Mock trials don’t usually involve mock turtles.
Blawgletter just returned from two days of mock trying an antitrust class action. So we thought we’d share a few thoughts about the experience:
- Fear of embarrassing yourself in front of strangers does a nice job of motivating you to dig into the details of your case.
- You learn a lot more about your case if you take your side in one mock trial and the other side’s side in another.
- Mock juries reliably identify the one or two facts on which your case pivots.
- Mock juries also do a good job of sizing up witnesses they see on video.
- They generally don’t give sound predictions of damage awards.
- Jurors say nice things about presenting lawyers whose side they agree with and unpleasant things about those on the side they dislike.
- Pay little attention to individual jurors’ comments about their thinking, including about specific types or pieces of evidence. The process isn’t purely logical and intellectual; it’s also emotional, irrational, and collective.
- Don’t let the results go to your head. Don’t start eating your own dog food, believing your own bs, or smoking your own hemp.
- Finally, beware the hormonal stirring you feel from the simulation of courtroom battle. Think with that wrinkly organ in your noggin’, not your glands.
