Defendants, Don’t Automatically Avoid the First Move in Settlement
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: At a national conference I spoke at earlier this week, one of the other presenters was Anne Marie O’Brien of Smith Pauley LLP, a very experienced litigator and mediator working out of Omaha, Nebraska. During her talk, she asked a room full of defense attorneys how many of them routinely made the … Defendants, Don’t Automatically Avoid the First Move in Settlement Read More »
The Rise of Post-Pandemic Nuclear Verdicts
Over the last year, the most popular question we have fielded from frustrated defense attorneys and general counsel is why damage awards have been rising since the pandemic. Verdicts in the hundreds of millions and billions are no longer the outliers they used to be, as legal news outlets such as Law 360 seem to report almost daily verdicts in these ranges. For many, the pandemic epitomizes a key turning point where our culture went from somewhat predictable to totally unpredictable. Yet, the research shows us that the reality remains the same, namely that jurors are predictably irrational, with new
Expect Skepticism (and Some Support) for Railroads
By Ken Broda-Bahm: It hasn’t been the easiest year for America’s railroad companies. Last Fall, in the midst of an inflationary panic, a national rail strike threatened to disrupt the nation’s shipping system, before that was resolved through a combination of Presidential carrots and sticks. But that was all eclipsed just a few months later, … Expect Skepticism (and Some Support) for Railroads Read More »
How do transcriptions of ambiguous words in electronic recordings affect jurors? | Online Jury Research Update
Electronic recordings presented to jurors at trial often are accompanied by a written transcript to aid understanding of what is said. Transcription of electronic recordings is challenging even for professionally trained transcribers. The transcriptions of even highly trained professional transcribers disagree frequently and vary significantly from each other...Zhang (2022) examined how juror decision-making is affected by the way dubious words are presented in transcripts of degraded covert forensic audio recordings....
When is the best time to give transcripts of recordings to jurors? | Online Jury Research Update
Transcripts exert a strong influence on jurors' perceptions of electronic recordings, even when the transcripts are demonstrably inaccurate, misleading or downright implausible. Zhang(2022) examined how giving jurors a transcript of an electronic recording before, with, or after they listen to the recording affects their understanding of what was said on the recording. A total of 281 jury-eligible mock jurors listened to 20 short audio recordings adapted from an actual case. Mock jurors were divided into four groups based on when they were given transcripts for the audio recordings: (1) transcripts given before each audio recording, (2) transcripts given with each
Model Effective Legal Persuasion
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Persuasion is at the core of what litigators do, not exclusively, but particularly in court. Despite that, aspiring lawyers train on a legal model that emphasizes some aspects of persuasion (like evidence and logic) while de-emphasizing or ignoring other aspects (like emotion, salience, and motivation). In a recent article, “Persuasion Principles … Model Effective Legal Persuasion Read More »