1E9Ct5D

Bringing the Jury into Our TribeOnce the jury is seated, the job of the lawyers and litigants gets harder because,regardless of what each juror brings to the courtroom in terms of history, knowledge,and prejudice, we have to find a way to draw him or her into our client’s tribe if possible,or at least to keep them from joining the tribe of the opposing party.Trial lawyers learn to persuade jurors by trial and error, literally. Where doctors andengineers are expected to rely on controlled studies and scientific principles whenmaking recommendations, trial lawyers rely mostly on anecdotal evidence – war stories.Our clients regularly ask us to estimate the odds of success at trial, and we generallyprovide an estimate to them, although the numbers we provide are not based onresearch or controlled studies. No one has devised a way to predict trial outcomesbased on science.But science can identify techniques we can use to recruit jurors into our tribe, or ourclient’s tribe. We will offer six techniques suggested by neuroscience here. Some aretechniques you already know and may practice. Others may surprise you.A. Open a New ChannelShakespeare was telling us how to get the audience to listen to an uncomfortable truthwhen he said, “the play's the thing [w]herein I'll catch the conscience of the King.” 47Before we can persuade people, we first have to get them to listen.47 William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 2, scene 2.24