Jury Consultants post – Rajaratnam: Are They Worth It?
I was interested to read the The Wall Street Journal’s report that Raj Rajaratnam spent $300,000 on jury consultants before the trial in which he was convicted on all 14 counts of securities law violations. As my teenage daughter might say, “fail”!
OK, I admit that I’m being a bit unfair. From everything I read in the press regarding this trial it would have been astounding if Mr. Rajaratnam had been acquitted. After all, the government had something quite rare in insider trading cases: audiotapes of the defendant, convicting him with his own words. A jury consultant “fantasy team” comprised of Sigmund Freud and a certified psychic probably wouldn’t have been able to help in this case.
Nevertheless, it’s no great surprise that Raj’s attorneys chose to use jury consultants in this case. $300,000 was a drop in the bucket given the “spare no expense” approach taken by defense counsel in this case. Mr. Rajaratnam”s lawyers undoubtedly concluded that jury consultants might help, and couldn’t hurt. The decision to utilize jury consultants probably was a prudent step in minimizing future regret. (“If only we had used a jury consultant our client might not have been convicted! Darn.”).
Trial lawyers have long been deeply divided on the question of whether jury consultants are “worth it.” Some of the consultants’ recommendations in this case (as reported in the WSJ), are so obvious that it your lawyer doesn’t know them without a jury consultant’s advice, get a new lawyer. For example, the Journal reports that the consultantants concluded that jurors who were members of ethnic minority groups were more sympathetic to Mr. Rajaratnam, who was born in Sri Lanka. Hmm . . . . did OJ’s lawyers need jury consultants to tell them that people of color might be more favorably disposed to OJ than whites? I hope not. Lawyers shouldn’t need jury consultants to tell them that people are predisposed to like people like themselves. If my client is an ultra orthodox Jew, I want a jury of the same. If my client is a native American . . . . well, you get it. (more…)