The Newer Generations in the Jury Box: Who Will Favor Your Cause?

Litigation consultant Karen Lisko offers some tips about younger generations of jurors. First she emphasizes that the strongest predictor of verdicts is the evidence, not who's on the jury. Moreover, individual jurors are complex; their attitudes cannot be reduced to a demographic profile. With those caveats in mind, she characterizes younger generations (Gen X, Gen Y) as wanting to see more data -- and they wanted presented concisely in a technological way. Gen X jurors hold some values often associated with older jurors, such as "personal responsibility" and "self-reliance." Gen Y jurors value teamwork and value "getting along" in the jury room.

Karen Lisko, The Newer Generations in the Jury Box: Who Will Favor Your Cause?, Law Practice Management, June 2006, at 43.

Lisko is with Persuasion Strategies, a service of Holland & Hart, a multistate law firm based in Denver. Persuasion Strategies offers a series of Litigation Tips -- several-page papers discussing topics such as anti-corporate bias in jurors, differences between "red state" and "blue state" jurors, and factors affecting the persuasiveness of opening statements and closing arguments.

Graphic by mw.

Filed in: juries, tips, Lisko, consultants, Persuasion-Strategies