This article is the fourth in a series based on the results of a recent Jury Impact survey conducted in conjunction with our sister company, MFour Mobile Research.  This survey was fielded in July with 543 jury-eligible respondents throughout the United States.  “Millennials” include all respondents 34 and younger.

For millennials, “Question Authority” isn’t just a bumper sticker slogan – it’s a way of life.  In fact, the term “millennial” seems synonymous with nonconformity.  Studies by such well-known institutions as the Pew Research Center have confirmed two of the defining characteristics of millennials we already suspected:  Their respect for authority is tenuous at best; and they tend to shun or distrust long-accepted social structures such as marriage. 

Our research shows we should add jury service and judges to that list of suspect institutions.  The Jury Impact/MFour poll demonstrated millennials are much more likely than older generations to flout a judge’s instructions on a number of issues. 

Perhaps that’s because one of this generation’s formative experiences was the Great Recession, the devastating product of an era in which outright lies and “robosigning” were seen as acceptable ways to process and fund home loans.  In that context, it’s hard to fault millennials for their mistrust of powerful figures and authority.  The popularity of books, movies and television shows such as “The Hunger Games” and “Breaking Bad” reflect millennials’ fondness for antiheroes and challenging the establishment.

It follows, then, that the courts may not win as much respect from a millennial as they did from his or her grandfather.  For example, 45 percent of millennial respondents believe it’s acceptable to judge a lawsuit on what they believe to be most fair, rather than “the letter of the law.”  For those 35 and older, that number plummets to 30 percent. 

Another question from our survey asks whether participants would consider lawyer fees while deciding on damages in a trial even when a judge has instructed jurors not to consider those fees.  A total of 33 percent of millennials said they would defy the judge’s instructions, compared to just 23 percent of participants 35 and older.

Similarly, 31 percent of millennials said that as trial jurors they would be inclined to use the Internet to do outside research about the case – even when the judge instructs them not to.  That number was only 13 percent for those 35 and older.  This troubling statistic means that if any of the country’s 80 million millennials are on your jury, they may well be disregarding your highly paid experts in favor of a Wikipedia page or what they can unearth about your witness on Instagram.

With this in mind, millennials clearly need to be regarded with caution during voir dire, especially in a case where a verdict could turn on misinterpretation of a jury instruction or outside research.  For assistance in smoking out those who might be inclined to turn a jury charge into jury change, contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010 to find out how we can help.

his is the third in a series of articles based on the results of a recent Jury Impact survey conducted in conjunction with sister company MFour Mobile Research.  This survey was fielded in July with 543 jury-eligible respondents throughout the United States.  “Millennials” include all respondents 34 and younger.

 The question is simple, but it can tell you more about a potential juror’s leanings than any other you might ask.  During our 12 years of research involving thousands of jurors, the response to this question has been extraordinarily predictive of verdict – especially if that verdict is for the plaintiff. 

This question has nothing to do with demographics or any other stereotypical correlation you might think this is leading up to.  In fact, it’s a question Goldilocks might have asked had she found herself in a courtroom instead of a home occupied by the three bears and their extreme – and just right – beds, chairs and bowls of porridge.

Intrigued yet?

Should the judge allow it, we believe the most important question to ask during jury selection is whether those in the venire believe filing a lawsuit is too hard, too easy or just right.  In our experience, jurors who believe filing a lawsuit is too hard are 1.5 times more likely to side with the plaintiff regardless of the type of case, the demographics of the parties or any other factor.

The converse is also true, although not quite to the same extreme.  Those who believe filing a lawsuit is too easy are 1.3 times more likely to find for the defense.

On the bright side for defense teams, we have observed a slight upward tick in the defense-friendly responses to this question during the past few years.  In 2012, we fielded a national survey that showed 23 percent of respondents believed it is too hard to file a lawsuit, and the same percentage believed it is too easy.  When we asked the same question this year, 21 percent indicated it is too hard to file a suit, and 26 percent said it is too easy.  (The remaining percentage indicated it is “just right.”)

Still, the responses remain just as predictive, even though fewer people provided the plaintiff-leaning answer.  The data shows the same people who believe it is too hard to file a lawsuit are also more likely to award money even if they don’t believe a plaintiff suffered injury, and are also more likely to say they would ignore a judge’s instructions on key issues such as the law, Internet research during trial and factoring attorney fees into awards.

And as you might expect given the other findings we have highlighted during the last couple of weeks, millennials just happen to be the most likely of any demographic group to believe it is too hard to file a lawsuit.  In this age group, 26 percent of respondents stated it is too hard, versus just 18 percent of those 35 and older.  In contrast, 17 percent of millennials believe it is too easy to file a lawsuit, while 30 percent of the older subset gave this response.

The predictive power of this question makes it an imperative one to consider asking during jury selection.  For further information on how best to approach this question during voir dire, contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010.

This article is the second in a series based on the results of a recent Jury Impact survey conducted in conjunction with our sister company, MFour Mobile Research.  This survey was fielded in July with 543 jury-eligible respondents throughout the United States.  “Millennials” include all respondents 34 and younger.

