27 Saturday Jun 2015
Posted in Humor
≈ Comments Off on We Are Going To Miss Jon Stewart.
When Jon Stewart Didn’t Do His Job—He Really Made Us Think, by Douglas Keene, The Jury Room
http://keenetrial.com/blog/2015/06/26/when-jon-stewart-didnt-do-his-job-he-really-made-us-think/
Like Mr. Keene, I am really going to miss Jon Stewart. -CCE
30 Monday Mar 2015
Posted in Exhibits, Jury Persuasion, Trial Tips and Techniques
≈ Comments Off on Hey Jurors — Look This Way!
Tags
Douglas Keene, Exhibits, Eye Gaze, Jury Persuasion, Moral Foundations Theory, The Jury Room Blog, Trial Tips & Techniques
Simple Jury Persuasion: “Hey, Look Over Here For A Second!” posted by Douglas Keene, The Jury Room Blog
This is sort of scary research. We all like to think our views on moral issues are pretty consistent and not easily shaken. That would be incorrect. They are not consistent and they are easily shaken. At least these are the conclusions reached by this research.
We’ve written before about on which side of the courtroom you want to place your exhibits (it’s on the left), but this is far above and beyond that. According to these researchers, you can actually change someone’s mind about an ethical issue by where you have them looking. And, this is the worst part: it takes less than a second! Here is what they did. . . .
13 Saturday Dec 2014
Posted in Closing Argument, Implied Bias, Jury Persuasion, Jury Selection, Opening Argument, Trial Tips and Techniques, Voir Dire
≈ Comments Off on Jury Persuasion For Mixed Gender Message Delivery.
Simple Jury Persuasion: Gender And Message Delivery And Framing, by Douglas Keene, The Jury Room Blog
Trial lawyers (and others who communicate to persuade) are always looking for a ‘silver bullet’ with which to gild their courtroom presentations. Today’s research offers a glimpse at this holy grail . . . as long as your listeners are either all male or all female. But fear not, there is also something very useful embedded in the results that allows you to improve the receptivity of a mixed gender audience to your message.
Researchers wanted to see if varying message delivery and message framing would make a difference in how the same message was perceived by male and female listeners. In other words, they wondered if you need to communicate differently to a male audience than to a female audience. They examined 2 kinds of message delivery and 2 kinds of message framing in a study focused on being physically fit.
To explore this, they created four (45 seconds long) videos about the importance of regular exercise (a male actor played the part of narrator ‘Dr. Linton,’ a health expert). The messages on the video were delivered in either an eager or a vigilant style and with either a gain or loss framing. (That means there were four versions of the video: eager delivery style with either a gain message or a loss message or a vigilant style with either a gain message or a loss message.) . . .
25 Saturday Oct 2014
Posted in Experts, Jury Persuasion, Trial Tips and Techniques
≈ Comments Off on Dueling Experts – Which One Will The Jury Believe?
What Happens When A Juror Agrees [Or Disagrees] With Your Expert Witness?, by Douglas Keene, The Jury Room Blog
Mock jurors love to hate dueling experts who give them conflicting information regarding causation, liability, reasonableness, damages, etc. They also don’t appreciate expert witnesses who use jargon or speak so simply that jurors feel ‘talked down to’—but you already know that. What jurors want is to learn what is reliable and useful to resolve the dispute. And attorneys watching mock jurors deliberate often indignantly retort, ‘That is not what the witness said!’—as though the juror simply needed to have the testimony repeated. The research we’re about to describe explains why jurors hear what they hear instead of hearing what the expert actually said. . . .
24 Monday Feb 2014
Posted in Child Abuse, Expert Witnesses, Family Law, Judges
≈ Comments Off on Expert Witness Lesson – Don’t Do This.
Tags
Attorney Fees, Dr. V. Kavirajan, Dylan Farrow, Expert Witnesses, Family Law, New York Times, Rita Handrich, The Jury Room Blog, Woody Allen
What Expert Witnesses Should Not Do (Dylan, Woody & the Judge), posted by Rita Handrich, The Jury Room Blog
http://keenetrial.com/blog/2014/02/24/what-expert-witnesses-should-not-do-dylan-woody-the-judge/
The sad and painful tale of Dylan Farrow has emerged again following her letter to the NYT after Woody Allen received the Golden Globes Lifetime Achievement Award. Woody Allen responded to Ms. Farrow’s open letter and she responded to his response. The internet has been on fire with reactions, pro-Farrow, pro-Allen, and everything in between. You can find them with a simple internet search and we won’t link to them here.
This post isn’t really about the letter, the responses, or the internet reaction to them. Instead, it’s about the original judge in the dispute and a cautionary tale for the attorneys who hire expert witnesses everywhere. I first saw the judge’s written opinion when it was sent around on a mailing list. It reads like a ‘don’t do this’ text for the would-be forensic expert witness. There are so many legitimate reasons this case would not have succeeded at trial–regardless of Mr. Allen’s actual culpability. . . .
22 Saturday Feb 2014
Posted in Jury Persuasion, Trial Tips and Techniques
≈ Comments Off on Interesting Theory of Jury Persuasion.
Tags
Counter-Factual Thinking, Douglas Keene, Jury Persuasion, Tainted Altruism Effect, The Jury Room Blog, Time Magazine
Simple Jury Persuasion: The “Tainted Altruism Effect,” posted by Douglas Keene, The Jury Room Blog
People will actually see you more positively when you raise no money for charity at all than they will when you raise $1,000,000 (but skim $100,000 for yourself). Even if you said you were going to keep 10% up front and the charity really did get the $900,000! When you benefit (in any way) from your charitable activities, your altruistic acts are likely to be seen as somehow tainted by your self-interest.
There is a really nice write-up of this article at Time Magazine and therefore, we won’t focus on what the researchers did, but rather on the reason they thought tainted altruism worth investigating. It’s all about access to counter-factual information!
Interested related posts at the end of this post by Mr. Keene. -CCE
The Researching Paralegal 
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