Blog

  An important part of persuasion is you as an advocate – how do you come across to others? Are you credible? Do you seem competent? Do you seem confident in your case? And of course, [...]

After years of accusations that went unheard and a hung jury in a previous criminal trial, a Pennsylvania jury finally convicted Bill Cosby of criminal sexual assault. Part of me feels, [...]

I am a social science nerd. I find people endlessly complex and fascinating, with equal layers of predictability and mystery, so when I am not at work on jury research, witness prep or trials, I [...]

In the early years of trial practice, most lawyers are focused on skill building – learning how to take a good deposition, manage a case, write and argue a successful motion. There comes a point, [...]

A few years back, I worked on the defense of a major California antitrust case that went to trial in San Francisco. The very first witness to be called was going to be our guy – a top level [...]

Earlier this year, in the Oracle vs Google retrial, Bob Van Nest and the Google team agreed to a ban on researching prospective jurors on the Internet – and in my opinion, they were smart to do [...]

The recent election has brought the subject of confirmation bias and the hazards of interpreting social science research to the fore. Why were the predictions so off-base? This topic is highly [...]