Title: Professionalism and Advocacy at Trial - Real Jurors Speak in Detail About the Performance of Their Advocates
Abstract: If law is an art, which surely it is, juries provide a canvas upon which trial lawyers have the potential to create their greatest works of professionalism. This article discusses whether that potential is being realized, and whether attorneys have an equal opportunity to do so. Each year in the United States, nearly 32 million people are randomly selected and summoned to serve as jurors in the approximately 150,000 jury trials that take place in state and federal courts. About 1.5 million will ultimately be sworn as trial jurors. Among these are the 955 real jurors who responded in the survey that this article centers around. The fact that jurors play such a major role in the legal system, not only because of their numbers but because of the impact they have on the lives of so many, warrants the need for as much empirical research about them as possible. The analyses in this article accomplish this purpose by considering numerous variables of attorneys' performance, as well as examining the relationships between performance and results in both criminal and civil cases. Although it is outside the scope of this article to compile jury research results, pertinent studies will be discussed to place the results of this survey in context. Following the Introduction, Part II provides the organization and methodology of the survey, including how its statistical analyses were done. Then, Part III describes and discusses the importance of what the jurors reported in eleven different areas of trial performance. Part IV analyzes the jurors' findings as to their attorneys' performance in relation to the attorneys' sex, race, and age. Part V focuses on the jurors’ perceptions of their attorneys' opening statements and closing arguments, and particularly on what effects these may have had on the verdicts these jurors returned.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 1
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot