Taking the Jury With You
In the current issue of SCTLA’s Bulletin, Vernon Glenn of Charleston, writes an article of what works for him. There’s a lot of good stuff in there, but one tip particularly struck home with me.
Vernon suggests getting an empty egg carton and filling it up with Weebles. Getting 12 Weebles (or other generic characters) to fill up the carton. Some old, some young, some with differing ethnic characteristics and a diverse background.
When doing trial prep, have the egg carton with your little jury on it front and center and think about how the arguments would sound to various members of your jury.
When not doing trial prep, Vernon keeps his egg carton jury sitting on his desk, so that they will ‘see’ all of his decisions and he will keep their deliberations in mind. What a great idea!
Vernon also writes the fabulous Vernon Holds Court. A well written, but intermittent on-line newsletter. I’ve begged him to put in an RSS feed, but he’s not quite there yet. Hopefully, we’ll get him in the rank of bloggers soon.
12 eggs in a carton. 12 jurors in a jury. Coincidence? I think not.
Great story. Reminds me of how Jude Basile, one of the faculty members at Trial Laywers College, greets each juror's chair with the name of that juror when he comes into the courtroom each day before the trial day starts and says good night to each jurors chair at the end of the day.
