Effective Voir Dire

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Many lawyers – even seasoned trial lawyers – take a casual approach to jury selection: They show up for court with no prepared questions, and they do more talking than the prospective jurors do. As a result, they learn little about the prospective jurors and are forced to rely on stereotypes and “gut instinct” in making decisions about who should stay and who should go.

Simply put: This approach does not work.

Effective Voir Dire offers a better approach – one that is easily implemented and works in every case, civil and criminal:

• Step One: Analyze Your Case From a Layperson’s Perspective
• Step Two: Write Down and Test Out Your Questions in Advance
• Step Three: Stick to Your Script and Use Proven Techniques to Question Jurors in Court
• Step Four: Use All Available Information to Assess Jurors’ Responses

This four-step approach will help you (a) identify the jurors you need to worry about; (b) get jurors talking, so that they voluntarily reveal the biases that will hurt your client; (c) get more jurors excused for cause; and (d) make well-informed decisions about exercising your peremptory strikes.

800+ Voir Dire Questions at Your Fingertips

Once you know how the four-step approach works, Effective Voir Dire shows you how to use it, by providing sample voir dire for common fact scenarios in six distinct practice areas: motor vehicle accidents; slip, trip and fall; medical malpractice; products liability; employment; and criminal cases.

The voir dire samples are annotated with detailed analyses explaining why a line of questioning is important, what you can expect to learn, and how to assess and follow-up on jurors’ responses.

Additional forms materials are available from James Publishing; access to those materials can be requested directly from James by following guidelines provided within the eBook or emailing forms@jamespublishing.com.

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