By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – This post is focused on bulking-up your ability to target high-risk jurors and performance enhancing your voir dire. So speaking of steroids, let’s start with Barry Bonds. Jury selection for the perjury trial of the former San Francisco Giants power-hitter, charged with lying to a grand jury over steroid use, starts […]
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – The need for a theme that communicates, simplifies, and unites your case has become common sense to litigators. But the way that we come up with a theme is a little more mysterious. Some see theme creation as an act of laborious analysis, developed out of a painstaking accounting
Know Your ‘God Terms’ and Your ‘Devil Terms’ Read More »
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – The role of a positive example in creating a “demonstration effect” has long been noted in the fields of political science and international relations, with one of the classic examples being the American Revolution that was closely followed by the French revolution. We’re seeing it now on a near daily
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – We’ve now been using the phrase “the vanishing jury trial,” for almost a decade, and the decline continues. The days when experienced lawyers could count on finding themselves in front of a jury several times a month are gone, as today’s cases are increasingly resolved by judges, mediators, arbitrators, and other routes
The Jury is Out: Make the Most of Your Experience In an Era of Fewer Trials Read More »
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – Attorneys engaged in the process of jury selection have always been eager to uncover as much information as the judge allows through questionnaires and oral examination in court. For that reason, it isn’t surprising to most potential jurors that the lawyers are trying to get a sense of any strongly
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – Okay, that is a deliberately provocative title, but I mean it literally: words don’t have meaning any more than scissors have cut paper. Meaning isn’t an inherent or immutable attribute or possession of a word (something it “has”), but is rather an effect of the word when used in
In Patent Arguments, Remember that Words Don’t Have Meaning Read More »
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – So your case is in, your jury is ready to start deliberating, and you feel pretty confident that at least the majority of your jurors favor your side of the case. Should you feel safe? Of course not, because the verdict isn’t in the hands of the majority as much as it is in
Pay Close Attention to the Big Mouths in Voir Dire Read More »
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – When the case comes down to ‘expert versus expert,’ one important question is, what makes jurors believe one expert witness over another? Applying the rational model of law, we would like to think that jurors would evaluate the credentials, the methodology, and the strength of the conclusions offered, and
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – With our current nationwide surplus of wintry weather, it has become a familiar feeling: The car you are driving loses traction and starts to slide. Your every impulse is to wrench the steering wheel hard in the opposite direction. Then the voice of your long-ago high school drivers’ ed
When It Comes to Your Greatest Case Weakness, Steer Into the Skid Read More »
By: Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama followed the common pattern of giving attention and applause lines to nearly every issue on the national agenda. But there was one issue that received no mention at all: climate change. The absence, noted by many commentators, extended even to
Adapt Your Scientific Testimony to Jurors’ Skeptical Ears Read More »