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
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
All lawsuits start with the potential to someday reach the view of a jury. Yet, the jury’s perspective is often forgotten by attorneys preoccupied with discovery, motion practice, the preparation of witnesses, and the hiring...more
How many times have you heard that a jury — especially a jury that is deliberating about damages in a civil case — is about as predictable as the lottery? The broad perception is that as jurors arrive at figures in the...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
For decades, litigators have relied on focus groups. While this approach can help identify issues for further exploration, attorneys often use focus groups to shape trial strategy or even predict outcomes. But focus groups...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
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
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
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
“We are not supposed to talk about this.” If you’re observing a mock trial, that is often something you hear from one of the mock jurors…just as they begin to talk about it: insurance coverage and attorneys’ fees. Strictly...more
In the case of any argument or persuasive appeal you are making, you can ask the question, “Who are you aiming at?” In a jury trial, your answer might be, “The jury, of course.” But who on that jury are you aiming at in...more
The damages category of “pain and suffering” is notoriously uncertain, at least in jurors’ estimation. The act of quantifying and monetizing a plaintiff’s subjective experience associated with a loss or an injury can be a...more
We all know by now there were errors in the pre-election polls. While Joe Biden still scored a decisive win, there wasn’t the dramatic margin that many polls predicted. Part of the problem is that the task of sampling the...more
In the past couple of months, I have heard of just a couple of in-person mock trials that have gone forward. They’ve done so with temperature checks, massive social distancing, sometimes masked mock jurors, and generally...more
Watching a mock jury deliberate about damages can give you the idea that when it comes to numbers, jurors can be a little random. For example, a jury might see a big difference between $500,000 and $1 million in one moment,...more
The chance to interview a juror is a precious opportunity. Whether it is a mock juror interviewed in the course of a focus group or mock trial, or an actual juror interviewed after they are dismissed at the end of trial, an...more
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
Juror 1: “The next category is ‘pain and suffering.’ How are we supposed to get to get that number?” Juror 2: “It is just whatever we want…there’s no guidance for it.“ Juror 1: “How are we supposed to do that? Put a...more
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
Imagine that you receive a phone call and the voice on the line offers participation in a research project, and also offers pay. Then, the caller walks you through a series of questions to determine your eligibility, and it...more
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