Work This Way: A Labor & Employment Law Podcast | Episode 8: The Benefits of a Mock Jury with Dr. Jo Ellen Livingston
Podcast - Bringing Mindfulness and Best Practices to Trial Law
Practice Makes Perfect: Mock Oral Arguments and Effective Oral Advocacy
Akin to a buddy-cop movie—there are some pairings that are stronger together. For trial attorneys, one such pairing is trial themes and mock trials. A trial theme, also known as a case theme, is critical to simplifying a...more
When a case proceeds to trial, a legal team may face a critical decision about whether to have it adjudicated by a jury of peers or a single judge. Both options can offer benefits depending on the merits and subject matter...more
Hot seat operator, trial technician, trial presentation specialist, courtroom presentation specialist—a rose by any other name is just as critical to helping you gain a winning edge. Today’s trials, whether bench or jury...more
Case preparation can take months of research, depositions, and strategic planning—all for that one high-pressure moment in court. Even learning how to write a good opening statement can take a considerable amount of time and...more
Sometimes in civil cases, the plaintiff’s liability claim is opportunistic, wishful, or factually weak. Other times, it is real. Someone didn’t do their job, a danger was missed, or — in that Olympic champion of passive-voice...more
Law students spend years training to evaluate details and learn procedures that don’t always fall under the umbrella of common sense to laypersons. The most important issues that seem obvious to attorneys can be ignored by...more
As civil jury trials continue to become more scarce, the need to reasonably assess what result a jury would return in trial becomes even more important. Even when the trial does not happen — especially when it does not happen...more
Your typical mock trial might involve three juries, with a total of 30 or so mock jurors. The typical public opinion poll run by an organization like Gallup, however, can involve more like 1000 participants. So what is the...more
This week, hosts Tina and Jennie welcome Dr. Jo Ellen Livingston, co-founder of Livingston & Shepherd Trial Consulting, where she advises clients on all aspects of the trial process, including in the areas of labor and...more
The adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” carries a special meaning in litigation. It can be one of those classic “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations: After an injury or other tortious event, if you fix...more
In this episode of his "The Trial Lawyer's Handbook" podcast series, litigation attorney Dan Small is joined by intellectual property and litigation attorney Joshua Krumholz to discuss the ins and outs of trial law. With...more
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: It is a jury’s first task: Pick a foreperson, someone who will lead the discussion, help the group walk through the evidence, and work their way to a decision. Who gets picked? The person who is...more
One of the first questions potential clients want to know when they call us is: How much does a mock trial cost? Considering that costs and expenses are a significant factor to any attorney or client’s budget, this question...more
As most litigators know, jurors’ attitudes and opinions often influence how they filter the facts of a case. It is through these lenses that jurors develop their perceptions of the parties and their corresponding motives,...more
IMS Strategy Consultant Dr. Clint Townson discusses the benefits of early case theme development and the factors leading jurors to award massive damages....more
When you test a product to assess its performance and safety, of course you have very substantive reasons for doing that: You are aiming to check effectiveness, prevent harm, and protect the brand. When a trial occurs,...more
For those trained in the sciences, relying on illustrations or examples is not considered nearly as good as relying on data. If they call something “anecdotal,” then there is a good chance that the word “merely….” precedes...more
The instructions for jurors are clear: They are to take an issue that has no effect on them, listen dispassionately to the evidence and arguments, apply the facts to the law, and make a decision. That is the model, but in...more
Jurors are often put in the position of assessing the probability or risk of something at the time a decision was made, before the consequences can be known. “How likely is it that a given result will be the outcome from a...more
The core of most determinations of negligence is the question, “What would a reasonable person have done?” And, at least in theory, this “reasonable person” isn’t supposed to be an actual person whose deeds are recorded in...more
Recently, three of the most high-profile current defendants did what conventional wisdom says they shouldn’t do; They took the stand in their own defense. Kyle Rittenhouse, on trial for killings at a Kenosha, Wisconsin...more
A number of years ago, innovators searching for ways to take some of the pain, delay, and difficulty out of the jury trial hit upon the idea to boil it down, rein in the discovery, simplify the rules of evidence, and try it...more
From the time we were kids, most of us swiftly learned what was likely to get us punished: a spanking or — for more recent generations — a time out. Usually, that was brought out by something we did, or by the situation we...more
A ‘Golden Rule’ argument is one that encourages jurors to put themselves in a party’s shoes and think about what they would or wouldn’t have done. It leads to an objection because it encourages the juror to embrace a personal...more
In any challenging communication situation, it is best to combine the visual with the verbal. This is good practice because pictures tend to make things more “truthy,” in the sense that claims that are accompanied by relevant...more