Conventional thought is that the best CLE presenters are judges, because judges are the people that advocates are trying to persuade. An often-cited authority for this thought is a 1940 essay by John W. Davis, making an analogy between persuasion and fishing:
[A] discourse on the argument of an appeal would come with superior force from a judge who is in his judicial person the target and the trier of the argument .... [S]uppose fishes had the gift of speech, who would listen to a fisherman's weary discourse on fly-casting, the shape and color of the fly, the size of the tackle, the length of the line, the merit of different rod makers and all the other tiresome stuff that fishermen talk about, if the fish himself could be induced to give his view on the most effective methods of approach. For after all it is the fish that the angler is after and all his recondite learning is but the hopeful means to that end.
—John W. Davis, “The Argument of an Appeal" (1940), in Classic Essays on Legal Advocacy 212, 212 (George Rossman ed., 2010); and in 3 J. of App. Prac. & Process 745, 745 (Fall 2001).
Certainly judges’ insights are valuable. I always enjoy their presentations at CLE events, and I always learn something from them. A few times, I’ve been on CLE panels with judges and thorougly enjoyed working with them. My list of recommended books on this blog’s home page includes four by judges.
Having said that, I think there’s a built-in limit to what we can learn from the people we want to persuade. The limit is this: Unless those people are extremely self-aware, they will know, and therefore be able to talk about, only what works on a conscious level. They probably won’t know what persuades them on a subconscious level. And the stuff that works on a subconscious level is highly effective.
So by all means, listen to judges at CLE events. Read their books on effective advocacy. Practice what they teach. It will likely improve your advoccy.
But don’t stop there. Learn what works subconsciously to persuade people (including judges). Educate yourself on ancient rhetoric (it still works), cognitive psychology, and any other discipline telling us how people think and make decisions.
Remember that best lure is the one that the fish doesn’t recognize as a lure.