Case Summary - The Crucial Skill to Focus Groups & Research Studies

This is Brian Panish from the Legal Podcasts Get in the Game. Hope you like what you're hearing and remember, sharing is caring. Subscribe if you like it, share with others, but don't forget Get in the Game. So the neutral case summary is a big part of what we use here at jury analyst. This is the first thing that the virtual jurors will see about a particular case. So it's very important because this provides basic details and overview that they're going to be reading. We do get a lot of questions about what makes a good one and a bad one, and we're joined here by Russell Nicolay of Nicolay Lawtham who is a client with us in the past and has had a lot of success writing them. Russell, can you give us any tips about what makes a good neutral case summary for you, please? The high-critch, certainly. I think one of the big things that I focus on is I try to keep it very simple and concise. And so typically my neutral summaries are within a typed page, maybe a little bit over. But what I start from is I want to set the neutral summary and really use the point that it is neutral and maybe even slightly to the negative because I want to get the jury's honest perspective of either at a neutral or maybe even doing not as good as I think I would say for it because as we all know, things happen between the final pre-trial and trial or even during trial where you get some evidence in, but you may not get evidence in or the defense may get some negative evidence in. And so I kind of want to know what it looks like to a jury on my worst day or on a day where I might be leaning a little bit to the negative. And that way if I get, you know, I do better at getting evidence in or keeping evidence out and I know I have a better chance. So what I do is I look at my case and I like to summarize the liability. There's anything that's going to be uncontested. I make sure that's very clear in my case summary. And if there's any questions of liability, I make those very clear and simple and again neutral or maybe slightly to the negative. So that's on the liability aspect and I make that a simple vaccinerial and a simple quick thing for the potential jurors to read. And then I get into, you know, the treatment or the damages. And so we try to make that get the high points and make it very concise and easy to read in, you know, non medical terminology. And one thing that I've done with success and it depends, I mean, it's a little bit of a strategy is do you want to include like medical illustrations or medical animations? I typically do that. The reason being is that my experience has been one that jurors and you know mocked jurors really liked it and helped them visualize the injuries. But my experience has been most of the judges that I've been in front of have a lot of those in. So I'm not too worried that they may not actually make it from the actual jurors. If you're in a jurisdiction where you have, you know, you've had some experience, your concern that you won't really get these medical animations or illustrations in, that you may make sense to keep them out or do two, you know, two scenarios, right? One with the illustrations alone with only one. But like I said, I typically put those in. I put those along with the summary of the medical treatment. And again, it's, you want to keep it concise. I think as lawyers, we always want to fill in a lot of details. But we got to remember one, for a jury, you want to try to keep as simple as you can. But also for the mock jury, you only have so much time and you want to get their overall feelings on things. And so, you try to get the high points for the treatment in the issues. And again, you hit the low points as well, you know, as far as like this is a problem or there was this pre-existing injury, you make that quick and concise. And again, like I said, I think my summary is typically a page, maybe a little bit more. And some of that is kind of the book forms too. So it's not all the type. But I mean, I think the key takeaway is just make it simple and make it easy for potential jurors to understand along with making sure you keep it neutral. And in my instance, I like to mean to the negative. I mean, against my case a little bit to really see what my worst-being court would look like. That way, when I get the results from the mock jurors, it gives me an idea, even if on my bad day, here's kind of what I'm looking at. And that helps me not only prepare for trial and be confident, but then also even on a mediation, I have some ideas of what the jurors already are concerned with and potentially what the valuation will look like. So, you know, if the defense comes to me with an offer, I have an idea of whether it's within that range of being reasonable or maybe it's even a one where I know my mock jurors already said, they, this is a case that we don't really see eye to eye with you on. And I know that maybe that potential offer is even more favorable. But I think what I really like to see is what are the jurors like look at how do they evaluate my case, whether these use concerns in that neutral or slightly negative way. And that just gives me that confidence of now I'm getting some feedback on a case that even if I don't do so great, I know what people potentially think and the hope is I'll do much better. And it gives you that confidence to be prepared for mediation