By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There’s something that judges will often tell potential jurors at the start of the voir dire process: “We know jury duty is an inconvenience, but it is a necessary duty.” But what if it is more than an inconvenience? What if it was a threat to health, or even life? […]
Respect Your Jurors (Especially in a Pandemic) Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Ms. Gray, if you were selected for this jury, do you believe that your experiences or views would bias you in any way against my client? There is a predictable answer from Ms. Gray: No, I would not be biased, or I feel that I would be able to set aside that bias
Assume Your Potential Jurors Won’t Call Their Bias a “Bias” Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Across the country, restaurants are changing what it means to be a restaurant, movie theaters are changing what it means to be a movie theater, and conferences are changing what it means to be a conference. So maybe it’s time for courtrooms to look into changing what it means to be a courtroom.
Expect Attorney Resistance to Online Trial Innovations Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Recently, I heard about an in-person mock trial during the pandemic conducted by another consultant outside our group. At the beginning of the day, this consultant said, the jurors and the attorneys attending were all pretty diligent about wearing their masks. By the end of the day, however, most had
Comfortably Numb: Account for Desensitization Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: So you’re conducting a deposition or cross-examination: Where is the witness? Are they right there in the room with you, or are they many miles away in a room with their computer? With the pandemic still raging across the U.S., many are social distancing their testimony via Zoom or other
Ask Your Online Witness About Their Off-Camera Resources Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “You would agree with me, wouldn’t you doctor, that a physician should never needlessly endanger his patient, right?” That is a recommended question, probably the main recommended question to plaintiff attorneys who are applying the Reptile approach to persuasion. At first, it sounds like the answer would be an easy “Yes,” or
The Reptile Question: Give a Good Answer Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: We are, of course, still in the midst of the pandemic, and if the question is, “How are people feeling about that?” there is not just one answer. There isn’t even a good answer that can be accurately expressed as an average. Instead, there are different constellations of opinion relating
Current Attitudes: Account for ‘COVID Clusters’ Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As of press time for this post, 173,094 Americans have died from the novel coronavirus. If the United States had followed the example of other developed countries by taking earlier and more decisive actions against the virus, our country could have prevented approximately 70 percent of these deaths. That, at
Experts: Use Counterfactuals Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: As our court system looks at the possibilities for trials under the current pandemic conditions, it seems like we face a choice: Restart trials in person, with distance, disinfectants, masks, and barriers; or move the process online with unequal technology, glitches, and lower fidelity. While there are certainly practical challenges
Whatever Your Trial Solution, Don’t Forget About Communication Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: We tend to think of “bias” as it applies to juries, but courts can have their own deep-seated practices. For example, judges will often prefer voir dire questions that focus on the juror’s own assessment of the influence of a given attitude or experience, not on the actual attitude or
Voir Dire on Content, Not Effect: Lessons from the Tsarnaev Appeal Read More »