New research from Harvard University psychologists (Matthew A. Killingsworth & Daniel T. Gilbert) shows that people spend 46.9% of their waking hours “wandering”--thinking about what isn’t going on around them, what happened in the past, what might happen in the future or never at all. Which wouldn’t be such a big deal, except that, as the scientists put it: “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” People aren’t happy about what they’re thinking about during their “wandering” times.
How is this relevant to your trial practice? Well, if you aren’t keeping your jurors’ minds engaged, those minds are wandering. The likelihood of their attributing the unhappiness their wandering conjures up to your less-than-compelling presentation rather than their own meanderings, is high. Unhappy people don’t tend to favor those who make them unhappy! There goes your successful case...
All the more reason to do your level best to make your courtroom time count. Get to the point, be succinct, develop hard-hitting bullets and emotional catch-phrases. Use visuals of all kinds – models, boards, animations, power-point (the complex type, not just words on a slide) – and anything else your graphics support staff can dream up. Use focus groups to help you nail what matters to jurors and hone in on that.
The more you keep the jurors’ minds on your track, the less they are inclined to wander, the greater your chances of success.
Showing posts with label attention span of jurors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label attention span of jurors. Show all posts
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Not A Passive Jury Anymore
Sitting sedately in the jury box, jurors appear to be a captive, passive audience, receptive to the lawyers’ and witnesses’ every utterance. Would it were so. Jurors are hardly passive these days. They are informed and have opinion on a broad range of matters, even if mostly at a superficial “news caption” level.
After all, most jurors have access to and use--some obsessively--every social networking platform available, to speak to each other. They refer to blogs, media outlets, and other venues to converse, compare and discuss everything from the latest sports-figure scandal to the effectiveness of our overseas troops to the political impact of Ms. Palin’s eye-roll. It is a mistake to believe this is a habit exercised only by the young. Every age group now twitters, facebooks and blogs, with the possible exception of the very elderly. Notice, I say “possible.”
Juror patience with the often excruciating minutiae of evidence is poor. They get their information and communicate in micro-bites. The one complaint I hear over and over in jury debriefings is “Get to the point!” Jurors are willing to pay attention to and attempt to understand the evidence that supports your point – once you get there. Too often, a lawyer will lay out such a meticulous foundation that by the time the lawyer gets to the reason for all that effort, the jurors don’t care. Certainly, foundation must be laid, but whenever possible, start with an “umbrella sentence” that clues the jurors in to your point, so they are oriented, and therefore patient, with what follows.
After all, most jurors have access to and use--some obsessively--every social networking platform available, to speak to each other. They refer to blogs, media outlets, and other venues to converse, compare and discuss everything from the latest sports-figure scandal to the effectiveness of our overseas troops to the political impact of Ms. Palin’s eye-roll. It is a mistake to believe this is a habit exercised only by the young. Every age group now twitters, facebooks and blogs, with the possible exception of the very elderly. Notice, I say “possible.”
Juror patience with the often excruciating minutiae of evidence is poor. They get their information and communicate in micro-bites. The one complaint I hear over and over in jury debriefings is “Get to the point!” Jurors are willing to pay attention to and attempt to understand the evidence that supports your point – once you get there. Too often, a lawyer will lay out such a meticulous foundation that by the time the lawyer gets to the reason for all that effort, the jurors don’t care. Certainly, foundation must be laid, but whenever possible, start with an “umbrella sentence” that clues the jurors in to your point, so they are oriented, and therefore patient, with what follows.
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