Research Articles
Predicting Jury Verdicts:
Legal Research - What It Is and Does It Work?
by Dr. Kelly Anthony (Author)
Due to skepticism and fear surrounding jury trials, 99% of cases are settled and less than 1% make it to a jury trial (AO Reports, 2023). To address the uncertainty surrounding jury trials, which are nearing extinction, lawyers have relied on methods, like trial simulations to predict jury verdicts. However, in legal practice there has been significant unease about the ability of jury research to generalize findings to actual trial settings.
What is needed is needed is a description of a single legal research method that when practiced in courtroom trial settings, (1) can support lawyers by providing insights to how a jury is making verdict decision, and (2) predict actual jury’s verdicts. The purpose of this study was to introduce a legal research method, The Parallel Jury, describe its processes and procedures, examine its usefulness in supporting lawyers during trial, and evaluate its effectiveness in predicting jury verdicts. This study was a longitudinal content analysis that compared parallel and actual jury verdict findings in 82 actual civil litigation trials, in 40 states across the nation.
The results revealed the parallel jury’s liability findings were predictive in 88% of the cases. An Odds Ratio test confirmed the parallel’s liability verdicts were significant and highly associated with the actual juries (OR = 53.833). In addition, for damage awards the parallel jury was predictive (within a 25% range) in 70% of the trial cases. Similarly, an Odds Ratio test confirmed the parallel juries damages award findings were significant and highly associated with the actual juries (OR = 9.714). If the odds ratios are viewed as probabilities, the probability of an accurate prediction of either liability or damage award outcome for any one case over baseline increases by over .90 with the use of parallel juries.
This study makes a valuable contribution by being the first to systematically describe the process and procedures of a specific legal research method, examine its usefulness in supporting lawyers during trial, and evaluate its effectiveness in predicting jury verdicts in live trials with real jurors. Additionally, this study offers lawyers a practical framework for understanding jury decision-making, remove degrees of uncertainty associated with the jury trial, and encourages practitioners to approach the litigation process with greater ease and confidence.