•      Attorneys rave about these mock trials because they are informative and fun   •      Cost-effective insight into jurors’ decision-making, applicable to any case   •      Tammy will explain themes, jury selection, & communication techniques   •      Workbook includes Reptile, Damages and Rules of the Road practice tips   •      Watch jurors’ moment-to-moment reactions, deliberations and debriefing   •      Quickly train your courtroom instincts with advanced techniques & feedback    •      Jurors and Tammy will answer questions at the reception (5:45 to 7:45 p.m.)   •      Earn 8 CLE credits while having fun (multiplier for attorneys who participate)

The best way to learn Reptile, Damages and Rules of the Road techniques is to try it yourself.  You train your courtroom instincts by preparing, practicing and then promptly appraising exactly what worked well and what can be improved.  In these workshops, you can see how jurors react in real time, ask questions and think through how to improve.  Tammy's educational post-verdict analyses are much more detailed and insightful than typical pre-trial research.  Click here to see an example. 

HG Litigation Sponsored Dinner & Juror-Decision Making CLE
Juror Responses to Rules and Reptile Methods
Tuesday, October 11th at 6pm
915 Wilshire, Suite 150, Los Angeles

Tammy will give a 15-minute overview of her recent article for The Jury Expert, then answer questions and discuss practical trial applications for the remaining hour.  Rules and Reptile techniques trigger feelings of fear and anger, which affect jurors' opinions of fault, risk, causation and damages.  Attorneys can use this information to optimally sequence evidence to create subtle emotional responses that guide these perceptions, and also to understand:
 • when people are open to persuasion;
 • how much and what kind of evidence jurors will consider;
 • whether it will be carefully analyzed or quickly decided by a gut feeling; and
 • how certain jurors will feel about their judgments. 

Space is limited to 40 attorneys for this fun, free dinner and happy hour.  Please RSVP to Melissa Card at mcard@hglitigation.com  to reserve your space today.  This CLE course has been approved for 1 hour of CLE credit through the State Bar of California.  See HG's invitation for more information.

Santa Clara County Trial Lawyers Association
Cutting-edge Trial Techniques for the 21st Century
Juror Responses to Rules and Reptile Methods
Friday, October 14th
Lincoln Law School, San Jose

Tammy will explain how trial advocacy techniques elicit subtle emotions that drive juror decision-making, including how jurors perceive risk, causation, blame and guilt.  Paul Ekman provided images of subtle anger, sadness, fear, contempt, etc. that Tammy will use to demonstrate to attorneys how jurors may appear when they are most open to persuasion.

Products Liability Mock Trial CLE Workshop Saturday, March 10th, 2012 9:00 - 5:45pm Los Angeles, California	Individual Registration $495.00 Group Registration $445.00 Late Individual Registration $545.00 Late Group Registration $495.00
Register online now to participate. The first to register have first choice of attorney roles.	Download a workshop flyer and registration form

JuriSense will offer a one day mock trial workshop on a products liability case in Los Angeles, California. Tammy will prepare selected participants to present the case to a representative jury.  All attendees are invited to ask jurors questions during the debriefing and reception.  (8 CLE credits)

The mock trial fact patterns and workbooks can also be customized for groups, such as consumer attorneys, bar associations and law schools.  We will travel to your location and apply for MCLE credits in any state.  Email or call Tammy at (800) 891-6592 to discuss your ideas.

Free, Monthly Streaming CLE Webcasts - Coming Soon!
	Topics will include:  • Jury Selection  • Juror Decision-Making  • Reptile Techniques  • Rules of the Road  • Witness Preparation  • Persuasive Graphics  • Painting Word Pictures  • Combating Bias  • Storytelling  • Emotional Framing  • Factual Framing	Sign Up to Receive Free monthly CLE webcasts, CLE workshop updates and trial consulting news. You can follow my blog on Twitter.

"Outstanding speaker. Inspirational… informative and innovative…. Cutting edge methods for jury selection.… Impressive insights into the makings of a good and bad jury. Could listen to her all day." Lorraine Silvers, Asst. Prof. Trial Tactics, Irvine University"

"Really important work... a real value. [Tammy is] identifying and explicating the epiphenomenon of jury decisions... with science and more than a little common sense. Really nice work." Ted Ray, ExxonMobil

"The highlight of the conference." Vicki Gilbreath, Harris Martin Publishing

Practice Reptile, Damages and Rules of the Road  trial techniques

David Ball's trial advocacy books are essential reading for any trial attorney.  David Ball on Damages 3 was released in February, 2011.  The Rules of the Road and Reptile are two, well-known, effective trial advocacy approaches that activate cognitive appraisals for anger.  (See my article in The Jury Expert.)  Trial consultants have known that angry jurors are more punitive towards criminal defendants, and they return larger verdicts in civil cases. 

