The Litigation Psychology Podcast

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 142 - Frequently Asked Questions - Part 5

Dr. Steve Wood and Dr. Bill Kanasky, Jr. continue answering podcast listener and viewer questions:
- How do you advise handling voir dire in federal court when you only have 30-60 minutes to ask questions of jurors?
- What are the opportunities with using a supplemental juror questionnaire?
- What is the best way to question my client during direct or rehabilitation examination?
- Are engineers bad jurors for the defense?
- What types of demonstrative exhibits work best for jurors? Should I always go high tech?
- If my witness has an emotional meltdown during their deposition, how do I get them back on track?
- How should I test evidence in a mock trial format if I don't know if the judge will let it in?
- How do I deal with a defendant who is experiencing extreme guilt and wants to admit guilt even though they didn't do anything wrong and it was just a bad accident?
- From a jury consulting standpoint, does a juror's health status matter?
To watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/2RM

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 141 - Frequently Asked Questions - Part 4

Dr. Steve Wood and Dr. Bill Kanasky, Jr. continue their series of answering podcast listener and viewer questions:
- How is the movement of people from blue states to red states impacting the jury pool? - Can a Middle Eastern defendant win at trial with a predominantly white/rural jury?- How do I mitigate damages at trial on a case when my client is admitting liability?- Should I ask the judge to show a short clip of the plaintiff's day-in-the-life video during jury selection?- In voir dire, what do I do with jurors who are quiet and won't say much?- During jury selection, how useful is juror social media information?
Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/ibp

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 140 - Developing and Retaining Young Associates

Shane O'Dell, Member at Naman, Howell, Smith, and Lee PLLC, joins Dr. Bill Kanasky, Jr. to talk about helping younger associates grow through mentoring and development opportunities and how to keep those younger attorneys in your practice. Shane talks about the challenges for early career attorneys and what they can do to overcome. Shane shares his experience with recognizing the importance of developing relationships and trust over time as a path toward building a reputation and earning future opportunities. Shane and Bill discuss ideas on how to build a book of business and ways that the defense bar needs to evolve in the future. They also talk about how defense firms can keep young attorneys from job hopping and chasing new opportunities and the importance of helping clients understand why they need to be open to having younger associates work on their cases in order to help them develop. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/5um

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 139 - Frequently Asked Questions, Part 3

Dr. Steve Wood and Dr. Bill Kanasky, Jr. answer frequently asked questions from podcast listeners and viewers. Some of the specific questions asked and answered:
- What are some of the things that jurors are highly critical of at trial that I may not be aware of?
- How do jurors perceive out-of-town defense attorneys?
- How do I get a former employee to cooperate for a deposition?
- Do jurors like attorneys who wear glasses?
- Do expert witnesses really impact jury decision making?
- How long should my opening statement be?
- Does it look bad in front of the jury if I object a lot?

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 138 - Business Development for Young Attorneys

Dr. Bill Kanasky, Jr. shares tips and ideas for young attorneys to build a book of business. Doing business development is not easy, but taking the time and steps to doing it can really pay off.
Two specific ideas from Bill:
1) Writing - Write articles on topics that prospects and clients can get value from and get those articles published in a legal journal; look for niche publications which are often hungry for content. If you need help getting started on topics or with writing, partner with a seasoned attorney.
2) Speeches - Deliver presentations to different groups. Leverage the article(s) you've written and published to build your presentation content. Search out conferences where you can speak, particularly that include audiences with potential clients.
Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/W18
 

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 137 - Four Psychological Concepts Behind Witness Testimony Errors

Dr. Steve Wood describes four psychological concepts that help to explain why some witnesses make mistakes in their testimony performance: 
1) Yerkes-Dodson Law suggests there is a relationship between performance and arousal. Increased arousal can help improve performance, but only up to a certain point. At the point when arousal becomes excessive, performance diminishes. 
2) The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe they are smarter and more capable than they actually are. Essentially, low-ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence. 
3) Evaluation apprehension is a human tendency to try to look better or the fear of being evaluated. This creates a lot of anxiety because of their concern about how they are perceived by others who are watching them and their performance. 
4) "Thin-slicing" refers to the ability of our subconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on very narrow slices of experience or information. 
Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/EdX

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 136 - Rebecca Brewster of ATRI on Trucking and Transportation Industry Research

Rebecca Brewster, President and COO of the American Transportation Institute (ATRI), joins the podcast to talk with Dr. BIll Kanasky, Jr. about ATRI, a research and education organization. Rebecca shares details on her background and different ATRI research studies and how their research benefits and informs the transportation and trucking industry. Bill and Rebecca discuss specific research topics that ATRI has studied including nuclear verdicts, nuclear settlements, driver shortage, CDL age limit reductions, driver health, driver compensation, women in trucking, and more. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/2vH

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 135 - Witness Guessing and Witness Freezing

Dr. Bill Kanasky, Jr. covers two witness deposition testimony topics: witnesses who guess and witnesses who freeze. 
1) You have to identify when a witness is guessing in their deposition. Key phrases to watch out for besides "I guess," are "I think," "I believe," "I probably," "I assume." You need to explain to your witness that even if they tell you they won't guess, their brain is wired to guess and they need to be educated on what a guess sounds like and must work with them to correct these guesses during mock deposition questioning. 
2) In addition to the well-known responses of fight or flight, there is a third response that doesn't get the same level of attention: "freeze". Referred to in psychology as "freeze appease", this survival response leads to the witness agreeing with the questioner on every question in order to appease them. When witnesses freeze, they have to appease to survive. Dealing with the freeze response requires neurocognitive training to help the witness be prepared during their testimony.
Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/V51

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 134 - Insights for Effective Jury Selection

Dr. Steve Wood shares his observations, insights, and experience with jury selection and what works and doesn't work when picking a jury. Steve talks about the dangers of selecting a jury based solely on demographics and the criticality of learning about a juror's experiences, attitudes, and beliefs. He emphasizes the importance of the specific questions asked and approach taken by the attorney during voir dire and recommends that counsel treat voir dire more like a focus group and dig deeper into juror responses. Get potential jurors talking to explain and express their beliefs and attitudes to figure out if they are a good juror for your side. Steve also cautions attorneys on social desirability bias which is the tendency of some jurors to give answers that make the person look good and which may be concealing their real feelings or attitudes. He suggests digging as much as feasible into juror responses and the details in their answers as a way to help support your position for striking for cause, if necessary. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/GG1

The Litigation Psychology Podcast - Episode 133 - 13 Cognitive Distortions Crippling Your Witness - Part 3

In the final part of this three-part topic, Dr. Bill Kanasky, Jr. and Dr. Steve Wood discuss the last of the 13 cognitive distortions that cripple witnesses during testimony. Cognitive distortions are irrational thinking patterns where the brain makes connections that may or may not exist and can negatively impact testimony performance unless corrected via cognitive reframing. The cognitive distortions Bill and Steve discuss in this episode are: 11) Emotional reasoning - when witnesses’ emotional thinking replaces their logical thinking. Also known as “amygdala hijack,” (i.e., the fight or flight response) 12) Control fallacies - when witnesses believe they have no control over the testimony process, feel powerless during testimony, and often assume a submissive role in the question-and-answer interaction. 13) Fallacy of fairness - when witnesses believe the lawsuit isn’t “fair,” leading to intense feelings of anger and resentment and impacting their ability to deliver effective deposition testimony. All 13 of these cognitive distortions can be overcome through a neurocognitive assessment and training that addresses each individually. Watch the video of this episode: https://www.courtroomsciences.com/r/yxN