument; some of these are;
Tailoring the argument to persuade the judge, reasoning undoubtedly has its
place, but it is not everything. Primarily, the litigator should tailor the argument to the
specific addressees he seeks to win over. In order to come across what will appeal to
the court, he needs to be acquainted with not only what the court has held, but also a
touch regarding the viewpoints of its members. This can be acquired by getting
acquainted with the preceding opinions of the judge with respect to a particular case. If
those perspectives are not favourable to his point of view, such knowledge would
nevertheless provide him an opening to craft distinctions that might modify the judges
mentality;
Establish Trustworthiness by being meticulously honest in presenting evidence,
and pertinent law to the court, a litigator can effectively establish his trustworthiness;
Moreover, as mentioned by Diokno in his book Diokno On Trial: Techniques and
Ideals of the Trial Lawyer, the first requisite for an effective presentation of evidence is
integrity on the part of the lawyer; the second and equally important quality of a lawyer
is courage a lawyer with courage will persuade a judge much more easily than a
lawyer without courage. When the judge knows that counsel will fight him all the way, as
high as necessary, the counsel can be sure that the judge will study his cases very well
and make sure that the judgements, if they are going to be against him, are well
studied;
Demonstrate Knowledge of the Facts a litigator who is perceived as
confidentially well-known with the evidences of the case will in the conclusion
demonstrate far more persuasive;
8 Cecil C. Khune III, Building Your Best Argument
9 Jose Diokno, Diokno On Trial: Techniques And Ideals of The Trial Lawyer, pp. 6-7

Develop a Theory of the Case following the gathering all of the pertinent
information in relation to the case, the litigator must cautiously analyze it. Identify the
elementary rationale why the client should win in the end.
Persons in the calling of legal profession could sound much more winning by
providing persuasive citations of legal authority as part of legal writing. According to
Susan W. Fox and Wendy S. Loquasto in their book The Florida Bar Journal, The
primary purposes of citations are support and attribution for the propositions advanced
by the author XXX persuading a court to follow precedent, distinguish it, or overrule it
as the case requires to advance your clients position is in large part dependent upon
credible citations and sound reasoning based upon the citations.
Persuasive legal citation crafts further credible legal writing. Appropriate citation
involves knowing not only the crucial form for citing cases, constitutions, statutes, rules,
books, articles, and other legal authority, but also requires understanding the purposes
and best practices for citing legal authority. Providing excellent citations in a particular
case requires selecting the best case citations by taking into consideration the hierarchy
of authority as to primary or secondary and applicability of such, because the higher up
on the scale, the more persuasive the citation, and more recent citations are generally
more persuasive.
In the case of Yap vs. Court of Appeals, the Court, in deciding on whether the
estate of the deceased should be distributed equally, did not favour the legal citations
provided by the respondents by reason of its inapplicability to the time being when the
deceased contracted the two marriages, but instead favoured the legal citations
provided by the petitioners which is more pertinent in the case at bar.
Furthermore, a lawyer, by applying the elementary principles of statutory
construction could develop a more persuasive and effective argument to place the judge
in favour of his point of view.
In the case of People vs. Aragon, the Court, in deciding whether the respondent
should be convicted for the crime of bigamy by contracting subsequent marriages
without securing a judicial declaration of nullity of previous marriage, was persuaded by
the legal citations provided by the respondent in his argument which mentioned that
there is no judicial declaration necessary to establish the invalidity of a previous void
marriage, as distinguished from mere annullable marriages. The Court applied in the
case at bar the very fundamental principle of strict construction of penal laws in favour
of the accused. At the time this case was decided, there was no express provision yet
contemplated in the law which requires judicial declaration of nullity, hence, in its
absence, the Court, in the case, was bound by said rule of strict interpretation.

10 Susan W. Fox and Wendy S. Loquasto, The Florida Bar Journal, vol. 48, no. 4, p. 49.
11 Yap vs. Court of Appeals, GR. No. L 40003, October 28, 1986
12 People vs. Aragon, G.R No. L-10016, February 28, 1957