If you're only preaching to the converted, you won't be winning.

Cindy Cohn - Privacy's Defender contains this nugget of wisdom: [...] it's important to try to read the other side's papers as if you wanted to agree with them. If you do that, and if the lawyers are worth their salt at all, their briefs should scare you. Only once you've put yourself in the position of a fair-minded judge or the judge's clerk can you marshal the right response to a fair-minded judge. If you're only preaching to the converted, you won't be winning.