What Is A Shadow Jury and How Can It Benefit You?

If you are a lawyer, you are already familiar with the term "jury" and everything that it entails; however you may not know about another extremely important term: the "shadow jury".

Using a shadow jury can elevate and improve the effectiveness of your trial strategy.

Here is everything you need to know about shadow juries and how they can work for you:

What is a shadow jury?

This is a smaller, secondary jury that mirrors the actions of the actual jury during a trial. They are a group of individuals who are not involved in a court case but offer their opinions about the case to help inform the decisions made by the jury. This jury is usually assembled by the plaintiff's or defense attorney and is made up of some combination of peers, media members, and trial watchers.

These shadow juries will shadow the jurors for anywhere from a few days to several months depending on the complexity of the case. Shadow juries are typically used as a tool for litigation consultants, who use the opinions of the shadow jurors to help them better understand how potential jurors may react to a case and to help them make decisions about how to best present the case.

All shadow juries must be approved by the presiding judge and all deliberations are completely confidential.

How can shadow juries benefit you?

There are a number of ways that shadow juries can benefit you, including:

• Helping you understand the potential outcomes of a court case
• Helping you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your case
• Juries can be tailored to your specific needs

Understanding potential outcomes

When it comes to predicting the outcome of a hearing, there is no 100 percent accurate way to do so. However, when you work with a jury selection expert to find shadow juries, you will have a much stronger understanding of how potential jurors may react to your case as well as all of the possible outcomes. This information can be extremely valuable when making strategic decisions about your case and can even rescue your case.

For example, if you are an attorney who speaks with the shadow jurors, you will be able to hear opinions on the case that mirror those of the real jury. If the majority of people are leaning in one direction, you can predict that the case will end in favor of that direction.

Once you have this information, you will be able to know if your case is strong or if it needs more tweaking to become convincing.

Understanding strengths and weaknesses

Just as shadow juries can help you understand potential outcomes, they can also help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your case. This information can be extremely important when it comes to making strategic decisions about your case.

For example, if the shadow jurors feel that a particular point in your case is very strong, you may want to focus on highlighting that as you continue your argument as well as in your concluding statements.

On the other hand, if you are a defense attorney and your shadow jurors relay a negative reaction to certain aspects of your case, you may choose to focus more on other aspects of your case moving forward. If the shadow jurors feel that your case is weak, you may want to focus on strategies that will help to improve this reaction.

Tailored to your needs

When you work with a jury selection expert, you can make sure that shadow juries are tailored to your specific case needs. For example, shadow juries can be made up of just peers or just media members.

Shadow juries can also give feedback for all of your statements or just specific ones.

Therefore shadow juries can be a great way to get feedback from certain groups of people about how they feel about your case.

Contact Focus Litigation Consultants

Now that you have the answer to what is a shadow jury and how it can benefit you, you may be interested in reaching out to experts that can guide you with selection. Get in touch with the shadow juror consultants at Focus Litigation Consultants to explore shadow juries in your case. Our team of expert consultants can help you better understand shadow juries and how they can work for you.