Services / Venue, Publicity & Jury Composition
When the jury pool has already made up its mind, or was never fairly drawn.
Change of venue surveys, pretrial publicity analysis, fair cross-section and jury pool composition studies, and trial-period media monitoring, prepared to the standard courts require of survey and statistical evidence.
New York to Kansas Federal and state venues across the 8th, 9th, and 10th Circuits and the Northeast
Remote and in person Every service offered in the courthouse city, at your office, or on a secure remote platform
Capital cases undertaken Death-eligible matters, including pro bono engagements
ASTC members American Society of Trial Consultants, bound by its Professional Code
Some cases arrive at the courthouse with the community’s verdict already formed. Others are tried before a pool that does not reflect the community at all. Both are constitutional problems with empirical answers, and both require research designed and documented well enough to survive cross-examination and a Daubert or Frye challenge. This is a specialized practice area for the firm, informed by the principal’s own academic research and by work on high-publicity, capital, and civil rights matters from New York to Kansas.
The firm’s background in crisis and litigation communication also shapes this work. We understand how coverage propagates, how it settles into community attitudes, and how to measure that rather than assert it.
Pro bono is part of the practice, not a sideline Every year the firm takes on matters where the stakes are as high as they get and the budget is nonexistent: indigent capital defense, wrongful conviction work, and civil rights cases. Those engagements have shaped how we work for paying clients. They demand research designs that produce reliable answers on small samples and short timelines, and they keep the firm connected to the jury pools and defense bars of communities that larger consultancies rarely see.
Grounded in original and continuing research The firm’s principal conducts his own jury research and continues formal academic work in psychology with a forensic emphasis. That means the methods used on your matter are informed by the current peer-reviewed literature on juror decision-making, group deliberation, and persuasion, not by folk wisdom accumulated in the 1990s. It also means the firm can speak the language of Daubert and Frye when research must be defended as evidence.
Insurer bad faith, on either side of the v. The firm has a particular concentration in insurance bad faith and extra-contractual litigation, representing both policyholders and carriers. Those cases turn on how jurors reason about promises, fine print, delay, and corporate decision-making, and on how they translate anger into a number. We know the attitudes that predict which way a panel leans, and we design research to measure them rather than assume them.
What the engagement includes
Venue, Publicity & Jury Composition services
Each component can be retained on its own or as part of a broader trial program. Scope, timeline, and budget are set with counsel at the outset and adjusted as the case develops.
Change of Venue Surveys
Probability-based surveys of the jury-eligible population in the trial venue and in one or more comparison venues, measuring case recognition, exposure to specific publicity, prejudgment of guilt or liability, and the ability to set opinions aside. Designed and analyzed to the standards expected of survey evidence, with declarations and testimony as needed.
- Trial venue and comparison venue sampling
- Instrument design tied to the publicity record
- Statistical analysis and expert declaration
- Testimony at venue hearings
Pretrial Publicity Analysis
A systematic content analysis of print, broadcast, online, and social media coverage: volume over time, prominence, tone, the specific prejudicial content (confessions, prior records, inadmissible evidence, characterizations of the parties), and its geographic reach. Paired with survey data to connect what was published to what the community believes.
- Media volume and tone coding
- Prejudicial content inventory
- Social media reach and sentiment
- Comparison venue coverage analysis
Fair Cross-Section and Jury Pool Composition Studies
Statistical analysis of whether the venire and the source lists from which it is drawn fairly represent the community’s distinctive groups, under the Sixth Amendment framework of Duren v. Missouri and its state analogs. Includes analysis of absolute and comparative disparity, standard deviation measures, and the systematic causes of underrepresentation in the summoning and qualification process.
- Source list and master wheel analysis
- Absolute, comparative, and standard deviation disparity measures
- Systematic exclusion analysis of the summoning process
- Expert declarations and hearing testimony
Community Attitude Surveys
Beyond publicity, surveys of the venue’s attitudes toward the parties, the industry, law enforcement, or the type of claim, used to support venue motions, to build juror profiles, and to inform the decision whether to seek a jury at all.
- Case-relevant attitude measurement
- Venue comparison for forum decisions
- Profile development for voir dire
High-Publicity Trial Support
For matters tried under media attention: media monitoring throughout trial, analysis of coverage that jurors may encounter despite admonitions, support for sequestration and juror-contact motions, and coordination with counsel’s communications strategy so that the courtroom presentation and the public posture do not work against each other.
