Justice - 2021 Conversation

Have you ever participated in a jury selection? And if so, were you selected and did you actually become part of a jury? To me the role of jurors in a trial is fascinating. Jury selection -- the process of summoning, questioning and selecting jurors to serve on a jury for a particular trial -- is a key part of any trial.

Lawyers when preparing for trial spend a lot of time strategizing on jury selection in particular on who is the perfect juror for their case/client. Why? Because to be successful in jury trials, defense attorneys must develop evidence and arguments which are persuasive to the jurors who will hear the case. Sometimes an argument or theme may appear more persuasive to the attorney than it does to the trial jurors, or a witness may produce an unexpectedly negative reaction among jurors. Failure to anticipate these problems can have disastrous consequences at trial.

As a lawyer, I have participated in jury simulations, in real trials (not too many quite frankly as most cases settle before trials) and I have always been fascinated by deliberations of jurors, most particularly, the conversations jurors are having among themselves during mock deliberations. I have no reasons to believe that mock trial deliberations differ from real jury deliberations. What is fascinating is the thought process of people. Each juror has his or her own beliefs, experiences, opinions and brings all of them with him/her in the deliberation room.   

Sometimes - what you thought was key to your case is not and some facts that were not of significant importance to you somehow become the focus of the deliberations. It is captivating to observe mock jurors deliberate and argue among themselves about facts, legal theories, equity, etc.

Why am I saying that? Because jurors are real people and the most recent research on jury selection is interesting and revealing. New research shows that words that were never part of the deliberation discussions such as: Implicit bias; Unconscious bias and Systemic racism are now in 2021 part of the conversation. 

Today, I no longer advise companies but if I was, and if I had to defend a race discrimination claim, I’d be very concerned. Jurors' sensibilities have changed on what is or is no longer acceptable in the workplace. And rest assured that jurors will be asking when they have to deliberate on a discrimination case the following questions:  

What has the company done to address inequities?

What did the company do to give its employees a voice?

But if I was advising a #NotMe certified company, i.e., a company that has subscribed to the tools of NotMe Solutions, I would be way less concerned. In fact, I’d be confident in my ability to represent that company.