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When the potential exposure or gain or the impact of an adverse jury verdict is great, juror surveys become a valuable tool that you can use to achieve success at trial.
Juror surveys are opinion polls we conduct with people from the trial jurisdiction who are like the jurors you will face at trial. These surveys uncover the jurors’ values and their opinions on important issues. In addition, these surveys discover how jurors view the litigation at issue and their perceptions of the parties. With juror surveys, a picture develops showing the jurors’ reactions to your case along with insights into which jurors are relatively good or bad.
Juror surveys will help you:
Determine who are favorable
and unfavorable jurors. By collecting in-depth information, we develop profiles that show what types of jurors
are desirable and whom you should avoid. Our juror profiles have predicted the desirability of jurors with accuracy rates
reaching 85% and greater.
Assess potential verdicts.
Juror surveys help you uncover verdict preferences of jurors by having them consider a brief description of the case,
in either an actual or hypothetical form. The resulting information provides clues as to the jurors’ initial reactions
to the case. By exploring with jurors various issues and potential “facts” that may arise at trial, we can help
you anticipate pitfalls and advantages available in the case.
Uncover how jurors view the
parties. For those cases where the public recognizes one or more of the parties, the jurors’ image of the
parties serves as the context from which they view the actions of the parties. Juror surveys assess these images and allow
you to capitalize on a positive image or defuse a negative one.
Develop winning themes.
Themes are important to persuasion at trial. Themes help jurors filter the evidence and arguments presented. Choosing
the right theme fosters persuasion, while the wrong theme will impede jurors seeing the case from your perspective.
Juror surveys help you identify good themes which will strike a responsive chord with the jurors' values and opinions.
Increase the usefulness
of voir dire questions. In all jurisdictions, and particularly in restrictive voir dire environments, it is
important to understand which questions are useful and which are not. Why waste the limited voir dire resources available?
Juror surveys offer valuable assistance in developing voir dire questions that get to the heart of what you need to know.
These surveys point out which opinions or aspects of the jurors’ backgrounds are important, thus
providing greater focus to your voir dire questioning.
Determine differences
between trial jurisdictions. When considering multi-jurisdictional litigation or change of venue issues,
surveys conducted in several jurisdictions can demonstrate important differences between trial locations. This
information is crucial when a choice of trial jurisdictions exists or when contesting the present trial jurisdiction.
For more information on juror surveys, see our Jury Research Update issue: Using Juror Surveys in Trial Preparation.
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Critical questions always arise when preparing for jury trials. Questions such as: What are the strengths and weaknesses of my case? How persuasive are various arguments? Have I chosen the right themes? What can be done to improve my presentations? Overall, how do jurors view my case?
Juror small group studies can supply the answers. With our focus groups and trial simulations, we can pretest your case using juror-qualified residents of the trial jurisdiction. Their feedback will let you know how the jurors will view your case before the trial begins--when you can make course corrections.
Our focus group studies bring together “jurors” to discuss your case. These discussions help you:
Uncover what questions are on their minds.
Discussions help you anticipate the often unspoken questions hidden within every juror’s mind.
Test arguments. Presentation of possible
arguments lets jurors tell you what they think so you know which arguments are most persuasive.
Improve opening statements. Pretesting
your opening statement allows jurors to advise you of what changes are needed to help the trial jurors see the case from your
perspective. You can be confident that you will start you off on the right foot.
Our trial simulations get further into the minds of jurors. These “mock” trials allow our jurors to provide more in-depth feedback on the case. Such feedback helps you:
Determine strengths and weaknesses of the case.
Jurors can wrestle with the major issues and arguments in your case. Their feedback will reveal what the actual jurors will
see as the real strengths and weaknesses on your case.
Assess your case. While research
studies cannot predict individual jury verdicts in litigation, they provide valuable information on how jurors view your case. This
knowledge gives you a substantial advantage in settlement negotiations and trial preparation.
Evaluate witnesses. You can
assess probable reactions to your witnesses by making them part of your trial simulation. Jurors can evaluate the credibility of actual
witnesses. They can even determine the plausibility of the testimony even where it is necessary to use actors.
Improve your presentation. Jurors
can tell you what it would take to render a verdict for or against your client so that so that your presentation can be tailored
accordingly.
For more information on small group studies, see our article on mock jury trials, Searching for Rocks in the Channel: Pretesting Your Case Before Trial.
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We help you focus on how witnesses communicate their testimony through what they say and how they say it will improve the overall impact of your witnesses. Our assistance helps your witnesses prepare for a more effective presentation. For further information on witness preparation, see our Jury Research Update issue, Making Better Witnesses--The LOFT Model.
By capitalizing on how jurors process information when developing physical evidence, we can help you present evidence in the most persuasive manner. For further information on nontestimonial evidence, see our Jury Research Update issue, Persuasion at Trial: Nontestimonial Evidence.
By applying principles of persuasion in our review and critique of your opening statements and closing arguments, we can help you increase their effectiveness at trial. For further information on witness preparation, see our Jury Research Update issues:
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We pay careful attention to what questions you should ask and how the questions are phrased so that you can maximize the value of voir dire. See one of our sample issues of Jury Research Update for more information.
We design juror questionnaires to provide information on potential jurors outside of voir dire that help you get the most out of your questions. See our sample issue of Jury Research Update entitled Getting the Most Out of Jury Questionnaires for more information.
We help you evaluate jurors' opinions, as reflected in what they say and how they say it, and the likely role jurors will play on the jury to increase your effectiveness in exercising your peremptory challenges and in pursuing challenges for cause. See one of our sample issues of Jury Research Update for more information.
Also, for further information on jury selection, see Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Gaining an Edge in Questioning and Selecting a Jury and The Psychology of the American Jury.
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Having our experts observe the jurors during the trial enables you to see how the jurors are reacting to the evidence and arguments and what can be done to improve the case as it progresses.
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When allowed in the trial jurisdiction, our post-trial interviewing services allow you to see how jurors arrived at their decision and what worked and what did not work at trial.
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