By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: A ‘Golden Rule’ argument is one that encourages jurors to put themselves in a party’s shoes and think about what they would or wouldn’t have done. It leads to an objection because it encourages the juror to embrace a personal conclusion that isn’t necessarily drawn from the facts. The Golden […]
Expect Jurors to Project Themselves into the Situation Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm In any challenging communication situation, it is best to combine the visual with the verbal. This is good practice because pictures tend to make things more “truthy,” in the sense that claims that are accompanied by relevant images are more likely to be considered true, even when logically the picture
Make Your Slides Less Texty: Six Tips Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: I often hear questions such as, “Do I want Millennials on my jury?” or “Are Boomers likely to be more conservative on damages?” This focus on the attributes of these generational groupings is part of larger fixation on the categories we can see during voir dire: age, race, income, etcetera.
Stop Relying on Generational Categories Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: During the past year or so, when clients have scheduled witness meetings or focus group and mock trial research, we will at some point get to the common question: “So, are we doing this in person or online?” Increasingly, it feels like the answer to that question ought to be
Embrace Hybrid Trial Preparation Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: In the context of voir dire, the tension between social science and court practice is becoming close to intolerable. On the court side, we continue under the assumptions that potential jurors are aware of their biases (despite mounting evidence of bias “blind spots” and unconscious bias), that potential jurors are
Press for Extended Voir Dire (and Don’t Trust Judicial Rehabilitation) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: At the start of the case, a trial judge somberly addressed the jury, letting them know what adjustments were expected of them. The instructions told them they, “must as jurors, take all the decisions you have made, all the opinions you have about how people act, how people behave, what
Stop Asking Potential Jurors About What They Can ‘Set Aside’ Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The courtroom is a special place, and there are both symbolic and substantive layers to that special status. At the symbolic layer, there are the physical trappings of the courtroom: dark wood, granite, columns, raised benches, bars, and flags. And at the substantive level, there is the principles that a
Treat Online Trials as an Access-to-Justice Issue Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As the potential juror sits with the others in the courtroom, the thoughts running through his head might go something like this: “I am being tested on whether I qualify for jury duty…so if that’s what I want, it means giving the right answers…and ‘right’ in this situation means the answers
Voir Dire: Create Your Own ‘Candor Script’ Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: To jurors, most legal cases are unfamiliar by nature. Cases are about the agreement that jurors weren’t a part of, the product they never used, the employer they never worked for. And, more broadly, the cases often rest on bodies of knowledge and forms of thought that are almost entirely
Speak to Familiarity: Jurors Know What They Like, and Like What They Know Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There are two theories fighting it out over what will happen once the pandemic fades. The first, — I’ll call it the “blip theory” — posits that we will simply go back to normal pre-pandemic times, with the lockdown’s aberrations being relegated to “I remember when…” stories that we’ll tell
Plan for a Hybrid Trial System Read More »