Careers That Don’t Suck Profile: Jury Consultant

Posted on | October 8, 2006 | No Comments

Job Title: Jury Consultant
AKA: Trial Consultants, Research Analysts

What is it?

Jury or trial consultants are experts in human behavior who work with trial lawyers to select juries, or to figure out what arguments, what demonstrations and graphics might be most persuasive.

What does a Jury Consultant do?
Lots of research, writing, data collection and analysis, and lots of time spent advising trial lawyers on which jurors to select, which parts of their case are most positive and which negative, and finally on how to best present their cases so that the jury can understand it and be more likely to vote in their favor.

That’s probably 60% of the job. The other 40% is sales and business development—getting speaking engagements, making friends with trial lawyers

Who might like this job?

• Anybody who likes to design surveys and questionnaires and analyze interesting data about the way people think
• Anyone who is highly analytical, a good writer and a good communicator overall
• Anyone who likes the judicial system and lawyers you’ll spend a lot of time with them

What does this pay?
Entry-level Research analyst: 0 experience, MA degree–$40k
Mid-level Consultant: 3-5 years experience, MA degree–$50k-$80k
Sr. level: more than 5 years, PhD–$65k-$110k

To break in you’ll need…

• At least a MA in a social science, psychology, social work, psychiatry, Sociology
• Most firms will hire you with little or no trial consulting experience, but you’ll need
• Experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research (experience designing surveys, questionnaires or experiments to collect some type of data)
• Must write well (legal or technical writing)

Who would you work for?
Mostly trial services or consulting firms, usually small businesses with fewer than 50 consultants. They’re a lot like small law firms or business consultants. Some larger law firms or high profile firms hire their own jury consultants. The rest work as independent consultants. They’re hired by defense attorneys, some prosecutors in big cases.

Recently, some trial or jury consultants have begun to work in Alternative Dispute Resolution—that’s working with lawyers on cases that won’t go to court but to arbitration or mediation. They do the same things, except that instead of focusing on juries, they focus on arbiters, the people who decide the outcome of ADR.

To find current openings…
American Society of Trial Consultants – Professional organization for trial consultants, offers training, career advice, advocacy information

Doar Consulting - Leading trial consulting firm voted #24 in Deloitte’s Fast 50 fastest growing technology firms in NY

The Advocates – Trial consulting firm

Findlaw for Legal Professionals – Clearinghouse of information on careers in the legal profession

Trial Consulting (American Psychology-Law Society Series)

The Psychology of the American Jury

Courtroom Psychology and Trial Advocacy

The Runaway Jury

What about this career doesn’t suck?

• Cool tools: digital court facilities, shadow juries that watch the case as it’s presented and provide feedback that the jury consultant uses to help lawyers gauge how the real jury is responding to their case
• If you’re really good, or really lucky, you get to work on the big cases, i.e. OJ Simpson, Scott Peterson, Kobe Bryant and make the big bucks. Josh Dubin, a trial consultant in NY earned $512k last year!
• You learn the oddest and most interesting stuff about people, i.e. why people from certain socio-economic groups react in a certain way to a certain issue, why a person from one race might respond in a completely different way than another
• You also get to meet, interview and figure out how to communicate with all different types of people
• This job scored 64% on our WorkYourWay Index. That’s 35 out of 55. Discounted for stress-related to heavy sales responsibilities; small number of jobs available; high barriers to entry (you’ll need at least a Masters, most likely a PhD). Scores high marks for safe, comfortable work environment, relatively low stress, relatively high pay, good benefits

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