What does Elon Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro say is the secret to winning? A very good question

The 40-year-old Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan partner, who also successfully represented Musk at trial in 2019 in a $190 million defamation suit brought by a British cave explorer, has made a name as a lawyer for the rich and famous.

The ingredients of a courtroom win are as varied as recipes for chili, and in the Musk trial, it’s not possible to know ultimately what swayed the jury after hearing him testify for 10 hours. Still, Spiro can clearly put the case in the win column.

Spiro declined an interview about his approach to litigation, but in a Continuing Legal Education course I stumbled across, he offered an hour-long lecture on one essential element: The art of asking questions.

As a journalist, I was intrigued. Asking questions is a big part of my job, too.

Reuters ponied up the $50 course fee and I hit play, hoping to glean secrets of the trade from the lawyer whose clients have also included rapper Jay-Z, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and actor Alec Baldwin. (Spiro is currently defending Baldwin against charges of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of the cinematographer on the set of the movie “Rust.” A representative for Baldwin did not respond to a request for comment.)

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The class wasn’t especially recent. A National Academy of Continuing Legal Education rep told me it was recorded in 2018. Still, Spiro, a 2008 Harvard Law School graduate, had by then cut his teeth at the Manhattan district attorney’s. He moved in 2013 to criminal defense-focused Brafman & Associates, then joined Quinn Emanuel as a partner in 2017. In kicking off the talk, he invoked an old expression: “The person who thinks about a case the hardest is likely to win.” But he also amended it. “It’s not just about thinking; it’s about asking questions.”

Spiro offered a range of tips and examples of how to question witnesses of all stripes – including your own client.

Some lawyers are reluctant to ask their clients difficult or confrontational questions, Spiro said, worrying that doing so could damage their rapport. “I don’t share that view.”.

Instead, he’s all about tough love.

If you ask your clients “very hard questions from the beginning, you might get fired occasionally, but you will ultimately gain their respect,” he said.

At the same time, he offered a way to tactfully ask a client exactly what happened. Instead of querying “What did you do?” a lawyer could ask, “What are they going to say that you did?”

The other key, Spiro said, is establishing “some sort of humanity and some relatability” for the client in the eyes of the jury.

In the Musk securities fraud trial, in which investors alleged that Musk misled them when he tweeted in 2018 that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private, establishing that relatability was a potentially tall order, given the Tesla CEO’s status as the world’s second-richest person.

But Spiro in questioning Musk on the stand humanised him in what struck me as a subtly strategic way.

“What was your childhood like?” Spiro asked Musk, who grew up in South Africa.

“Not good,” Musk responded softly.

Plaintiffs counsel Nicholas Porritt of Levi & Korsinsky, who did not respond to a request for comment, objected at trial that the question was irrelevant, but was overruled by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen.

After a long pause in which the entire courtroom seemed to hold its collective breath, Musk – who presumably knew in advance that Spiro would be asking the question – resumed.

“I don’t think a few sentences would describe it.”

That was it.

Musk did not respond to emails seeking comment.

The exchange struck me as highly effective. Rather than Musk going on about, say, being bullied in school — a revelation that depending on the delivery might make him seem self-pitying or grubbing for sympathy — the Q&A allowed him to convey simply that life for him was not always easy.

Spiro then asked Musk about his experience as a 17-year-old immigrant. “Why did you come to the U.S.?”

In a sentiment almost sure to have been well-received by the jury, Musk responded, “It’s where things are possible.”

In every trial, the final questions are for the jury: Guilty or not guilty? Liable or not liable?

Spiro, in discussing closing arguments during the online course, said that rather than telling jurors that it’s their duty to convict or reach a certain decision, it can be more effective to aim for the “Eureka effect” by using questions to poke holes in the other side’s case.

Asking jurors to consider things like “If this happened, why did it happen?” can be a way to lead them to the conclusion you’re after, Spiro said, allowing them to “reach the answer themselves.”

“If you do a good job of it,” he continued, “those questions will become doubts, and I submit it will help you win your case.”