Court reporters offer an invaluable service to lawyers who often rely on the depositions they produce to build their case. Once you have partnered with a court reporter, there are many ways you can assist them to make the process accurate and efficient for everyone involved.
You use technology on a daily basis, whether to email and call clients or to read the latest news updates online. So if you aren’t using it in the courtroom, you’re missing out on many benefits. Trial technology can serve as a great asset to your case if used appropriately. If you’re interested in having a bigger impact on your audience in a shorter amount of time, here is how trial technology can help.
Congratulations to our very own Lee Diamondstein, Vice President of Strategic Accounts at Magna Legal Services, for his nomination for the Subcommittee Chair of the ABA Mass Torts Subcommittee on Experts and Evidence. In this role, Lee will be involved with participating in monthly committee calls, contributing to newsletter and website articles, supporting programming activities, and assisting in the recruitment of new members.
These days, most legal professionals use some form of technology in the courtroom. But if you haven’t yet used trial graphics to support your legal arguments, you’re missing out on the many benefits that come with presenting images and videos at trial. If you have spent countless hours researching for your case (which is just one of the many roles of a criminal defense attorney) then you want your findings and evidence to be presented in the best possible way. This means that when you display all the things you’ve found in the research, the jury will take the evidence on board much easier than if you were to present it in any other way. If you are a trial lawyer or any other legal professional that is interested in bolstering your cases with the use of technology, take a look at what trial graphics are and how you can start using them in the courtroom.
Research is a major part of any lawsuit, as having accurate facts on your side can make or break your case. So it stands to reason that the more information you can find out about a person, the better. When you consider that the vast majority of U.S. adults have a social media account — with 79 percent of internet users being on Facebook alone — it makes sense to look online for information you might not already have. If you don’t have the time or expertise to do this yourself, you can hire a company to perform social media surveillance for you. Here’s how this process works and ways it can benefit you.
Law firms spend hours doing research long before the average trial or deposition, but one detail that is often missed is witness preparation, an essential element of depositions and trials. After all, the impression a witness makes on the jurors is important, as it can affect their final decision on the case. This is not a good thing when the impression the jurors have is negative. Most witnesses have little or no experience testifying and training. Fortunately, witness preparation is available. This type of training strives to make sure witnesses are properly prepared for trial and deposition testimony. Here’s what you need to know about the importance of witness preparation and how Magna Legal Services can help with it.
A major aspect of preparing witnesses is ensuring they feel ready to testify. At Magna Legal Services, consultants understand the common challenges that witnesses typically deal with before and during the testimony. The goal is to help them overcome these issues by teaching them how to avoid behaviors that may give jurors a negative impression so they feel comfortable and confident as they testify during a case.
This starts with making sure they fully understand the purpose of their testimony, including the context and themes surrounding it. The consultants at Magna Legal Services offer tools and tips to help them answer the cross-examination questions they’ll hear in court. They can also use videotape feedback to show witnesses how to become more effective at getting their message across. This witness preparation training can put them at ease while improving jury perception.
One of the factors that can have a big impact on the outcome of the trial is jury perception, and this can be influenced in various ways. For example, many jurors focus on the perceived motive of the witness. If they believe the motive for testifying is to simply get the truth out, they’ll look favorably on the witness. However, if they think there’s an ulterior motive, the testimony may actually hurt the case because the jurors have a negative perception of the witness involved. Magna Legal Services can work with witnesses to make sure they come across as credible and confident in their testimony.
Since Magna’s consultants are experts at leveraging jury perceptions, they’re committed to working with witnesses to improve the odds of the jurors seeing them in a positive light. Magna Legal Services has done numerous studies and focus groups to determine which factors can improve jury perception of witnesses, and the consultants know how to train them to ensure they show those positive traits. They’re happy to work with witnesses to correct their behaviors when necessary before the trial or deposition.
In general, few people are comfortable getting up in front of people and talking, especially when they have to explain what they saw or heard during a crime. This can be nerve-wracking for anyone, especially those who grasp how much their testimony matters to the case. This is why Magna Legal Services spends so much time and effort preparing witnesses for testimony.
Magna’s consultants can provide witnesses with the tools they need to effectively answer the often aggressive cross-examination questions. They work with witnesses to reduce negative behaviors they might not even know they have, such as talking too fast, mumbling, staring down at the floor, grimacing, shifting their eyes and more. Many people are not aware they have these habits, and even when they are, they don’t realize how the jury judges them as a result.
Overall, the consultants at Magna Legal Services have the knowledge necessary to improve the language, style and general demeanor of witnesses so they are prepared to offer their testimony and improve jury perception along the way. Not only does the training make witnesses more likely to be effective at the trial or deposition, but it also helps them feel more confident before getting in front of the jury. The more prepared and comfortable witnesses feel, the more likely they will help a case. This can put you at ease as you prepare your case for trial, and it can also give some peace of mind to your client and anyone else working on the case with you. Also, Magna can have frank conversations with a witness that the attorney may not feel comfortable having with his own client.
