One of the great honors that I have had over the past 13 years is to work as the Director of the State Bar’s Advanced Trial Strategies (ATS) course. This elite course, given in New Orleans each February, is designed for lawyers with 20+ years’ experience. Our committee’s aim is to get the best speakers, to bring important information to the attendees, and to make the entire experience relevant to the modern, practicing trial lawyer.
Moreover, this sold-out crowd believes in jury trials. Having 12 unbiased citizens discuss and make decisions is still a reliable way to serve justice. But finding what Jason Bloom, a Dallas Jury consultant, refers to as “persuadable” jurors is admittedly getting harder.
Our pursuit of justice is hobbled daily by the multitude of divisive opinions held by the public. As we increase our reliance on social media and hopelessly inaccurate sources for our opinions, our collective use of the truth disintegrates. The sheer breadth of misinformation poses a problem for jury selection. Ahh, so little time, so many deeply held delusions.
Thus, one of the most interesting discussions we had during our February 2024 ATS course was the importance (and often indispensability) of a carefully crafted jury questionnaire to identify the commonly held beliefs and misbeliefs of the members the venire panel. The skill it takes to draft a meaningful and useful questionnaire requires one to know technical knowledge; pop culture; psychological concepts like naïve realism, false consensus, selective attention, bias and prejudice; and what Germans call zeitgeist: the current schools of thought influencing our society.