Crime and Punishment



Crime and Punishment

Introduction

High-profile criminal cases and big-ticket civil lawsuits have spurred dramatic growth in the use of trial and jury consulting firms in recent years. In the business arena, both plaintiff and defense attorneys now call on these consultants to conduct jury-related research in a given location and prepare for a trial; For HR professionals, one trend worth watching is the use of trial and jury consultants in employment-related lawsuits, including those filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Employment Opportunities Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. (Richman, 2002) Hauben believes that lawyers who use qualified trial consultants have about an 80 percent better chance of achieving a satisfactory result for the client (Patterson, 1990):

"When you're staring at a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, spending the money for good jury consulting is a drop in the bucket," (Richman, 2002)

He says:

"This is the game today; there is nothing unusual about it." (Richman, 2002)

Jury consultants can certainly be helpful in predicting what happens in the minds of jurors." Of course, that applies to both sides of the fence, and an employee''s attorney may hire a jury consultant as well. Dan Stormer, a leading plaintiff attorney and a partner at the law firm of Hadsell & Stormer in Pasadena, Calif., says he uses jury consultants on many of his cases. And Stormer has won a number of high-profile lawsuits, including a $20.3 million verdict in a gender discrimination case and a $1 million verdict in an age discrimination case.

The Consultant's Arsenal

The jury consulting field has grown rapidly since the mid-1960s, when university professors--the first of the breed--were asked to work on a number of Viet Nam War trials, says Ronald J. Matlon, executive director of the American Society of Trial ...