If we rewind to about two years ago, as we were getting confirmations of a novel virus in China, few of us at the time would have had the imagination to envision the scope of disruption and devastation that would follow in...more
When you’re dealing with testimony, argument, or any other form of communication, it is easy to assume that you’re getting less when it is distanced. In a remote conference or any Zoom-like experience, it seems that the...more
Even as things are fitfully returning to a post-pandemic normal (perhaps against the current COVID Omicron variant-driven medical advice) one feature of the last 21 months seems to be lingering: the Zoom conference. In legal...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
Every jury selection involves a variety of issues relating to how potential jurors could feel about the specific case. But there is one issue that is relevant in every current jury selection for an in-person trial: What is...more
The American civil jury trial was on life support before the pandemic. For a generation at least, the trend has been toward a reduced scope for a jury’s decision, an expansion in the power of judges to resolve things in...more
With mounting frustration over the duration and human cost of the Coronavirus pandemic, along with the sluggish pace of vaccinations in many parts of the country, President Joe Biden, this past week, threw down the gauntlet...more
We’ve now had quite some time to settle into the coronavirus and its social restrictions. If you are like me, you might have even developed a twitch every time you hear the phrase “New normal.” We know that we are living in...more
Sometimes, in the task of communicating technical or scientific information to the public, something can be lost in the translation. Of course, that is often a challenge for expert witnesses in courtroom settings, but...more
It is obvious that we live in a time of extraordinary polarization, and we are in the midst of an election that is bringing that schism into even starker contrast. Red and blue Americans differ in our demographics, our...more
So Donald Trump now has the coronavirus. As of press time for this blog post, he is fighting the illness from the Presidential Suite at Walter Reed Medical Center. It is news that struck many as both surprising and...more
For trial lawyers, there is a great deal of lore on the kinds of jurors you would want for particular cases. While some attorneys will focus on traits like gender, age, or occupation, the smarter course, in my view, is to...more
There’s something that judges will often tell potential jurors at the start of the voir dire process: “We know jury duty is an inconvenience, but it is a necessary duty.” But what if it is more than an inconvenience? What if...more
Across the country, restaurants are changing what it means to be a restaurant, movie theaters are changing what it means to be a movie theater, and conferences are changing what it means to be a conference. So maybe it’s...more
9/16/2020
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Witness Statements
Recently, I heard about an in-person mock trial during the pandemic conducted by another consultant outside our group. At the beginning of the day, this consultant said, the jurors and the attorneys attending were all pretty...more
We are, of course, still in the midst of the pandemic, and if the question is, “How are people feeling about that?” there is not just one answer. There isn’t even a good answer that can be accurately expressed as an average....more
As our court system looks at the possibilities for trials under the current pandemic conditions, it seems like we face a choice: Restart trials in person, with distance, disinfectants, masks, and barriers; or move the process...more
This blog is dedicated to the proposition that those like me, who want to learn all they can about effective communication and persuasion, can take lessons from almost everything. Even the worst social situations can improve...more
In courtrooms making tentative steps toward reopening to in-person jury trials, some of the parties have called for increased use of juror questionnaires, ideally filled out ahead of time either by mail or online. This makes...more
As the coronavirus pandemic drags on and intensifies, courts around the country are moving toward reopening in fits and starts, with distancing, temperature checks, masks, and hand sanitizer. Some courts are also exploring...more
As a sign of just how serious the coronavirus pandemic is getting, the President has finally appeared in public with a mask. The precaution of wearing a face mask is still highly politicized, but it is slowly catching on. In...more
As the number of our posts on attitude changes in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic reaches double digits, astute readers will note that there are some apparent inconsistencies emerging in the reports. For example, the...more
President Trump told the Wall Street Journal last week that Americans currently wearing face masks over their mouths and noses might be doing so, not so much to stop the spread of the virus, but to “signal disapproval” of him...more
As I write this, a crowd of Trump supporters is entering the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to attend the President’s first mid-pandemic rally. In other parts of the country, and at opposite ends of the political spectrum,...more
Take a moment and visualize what your next in-person jury trial might look like. The jurors arrive at the courthouse and have their temperature checked while being asked whether they or anyone in their household have been...more