Witness preparation is vital before any trial or deposition, especially when the results hinge on the witness testimony. Receive a complimentary case consultation to see how our consultants can help your case!
Over time, the jury trial has evolved. Although the concept of a judgment made by one’s peers remains the same, attorneys have had to change their legal strategies in order to account for increasingly sophisticated jurors with evolving expectations.
Court reporting services have long been an essential part of legal proceedings. No matter the sharp questioning of counsel, the compelling testimony of witnesses or the detail of evidence examination, it is all for naught without someone there to record what happened. Court reporters are present at depositions, in courtroom trials and other forums to document vital information during a legal case.
Jury “selection” does not exist in the United States. Attorneys choose individuals to serve on the jury by “deselecting” from jury service those individuals who they expect to be unfavorable to their side. Identifying and systematically eliminating pro-plaintiff or pro-defense jurors could be your secret weapon in winning a trial.
Traditional jury selection techniques are often based on stereotypical notions about the influence of juror characteristics on verdict behavior. If you’ve ever tried to connect a potential juror’s gender, race, occupation, social status, marital status, age, religion or demeanor to their tendency to vote guilty or award higher damages, then you’ve probably exercised some of these preconceptions. Needless to say, none of these stereotypes has any scientific basis.
In contrast, scientific jury profiling uses empirical techniques and systematic analysis to develop profiles of favorable and unfavorable jurors. In our experience, only multiple levels of research can predict how an individual will approach the case, evaluate evidence, and render a verdict. Statistical profiling ensures that you’re in the best possible position to seat the best jury.
Trial attorneys often pride themselves on their ability to communicate complex legal theories in a simple way. But when you’re living and breathing a case for many months, it is easy for your objectivity to become compromised. Focus groups and other jury research exercises can help fine tune your arguments and begin to identify some trends in jury profiling.
A mock trial or focus group typically involves the observation of small group deliberation, based on the presentation of testimony that closely approximates an actual trial. By analyzing what mock jurors find significant, meaningful or memorable about the case, we can develop early stage profiles about whether certain attitudes and experiences are likely to be pro-plaintiff or pro-defense and helps us to advise the trial team on the effectiveness of their argument and ways to improve.
Mock jury data can be gathered in various ways, including full trial simulations, shadow juries, focus groups and online mock juries. At certain times, we favor some of these methods and/or combine two or more types of exercises in order to gain the fullest data set to prepare for a trial. It depends on the complexity and value of the case.
When gathering mock jury data, it is important to realize that the quality of the findings is wholly dependent on the quality of the methodology: Put simply, you’ll get better results if the research team is well-versed in the nature of advocacy, presentation, communication, psychology and small group behavior, and designs the study with these factors in mind.
While traditional jury research data is extremely helpful, it is often based on a relatively small sample size, both in terms of the total number of participants and the number of focus groups. Sample size is a key determinant of how much weight to ascribe to research results. Generally, smaller sample size groups should be interpreted with caution since the group’s characteristics may have been the primary cause of the outcome; they are not predictive in the statistical sense. This is particularly important when evaluating damage awards or responsibility allocations, which are the least reliable types of data.
Because of these limitations, we recommend large-scale juror profiling studies. Massive community profiling allows us to validate the initial profiles developed through our jury research, and determine with statistical certainty what types of jurors are likely to favor the plaintiff versus the defense in your case.
Large-scale profiling is a multifaceted protocol. It starts with one or more large-scale community perception surveys, which we administer with the intent of uncovering community attitudes and biases to each party’s respective position in the case. Research consistently shows that pre-existing attitudes are more predictive of verdict behavior than the potential juror’s experiences; and experiences are significantly more predictive than demographics.
In other words, it is not enough to find out what experiences the potential jurors had, but also what they learned from these experiences. Essentially, we’re using big data about ordinary people, such as their social media activity, to develop a statistically reliable verdict-orientation model based on what motivates people to think the way they do.
The impressions we collect allow us to develop and gain a more nuanced understanding of the kinds of jurors who would be more receptive to the plaintiff’s position than they would be to the defense case. Correlated with mock jury data, this can help us narrow down potential voir dire questions to those which we know are reliable predictors of verdict orientation. The goal is to help the trial team effectively identify and deselect jurors who cannot and never will be persuaded.
“Almost every case has been won or lost when the jury is sworn,” legendary defense attorney Clarence Darrow once claimed. That may be an exaggeration, but getting even a small edge can turn the tables in a difficult case. Jury profiling can give you that edge — as long as it’s the right type of profiling. Piecemeal small-scale mock juries have less value than aggregated results gathered from multiple data points and deeper statistical analysis.
Just as you evaluate cases in a critical manner, evaluate the quality of the research service used with the same considered eye. Choosing a consultant who applies multiple layers of rigor to their analysis ensures the quality of your data and assigns a degree of much-needed confidence to the results you have obtained. It can make all the difference.
If you’re ready to learn more about Magna’s jury profiling services, contact Magna Legal Services today.
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