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Mock Trials: How to Do Them and What They Can Tell You By William S. Bailey One of the best things that I ever learned from Justice Tom Chambers of the Washington State Supreme Court when he was a practicing trial lawyer was the necessity of doing focus groups and mock trials on all pending cases of importance. I had a mental block before then, thinking that these were too complicated and difficult. Yet, the cost of subcontracting with an outside consultant for this purpose was prohibitive, $10,000 or more. I felt caught between a rock and a hard place, realizing the value of mock trials and focus groups , but concluding that these were a luxury rather than a necessity. It was during a conversation with Tom about his astonishing victory in Rinks v. Bearss that I finally understood that mock trials were both easy and inexpensive. In the Rinks wrongful death case, Tom had done four of them, coming out with a total verdict of more than $4 million dollars each time. Tom kept thinking, ìThis can't be right.î And what was the actual result when the case was tried to a real jury? Four million dollars. The way Tom presented how simple the procedure for mock trials really was, I felt a little silly for having thought it was so difficult: These are really simple to do. You take out a classified ad in the newspaper and tell people that you will pay them $50 for half a day and provide lunch. You'd be surprised how many people call to do it. I have my assistant screen the calls and try to set up a panel that is balanced according to age, gender and occupation. If possible, I try to err on the side of picking more conservative sounding jurors, just because I do not want falsely optimistic results. You set a time for the jurors to come to your conference room and put on an abbreviated form of the evidence. Afterward, you have them fill out a form with both their opinions and demographic information. Then they deliberate as a group, guided by the verdict form that you give them. You set up a video camera in the corner of the conference room so that you can catch all of their discussion of the issues. When they reach a decision, you then come in to debrief them, asking pointed questions about your concerns in the case. My practice changed forever after this conversation. I have received so much useful information from mock juries over the last 11 years that I would not think of going to trial without having conducted at least one. While I have never done as many in an individual case as Tom did in Rinks , case, it has always been true that the more of them I do in any particular case, the more I know and the better prepared I am for trial. RUNNING THE AD AND SCREENING THE CALLS Our standard newspaper ad reads as follows: |
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