Mind the Gap When Telling Your Story

A trial is typically not the ideal format for telling your client’s story.  Presenting jurors with numerous witnesses and hundreds (or thousands) of pages of documents spread over two or more weeks can result in a fragmented narrative that leaves jurors overwhelmed or confused.  It’s your (and our) job to overcome these limitations of the trial format and focus on telling the big-picture story from the outset.

Recently, academic studies have shed light on the processes jurors use to make sense of a case.  These studies found that because of gaps in presented information and disagreement among witnesses, jurors often “fill the gaps” and actively “search for … explanations to make sense of what they are seeing and hearing.”  What’s more, once they begin deliberating in the jury room, jurors will pool their individual assessments to come up with a hybrid story that incorporates all of their views about the conflicting and incomplete information they’ve heard.  (Read the entire article here: http://www.thefederation.org/documents/11.Empirical%20Analysis%20of%20Jurors-Diamond.pdf)

Although jurors are instructed not to form opinions about a case until they’ve heard all of the evidence, we know this isn’t how it works in the real world.  We’ve interviewed plenty of jurors who made up their minds about a case as early as jury selection or opening statements and spent the rest of the trial looking for evidence that confirms their initial leanings.

That’s why it’s important during opening statements to focus on the big picture and tell jurors a simple story – your 30-second version of what the case is about – before fleshing out the details.  If jurors have your story – and not the opposition’s – in mind from the outset, they will be more likely to “fill in the gaps” during the course of trial in a way that favors your side.

We also recommend using clear, detailed timelines as demonstratives you can refer to throughout trial.  We have found during focus groups that jurors often crave a timeline and are able to more clearly see the big picture once everything is laid out in clear, chronological order.  Having a visual timeline for jurors to refer to in effect leaves fewer gaps they will be tempted to fill in with their own version of events. 

In our experience, timelines should be as detailed as possible – again, to leave as few gaps as possible.  Even if not much happened at a specific time – such as when labor is progressing for several hours in a birth injury case – it can be useful to simply put the patient’s vital signs or fetal heart status on the timeline so there’s no long gap jurors will be tempted to fill in unhelpful ways.  Rather than a gap when caregivers were “ignoring the patient” or “looking at their Facebook,” jurors look at the timeline and see “constant monitoring” and “above-and-beyond care.”

If you would like our advice on how to frame your story or “fill the gaps” before jurors do it for you, please contact Senior Vice President Claire Luna at 714-754-1010 or cluna@juryimpact.net.