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| SmartJury | |
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Many of us firmly believe that picking a jury is an art form. Something that is learned after years of trial work, gained from — forgive the words — trial and error. We learn to read people, the looks on their faces, their posture, even the way they smile at counsel, and don’t forget their responses to our questions. Voir dire is one of those rare activities that is taught in law school, but really isn’t learned until years later. We can hire consultants to assist us with this task, but they are expensive and often don’t add much value. Attorneys still trust their experiences over everything else and automating this process seems like the opposite of what attorneys would do when selecting a jury panel. However, a new product, SmartJury by SmartCop Inc., is an outstanding application that simplifies the process of selecting a jury and helps reduce the inherent uncertainty in completing this task. SmartJury assists in jury selection in several ways. First, it has a very comprehensive set of questions and allows you to customize this list. It also allows you to record question responses, body language, customizable seating charts, notes and challenges to develop a comprehensive individual profile for each panel member. One of SmartJury’s most impressive features is it takes most of this information and then ranks jurors using a demographic analysis. The attorney instantly can view on screen which potential jurors are most favorable to the plaintiff or the defendant. SmartJury also has a connection to online public records searches for additional background checks on potential jurors through Accurint, an information management and technology company providing public records searches. According to the company, by typing in a potential juror’s name, address and date of birth, the application will search public records for the juror’s criminal records, bankruptcies, business affiliations, liens, property ownership, education, neighborhood information and home value. This is added into the application to give an even more rounded view of the potential jurors. However, I didn’t have access to this function for this review. There is an additional cost per public record ($10 per record) for this search, and it also is limited by statute in some states. I installed this application on an IBM T20 laptop running Windows 2000 and the installation was flawless. I did have to call SmartJury for my registration code to initialize the program, but they were very helpful and this went forward without incident. The user’s manual was given in hard copy documentation although an overview is available online as well. The application also guides you through a new case set up. It’s very straightforward and easy to initialize, even for the most computer-challenged attorney. However, instructions on customizing some of the case types also would have been beneficial, but this is a minor issue. After the basic case information has been entered into the program, SmartJury gives the user the opportunity to modify the aforementioned demographic scoring for any of the 19 areas that are ranked. The two main types of scoring in SmartJury are Manual Demographic Scoring and Automatic Demographic Scoring. The other scoring lists are Body Language Scoring, and Question and Rating Scores. MDS allows you to use your own background and experiences to choose the jury. MDS is used when the attorney inputs his or her own rankings, in addition to the ones already in SmartJury. The ADS scoring is calculated from the demographic profiling that already exists in SmartJury. This has been compiled from profiles of 1,800 potential jurors by the Marketing Research Institute. These potential jurors were randomly selected in proportion to demographic and geographic characteristics. Both scoring methods are useful. Once the panel has been set up and the seating list customized, the questioning begins. As the attorney is asking the questions, a paralegal or junior attorney will enter the answers into the application and, as the questions are entered, SmartJury begins to create a profile of each individual juror. In addition, at any time during the voir dire, the user can take notes on each potential juror, including body language. By the end of the questioning, the attorney should have a comprehensive list of responses entered into the computer, which then can be printed out. This, in addition to the MDS and ADS scoring, will illustrate the tendencies of each juror to vote for either the plaintiff or the defendant. Overall, this application is easy to use, understand and configure. It will be extremely worthwhile for any attorney to use when selecting a jury for any big case. Because of its cost and the inherent requirements of entering the information into the application, it probably isn’t going to be helpful for a small case. However, I would not hesitate to recommend it for any attorney who could use the help. |
SmartCop Inc. Price: $995 per annual license for one to four licenses; $895 for five to nine licenses. Contact company for more pricing information. Reviewed by Adam Nelson Esq., senior consultant for IBM Security & Privacy Services. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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