By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “We are not supposed to talk about this.” If you’re observing a mock trial, that is often something you hear from one of the mock jurors…just as they begin to talk about it: insurance coverage and attorneys’ fees. Strictly speaking, neither is relevant to the question that jurors are being
Expect that Your Jury Is Going to Bring up Those ‘Forbidden Topics’ Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: We all know by now there were errors in the pre-election polls. While Joe Biden still scored a decisive win, there wasn’t the dramatic margin that many polls predicted. Part of the problem is that the task of sampling the population is getting harder and harder. A recent Washington Post article
Account for One Reason the Polls Are Broken: Social Alienation Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: It’s the political season, and many of us are closely watching the public opinion polls. It is interesting to see that sometimes big differences between polls are caused by small differences in wording. Do Americans “prefer,” “support,” “favor,” or “intend to vote for” a given candidate? Different words make for
Choose Your Words in Voir Dire to Regulate Expressions of Bias Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Consider these words through the lens of your case assessment leading up to trial: “People tend to be optimistic creatures, looking forward to a long life, imagining it full of pleasures and success, and savoring the achievements that are yet to come. Numerous writers have noted this to be a
In Settlement, Account for the Sobering-Up Effect Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: If you’ve had young children, then you know that at a certain stage, watching the same movie over and over again with your kid comes with the territory. As much as the repetition might annoy you, the kids seem to love the familiarity and comfort of knowing exactly what is going
Repeat Yourself: (Carefully) Repeat Yourself Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: The Minnesota State Senate, I learned from a recent NPR story, prohibits eye contact. Incredibly, the legislative body has a rule stating that all comments must be addressed to the Senate President, and that rule is interpreted to mean that senators cannot look their fellow senators in the eye while
Make the Right Kind of Eye Contact Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: There is a body lying on the pavement. It is still twitching a bit, but fading fast. “This was no accident,” says the hard-boiled detective, “this was an attempt at premeditated murder…and it just might succeed.” If instead of “body” we’re referring to the American civil jury, and instead of
Don’t Pull the Plug on the American Civil Jury Just Yet Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm Imagine a typical employment discrimination case, subject to all of the ambiguities of human motivation. To the plaintiff, it is a story of good if not exceptional work performance cut short by a decision to terminate based on race, gender, age or disability. To the defendant, it is a story
Realistically Compare Your Employment Fact Finders Read More »
By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm – Judges, arbitrators, mediators: legally trained and neutral minds, without the juror’s baggage of selective perception, predisposition, and bias, right? Not really. In the previous two posts on motivated thinking and instrumental argument, I wrote that an audience’s reasoning and advocacy is driven by emotions and not just by logic. While a jury’s decision making
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 »