- Daily media and social monitoring during trial
- Juror exposure risk assessment
- Support for protective motions
- Coordination with litigation communications counsel
Capital and Civil Rights Matters
Venue, publicity, and cross-section work is most often needed in capital cases and in civil rights and police misconduct litigation, where community feeling runs high and the composition of the pool can decide the case. Much of the firm’s work in this area is pro bono or reduced-fee for institutional defenders and civil rights counsel.
- Capital case venue and cross-section motions
- Civil rights and Section 1983 venue analysis
- Pro bono and reduced-fee engagements
How we work
Built to be evidence, from the first draft of the instrument.
A venue or cross-section motion is only as strong as the research behind it, and the research will be attacked on sampling, instrument design, coding reliability, and statistical method. The firm designs every study as if it will be cross-examined, because it will be.
- Define the legal question Venue motions, cross-section challenges, and publicity-based protective motions each have a specific legal standard. The research design begins from the elements the court will apply, so that the findings map onto them.
- Design a defensible study Probability sampling, validated instruments, documented coding protocols, and pre-specified analyses. Methodological choices are recorded so that they can be explained and defended.
- Field and analyze Surveys are fielded through professional research vendors with documented procedures. Content analysis uses trained coders and reliability checks. Statistical analysis follows the methods courts have accepted.
- Report for the court Findings are delivered as an expert declaration and supporting exhibits written for a judicial audience, with the limits of the research stated plainly.
- Testify and defend The consultant is available for deposition and hearing testimony and prepares counsel for the cross-examination of the study.
Remote
Mock trials, focus groups, witness sessions, and strategy work run on a secure video platform with jury-eligible participants recruited from the actual venue. Remote formats widen the recruiting pool, shorten lead time, and cut travel out of the budget, which matters for pro bono and public defender matters as much as for commercial clients. Deliberations are recorded and observed live, with counsel able to pass questions to the moderator in real time.
In person
Traditional facility-based research in or near the trial venue, in-court jury selection, and on-site witness preparation. In-person work is the default for capital cases, for multi-day mock trials with live witnesses and demonstratives, and whenever counsel wants to sit behind the glass and watch the deliberation unfold. We travel; the firm’s practice has always been regional and national rather than local.
Where we work
From New York to Kansas, in the courtroom and on the screen.
The firm’s practice spans federal and state courts across the 8th, 9th, and 10th Circuits and the Northeast, in civil, criminal, capital, and regulatory matters. We are members of the American Society of Trial Consultants and work within its Professional Code and Practice Guidelines.
Civil litigation
Plaintiff and defense work in commercial, professional liability, personal injury, products, employment, energy, and environmental matters, with a particular concentration in insurer bad faith on both the policyholder and carrier side.
Criminal and capital defense
State and federal criminal matters including death-eligible cases, from pretrial venue and cross-section motions through penalty phase. A substantial share of this work is pro bono or reduced-fee for appointed and institutional defenders.
Regulatory and high-publicity matters
Administrative and enforcement proceedings, and cases tried under media scrutiny where the jury pool’s prior exposure is itself a litigation issue.
Questions counsel ask
Before you retain us.
Typically 300 to 400 completed interviews in the trial venue, with a comparable sample in each comparison venue, produces margins of error courts have found acceptable. Smaller samples are possible for preliminary assessments but are more vulnerable on cross.
It depends on how quickly the court or jury commissioner produces the source list and venire data. Once the data are in hand, analysis and a declaration can be completed in two to four weeks. Obtaining the data is often the longest step, and we can assist counsel with the request.
Change of venue motions are granted infrequently and cross-section challenges face a demanding standard, so no honest consultant will promise an outcome. What a well-designed study does is give the court a factual record it cannot dismiss, preserve the issue for appeal, and frequently produce secondary benefits: expanded voir dire, a supplemental questionnaire, or additional peremptory strikes.
Yes. The consultant prepares the declaration, sits for deposition, and testifies at the hearing, and prepares counsel for the cross-examination of the methodology.
Frequently. Capital and civil rights matters are where this work is most needed and least funded, and the firm has a standing commitment to taking some of these engagements each year at no fee or reduced fee.
Discuss a venue, publicity & jury composition engagement. Remote or in person, anywhere the case is.
An initial conversation about the matter, the venue, and the timeline costs nothing. Pro bono and reduced-fee inquiries from appointed and institutional defense counsel are welcome.