TRIAL LAWYER GERRY SPENCE

By GERRY SPENCE

My mother brought me up to believe it is sinful to be lazy. One summer, when I was 10, I found myself having to devise a plan that would spare me from painting the picket fence around our Sheridan, Wyo., home. I found an answer that has stood me in good stead in my later life.

"How do you sell flowers?" I asked my mother. She suggested I could call all the hotels and cafes in town. Some said no; others just hung up. "That isn't the way you do it," my mother advised. "You have to paint them a picture. They have to actually see the sweet peas and smell them. Then they'll buy them."

Finally I perfected my pitch: "This is Gerry Spence. Would you like some nice, sweet-smelling, fresh, beautiful sweet peas that are all kinds of colors and will make your customers very happy and your restaurant very pretty, and only cost two bouquets for a quarter?"

I ran out of breath, but I learned they couldn't say no as long as I was talking! I sometimes feel that way when I'm pleading a case to a jury.