The Art of Making Complex Things Clear: James Haase on Trial Graphics and Technology Support

Q: Your background before litigation graphics is pretty unusual. How did you end up here?

James Haase:

When I moved to New York from Iowa in 2001, I began working in presentation centers for large financial institutions. The work was fascinating, but the hours and career growth potential weren’t ideal. Eventually, I landed a position as lead designer for a $20B hedge fund, creating pitch books aimed at their investors across the globe. The subject matter was complicated and data-focused, and the deadlines were always urgent. The throughline across all of these assorted positions was the same challenge: take something complicated and make it engaging and understandable to its particular audience.

When I discovered trial graphics, I recognized immediately that the stakes were even higher. In finance, a bad visual might cost you a deal. In a courtroom, it might cost your client the case. That sense of consequence sharpened everything.

Q: You founded Immersion Legal in 2015. What did you build there, and what did you learn?

James Haase:

I built a culture before I built a business. The philosophy from day one was that we could add more value than just being the legal team’s digital pen. I am a very curious person by nature, and we only hire similarly curious people to our team.

“We immerse ourselves in the case materials to learn the key arguments of our side AND those arguments we are up against. In doing so, we are able to give the legal team a unique and fresh perspective, not unlike that of the jury, judge, arbitration panel, or government agency they are about to present to.”

I think it is very important for the designer to ask questions, even if they may feel silly. If something is unclear to us as we learn the case, it is likely to be unclear to the jury. And they CAN’T ask those questions. That regular dialogue leads to graphics and sequences that simplify the concepts and result in arguments that persuade. I love my job and find that the legal teams all seem to appreciate my passion and lightning-fast response time for emails, any time of day, night, or weekend.

My wife made me a coffee mug in the early years that captured our little startup perfectly. It had the Immersion logo and said, "Immersion Legal… Holding it Together with Duct Tape, Exclamation Points and Smiley Faces Since 2015." That might sound cheesy, but positivity under pressure is a skill and a foundational operating principle across our entire team.

What the integration with DRC has allowed is scale without sacrifice. Every designer who was with us pre-merger is still with us. The training, the standards, the culture, they all carried over. The way I have always approached this work is baked into how every member of this team operates.

Q: You support clients across the full litigation lifecycle, from pre-trial through closing argument. How do you think about graphics differently at each stage?

James Haase:

Each phase has a unique audience and purpose, and the visuals must factor in those variables. Early in a matter, you might be supporting a motion or creating key graphics for a brief. At that stage the audience is a judge, an arbitration panel, or even the opposing party. In that moment, you have one shot at a clear, credible narrative. The graphics presented in the early phase often lay a foundation that is critical and continues to impact the case through to the very end.

When you arrive at trial (or run a focus group prior to trial), the audience shifts. Now you are communicating with jurors, who bring in very different frames of reference and life experiences. The question becomes not just whether a visual is accurate, but whether it is accessible. Whether it will resonate with someone who has never encountered this industry, this science, or this type of financial transaction before. If the graphic fails to engage and teach the jury, then it fails to persuade the jury.

One thing that makes our design process so unique during trial is that we review every page of transcript. While the legal team is at trial on Tuesday, we are reading what was said in court on Monday. Again, we are a much fresher, jury-esque pair of eyes, so if we read something that strikes us as helpful to our case… it’s likely the jury was affected by that Q&A as well. So we create slides of all the best testimony from every witness. This ensures that when the legal team turns its attention to the closing argument, 90% of the heavy lifting is out of the way. I love sleep and hate all-nighters, so our entire design process is built around… how do we get the lawyers 2-5 more hours of sleep the night before closing argument. 😊

Q: How do you think about the relationship between trial graphics and trial strategy?

James Haase:

They are inseparable. What are you going to say when the graphic is on the screen? And what does your audience need to understand by the time you move onto the next slide? These are the foundational questions our team asks to ensure the visuals support and simplify what is being said. The graphics should serve as a reference that adds credibility to what is being said. They should not distract.

The attorneys we work most closely with will tell you that having us in the room changes how they think about the case. Not because we know the law like they do, but because we don’t. The first time I hear their story, I am often overwhelmed. The difference between the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of a drug isn’t something easily digestible by the general public. Split / Strike investment strategies aren’t taught in grade school. So I process what they are saying, ask loads of questions, and then, once I understand their story, I think… “what could have been on the screen behind him/her that would have sped up my ability to understand?” And then I further adjust those graphics based on my understanding of the intended audience’s relevant knowledge coming into the presentation.

“Several clients have joked that we know their case as well as they do. That is the goal.”

