A celebrity defense lawyer who garners quantity face-time during publicity-soaked trials, Spence, as attentive O. J.-ers know, is the aw-shucks Wyomingite who hates neckties, prosecutors, bankers, and pretense in general. He also hates losing an argument, which he has rarely done in a courtroom. Here, Spence distills his bar experience into the secrets of his success and translates that into the plain language of the real world of jobs, romance, and child rearing. Spence exhorts readers to believe that the art of arguing is the art of living, and aversion to argumentativeness only hinders people from getting what they want. So throughout this disputation, Spence anticipates objections (which he dubs the "Lock" ) and supplies refutations (dubbed the "Key" ). Spence's overall keys to winning are to contend without being contentious, to persuade instead of overwhelming "the Other," and to always be credible.