Beware of Generational Differences in Jurors
We all know that major events can effect a generation. Think the Depression, World War II and the Vietnam War. But much smaller events can help shape attitudes and thought processes. I’m 41 years old and was born in 1964. Watergate was on television when I was about 10 years old. I wasn’t old enough to really know what was going on, other than it was something major that the government had done wrong and that it was always on television. Couple that with my father growing up on a farm in the flatlands of Texas, pretty much guaranteed that I would be a plaintiff’s attorney.
When I was in law school, I was talking to someone that was just 5 years younger than me. He ‘came of age’ during the malaise of the Carter years and then the Reagan years. He had a totally different attitude towards government. Rather than a healthy skepticism towards government, he believed wholeheartedly in governmental triumphalism (with a conservative bent of course).
Over the weekend, at the STLA Retreat, Howard Nations gave his excellent presentation on generational attitudes of Generation X and Generation Y jurors. With the top end of Generation X hitting 40 years old, nationwide half of your jurors will be Gen X or Gen Y jurors.
