Mock Trials Online

Do you find mock trials too expensive? TrialJuries advertises itself as "Mock Juries for the Rest of Us." Here's what its website says--

Traditional mock juries are prohibitively complex and expensive for all but the rarest of cases. No longer! TrialJuries makes this valuable tool available to regular lawyers with regular cases.

How does it work?

Attorneys log onto the TrialJuries site and submit a case. The first step is to complete a short form with basic information to help you identify the case, and to let us know where it is pending so that we can assign jurors from the correct venue.

After that, you have a few choices: you can make a "Text" submission in which you add a written "statement of the case" from the side of both plaintiff and defendant. Or, you can submit audio or video files for your statements of the case (much like opening statements would be in the real trial). Add exhibits as well if you like. Then just add your Verdict questions and Feedback questions using our "form builder" and you're ready to "send your case to the jury."

The basic fee is $1,500. TrialJuries is also soliciting jurors, who are paid $30 to "review the attorneys' case submissions and answer their questions," which should "take about an hour."

I wonder if it works. The feedback would certainly be interesting, but if I understand the system correctly, it doesn't include the give-and-take and argument among mock jurors that's one of the best things about mock trials, that is, watching your case being picked apart in real time from behind two-way glass. There's nothing quite like that experience for learning about the strengths and weaknesses of your case.

Link from Robert Ambrogi's article, "Superior Legal Websites to Watch."

Comments

[Brooks Schuelke]

I'm a plaintiff's personal injury attorney. We used a similar service called ejury two or three years ago on a large case that was not tried in our area.

You are correct that you miss the give and take. But what you give up in that, you benefit from a huge pool. I think we submitted our case to over a hundred potential jurors. I don't think there is any way other than online tools such as this to ensure that you get the same broad views and diversity of the potential jury pool.

We not only submitted the typical jury questions, but also had a lot of open-ended questions that really helped develop the theories, find out which strengths/weaknesses really resonated with the jurors, etc.

Venue was also in a county known to be very conservative. The numbers from the jurors were very helpful at mediation in helping convince the defense counsel, who were local to the jurisdiction, that the value was higher than they thought. It also gave us confidence that we had evaluated the case correctly (even though we don't have many cases there) and that we should stay high in our demands.

Thanks for your work on the blog.

Brooks Schuelke
www.civtrial.com
www.civtrial.com/blog

[PG]

It seems like they could get that realtime picking apart by asking the mock jurors to evaluation the case at the same time and post their responses to it on an online forum. That way you could see how the dialogue among jurors would go. On the other hand, that would be more demanding on the jurors and decrease participation.

[btruitt]

While I have an interest in Trialjuries.com, I am also a practicing trial attorney with 20 years of experience.

I have submitted my own case, and I can tell you that the insights and information provided by the jurors was intoxicating. I can recommend "my service" wholeheartedly as a user.