News & Analysis as of

Mock Trials Juror Jury Instructions

Holland & Hart - Your Trial Message

When You Concede Liability, Make Sure You Concede With Benefits

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

Holland & Hart - Your Trial Message

Know Your Jurors’ Anger Buttons

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

Holland & Hart - Your Trial Message

Pre-instruct Your Jurors on Hindsight

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

Holland & Hart - Your Trial Message

Address the ‘My House, My Responsibility’ Analogy

There is a persistent belief among many mock jurors that I have seen in certain kinds of cases. The belief is that liability attaches automatically to possession, and jurors usually express it through the lens of home...more

Holland & Hart - Your Trial Message

Know that the Law Does Matter in Deliberations (But Not Necessarily Your Version of the Law)

In the real world, disputes are often settled by someone with more or better knowledge, or at least someone claiming to have more or better knowledge. The courtroom, however, is different. It is a setting that is designed to...more

Holland & Hart - Your Trial Message

For Better Comprehension, Let Jurors Read Along During Instructions

Whenever I am running a mock trial and playing the role of the judge, I read the instructions out loud to the mock jurors while they also read along using their own paper copies. I sometimes think that is overkill: If it were...more

6 Results
 / 
View per page
Page: of 1

"My best business intelligence, in one easy email…"

Your first step to building a free, personalized, morning email brief covering pertinent authors and topics on JD Supra:
*By using the service, you signify your acceptance of JD Supra's Privacy Policy.
- hide
- hide