Jury consulting services run the gamut from primarily legal issues to analyzing behavior. Whether you're a lawyer or a trial consultant, there may be a lot of benefit in dealing with a team that understands how juries work. Let's take a look at four of the most common services in the jury consulting industry.

Assessing Mock Trials

One of the toughest things to determine is what themes will connect with jurors and which ones will either lose or outright upset them. Conducting a mock trial can help you determine what would be the ideal composition for the real jury if you go to trial. A jury consulting services provider can discuss what happened with the mock jurors after the mock trial has ended, looking at how attitudes and demographics line up.

Conducting Research

Once you have a good notion of what you want the jury to look like, a consulting firm can help you dig into the details once the actual jury pool is revealed. Biases, for example, can be tracked and assessed. If someone has a history of making adverse social media postings against your client or similar figures, that can be used to get the judge to remove them from the pool. With a little luck, you might even find favorable jurors who the other side may miss, providing your side with advocates.

Developing the Questionnaire

The best chance to remove undesirable jurors from the pool without wasting precious challenges is with the questionnaire. An airtight questionnaire can go a long way toward getting certain jurors to tip their biases.

Likewise, a solid questionnaire can help you avoid potential blind spots. If a particular juror was difficult to research, tightly formed questions can be used to nudge them toward disclosing biases. This can be especially valuable if you're worried about implicit biases, such as racism or sexism, that can oftentimes be difficult to get some folks to openly admit to.

Making First Impressions

Moving into voir dire, a consultant can provide pointers on what ideas might connect with certain jurors. The goal is to make a lasting first impression with the folks who'll eventually comprise the jury. An attorney can work from notes derived from the mock trial phase to avoid landmine issues and words, steering the conversation toward ideas that reflect favorably on both counsel and client. Similarly, making a good impression during voir dire can go a long way to impressing the judge and letting opposing counsel know you mean business.

Contact a jury consulting service for more information.