Use Analogies to Facilitate Juror Identification

Dictionary.com defines an analogy as “a comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification,” which is the very thing that makes analogies so powerful in persuading jurors. Your jurors come from a variety of life experiences, and may not have a clear understanding or ability to relate emotionally to a given issue of key importance to your case. An analogy is an efficient and effective way to accomplish that. For example, the critical importance of cooperation on a surgical team may be compared to that on a baseball team. However, analogies only persuade under certain conditions.

1. Make sure your analogy suits your jury. If your jury is young, analogies from the Depression or WWII will not only fail to have the desired impact, they may bore your jurors. Not good. If your jury is primarily female, sports-oriented analogies should be used sparingly. Respect the life-experience of your jurors (most often revealed through juror occupations), and tailor your analogies accordingly.

2. Make sure your analogy is accurate. If it isn’t 100% accurate, opposing counsel will be quick to turn your analogy against you.

3. Avoid overstatement. An analogy is persuasive only if it is backed up by your facts. When you seek emotional connection with the jurors without paying sufficient attention to the logic underpinning your analogy, you lose credibility.

Use Analogies to Persuade Jurors

You are often challenged to convey complex situations or ideas, unfamiliar to your jurors, in a way that they will understand. A juror who does not understand your point cannot be persuaded to your interpretation of the facts. Understanding is the foundation of juror persuasion.

Analogies facilitate understanding by creating links between the unfamiliar and unknown of your case to the known and familiar aspects of your jurors’ life experience. Analogies compare ideas or situations which are identical in some ways but not in others.

For example, let’s say that part of your case is that cooperation of the nursing staff, hospital equipment supply chain, physicians, etc. is essential to the success of a surgical procedure. You can compare such cooperation to the cooperation required for the success of a baseball team.

Without the cooperation of every member/part of the surgical team, the procedure will fail, just as without the cooperation of every member/part of the baseball team, the team will lose.

Most jurors are familiar with how sports work, but not with how surgical procedures are conducted. The comparison between the familiar and the unfamiliar allows the unfamiliar to be understood in terms of what is identical to the two situations. In this example, it’s cooperation.

It is worth your time and effort to come up with analogies that truly facilitate comprehension of your particular situation. A good analogy can make all the difference when it comes to that critical component – juror understanding of your case, and with it, your ability to persuade them.