“Texas lawyer Chris Bagby has come up with a less expensive way to get a feel for how a jury will react to arguments,”this news article says.”Bagby started eJury after being inspired by a Dateline television show that featured coverage of a trial.The concept gave him the idea of having lawyers pre-try cases before online juries.Turnaround time for completing a mock jury on the internet can be as little as 48 hours for large metropolitan areas in the US,and a week or two in rural areas where it takes longer to reach the 50-juror threshold.Virtual juries will make decisions without watching trial simulation and without the peer pressure that can accompany jury deliberations.Typically,Bagby says,the company’s e-jurors are asked to review a set of facts and then answer questions.Presentation of facts differs greatly depending on the style of the drafting lawyer.Sometimes the facts include photographs,scanned documents and video clips.The case concludes when a set number of e-jurors (50 in most cases) have entered their verdicts.Bagby says the process begins by compiling the results for the lawyer.Results include each verdict along with a corresponding demographic profile of each e-juror.Additionally,the lawyer receives a statistical summary revealing the average findings of the group as a whole,as well as several subcategories.From this information the lawyer can detect the best and worst jurors for a case.After studying the answers to personal questions,the lawyer also will learn the strongest and weakest points in the case”.

E-trials testing lawyers’ strategy