Jury Research Services Books

For those interested in jury selection and jury trials, two books are a must for your collection:

Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Gain an Edge in Questioning and Selecting a Jury (ABA Press, 2005)

The Psychology of the American Jury (The Michie Company, 1987)

NEW EDITION Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection Gain an Edge in Questioning and Selecting Your Jury Second Edition by Jeffrey T. Frederick, Ph.D. Director, Jury Research Services National Legal Research Group, Inc.

Improve your effectiveness and gain an advantage in jury selection.

This new and expanded edition by one of the nation’s most experienced trial consultants goes beyond other books on jury selection and focuses on the skills needed to conduct effective voir dire and jury selection, ultimately improving your chances of a favorable verdict at trial.  This valuable guide will help you understand effective voir dire and jury selection strategies and adapt them to the unique circumstances you face in your trial jurisdiction.  This new edition updates and expands discussions of developing voir dire questions, good questioning techniques and skills, reading jurors' nonverbial behavior, successfully overcoming common problems encountered during voir dire, the use of juror questionnaires, and overall jury selection strategies.  The appendices containing samples of important voir dire questions in criminal and civil cases are expanded.  Also new is a user-friendly, completely searchable (or fully searchable) CD-Rom containing more than 70 juror questionnaires from criminal and civil trials. These questionnaires come from such criminal trials as Colorado v. Kobe Bryant, California v. Scott Peterson, Connecticut v. Michael Skakel, United States v. Timothy McVeigh, and United States v. Arthur Andersen, among others, and from civil trials including In re Exxon Valdez, In re Visa Check/Mastermoney Antitrust Litigation, International Paper Co. v. Affiliate FM Insurance Cos., and Mildred Valentine v. Dow Corning Corporation et al., among others.  Each juror questionnaire on the CD-Rom is linked to the table of contents for easy reference and accessibility.

"Juries are the foundation of our system of justice and the cornerstone of our democracy. Establishing principles for jury trials is the main focus of my term as ABA President. Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection is filled with practical and cogent advice for questioning and selecting jurors, preparing witnesses, and generally creating a climate in which just verdicts can be rendered."

Robert J. Grey, Jr.
President
American Bar Association

From Litigators and Trial Lawyers

"Frederick's Mastering Voir Dire will become a must for any serious trial lawyer. Nothing left to chance in this complete guide to jury selection. By far one of the best I've read."

Morris Dees, Esquire
Chief Trial Counsel
Southern Poverty Law Center

"This is the best book I have read on what may be the most critical part of every jury trial--voir dire. The book is well-organized and easy to read. It is also filled with practical advice and real world examples of the everyday problems inherent in jury selection. It even has solutions. This book should be read and reread by veteran trial lawyers as well as newcomers just learning to try jury cases."

James W. Quinn, Esquire
Weil, Gotshal & Manges

"Lawyers are scared of voir dire because they haven't done it. Judges are scared of voir dire by lawyers because they haven't seen it. This book should solve both problems. Jeffrey Frederick, with decades of jury experience, shows lawyers how to voir dire a jury without wasting time, making the jurors mad, or irritating the judge."

John W. Keker, Esquire
Keker & Van Nest

"A must read for anyone who wants to 'Gain an Edge' in the crap shoot which is jury selection. Especially helpful is the Chapter dealing with Juror Questionnaires. The answers you get are only as good as the 'way you phase the question.' Great examples and useful check lists."

C. Barry Montgomery, Esquire
Williams Montgomery & John Ltd.

From Law Professors

"This is a must book for lawyers who understand that a case can be won or lost during jury selection. Dr. Frederick explains how lawyers who have the opportunity to voir dire jurors can accomplish a number of goals rather than using voir dire simply as aid in exercising peremptory challenges. He offers valuable insights into preparation for and execution of an effective voir dire. Dr. Frederick also offers important tips for understanding jurors' nonverbal communication, which is especially important for lawyers who have no opportunity to question jurors. Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection reflects Dr. Frederick's broad experience in both state and federal courts and in a wide array of civil and criminal cases. There can be no doubt that his knowledge and experience qualify him as a genuine expert in jury selection and persuasion."

