FOCUS GROUPS BOOK

forefront being bonding your group to each other and you, embedding the codes of your
case, shiNing the POV of your parIcipants if needed, and beginning to elicit aZtudes
and Bubba’s blackboard on the topics of your case. Unless you are in one of the rare
states where you will not get a voir dire, it is also an opportunity for you to pracIce. This
is not to say that even if you are in one of the states with no aPorney lead voir dire at
trial, you do not do a voir dire secIon at focus groups. In any venue, remember the
overarching objecIve of focus groups is to determine through repeIIon and tesIng the
jurors that will be good, and bad for your case. Even more importantly in states with no
voir dire at trial, idenIfying by demographics these individuals becomes paramount; voir
dire being how to do that.
6. Role play your presenta6on and how you will ask your ques6ons. What is meant here
is that it is imperaIve you sit and think about the quesIons you are planning to ask, and
anIcipaIng the responses you will be evoking. The quality and content of your
responses will be dictated by the way in which you ask your quesIon. For instance, look
at the below forms of quesIons that could be asked in a medical malpracIce case focus
group voir dire, and the way asking the quesIon evokes a different response:
Op6on 1:
Op6on 2:
Op6on 3:
Please tell us some important things about health care in our society.
Is good health care important in our community?
When did you first learn that good health care was important to society?
The first is open ended, you will get a myriad of responses that may or may not be
helpful, and you will have no control over whether they are in fact going to be helpful to
you. OpIon two is bePer, in that it is more direct. OpIon three is arguably the best way
to ask the quesIon if your goal is to embed and get agreement with the premise that
medical care in this country is paramount in importance. The quesIon assumes the
answer. Think about not only the content of your quesIons, but the way in which you
ask them to tailor the quality and purpose of which you are evoking the responses.
7. Learn how to ask Devil’s Advocate Ques6ons. What do I mean by “devil’s advocate.”
Very simply, the dicIonary defines devil’s advocate as: “A person who expresses a
contenIous opinion in order to provoke debate or test the strength of the opposing
arguments.” It is one thing to evoke the opinions from your focus group, it is another to
then test the strength of those posiIons through devil’s advocate quesIons. But why?
The why is that we need to know if the parIcipants are dead set, heels dug in, 10 out of
10 convinced of the posiIon that they are communicaIng to you, or if they are going to
be swayed once the defense comes in and begins presenIng their case. How to do it is
simple. First, evoke responses on your case topic. Second, ask the group to tell everyone
what “devil’s advocate” means. Third, do just that and play that part, presenIng the
opposing view to whatever the group is communicaIng to you. This oNen means