Effective Jury Selection: Managing Time and Setting Expectations (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: Address Voradar time limitations. How many of you have time limitations where you live? Ooh, OK. What's the smallest amount of time? Ooh, ouch. OK. This is what I would, I mean, you always beg for more time. Boy, and I can beg with the best of them. But asking for more time in Voradar, you have to tell the judge why it's important, him or her. And if you say, I'm going to be able to shorten the Voradar, number one, if I can do a one-page questionnaire, and number two, if you just can't, this is what you do with time limitations. You tell the jury the truth. I have minimal time. And that's why members of the jury panel, I've just got to ask questions. And if some of you have questions, I'm going to ask the judge if we can talk about it up at the bench. When you have time limitations, you must prioritize, OK? You've got to figure out, what do you really want to know? OK, now this is my secret as a jury psychologist. Are you ready? If you hire a jury psychologist, a good jury psychologist should say to you this, and this is what I want to teach you all to go back to your practice. When you take a case, ask yourself, if I lose the case, why am I going to lose? I'm going to say it again. If you lose the case, why are you going to lose? Miss Blue, Dr. Blue, it doesn't matter. I'm going to lose the case in a car wreck because my person had some other injuries. I'm going to lose my case because my plaintiff is a horrible witness. I'm going to lose my case because the damages are soft tissue. Now, this is what I believe as a psychologist. You can handle anything as long as you're honest. So that's my deal. You take your weaknesses and you put them out there because my definition of a great jury, jury, after you pick the panel, is somebody that can listen to all your, I call them, puss points, all the things that are nasty and bad and weak and ugly about your case. And if you put them out there, then OK. For example, in a jury selection, I might say about my plaintiff, members of the jury panel, you're not going to like my plaintiff. His name is John Doe. He's going to turn. He's not going to look at you. He's going to stutter. He's going to evade the answer. But my question is, can you keep an open mind? Can you have an understanding that sometimes when people aren't professional witnesses, they just don't come across very well because they're nervous? It's all about, and this is a huge one for me as a psychologist, setting expectations.