A recent lunch with a client involved an interesting discussion of how to convince “end” clients to spend money on mock jury research. For those who don’t know, in some cases, the lawyers advance the expenses, including expenses for things such as mock trials, and in others, they expect the actual client, the “end client,” whether an individual, corporation, or insurance company, to advance those expenses. Our discussion involved a reality of litigation such as there are many variables which affect case outcome. These “risk” factors can be things like the likability of the parties involved on either side, the

There is considerable research on what level of effort is required to perform at “master” or “expert” level at a variety of skills. Malcolm Gladwell expounded on this concept in his 2008 book, Outliers. Much of the focus of this research has revolved around becoming expert at a skill like chess or mastering a musical instrument. While there is considerable debate about whether it is a hard rule that 10,000 hours are required to become a master and whether other factors are essential (e.g., innate talent and age when beginning the endeavor), the point remains, practice does improve performance. Whether

In thinking about my prior post on confirmation bias, I thought about one aspect of being hired as a professional trial consultant. It happens that I recently saw an announcement of a bar association seminar on do it yourself (DIY) mock trials. I know that mock trials are often expensive when conducted by a qualified trial consultant (what constitutes the distinction of “qualified” has been the topic of other posts). I get it, sometimes a case does not warrant the cost of a professional. But just as other DIY projects, DIY mock juries often suffer from the lack of expertise

I read an article recently about confirmation bias and how it negatively impacts social science research and progress. Confirmation bias is “the tendency to seek, interpret, and create information in ways that verify existing beliefs.” (Brehm & Kassin, Social Psychology, 1989. Which is, coincidentally, a textbook for which Melissa co-authored the Instructor’s Manual and Study Guide.) Confirmation bias happened when one sticks to what one already believes despite conflicting, or contradictory, information. Often, the initial belief is based on incomplete information or, perhaps, new information is developed over time that is contrary to the old information. It is not always

I will admit, I probably have a bias. Both my undergraduate and graduate business degrees had a strong emphasis on marketing. Therefore, in the context of operating a small business, I am cognizant of details that create impressions. As a result, it seems to me that almost everything done in a business is marketing. The way the phone is answered creates an impression. The look of a proposal is marketing. The tidiness of a piece of mail that will land in someone’s hands. The absence of typos in a report. The look of the brochure, the report, the website, or

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

In the vein of prior posts, this is an attempt to clarify another misconception about what we do as trial or jury consultants. Usually in the context of an introduction, I hear what might be called “sales objections.” There are varieties of these objections, but one is this, if introduced as a “jury consultant” I sometimes hear a retort, “Well, we never do jury trials, we only _______.” The blank is typically either “settle our cases at mediation,” “do bench trials” or “resolve cases in arbitrations.” For the first one, see the prior post, Trial Consultants Are Not Just for

It happened again. I am introduced to a new, prospective client, a lawyer at a very large firm – one with a nationwide presence, hundreds of lawyers, and many offices. This is the kind of attorney whom I assume understands the concept of what a trial consultant does. But, no. I send an email introduction and the response is “…I’ll keep you in mind if we ever get to the trial stages of a case – very rare at a firm like this.” I know it is rare, and the truth is most of our work is conducted way before

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

Melissa and I had lunch with a long time client recently during which he brought up a “new” thing he hears from his clients. That is, give us the “analytics” on the case. Analytics is a concept that gets lots of airplay in various contexts. The business world has long focused on numbers to indicate performance on various measures. These are analytics. Polls, like political polls, can also be counted as analytics of success. Marketing research on a variety of products and services can indicate likely success and profit (though not always; anyone remember “New Coke”?) We have written 2