Picking a Winning Jury with Sonia Chopra
Sonia discusses the evolution of jury consulting to trial consultants and, finally, to litigation consulting. Part of that evolution is the constant balancing of the science and the art of human psychology and social psychology. The science is through training -- Sonia's training is as a Ph.D psychologist with an emphasis in litigation. The art is the constant exposure to prospective jurors through focus groups and voir dires. Unlike trial lawyers who, even the best of them on high exposure trials, get to trial four to ten times a year, Sonia has the capacity to accomplish the same volume in a month. As a result, she has interacted with more people than almost any trial lawyer. That type of real life exposure -- data -- helps to minimize the subjectivity to her methods.
An essential aspect of jury selection is identifying jurors with biases that warrant the Court excusing them from presiding over the trial. Sonia discusses the impediments that lawyers face in overcoming their own biases to be effecting in communicating with and exposing prospective juror's biases.
Like any other person, lawyer's biases are innate and potentially translate into their personal lives. The irony of that is not something that is lost on Rahul and Ben. We spend our careers trying to eliminate bias, like many trial lawyers, but in order to effectively do so, we need to make sure we have done so in our own lives.
Rahul has been working with Sonia for many years and is a firm believer in the benefit of an effective litigating consultant. Ben has utilized litigation consultants in focus groups but his time with Sonia may have expanded his interest in using litigation consultants more broadly.
About Sonia
Sonia Chopra, Ph.D. is co-founder and president of Chopra Koonan Litigation Consulting. Dr. Chopra has 20 years of experience and has been involved in over 400 cases, ranging from multi-million-dollar civil litigation to high stakes criminal trials. She provides clients with assistance in litigation and settlement strategy, storytelling and theme development, damages valuation, opening statements and closing arguments, focus group and trial simulation research, witness preparation, and jury selection. Her practice specialties include plaintiff side personal injury, employment and civil rights litigation, commercial litigation and criminal defense. She has served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Trial Consultants and is the former General Editor of the trial manual, Jurywork:® Systematic Techniques. To learn more about Sonia, visit her website at www.ChopraKoonan.com.
About Elawvate
The Elawvate Podcast – Where Trial Lawyers Learn, Share, and Grow is where the practice of trial law meets personal growth. To succeed as a trial lawyer and build a successful law firm requires practice skills, strategic thinking and some amount of business and entrepreneurial savvy. Elawvate is a place to learn and share skills and strategies for success.
But it is also a place to dig deeper and achieve personal growth.
Those who succeed as trial lawyers at the highest levels cultivate character, principle, integrity, leadership, courage, compassion and perseverance.
We learn and draw inspiration from those who have achieved this success.
For more about Elawvate, visit our website at www.elawvate.fm. You can also join our Facebook Group at Elawvate | Facebook
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