The deeper we get into the facts and the theory, the more proactive we can be. We will flag something we noticed in a document, suggest a visual approach before we are asked, push back if we think a different framing would land better. We ask those questions because we care, and you always want a designer who is invested in your case.

Q: What does your team’s case immersion actually look like in practice?

James Haase:

We read the documents. Expert reports, motion to dismiss briefs, key depositions, 400-page medical history chronologies. We learn the facts. We ask questions, sometimes a lot of questions, because we have found that the more we understand the story, the better we can tell it visually.

We are also known for our speed. The obsession with speed of execution was born out of a hatred for those avoidable all-nighters. Our clients are often astounded by how fast we get their requests turned around. We obsess about hot keys and have even been labeled “the Mozarts of PowerPoint” or “Slide Sensei’s”. We love to edit in real time in a conference room or over a Zoom video share. The attorneys we work with actually find the process enjoyable and an incredibly efficient way to fine-tune the arguments. We are also known for lightning-fast response time. The legal world is not a nine-to-five environment, and we do not operate as if it is. We know our clients are up against tight deadlines, and if we respond immediately with a very chipper “we are on it!”, that gives peace of mind for all involved. That responsiveness is not incidental to what we do. It is central to it.

At the same time, speed without precision is not useful. So we have developed systems, trained behaviors, and a culture of asking clarifying questions before assuming.

“We have learned to adopt that same attention to detail we have seen from the attorneys we support.”

Catching a period that is incorrectly italicized, understanding each client’s citation preferences, using capitalization in slide titles. We hold ourselves accountable for catching these things and ensuring consistency throughout the presentations we work on. Those details matter enormously when you are standing up in a courtroom because sloppy mistakes kill credibility in the eyes of your audience.

Q: You work across a huge range of matters, touching nearly every practice area, industry, and forum. Does the approach change?

James Haase:

The core discipline is the same everywhere. Immerse yourself in the case. Understand the audience. Make the complex understandable. But the texture of the work varies depending on the material.

In a securities case, you are often trying to tell a story about what information was available when, and what it meant. The visual challenge is often about sequence and causation, helping a jury understand how a series of events unfolded in a particular way and why it is legally significant.

In a product liability case, you might be working with scientific or technical evidence that requires you to build a bridge between expert knowledge and lay understanding. In an international arbitration, you are often dealing with a sophisticated panel and a much denser evidentiary record. Each of those requires a different visual vocabulary.

What stays constant is the partnership model. We embed with the trial team. We learn the case. We are there when they need us.

Q: What does the client experience look like when things are working the way you want them to?

James Haase:

The attorneys stop thinking about the graphics. That is the goal. When it is working, they are focused entirely on the substance of the case because they trust completely that the visuals are handled. They can say "I need this" and know it will be there, done right, on time.

Some of the feedback that has stayed with me over the years captures this well. A partner at a top firm told us that both the jury and the judge specifically commented on how excellent our graphics were. A lead attorney on a multi-billion-dollar trial said we helped deliver victory and that the work was true art. A judge stopped an attorney in the hallway to compliment his opening slides, which we created. A court reporter said the ability and speed with which we displayed and highlighted documents were beyond compare. Numerous times, we have been hired by a new law firm that later informed us that they hired us because in a previous trial, they were up against a firm that utilized our team and felt the graphics were far superior.

Those moments are not accidents. They are the result of a team that is deeply invested in the outcome, not just the deliverable.

Q: What advice would you give trial lawyers who are thinking about bringing on a graphics and technology team?

James Haase:

Bring them in early. The biggest missed opportunity we see is when graphics support is engaged in the final weeks before a hearing or trial. The earlier we are in the process, the more embedded we become in the strategy, the more value we can add, and the better our work will be.

Also, look for a team that asks hard questions.

“A graphics team that just executes what you hand them will produce adequate work. A team that pushes back, asks what you are really trying to achieve, and brings a strategic perspective to the visual will produce something better than you imagined.”

And look for the culture. How do they communicate? How do they handle pressure? Do they make your life easier or harder? The best trial graphics teams feel, by the end of a matter, like part of your team. That is what we are always working toward. When attorneys tell us they will never try a case again without us, that is the relationship we are aiming for.

Conclusion

Great trial graphics do not announce themselves. They work quietly, removing the obstacles between a complex record and a clear decision. The discipline required to achieve that involves case immersion, relentless responsiveness, strategic rigor, and a genuine commitment to the trial team beside you.

For trial lawyers looking for graphics and technology support they can count on across every phase of a matter, that combination is exactly what DRC delivers.