The lawyers in the Casey Anthony trial were an interesting cast of characters. My brother Andy is an attorney and a pretty good one, by other's accounts, not his. I haven't had the chance to depose him, but I wonder what he thought about the closing arguments posed by the attorneys in the case.

As a professional speaker, I enjoy watching television to study the techniques of everyone from TV ministers to lawyers to television characters that play them.

I've been a member of Toastmasters for over three and one-half decades and I rarely miss a meeting, unless I'm working on the platform myself. No, I'm not a slow learner, just a constant learner.

I leave my office at 6:45 a.m. every Friday morning to get to my Toastmasters Club. It's a perfect way to end my week and I always learn something new from my fellow speakers.

Mind you, I'm not a passive listener. In fact, as the Club Vice President in charge of Public Relations, I post a weekly newsletter blog which analyzes each speaker, including those doing formal presentations, all Table Topic participants, the speech evaluators, the joke master, the ah-counter and all other participants in the meeting. I post them immediately on our web site minutes after the meeting is concluded at http://www.toastmasters1841.org. You can actually visit the web site to see recent postings.

Probably the best course I ever took in high school, beside Latin (which taught me more about the English language than any other course) was typing. I took typing along with two of my buddies, Mike Corley and Ike Cockfield, mainly because it was a "target rich" environment. There were three guys and about 30 girls in the class. You do the math.

While that was my initial motive for taking typing, the by-product of the course is something I use every single day of my life. The moment it was available for my sons, I required that all three take it. No debate.

One of the neat things about learning the keyboard is that you don't need to hunt and peck. I can watch the speakers and type away. Thanks to spell check, I don't have to sweat the misspelled words. I do a quick edit and post the blog within minutes of the meeting's close. It's in the club blog and the member's e-mail before they even get back to their offices and homes.

As I watch the prosecutor and the defense attorney on television, I see many things they could all learn from Toastmasters. For instance, defense attorney Jose Baez loves the "praying hands" gesture. To his credit, he moves around a bit which allowed him to mix it up.

And then there was the prosecutor, Jeff Ashton, who looked a bit like an unmade waterbed. His hair was always out of place and his coat was never buttoned like Mr. Baez. He just looked sloppy.

He occasionally wore weird ties. One had something to do with getting Dwight Howard not to leave Orlando for another NBA team. Why in the world would you try to send a defendant to her death with a "Keep Dwight” tie on? It added nothing to his case. Why take this unnecessary risk? Because your son has some kind of a website where he's hustling "Keep Dwight" stuff? What if a juror, in fact, would like to see Dwight leave? Why take the chance?

In the speaking business, we have a saying: "If it doesn't add to your speech, then do not add it to your speech." It could very easily take away from your presentation. When meeting planners are choosing speakers for their next event, they rarely select a speaker; rather, they eliminate the ones they don't want.

I think juries in largely circumstantial cases would use the same kind of logic. Are they looking for the truth, or simply asking: "Who is lying the least?" Probably the latter explains their mindset best.

Make no mistake, perception is reality and people do buy the book by the cover. Could the results of this trial have been different if the attorneys had been better speakers? The first rule of public speaking: stand up, speak up and shut up. Never overreach. If you ask for too much, you may end up receiving too little. I suspect that's what happened here.