The Litigation Psychology Podcast

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 265 - Recent Trends in Civil Litigation

Georgianne Walker, Trial Attorney & Partner at May Oberfell Lorber, LLP, joins Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. to discuss changes she has seen in litigation over the past couple of years. Georgianne talks about how her firm manages the volume of trial work with the logjam of trials taking place. Bill and Georgianne discuss the challenge of hiring, training, and retaining younger associates and how Georgianne's firm manages their associates and lateral hires. Georgianne shares how she works with difficult plaintiff attorneys and how she prepares witnesses for situations where opposing counsel might be acting up during their deposition. Bill and Georgianne discuss AI in legal and different ways they are seeing AI being used and not being used. Lastly, Georgianne provides a breakdown on a med mal case she recently worked on. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/CqN

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 264 - Listener Mail

Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. joins Steve Wood, Ph.D. to answer some recent podcast viewer/listener mail:
- How can my client get their side of their story across at deposition if you tell witnesses to not offer explanations when answering deposition questions?
- How often should my witness be taking a break during a deposition?
- How can I prevent my witness from getting anxious during their deposition?
- If my witness is getting argumentative during questioning, how should I handle that?
- My witness has gone through the training process but the trial date got moved back, do we need to do the training again?
- I don't want to stress out my witness before deposition; should I tell them that we won't win or lose the case based on their testimony?
- Are some witnesses just a lost cause? 
Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/ZBS

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 263 - Helping Witnesses When Opposing Counsel Asks Bad Questions

Steve Wood, Ph.D. joins host Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. to talk about how to help witnesses navigate deposition situations where they may be thrown off by plaintiff’s counsel disorganized approach or confusing questions, whether intentionally confusing or not. Bill and Steve describe what witnesses should do and be encouraged by defense counsel to do when plaintiff's counsel asks bad or poorly worded questions. What must be avoided is your witness trying to fix opposing counsel's poorly phrased question and providing a response to that since, regardless of how the question is worded, if the witness provides any answer to what they think the question is, they are stuck with their answer. It is critical to practice asking your witnesses bad questions and help them understand how to respond when they are asked poorly worded questions. Get a scouting report on opposing counsel to know what their style is for questioning and practice asking questions of your witness with that approach so the witness is able to experience it in the prep and be prepared when it happens at the deposition. 

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 262 - Taking a Deep Dive into a Recent Defense Victory

Larry Hall, Partner at Chartwell Law, joins Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. and Steve Wood, Ph.D. to break down the process and positive outcome of a recent trial. Larry shares an overview of the case, how mediation went, and what the demands were from the plaintiff attorney. The group discusses the jury research that was conducted for this case, how the research was set up, what the legal team wanted to learn from the research, and what some of the findings were in the research, including surprises. Bill, Steve, and Larry also talk about identifying pro-plaintiff and pro-defense jurors based on the jury research and how they used the research findings to develop juror profiles, voir dire questions, and their opening statement plan. Larry then describes the process for jury selection, how they approached their strikes, and how the jury research informed both his opening statement and his closing. Lastly, Larry talks about the curveballs they experienced during trial, how his team handled them, and his client's reaction to the final verdict. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/k0J

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 261 - Voir Dire Rewired: A Neurocognitive Approach - Part 4

Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. concludes our 4-part series on a sophisticated approach to voir dire. Bill discusses juror sympathy and commitment to following the law. Bill talks about a concept called sympathy override and gives examples of how to get jurors to open up about the concept of sympathy and whether they can maintain discipline when it comes to sympathy. You have to address the challenge that jurors will experience when their heart and head are in conflict. Next, Bill explains Pre-Commitment Theory and how to leverage public commitment from jurors to increase the likelihood of them sticking to their commitment, plus how Pre-Commitment Theory can also be used to hold each other accountable in deliberations. Verbal commitment in front of the other jurors is critical for this to work. Bill concludes by emphasizing that the key to the entire concept of this sophisticated approach to voir dire is pre-programming the juror brain and the stepwise process required to do so. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/pXC

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 260 - Voir Dire Rewired: A Neurocognitive Approach - Part 3

Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. continues with part 3 of our 4-part series on a sophisticated approach to voir dire. In this part, Bill talks about cognitive dissonance and personal responsibility. Cognitive dissonance is defined as mental discomfort. You have to give jurors examples of when you have experienced mental discomfort so they can relate and will share their own experiences with cognitive dissonance and also so they will hold themselves and each other accountable during deliberations. Next Bill describes how to address the topic of personal responsibility and how to plant seeds on it so you prime their brain for the concept of personal responsibility. Lastly, Bill talks about the topics of sharing fault and risk awareness. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/oBj

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 259 - Voir Dire Rewired: A Neurocognitive Approach - Part 2

Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D.'s second part of our 4-part series on a sophisticated approach to voir dire. Bill talks about emotional persuasion resistance and the goal during voir dire of inoculating jurors against emotional appeals. Bill shares example questions and stories for how to inoculate jurors against emotional appeals by the opposition during trial and how to identify jurors you want to keep and which you want to strike. Bill also talks about anchoring and how to approach the concepts of anchoring, high dollar awards, counter-anchoring and social inflation, all during voir dire. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/Stb

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 258 - Voir Dire Rewired: A Neurocognitive Approach - Part 1

Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. kicks off the first of a 4-part series on a sophisticated approach to voir dire. Bill lays out a highly advanced voir dire model based on behavioral science, cognitive psychology, and decision making research with a focus on cognitive fit, flexibility, and first impressions. It is critical in voir dire to build rapport with jurors to normalize differences in opinion and disclosure of information. The goal is to give jurors an easy out to strike themselves. Bill shares example questions to accomplish this and how to identify juror fit. Next, Bill talks about assessing cognitive flexibility and confirmation bias and gives examples on how to identify jurors with inflexible thinking. Lastly, Bill talks about the importance of likability, vulnerability, and relatability of the attorney and how that impacts your voir dire success and the rest of the trial. It is imperative to use personal experiences and stories to get jurors to open up, to be honest, and to trust you. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/5wH

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 257 – Why Jury Research Needs Validity and Reliability - Part 2

Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. continues discussing the importance of validity and reliability in jury research and specifically talks about the use of the clopening in jury research. The clopening is a combined opening and closing statement - basically a summary presentation of the case. The issue with the clopening is that it impacts your validity and reliability because jurors don't hear clopenings in a real trial so any feedback collected is skewed. Also, in order to get the most accurate data in jury research, you have to measure immediately after the presented stimulus/information. For example, if you want feedback on your opening, you must measure immediately after the delivery of the opening. If you want feedback on a witness, the measurement must come immediately after the mock jurors hear from that witness. Waiting to gather feedback until all witnesses have been shown will not provide an accurate measurement. The most scientifically sound methodology for conducting jury research is to take measurements immediately after completing delivery of each piece of content that you want feedback on. Any other process for data collection will compromise your validity.  Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/ZBE

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 256 - Why Jury Research Needs Validity and Reliability - Part 1

Bill Kanasky, Jr., Ph.D. describes the scientific concepts of validity and reliability in research and why they are individually and collectively so important when conducting jury research. The question that validity helps answer is: are you measuring what you think you are measuring? Bill gives examples of how you can limit or improve your validity through witnesses and presentations in jury research. It's critically important to secure a clean read in your research and Bill explains how to achieve that. 
Reliability in research refers to the consistency and repeatability of a measurement, so that if the same process is repeated under the same conditions, it should yield similar results. Having reliability in your data means you can count on the results and increases confidence in the findings to better guide decision-making on your case. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/1lp