Winning Over Women on Your Jury

In our experience, women more often than not make up a majority on a trial jury.  And in case you haven’t noticed, a large majority of trial lawyers are still men.  This creates a common dynamic in which the men in the room need to appeal to and persuade the women – a task that can be difficult for some men. 

Persuading the women on your jury is of even greater importance for defense lawyers because, as our research has consistently shown for years, women tend to be more plaintiff-oriented than men.  There aren’t any secret “tricks” or “techniques” for appealing to female jurors, but there are certainly some pitfalls to avoid and issues to consider.  What follows is a compilation of some tips and observations drawn from our experience during hundreds of focus groups and dozens of trials:

• Be respectful – Being respectful is about more than just not referring to women as “gals” or commenting on their appearance – those should be no-brainers.  It’s also about avoiding more subtle behaviors that betray a lack of respect for women.  For example, we attended a trial during which the codefendant’s attorney repeatedly addressed a female expert witness, the head of an Ivy League medical school department, as “miss” or even “nurse” instead of “doctor.”  It was a slip of the tongue, but did he make the same mistake with male witnesses?  Nope.  Needless to say, it didn’t go over well with the female-heavy jury.
• Avoid stereotyping – Assumptions often work out poorly at trial, and especially when it comes to making snap judgments about what female jurors will or won’t want to hear.  We once saw a plaintiff attorney start to make a football analogy then stop mid-sentence, telling the jury of six women and two men that “it probably won’t make sense to you.”  During exit interviews, one of the female jurors – a die-hard Steelers fan – was still livid about it three weeks later.
• Don’t be overly aggressive – In our experience, few jurors of either gender like it when attorneys badger opposing witnesses, but female jurors are particularly turned off by it.  This is especially true when the witness is a woman, as being overly aggressive can make you come across as a bully and cause the female jurors to sympathize with or even feel protective of the witness.  You don’t need to wear kid gloves, but boxing gloves aren’t called for either. 
• Be nice to female colleagues – Nothing is more cringe-worthy than when a lawyer is rude to a female paralegal, attorney or clerk in front of the jury.  More subtle is when an attorney treats women differently than men, such as calling women by their first name and men by their last.  Be a gentleman and hold the door open for everyone, not just women. 
• Hire more women – Law is still a male-dominated field, and we still encounter firms where 80 percent or more of the attorneys are men.  When you have a diverse team, it allows you to better connect with a wider variety of jurors.  And try not to just use women as window dressing – if you have a “token” female (or African-American or young person) at counsel table who does nothing but fill a seat during trial, that can also be a turn-off.

If you’d like to hone your presentation skills or tailor your case to appeal more to your likely juror audience, we’d be glad to help.  Contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at cluna@juryimpact.net or 714.754.1010 for more information.