Adapting to Jurors

Know the Power of a Cause Instruction: But for “But For,” Jurors Decide Differently

Adapting to Jurors, Comprehension / ken.brodabahm / August 22, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Once a judge begins to solemnly instruct the jury, some assumptions immediately kick in. We assume the jurors follow and are comprehending the sometimes fine distinctions in law that have been fought over in the weeks before trial. And we assume that, once understood, those instructions are effective in guiding

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Learn from the Bard: Engage Multiple Audiences

Adapting to Jurors / ken.brodabahm / August 12, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: If you returned with me to Shakespeare’s original theater, the Globe in London around 1600, you would notice one important architectural feature: There is a gallery and there is a pit. The gallery, the seats in the bleachers that ring the outside of the theater, are the pricier seats occupied

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Keep Boredom at Bay

Adapting to Jurors / ken.brodabahm / August 1, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: “I have considered giving people popcorn,” U.S. District Judge Kathleen Forrest told lawyers in the SEC’s fraud case against Fabrice Tourre which headed to the jury yesterday. “I’m going to tell you what I think is obvious,” the judge told counsel three days into trial, “We’re losing some of the

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Tame the Reptile in Your MedMal Defense

Adapting to Jurors, Professional Malpractice Litigation / ken.brodabahm / July 4, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm Earlier this Spring, a courthouse in Jackson Mississippi was actually invaded by snakes. That story might have made some in the plaintiff’s bar smile a bit, since in their view, Reptiles have been invading American courtrooms across the country for a few years now. Reptile: The 2009 Manual of the

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Address the Need for Closure

Adapting to Jurors / ken.brodabahm / July 1, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Looking at the pictures above, you can’t help but focus on what isn’t there: The triangle, the pole, the sphere, and the snake below the surface. That focus isn’t a voluntary choice, but an artifact of the way our pattern-loving brain processes. We are impatient with incompleteness or ambiguity and

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Check Your Jurors’ Power Level

Adapting to Jurors / ken.brodabahm / May 9, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: An Iowa jury just handed down a $240 million verdict on behalf of 32 mentally disabled men who lived and worked for decades at a turkey processing plant and were paid just $65 a month. That verdict, the largest ever in an EEOC case, captures the jurors’ feelings about such blatant exploitation, but

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See the Process and Not Just the Product in Deliberation

Adapting to Jurors / ken.brodabahm / May 6, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Over the weekend I gave a presentation at a law firm retreat in Palm Springs. The presentation drew from a recent mock trial in an insurance dispute and the deliberation video clips I was playing could’ve been seen as a parade of mistakes: jurors ignoring instructions, flagrantly applying their own

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Speak to the Individual, Not the Common

Adapting to Jurors / ken.brodabahm / April 22, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Last week in the U.S. Senate, a measure to require universal background checks on gun purchases failed to get the 60 votes needed to survive. The arguments supporting the common good of keeping firearms out of the wrong hands were, to 45 Senators, was not as strong as the individual rights

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Account for Mortal Thoughts After a Tragedy

Adapting to Jurors / ken.brodabahm / April 18, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: This past Monday brought tragedy as bombs placed near the finish line of the Boston Marathon caused three deaths and hundreds of injuries. The attacks, at this point bearing the hallmarks of either an international or a domestic terrorist attack, have also reopened a wound in the national psyche, providing

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Non-U.S. Companies: Don’t Fear Being “Hometowned” in American Courts

Adapting to Jurors, Public Perception / ken.brodabahm / March 18, 2013

By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm: Many companies which are headquartered or do the bulk of their business outside the United States can be a little freaked out by the prospect of being at the mercy of an American jury. After all, as a uniquely American notion, the act of resolving disputes by drawing upon the

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