How Do Jurors’ Customer Service Expectations Affect Company Defendants?

January 16th, 2020|

We recently conducted a focus group, along with a nationwide survey of over 150 respondents, that shed light on how the internet – and particularly social media – has influenced juror’s attitudes, experiences, and expectations toward customer service. What we learned suggests that their changing attitudes are likely to have a notable effect on consumer-facing company defendants. Let’s look at some of our key results: 1) Social Media Is a Growing Method to Contact Customer Service and Interact with Companies More and more, jurors are using the internet and social media for customer service and to interact with companies. While

Read More

What Trial Lawyers Can Learn From the World’s Best Drummer

January 15th, 2020|

My Facebook feed lit up this week after the passing of 67-year-old drummer Neil Peart of the band Rush. Suddenly, mild-mannered middle-aged friends were pouring their hearts out over the loss of a drummer who was at the height of his popularity some 35 years ago. For many of my friends and indeed for me (someone who likes playing drums but is not particularly liked by others when he plays), he was the best of the best - the G.O.A.T of the drumming world. Neil Peart forever changed the way other drummers performed and even thought about how to approach

Read More

5 Litigation Graphics Lessons from the Impeachment Hearings

January 14th, 2020|

Last month I wrote about trial technology lessons trial lawyers could learn from the impeachment hearings. In that article, I highlighted a (common) technology mistake one congressman made using PowerPoint as part of their effort to question a witness. As the impeachment hearings moved into the next phase in front of the Judiciary Committee, even more PowerPoint presentations were being used to help question witnesses. Unfortunately, since most of the members of congress are not routinely presenting and persuading with PowerPoint, they made many of the same litigation graphics mistakes that a novice trial lawyer might. PowerPoint is a funny

Read More

Pro bono work – why do it

January 14th, 2020|

In the almost 30 years David and I have owned and operated Magnus Research Consultants, we have been privileged to work on several high profile pro bono cases. Pro bono means “for the public good” and it is usually performed by attorneys for free, that is, at no cost to their clients. Many lawyers are committed to working on pro bono cases; in fact, large law firms often have a pro bono practice in which several attorneys work on behalf of their clients. Magnus has been involved in some horrifying pro bono cases, including mentally ill prisoners who were abused;

Read More

Magic Bullets

January 2nd, 2020|

I recently read an article about a “brand new, state of the art jury selection program to bring data science to jury selection.” That is not a direct quote, but a synopsis of the news story I read about the program. (Disclaimer: I don’t really know anything about this program other than what was in the news and on the firm’s website.) This particular program is available only to plaintiffs’ lawyers so I will not address it specifically, but rather, the concept that something like this is often seen as a magic bullet. Despite the claim in the article, this

Read More