So, the reader is probably thinking “duh, right, tell me something I didn’t know.” And, I agree, this should be obvious. Except when it isn’t. The beginning of a trial includes voir dire – asking questions of individuals – to determine which ones the attorney wants to include, or more accurately, exclude from a jury. But, verdicts are not 6 or 12 individual decisions, they are 1 decision, made by 1 jury/group. As anyone who has ever watched a mock jury deliberate knows, getting those 6 or 12 individuals to agree requires compromise. Someone, or several someones, will often have

Defensive attribution has been widely researched by social psychologists since the 1960s. Defensive attribution is the bias, present in most people, that leads to blaming a victim of misfortune for his/her role in the misfortune. Among the first research studies on the topic of defensive attribution was a study that found accident victims were perceived as more responsible for the accident when their injuries were more serious than when they were minimal. Experimenters presented the facts of an accident to research participants, varying only whether the victim’s injuries were minor or serious. Although, at the time, the results were surprising

It happened last week, as it has many times before. “It,??? in this case, is the random outcome of a mock jury project that surprises the clients most of all. The scenario was as follows: we were engaged to conduct mock jury research using 4 panels of mock jurors to deliberate to a verdict. The arrangement involved a group of people who were convened in the morning and another group in the afternoon. Each group heard the case presentation, testimony of witnesses, received jury instructions and were then divided into 2 panels to deliberate. So, 4 panels, 4 verdicts total

In this series of posts, I will discuss social psychological concepts that operate in everyday life, as well as within the context of my work as a litigation/trial consultant. Some of the concepts I will cover have become well known among laypersons, that is, people who do not have an advanced degree in psychology, while others are known primarily among my colleagues. The first topic I will review is impression management. Impression management was defined in the early 1970s to explain the ways in which most people are motivated to appear consistent, reliable, and trustworthy to others. People are socialized,

We’ve met some wonderful and interesting people in our years working with trial lawyers. One of those was R.W. Payne, Jr., better known as Buddy. Buddy was a true southern gentleman, hailing from North Carolina, then Virginia. He took control of the room when he entered, walking with the swagger of the former Marine and former professional football player he was. Melissa and I first got to know Buddy not long after we moved to south Florida in 1991. He was a client of the trial consulting firm where we worked before starting Magnus. Buddy, and his firm, were legends

There is a trend in recent years for every purchase, service encounter, or dining experience to end with a customer satisfaction survey. As useful as feedback can be, it is, obvious to me that many of these “surveys” are better called “fake surveys.” That is, they lack objectivity and they lack validity. As an example, I got my vehicle serviced, and when I picked it up, the service representative forewarned me that his (to remain nameless) car company would be sending me a survey. Further, he said he hoped I could rate him “excellent” in all categories because anything less

In a prior post, I lamented how family and friends can’t relate to what Melissa and I do in our trial consulting business. One of the main reasons for their lack of understanding is the extremely high level of confidentiality involved in our work. In order for trial consultants to be able to effectively help trial lawyers and their teams prepare case strategies, our efforts must be considered attorney work product. This means that any work performed on the case, such as the research results, etc., cannot be discussed by anyone outside of the trial team. Sometimes, after a case

Source of article 2's Company - Magnus Insights.

A mental concept that I utilize in our trial consulting work is one of that of passing a baton, as in a relay race. The flow of our engagements is such that we function as a team, with much of the work being done by one person at a time. Engagements usually begin with me doing a case intake, conflict check, and needs assessment. After those initial steps, a proposal is created, and skipping ahead, once we are retained, Melissa takes the baton from me to begin planning the project. The research day is all hands on deck and the

Recently an article appeared on the front page of the Sunday New York Times entitled “When Job Puts Sexes Together, Workers Cringe.” Great title – it called out for the story to be read. But, Melissa, who read it first, and I found the story shocking in terms of the data it reported. The data were from a large survey of over 5000 registered voters. The study focused on whether it was appropriate or inappropriate for people of opposite genders (not married to each other) to be alone in certain situations and the answers were broken down by gender. In