Jack Zemlicka’s recent article on internet research of potential or actual jurors raises some good issues. The article primarily discusses investigating potential jurors in the days leading up to jury selection (kinda like Gene Hackman in the Runaway Jury). As the article points out, however, there are many courts (Milwaukee County, for one) where the juror list is not available until a few minutes before the jurors walk into the court room. Unless a client is willing to pay for a LOT of support, the time frames make it impossible to glean useful information in such short order. As a result, most Milwaukee County juries are picked the old-fashioned way — intuition, experience, and let’s face it, some luck.
However, that doesn’t mean that no research can or should be done once the jury has been selected. In the last trial I had in Milwaukee, we learned a great deal about our jury after the close of business on the first day. I believe that it helped to better craft our case, which eventually prevailed. It’s easy to get caught up in the science of lawyering — the details of preparing for the next witness, the arguments over evidence, preserving objections and the record for appeal, or preparation of exhibits and demonstrative evidence. We can sometimes overlook that a trial is mostly about persuading the people who sit in the jury box that we are fair, trustworthy, and reasonable. The more we know about them, the more chance we have to succeed.
Jury dootie begins photo courtesy kelly cree under this creative commons license.
September 18th, 2009
admin
If you’ve read my blog over the past several weeks, you’ve seen a few mentions of the recent impact of computer useage and the internet on the law. I’ve also discussed social networking problems that can arise for both employers and employees. Similar problems can, and do, arise in the courtroom, along with impacting ethical rules and the nature of advocacy.
Mike Downey, a partner in my firm’s St. Louis office, appeared yesterday on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, to discuss how social networking technologies tend to transform the courtroom and legal experience and how lawyers and judges need to be aware of the special problems they pose. You can find the audiocast and transcript here.
Perhaps the most interesting piece is a caller at the end who served as a juror in a medical malpractice trial, and had one of the expert witnesses identified as a good match by the dating site she used.
Because of the prevalence of the cell phones and computers, and each new generation’s complete familiarity and comfort with the devices and instant sharing, communication, and research, preventing occurrences like those discussed in the NPR program will be like trying to hold back a rising tide (see or hear the comments from caller Nathan).
If you work in courtrooms, or if you get to see them more than you’d like, it’s good to be aware of the complete change in socialization that is under way right now (and has been for some time), and how it may and will impact the next trial.
Brilliance Business Solutions, Milwaukee-based website design and search engine optimization firm, has invited me to post on the Brilliance blog. I will briefly discuss the use of social networking sites by lawyers and employers. The information that’s available on any one person has multiplied astronomically in the last few years.
Some information is put out on the web in first-person format (facebook, myspace, etc.) and some is put out there by others (check out Sorry I Missed Your Party and the facebook open group 30 Reasons Girls Should Call It a Night ). Regardless of how it gets there, the information can come back to haunt you.
These sorts of sites provide fertile ground for lawyers seeking to obtain information about a plaintiff or witness. Employers doing due diligence before hiring may run across all sorts of things that should not impact the hiring decision, but why take the chance? That applies equally to either – it’s no good for the potential employee, and creates the possibility of litigation for an employer who misuses the information.
For lawyers, doing a quick search on the deponent or party is always a good idea. You never know what might be behind the next mouse click.
