I wish it were possible to know the number of Holiday Inns where I have stayed and the number of nights I have stayed in them. When my parents and I traveled across the “lower 48″ states in the United States, our hotel of choice was Holiday Inn. Often, we planned our itinerary around the location of Holiday Inns. I loved swimming in the pool in every Holiday Inn we visited. Those were the days! In my work as a trial consultant since 1989, my travels have taken me across the United States, from Alaska to the U.S. Virgin

Why do some people help others in need while other people appear to ignore the suffering of another person? What factors make it likely that bystanders will intervene when a stranger is in obvious need of help, for example, while being attacked in a public place? What is the impact of other people on the willingness of someone to help a stranger in distress? These, and related, questions have been asked and answered by social psychologists over the past 50 years. In fact, the bystander effect, also known as bystander apathy, is one of the most frequently researched topics

Biases and heuristics often, but not always, go hand in hand. While bias is attributed to the absence of reflective thought, leading to limitations in judgment, heuristics are used intentionally when making inferences. Heuristics are common sense reasoning strategies employed by laypersons. They are “shortcuts” that accelerate the decision making process. Heuristics may or may not be based on logic and they may or may not lead to the correct decision. Heuristics have been extensively researched by social psychologists (and economists) since the 1970s. Magnus’ reports often include the heuristics employed by mock jurors when they deliberate on a case.

Social desirability has important implications in jury selection. Social desirability refers to the phenomenon of saying or doing something because “everybody else” does. For example, when an attorney or a judge asks a prospective juror whether he/she can put aside all biases, predisposed beliefs, and personal feelings and instead, be an impartial judge of the facts of the case being tried based on the law and the evidence, the socially desirable answer is “Yes.” Few among us want other people to believe or know, with certainty, that we are biased, have already made up our minds about the defendant’s

In almost 30 years of owning and operating Magnus Research Consultants, David and I have been fortunate to have few complaints from clients. When there have been complaints, they have been of the following type: (1) “Your report is too long and comprehensive; it took too long for me to read”; (2) ”The charts summarizing questionnaire responses were hard for me to understand”; and, most common among the complaints, (3) “I waited so long to do the mock trials that it was too late for me to change my trial strategy to incorporate your suggestions for trial strategy.” Again, I

One of the strangest objections I have heard, relatively often, during my career as a jury/trial/litigation consultant goes something like this: “Well, I have been a VERY successful trial lawyer for many, many years and I have never, ever, hired a trial consultant. What in the world could I possibly learn from you, or another so called jury expert, that I don’t already know?”. Wow! Talk about being closed minded! Thinking that one knows everything there is to know about human behavior, jury decision making, group dynamics, or cognitive psychology, social psychology (particularly when, as an attorney, one has zero

Magnus Research Consultants has entered the online age and now offers Verdict Perception Research among our other services. Verdict Perception Research involves recruiting jury eligible citizens from a trial venue who watch pre-recorded presentations (arguments) made by attorneys regarding a lawsuit, then deliberate until they reach a unanimous verdict. While there are many differences between traditional, in person, mock trials and focus groups, if conducted properly, online mock trials can aid attorneys and their clients in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their cases. As with just about anything else, there are many variants of online mock jury research, with

Magnus Research Consultants has, for many years, employed on a part time basis people who work with us exclusively on research days. We call our wonderful part time staff members Research Technicians because they handle numerous technical aspects of our research, including video camera operation, video editing, and oversight of our mock jurors. The majority of Magnus’ Research Technicians are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and they are from various countries including Haiti, Jamaica, The United Kingdom, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Peru, to name a few that immediately come to mind. We travel all over the United

Judges are people, just like the rest of us. There are many types of judges, young, old, women, men, smart, not so smart, nice, and not nice. In my years of working as a jury/trial consultant, I have encountered many judges. I have met judges during hundreds of jury selections; I have made presentations with judges as audience members; some of my clients are/were former judges; some of my clients have become judges; and I was once in a rock band with a judge (obviously, a pretty cool judge!). Therefore, unlike most people, I have a lot of familiarity with

As a follow up to my previous post regarding my day of jury duty, this post will involve some free advice to attorneys. I rarely provide free advice, but my observations during my jury service warrant it. When the plaintiff’s attorney in the automobile accident case on which I was a prospective juror began to question me about my suitability as a juror in the case, the first question he asked me was whether I was critiquing his jury selection strategy. Both he and I knew the answer to his question was a resounding, “Yes, of course!”, however, I replied,