In the era of social media, millennials reveal their personas through rosy self-descriptions such as “starving artist,” “image consultant” and “entrepreneur.”  While these terms seem to scream “living off my parents’ money,” they may also reveal a strongly anti-corporation attitude.  A recent study from the Intelligence Group revealed 72 percent of millennials would rather be their own boss than work for someone else.  This apparent disdain for corporations was echoed during our recent survey, when we asked how respondents would award damages in different scenarios – including cases in which a Fortune 500 company or a “large corporation” is the defendant.

Given that millennials grew up during the era of Occupy Wall Street, big-bank crashes and Bernie Madoff Ponzi schemes, perhaps it is no surprise this age group displays a strong negative bias against “corporate” defendants.  For us, the big surprise was how significant the bias gap was between millennials and those 35 and older. 

Respondents in the recent Jury Impact/MFour survey were asked to pick three different damages scenarios from a variety of options in which they would assign “high damages.”  Those 35 and older focused only on the type of plaintiff identified, with babies, the elderly, those younger than 18 and single parents as the most likely to be awarded big money.  Millennials also selected single parents, babies and the elderly as the most sympathetic plaintiffs – but were also far more likely to award higher damages if the defendants were Fortune 500 companies, hospitals or insurance companies.

That same study asked how it would affect a juror’s award if the defendant was a large corporation.  Seventy-three percent of those 35 and older said the defendant’s status would not affect their award, and only 25 percent said they would give a larger award to the plaintiff.  By contrast, just half of millennials said there would be no effect, and a full 44 percent said they would give more money to the plaintiff simply because the defendant is a corporation.

These findings make it clear that for corporate defendants, it is best to avoid millennial jurors if at all possible – or at least give them a thorough going-over during voir dire.  Especially for millennials who embraced Bernie Sanders during his presidential bid, their idealistic, anticapitalist mindset could prompt them to try to use a verdict against a big-money defendant to “change the world.”

If you need some aloe vera for the millennial “Bern” in your jury pool, contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010 to find out how we can help.

This is the first in a series of articles based on the results of a recent survey Jury Impact conducted in conjunction with our sister company, MFour Mobile Research.  This survey was fielded in July with 543 jury-eligible respondents throughout the United States.  “Millennials” include all respondents age 34 and younger.

Between the constant selfies and perceptions of entitlement among millennials, it’s easy to believe this age group is far more concerned with “throwing shade” than caring about others.  However, when it comes to evaluating the merits of lawsuits and damages claims, their sympathetic nature and desire to help the underdog makes them troubling jurors for the defense.

During our recent survey, millennials were far more likely to agree that sympathy would affect their verdict in a case – even if a judge told them it shouldn’t.  For this question, 46 percent of millennials answered in the affirmative, compared with just 36 percent of those 35 and older.  Both numbers are troubling, but the fact that millennials are 1.3 times more likely to ignore a judge’s authority and base their verdict on sympathy for the injured begins to tear at the image of self-centered youths who think more about Pokémon than plaintiffs.  This statistic shows clear compassion for a person in need, regardless of their actual right to receive damages under the law.

This desire to help the underdog stems in part from the literature that formed the foundation of millennial childhoods, including the Harry Potter series, in which a poor, orphaned wizard brings down the powerful elite.  We see this behavior often during our focus group research, as millennials are far more likely to overlook plaintiffs’ mistakes, or personal responsibility, based on the perspective that if these jurors were “in their shoes,” they would expect similar empathetic treatment.  From the data Jury Impact has collected during the past decade of research, respondents younger than 30 made up the smallest percentage of those who voted for the defense, at just 17.4 percent. 

More data from this survey will be discussed in the coming weeks, including how millennials (and jurors in general) view Internet research during trial, corporations as defendants and the impact of the Affordable Care Act on healthcare.

For assistance in spotting within your venire the sympathetic millennial with a desire to empty the defendant’s pockets, or the types of cases that will most appeal to their sense of “David vs. Goliath” justice, contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010 to find out how we can help.

Although every trial jurisdiction is different, even just from city to city and across county lines, one consistent juror perception we encounter is that insurance status determines quality of care.  

Almost everyone has had the experience of seeking medical care and being asked for insurance information immediately after walking in, and before any evaluation takes place.  This experience feeds the perception that patients can’t even get care without health insurance, and those with basic or “cheap” health plans typically get sent to the back of the line in a hospital setting.  It’s disturbing, but it’s out there. 

As a result, during nationwide medical malpractice research, one of the first questions jurors ask is whether the plaintiff had insurance, and what kind. 

We have observed that when this topic comes up, sometimes telling jurors the plaintiff’s insurance status won’t come in at trial is simply not enough. Many participants during recent focus groups in a plaintiff-oriented venue assumed the reason insurance status would be kept out is because the plaintiff didn’t have it and that somehow factored in to how caregivers treated her.

This is why at trial it is so important to address this issue early on, before jurors fill in their own blanks and make harmful assumptions. If possible, we recommend explaining at the outset that not only won’t insurance information come in, but the plaintiff will not claim insurance coverage played any part and agrees it was not a factor in the care.

