November 12, 2019
News: ABA Journal’s Modern Law Library Features Dr. Frederick Discussing Voir Dire and Jury Selection
Dr. Frederick discusses the four major goals of voir dire and jury selection and offers a number of practical tips that will help attorneys be more effective in the voir dire and jury selection process in a recent podcast from ABA Journal’s Modern Law Library. Numerous tips are presented in several critical areas, including understanding the nonverbal communication of jurors (both visual and auditory cues), how to phrase questions to get the information you want, and how to conduct voir dire questioning in ways that maximizes juror participation, honesty, and candor, among other topics.
From Modern Law Library . . .
The jury selection process can be one of the most challenging aspects of jury trial, and it is often the least-known trial lawyer skill. During this important process, trial lawyers should focus on identifying potential jurors who harbor some bias or have beliefs that would make them less beneficial than others.
As director of the National Legal Research Group’s jury research services division, Jeffrey T. Frederick is an expert on jury selection strategies. His new book, Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection, Fourth Edition: Gain an Edge in Questioning and Selecting Your Jury, shares how to develop and ask the questions to uncover information. Filled with useful tips and sample juror questionnaires, Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection combines practical experience with social science to take the guesswork out of the courtroom.
In this new episode of the Modern Law Library podcast, Olivia Aguilar of ABA Publishing talks to Frederick about the significance of nonverbal cues during questioning, why open-ended questioning is the best way to secure necessary information, and how you can break the ice with a conversational tone.
Podcast listeners can purchase Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection, published by the ABA Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division, through the ABA web store. Listeners can take an extra 20% off at checkout with the code “VOIRDIRE” throughout November.
Check out this podcast at: http://www.abajournal.com/books/article/MLL-podcast-episode-110.
!!Spoiler alert: Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Gain an Edge in Questioning and Selecting Your Jury, Fourth Edition, will be featured in the ShopABA website’s Cyber Monday super sale where purchaser can receive a 40% discount. A reminder for this one-day discount will be sent once the official announcement is made.
Explore tips for conducting effective group voir dire from our Master Group Voir Dire Tips Series. Check out our introductory two-minute video, Tip 1, Tip 2, Tip 3, Tip 4, Tip 5, Tip 6, Tip 7, Tip 8, Tip 9, and Tip 10.
For more information on voir dire and jury selection, see Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Gain an Edge in Questioning and Selecting Your Jury, Fourth Edition (2018). Also, check out my companion book on supplemental juror questionnaires, Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Supplemental Juror Questionnaires (2018).
Available podcasts:
The November 6, 2019, podcast from the ABA Journal’s Modern Law Library series features a discussion of voir dire and jury selection with Dr. Frederick in which he addresses tips for group voir dire, nonverbal communication in jury selection, and jurors and the internet, among other topics. Check out this 40-minute podcast on the ABA Journal’s website: http://www.abajournal.com/books/article/MLL-podcast-episode-110.
On January 25, 2019, Dr. Frederick presented a CLE program entitled “Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection” at the ABA Midyear Meeting at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Legal Talk Network conducted a short, 10-minute interview in conjunction with this program. You can listen to this podcast at: https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/special-reports/2019/01/aba-midyear-meeting-2019-mastering-voir-dire-and-jury-selection/.
Dr. Frederick presented a 60-minute program based on his book, Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Gain an Edge in Questioning and Selecting Your Jury, for the ABA Solo Small Firm and General Practice Division’s November 21, 2018 session of Hot Off the Press telephone conference/podcast. Check it out at the Hot Off the Press podcast library at: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/gpsolo/podcasts/2018-podcast-library/