David Ball contributed his insights to Tammy's article, How Rules and Reptile Approaches Work.  This paper explains how trial advocacy techniques elicit subtle emotions that drive juror decision-making, including how jurors perceive risk, causation, blame and guilt.   (See The Jury Expert, May 2011.)

Reptile, by David Ball and Don Keenan, teaches attorneys to focus on community safety and emphasize how the defendant’s unnecessary actions (and similar actions by others) endanger members of an entire community. 

“The defense wields three weapons to defeat plaintiffs’ cases that should be won: Complexity, Confusion and Ambiguity.”  -- Rules of the Road, by Rick Friedman & Patrick Malone

The Rules approach gives jurors a sense of certainty, whereas many legal standards are fuzzy.  It also helps attorneys define relevant, clear rule violations, thereby increasing jurors’ certainty of fault.  Rules can come from industry standards, product labeling, statutes, contracts, jury instructions, expert testimony, procedures manuals, professional literature, ethical codes, common sense, etc. 

Polarizing the Case, by Patrick Malone, provides excellent advice on how to counter common defense themes.

Tammy Metzger gave a 1-hour talk on how jurors arrive at their verdicts and how they (mis)understand the verdict form.  She also played video clips of mock trial deliberations and focus group research to demonstrate how attorneys can more effectively communicate with jurors.

Tammy conceived the format and helped implement this conference, which was the first benzene litigation conference done as a trial.  Vicki Gilbreath said that this was the most well-attended, best-received benzene conference at Harris Martin ever.  Tammy recruited a demographically matched jury panel, prepared an insightful questionnaire, summarized the mock jurors’ answers, accurately predicted their reactions to the testimony, arranged for real-time feedback throughout the trial and selected a sitting judge to preside over this interesting event.

Tammy spoke about:
        • Jury Selection from the Plaintiff’s Perspective;
        • Bringing out Bias and Attitudes; and
        • Working with Bias, Attitudes and Life Experiences.

Tammy participated in a 2-hour presentation with Thomas Girardi, who demonstrated voir dire.  She also presented a paper, entitled Plaintiff’s View of a Benzene Leukemia Case, which Tom Girardi endorsed, saying "your paper is the best, most concise explanation of how to conduct jury selection. I gave it to all of my associates to read."  

Tammy spoke about the following:
        • Jury selection goals and techniques;
        • Bias, attitudes and life experiences
        • Personality types and demographics
        • Commented on the jurors’ responses and body language;
        • Explained whom she would strike and why.

Tammy spoke about how jurors think about toxic tort cases, scientific evidence and the law.  Other topics included opening and closing arguments, covert persuasion and connecting with your jurors throughout trial.  She also used video clips of mock jury deliberations to demonstrate her points. 

Tammy used video clips of a mock jury deliberation to explain how jurors think about cases, (mis)interpret the law and what actually drives their decisions. Other topics include covert persuasion and connecting with your jurors throughout trial.  (1 CLE credit)

This two hour talk explained basic jury selection principles, including how to discover jurors' biases, attitudes, life experiences and characteristics that influence their verdicts.  It covers the material in the Plaintiff's Jury Selection paper, which Tom Girardi called the "Most concise explanation of how to conduct jury selection." 

Framing puts facts in context by making some things seem more important than others, depending on the frame.  The same people, analyzing the same facts, will make different decisions, based their on different perspectives and associated rules. 

For example, people are typically risk-averse, so framing issues around something positive, such as saving lives, will result in people being less willing to take a gamble in how many lives are saved.  We want to protect at least some people.  However, if the framing is around "deaths," people will typically select the riskier gamble, trying to avoid any deaths, even when that choice actually puts more people at greater risk of death. 

Emotions drive decision-making, which usually works well in familiar situations.  Jurors also use their emotional, gut reactions in novel situations, such as a trial, which commonly leads to predictable reasoning errors.  People usually make decisions with far fewer facts than we realize.  We tend to think we know more and can attend to more information than is actually possible.  The "invisible gorilla" video was shown at an American Association for Justice meeting to demonstrate this concept, called inattentional blindness. 

Sensory details create more vivid, visceral mental experiences for listeners.  Clearly imagined scenarios are processed much like actual experiences, which are more memorable.  With practice, anyone can learn to create living, motion pictures in the minds of listeners. 

We all constantly broadcast and receive information from others regarding our emotional states, through body language, facial expressions and voice tone.  Many people are now consciously aware of the general meanings of arm gestures and other expressions that occur near the face.  The entire body changes with our emotions.  Learn how to better understand others and become more aware of what your body is saying.

ASTC 31^st Annual Conference
June 7-9, 2012
New Orleans, Louisiana