Picking Justice

The way employment litigator Bernard Alexander sees it, the beauty of these cases is that most jurors are employees. At voir dire, the plaintiff’s lawyer’s job is to get jurors to slip into their client’s shoes. In this...

Some corporations may be “evil.” Others may be “heroes.” Good or bad, they’re made up of people. “Just saying ‘it's a company’ isn't enough. What company? What does the company do? And who are the people in the...

David deRubertis, one of California's preeminent employment trial lawyers, once had a streak of consecutive trials resulting in eight-figure verdicts. And yet he hates jury selection. How did he move past that? By...

What a difference a month makes. Trial consultant Samantha Teal had not worked on a $14 million sexual assault verdict, $1 million employment verdict, $10 million employment pregnancy discrimination verdict, and $307...

Daniel Rodriguez is the child of migrant farm workers who settled in California’s agricultural heartland, where his law practice is based. So it makes sense that the metaphor he uses for his voir dire technique is...

Dirk Vandever asks jurors to say it themselves: "I'm just as rich as Jeff Bezos." It's how he gets conservative jurors to see that a low-income client's quality of life is worth just as much as anyone else's. A Kansas...

“How many of you care if the Amazon guy that delivers your package struts up like a pretty peacock?” asks Keith Mitnik . “All you care about is what's inside the package.” Pretend you’re the Amazon guy, and jurors are...

If the juror’s laughing at your dumb jokes but their answers scream “danger zone!” – don’t bask in the laughter. Watch out for the danger. With 200 jury trials on his resume, trial lawyer Keith Bruno breaks down the...

When he stands up at voir dire, Jude Basile has two goals: to empower the jury and get them involved in the case. With results that include a $150 million wrongful death verdict, Jude reveals how he achieves both goals...

A woman browses in a knick-knack store that has a sign: “You Break It – You Buy It.” Sure enough, she accidentally breaks a figurine – and it has a $78 price tag! The woman protests: “That wasn't worth $78! And your...

Everybody loves an underdog story - so why do lawyers often tell the opposite in the courtroom? Juilliard-trained actor and jury trial consultant Jesse Wilson developed a “victim-to-victor” approach that capitalizes on...

"Voir dire is the scariest thing to do for a lawyer," Dan Kramer says as he reflects on the first year of “Picking Justice” with co-host Harry Plotkin . This special episode celebrates a year of exceptional guests...

After completing nine trials earlier this year, Mike Alder describes lessons learned about jury selection with hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer . Tune in for his insights about how being practiced makes you...

“You've gotten just tons of jurors off for cause, but you do it in the most polite way,” host Harry Plotkin says of longtime friend Rahul Ravipudi , who stops by “Picking Justice” to share his philosophy of voir dire...

Picture your voir dire happening in a private room where it’s just you and the potential juror. It’s called “individual sequestered voir dire,” it’s guaranteed in Connecticut’s constitution, and it’s an approach that...