Road test your case themes, strategies and witnesses with a virtual/online mock jury exercise. Get the data you need to proceed to trial or settlement negotiations.

Trial Strategies During a Pandemic: Conducting a Virtual Mock Jury Exercise

For particularly complex and important cases, trial teams have looked to mock jury exercises to help determine how much, or how little, their case themes might resonate with jurors at trial. Information gleaned from an exercise can be used as input to strengthen and clarify case themes and arguments, give insights into the credibility or likability of key witnesses and offer information as to jurors least likely to support a given case. With the COVID-19 pandemic restricting most in-person gatherings, conducting a jury exercise has become more complicated, yet with the right tools, it can be effectively accomplished.

Pennebaker’s Virtual Mock Jury Exercise has been developed to specifically address many of today’s challenges, and in doing so provides greater flexibility for attorney presentations and mock juror feedback, as well as increasing the depth of information uncovered from the juror participants.

Pennebaker’s Virtual Mock Jury Exercise includes the following steps:

1.  Pennebaker’s senior consultants work with your trial team to review case materials, assist with presentation scripts and themes, and create demonstrative exhibits for both defendants’ and plaintiffs’ positions.

2.  Video presentations of each side’s attorneys, demonstratives and witness deposition excerpts are developed and professionally recorded. Both side’s presentations are designed to be equal in length (traditionally 1 to 1.5 hours), and the number of demonstratives produced for each side are designed to have equal weight.

3.  Twenty-four participants are recruited who match the trial venue demographics and can pass the conflicts checks. Participants are invited to a secure, on-line website where they sign a confidentiality agreement and, once approved, complete an in-depth questionnaire to establish their baseline attitudes and personal experiences.

4.  Prior to the online mock exercise, participants are sent a confidential link to a streaming video of the plaintiff and defendant presentations. At any time during the predetermined presentation day, participants can log onto the secure site and watch each presentation. Once the juror has viewed the entire presentation, that individual is locked out and can no longer view it. Mock jurors will be instructed to only rely on the information presented by the attorneys, and to not conduct independent research. After each attorney’s presentation, participants are directed to complete an online questionnaire that probes their current leanings and perceptions of the case. They are encouraged to take notes and be prepared to discuss their thoughts and positions at the online deliberations the next day.

5.  The following day, the 24 participants are divided into 2 - 4 groups and assigned a time to log into the virtual “jury deliberation room” where they will be asked to select a foreperson and deliberate to a verdict (as monitored by the remote technology operator). The start time for each group is staggered so that the attorneys and client representatives are able watch each without distraction.

6.  Once a verdict is reached, a Pennebaker senior consultant will guide the group in an open-ended discussion of key case facts and themes, impressions of exhibits, demonstratives and witnesses, and any information they found confusing or incomplete.  During the discussion, attorneys can message the consultant to ask the group or individual jurors specific questions.

7.  Within 2 weeks, Pennebaker will present findings, recommendations and go-forward strategies to the trial team.

The virtual jury exercise provides new levels of customization that have not been possible with traditional exercises. For example, multiple video presentation options can be pre-prepared to test the impact of a rebuttal, the inclusion of new facts and alternative arguments and demonstratives.