Stephen A. Saltzburg
Wallace and Beverley Woodbury University Professor
George Washington University Law School

"The first edition of Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection established Dr. Jeffrey Frederick as America's premier jury selection expert. Now, he's kicked the field up several notches with an outstanding and completely updated new edition. Frederick gives the soundest advice on the subject that a practicing lawyer can buy at any price. Legally astute, clinically adept, and scientifically rock-solid, this lucidly written book will continue and enhance its predecessor's reputation as the 'Voir Dire Bible' for a new generation of attorneys who want to win cases."

John Monahan, Ph.D.
Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation Professor of Law
University of Virginia School of Law

From Trial Consultants

"A master teacher lays it all out in this revised, updated edition of this groundbreaking text. Dr. Jeff Frederick's inclusion of a wide array of juror questionnaires in an easily accessible CD will be immensely helpful to all lawyers searching for a way to gather meaningful information from jurors. Meanwhile, Dr. Frederick has expanded and deepened his expert guidance in this edition. We will all profit from owning this new edition."

Andrew M. Sheldon, J. D, Ph. D.
Past President, American Society of Trial Consultants
Sheldon Associates

"Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection is extraordinarily useful and usable. It covers the whole range you need to know about jury selection--including much you probably don't know you need to know. Aptly titled Mastering ..., it's a necessary primer for novices and simultaneously an advanced manual for the most experienced. Frederick draws on a vast range of in-depth research, strategic guidance, and his decades of experience as one of the nation's most respected trial consultants. The result will save you decades of learning by trial and painful error. I'm not sure it's good business sense for me to say a competitor of mine has written so good a book, but alas, he has."

David A. Ball, Ph.D.
President
JuryWatch, Inc., and author of David Ball on Damages

"Dr. Frederick's book, Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Gain an Edge in Questioning and Selecting Your Jury, Second Edition, is an essential reference book that should be in the library of every litigator and jury consultant. This book succinctly summarizes the social psychological research relevant to understanding how and why jurors make the decisions they do and provides an easy to use model for the design of voir dire questions and the conduct of a successful voir dire examination that will maximize any attorney's ability to select an optimum jury in any criminal and civil case, regardless of prior experience or number of jury trials.

"Both experienced and novice litigators can benefit from the chapter on Supplemental Juror Questionnaires (SJQ). The compendium of Supplemental Juror Questionnaires (provided on CD-Rom) alone is worth the price of the book. Juror questionnaires are now widely accepted for use in high profile cases and those involving sensitive or complex case issues. The chapter on juror questionnaires provides all the information necessary for an attorney, paralegal or jury consultant to design a questionnaire for use in any jurisdiction while the compendium of questionnaires provided on CD-Rom provides for reference and citation examples of questionnaires that have been accepted and used by courts in a variety of kinds of cases in Federal and state cases throughout the U.S.

"I would strongly recommend this book to any litigator or jury consultant."

Margorie Fargo, MA
President
Jury Services of the Capital Area

Mastering Voir Dire is available for $99.95 Regular Price, $89.95 ABA General Practice Section Member Price. To order the new, Second Edition, click here to go to ABA Press Store, or call ABA Press at 1-800-285-2221.

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The Psychology of the American Jury by Jeffrey T. Frederick, Ph.D.

Learn the techniques the experts use—and why they use them.

The Psychology of the American Jury discusses the tough issues you face in jury trials and offers practical solutions. Among the issues discussed are the use of surveys in jury selection, in-court approaches to jury selection, nonverbal behavior of jurors, voir dire procedures, persuasion in the courtroom, focus groups, trial simulations, and shadow juries.

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Pretrial Problems and the Social Sciences
Chapter 3: Pretrial Techniques in Jury Selection
Chapter 4: In-Court Approaches to Jury Selection
Chapter 5: Voir Dire
Chapter 6: Persuasion at Trial
Chapter 7: A General Review of Jury Research and Theory
Chapter 8: Social Science Techniques for Trial Practice Questions
Chapter 9: Conclusions

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