Perfect Practice Makes Perfect

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Challenge: Consecutive mock juries (chosen to reflect the demographics of the typical Jury empaneled in the jurisdiction) returned lower-than-expected verdicts for a high-profile injury case. 

Considering the merits of the case and the fact that both mock juries returned similar verdicts, Nordstrom and Company conducted in-depth interviews with all the mock jurors to determine what drove them to reach their conclusions and decide damages. Once we learned that the “loss of consortium” argument didn’t have much value to the jury members who were either female or under the age of 40 (the victim was 50 and male) the consensus was that older men probably didn’t have an active sex life anyway. 

Considering that belief, the jurors didn’t think the victim deserved very much monetary compensation for that injury and awarded damages based on other physical trauma. Uncovering that information, we worked with the attorneys to craft a more compelling narrative where we focused on the victim’s wife and her loss due to his inability to provide the love and attention that she deserved for the rest of her life. (45 year old female) The difference in the verdict returned at trial was 5X that of the mock juries.