I recently had the privilege of being summoned to appear for jury duty in Broward County, Florida, where I have lived for almost 30 years. Unlike almost everyone I know, I was not dismayed, afraid, or angry to receive my jury summons. I was, in fact, somewhat happy about it, as well as hopeful that, while it was doubtful I would ever be selected for the jury, I would at least make it to the voir dire process that is part of every jury selection. I made it! I was Juror #4, seated in the jury box, on a civil

I have assisted attorneys in selecting juries since 1991. That’s a long time. I have been involved in hundreds of jury selections across the U.S.A., from Alaska to Florida. Never, until recently, have I witnessed a judge asking a large panel of potential jurors the following question: “Who wants to serve as a juror on this case?”. In every case except this one, the judges inquire about the potential jurors’ hardships, defined as something that would make it difficult or impossible to be a juror. Common hardships are: financial, including not being paid by one’s employer when someone is not

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;

Many people, including mock jurors and other research participants, courthouse personnel, friends, and attorneys, ask me if I am an attorney. Invariably, when this happens, I am wearing a dark, conservative business suit, the attire preferred by many attorneys with whom I am acquainted. I always answer, “No, I am not an attorney. I am a psychologist.” This answer often leads to a series of follow up questions, none of which are the subject of this post. Instead, this post is about why I like spending time with attorneys, including why I have chosen a career that involves spending time

As I write this, David is attending a series of out of town marketing meetings. David is meeting with clients, as well as with prospective clients, in the never ending task of obtaining new business for Magnus. Even though my career is nothing new and I have been working in the field of litigation consulting for 30 years, I am constantly amazed at the absence of sophistication of some attorneys when it comes to hiring a jury/trial/litigation consultant. When scheduling a meeting with one prospective client, David was quickly dismissed with the statement, “I’m happy with my current consultant.” This,

In the 1980s, “Dress for Success” was in vogue for people (although, it seems, primarily women) who wanted to achieve status in the world of business. There were books about how to dress for success, as well as seminars and other related products. My (then) employer enrolled me, along with other female executives, in a Dress for Success seminar, where we spent a day learning about the colors that accentuated our appearance, how to conduct ourselves in meetings, and generally, proper attire and etiquette in our professional lives. Once again, thanks to my mother, I was miles ahead of the

First impressions matter. They really do! Social psychologists who study impression formation and cognitive psychologists who study presentation order effects, such as the primacy effect, agree that information presented early has a greater impact than information presented later. Impression formation has been heavily researched in social psychology since the 1940s, when Solomon Asch conducted a series of experiments in which research participants received a list of personality traits that described someone. The results of these studies revealed that the information presented first had more impact on people’s impressions of others than information presented later. Since these ground breaking studies, considerable

At the time of this writing, there is a popular television show that is loosely based on the life of a well known celebrity who used to work as a jury/trial consultant. The title of the show is “Bull,” and based on what I have seen, the show contains more “bull” than truth. However, because most TV shows are made for entertainment, not education, the liberties taken by the show’s writers are much the same as those taken on shows that depict other professions. For example, who believes “General Hospital” was an accurate depiction of what it is like to

In a previous post, David and I discussed the challenges we have faced with some of our clients, who did not think we should provide food and beverages to the mock jurors and other research participants who work with us on a case. Sad, but true. Somewhat more surprisingly, we have had other clients who would not authorize Magnus to order lunch or dinner for the attorneys who were working with us on a research day. These clients, who also happen to be attorneys, instructed us not to allow the attorneys who worked in their law firm to order any

Conducting mock jury research, or other research involving human participants, involves many things unrelated to collecting data. Food and drinks are an important part of the work we do on behalf of our clients. Not only do we compensate our research participants for their time and effort in attending our mock juries and focus groups, we provide food and drinks to them. They spend many hours working with us on our cases and it would be both thoughtless and improper to mistreat them by withholding food and drinks from them. Some of Magnus’ clients have not understood the consequences of