We have also found that perceptions of insurance companies and large institutions can affect juror viewpoints as well as their openness to awarding damages.  During trial research we frequently hear that since the defendant is likely insured, “they can afford” to pay up – regardless of whether the defendant did anything wrong.  We’ve also heard that paying settlements and verdicts is “just a cost of doing business.”

To combat this, it is vitally important to present it as an issue of fairness and make it relevant to jurors’ lives.  For example, many jurors can likely afford to pay for a parking ticket, but that doesn’t mean they should automatically have to cough up money when they were parked legally and believe they were ticketed in error.

To discuss how these attitudes might factor into juror perceptions of one of your upcoming cases, contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010.

It’s always been surprising to us how many expert witnesses – even
experienced ones – believe that since they are the “expert,” a jury
is automatically going to accept what they say. Those of us who work
with jurors (and witnesses) for a living know better.

As we’ve discussed previously in this space, the American public’s
trust in institutions – and by extension, experts – has declined
sharply in recent years. People have become more skeptical of those
from lofty places, and a PhD or esteemed physician telling jurors
“just trust me” isn’t going to cut it any more.

Jurors are also keenly aware that experts are paid for their
testimony and wouldn’t be there if they didn’t support the attorneys’
theory of the case. As such, jurors have their antennae up for any
indication the witness is just a “hired gun” who is “in the bag” for
one side or the other.

Amid such skepticism, we believe it’s more important than ever for
expert witnesses to support their opinions with outside resources –
not just the expertise in their own heads. Jurors quite reasonably
want to see proof that the expert’s opinion is valid and he or she
isn’t an outlier in their field.

From our perspective, one of the biggest and most frequent mistakes
we see expert witnesses make – especially during depositions – is
being unable to cite specific literature supporting their opinions.
Experts will sometimes assert that their opinion is supported by the
body of literature as a whole but be reduced to stammering when

asked to provide specific examples – a cringe-worthy moment that can
only hurt their credibility with the jury.

Unless your expert’s opinion truly is an outlier, the inability to
provide specific literature references is nothing more than a lack of
preparation. In most cases, an expert can find the support he or she
needs to bolster their case with little more than an hour or two
poking around in databases.

This is one place you can help your expert prepare. High-profile
experts at the top of their fields aren’t used to having their
professional knowledge challenged – especially if they testify
infrequently. You can help them bolster their testimony by
encouraging them to find articles supporting their opinions, and even
doing a little of the legwork for them by

searching the literature yourself.

Another useful source of outside support for expert opinions are the
recommendations and research of professional societies and
organizations. An expert’s opinion is likely to be much more
credible if he or she can refer to, for example, the American Academy
of Pediatrics or the American Society of Civil Engineers for support.

Finding outside support for your expert’s testimony isn’t usually
difficult, and it can give your case the edge that puts it over the
top. If you have an expert whose credibility could use a boost, we’d
love to help. Contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at
cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010 to find out more.

When summoned for jury duty, few jurors worry about what to wear.  Typically they focus on excuses to be removed from the pool, or figuring out childcare and work commitments.  Little do they realize a defense or plaintiff lawyer might strike them simply based on how he or she is dressed.  Here are some ways that a person’s attire or grooming might clue you in to their eventual verdict:

• Hair: Loose strands may signal similarly loose interpretations of the law, as “open and receptive” jurors have been shown to have carefree hair styling.  Studies have shown highly styled and meticulous coifs correlated with a more guarded personality, and therefore more likely to side with the defense.  As for facial hair, the more restrained and cautious types will have sculpted beards and mustaches, demonstrating their attention to detail.
• Shoes: If you want a juror who is willing to calculate high pain and suffering awards, it helps to check if their feet are going through any agony.  Plaintiff-oriented jurors with a nurturing side will more likely wear comfortable, low shoes.  According to a study by the Journal of Research in Personality, jurors who wear sky-high heels with pointy toes tend to be less compassionate.
• Clothing: Steer clear of the tailored and formal types if you want sympathy or high damages.  Wearing a suit can show a juror is being “socially distant,” as well as “uptight” with their restrictive clothing.  The Association for Psychological Science finds a true way to show someone can connect with their peers is if they dress as one would see them on the street. 

• Accessories: Just as Mary Poppins has all necessary (and unnecessary) items in her bag, a compassionate female juror is likely to also carry an oversized purse.  Defense jurors are more likely to be minimal, without any bright colors or flashy designs.  This resembles their typical courtroom posture, such as “keeping to themselves” and displaying signs of tension.

Although it is not an exact science, people can reveal their personalities through their appearances.  For a defense lawyer looking to minimize damages, seeking out a more conservatively dressed juror with similarly minimal accessories can prove beneficial.  Details such as muted colors, pulled-back hair or stilettos could mean a significant difference in damages just from selecting a more reserved-appearing juror.

In contrast, a plaintiff’s attorney can easily spot a sympathetic juror by an accessory as simple as a butterfly brooch or outlandish socks.  Psychologists have found those who like to “stand out in the crowd” are less likely to be conservative in nature, and therefore more likely to produce extravagant damages.

For assistance with pinpointing other traits that could correlate with verdict during jury selection, please contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010.

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