and trial. But I think that's what you got to look at it as you're not trying to get a bunch of yes, men or women or I get people to tell you how you know, congratulate and how good a case you have or you know, how bad your client was injured or how much they've been wrong. But really you want to see what maybe I'm one of your not so good days or even worst days what the these jurors would, or these mock jurors potentially we looking at and potentially award your client. And I think that's really important because you're kind of looking for the holes and weaknesses in your cases. Not only the positives, and I think the positives come out in your case, regardless when you put it in this concise summary way, because they're looking for things that where they already identify with, hey, this is a positive, you might already know that make you don't. But what you really really need to know in my case is I think it's what are the negatives and what what's going to be concerned if you leave that out because you want to sure to quote your case, you're doing yourself in this favor. Yeah, and I think one of the big things is and that makes the my neutral summaries work well for my case is it's just going back and forth taking the feedback from from the staff, the scientists, be able to scientists as to the questions and concerns they have being that you know they're the ones that have run these focus groups and have done these data, you know, these surveys and then trying to figure out a way again to keep it neutral or slightly the negative and keep it concise. And I think that's the key part is it's it's simple to say hey I hire you guys just take it run with it, but that's not the best way to in my in my opinion to do this is to work hand in hand with the behavioral scientists to really craft that summary again I mean neutral or slightly negative that you feel almost like if you're preparing your case for mediation or you're preparing your case for an arbitration or even trial, you need to put the time in and I'm not saying that you need to put that much time in preparing this as much as you would for like a trial, but you really want to look at it as taking some time and really focusing on what is going to be the end document, the end information that's going to be running to mock jerse because they what do they say like you know you're only what you put in is what you get out and that's the same thing here and so I think the good the good thing is you guys are good at figuring out what we need to do and you know what would be potentially helpful, but on our and we need to take that and we know our case better than anyone and we need to make sure we follow through and get all of that information and do it in the right way so to go back and forth and work with the with the behavioral behavioral scientist to make sure that you're you're taking the time attention and effort to listen to what they're saying and then with that end goal of getting a true and accurate kind of findings or feedback on a neutral view or even an slightly negative view of your case and that that takes some time and effort but it's it's one you're already spending the money so you need to you know you take it from that point you but then it's it's time and effort well spent because the information the data you're getting is going to be invaluable for potentially weaknesses and positives now that you're finding out that you can start to craft your strategy a little bit different but also it's going to help you I think negotiate whether it's you know attorney to attorney or it's that mediation a lot better and then on top of it have the confidence that mediation or where you sit and what you need to do and I know a lot of cases I have not settled that mediation because I've been confident in the data that I've received and they'll settle like the Thursday or Friday before a Monday trial because I know where my case is and I know what it looks like on a bad day and I'm confident so then when the defense finally comes around to see it the way that not only I see it but I might jersey it you know then then we get the case settled but not settled in and that gives you the confidence to hang in there and either wait till they come to you with a fair value or you know try the case because you know you have the data and you know what folks are looking at and what they think even on your best day. So to summarize very briefly, the neutral case summary, keep it short, keep it simple and easy to understand, and keep it neutral even tending a little negative, just in case you have a bad day. And with the neutral case summary, make sure you're working back and forth with the data scientists, some behavioral scientists, so that it is as good as possible, because as you said, the more you put in, the more you're going to get out. In the courtroom, we rely on compelling evidence often rooted in the detail work of scientists. That's why I'm introducing science of justice. This podcast by jury analyst isn't just legal chatter, it's a deep dive into law and science using real science, real data, and real time. The team at Science of Justice stands for integrity. They break down complex scientific principles to serve those wronged or injured, making it accessible for lawyers and other justice seekers. So now let's really up your game and embrace some real evidence. 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