Your Law Firm on Trial: Jurors Investigate the Trial Attorneys
posted by Deven Desai
According to the New Jersey Law Journal New Jersey’s Supreme Court is considering a “rewrite of model charge 1.11(C) to include the Internet, cell phone messaging, chat rooms and Blackberries as off-limit sources for information about cases.” Although the charge is intended to address jurors seeking more information about the case at hand, the article reports that jurors are Googling the attorneys trying the case as well. A jury consultant firm asserts “Research has shown that jurors routinely disregard the instruction and want to find out as much as they can about everything related to the case, including the judges, witnesses and lawyers.” Apparently some firms are trying to cater to this phenomenon by being humorous and softening their Web image to affect possible jurors. In one case a firm made jokes about lecturing and an attorney’s love of beer beginning in college. My guess is that juries will bring all sorts of impressions to the trial. And, as one trial attorney (who at one point had won more than 30 trials in a row) told me, jurors watch and evaluate every move the attorneys make during the trial. If so, juries probably make evaluations more based on that interaction rather than the what they read on the Web. Thus it may be better to smile at trial rather than pretend to be some warm and fuzzy lawyer on the Web.
January 3, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Posted in: Law Practice
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