Knowledge of people’s views should aid a law firm’s decision-making regarding each phase of case management. Legal research can show whether a trial must be pursued,if the default court is the right court to hear it. If, for example,a review of media reporting on the crime, or a survey of public opinionin a community reveals that the members of the jury may be heavily prejudiced against their client, a legal team can file a request for change of venue.
Research of past convictions in the same community may also uncover helpful patterns that can be a reliable predictor of the results for a lawsuit, while accounting for any changes in the area’s demographic profile, as well as critical events that may have greatly influenced public perception. For instance, a town noted to be predominantly populated by gun-owning conservatives may have radically changed their views on the deeply polarizing subject of gun control following a shooting tragedy in a nearby neighborhood, and it is wise for a law team to thoroughly examine such a change, if they are handling a lawsuit regarding a crime involving guns.Other information that may be culled through careful, comprehensive research would be the typical penalties being meted out against similar crimes, or the usual amount of damages that the aggrieved parties are awarded.
The legal research strategy can cover not just the attitudes of the entire community, but also the composition of jury members. Jury research can be powerful because they can reveal trends in attitudes relation to such variables as age, race, gender, political affiliation, occupation, or religious beliefs of the potential or mock juror. A good strategy also accounts for the impact of context – the social situation in which the decision-making occurs. For instance, it is possible that even when younger jurors have strong opinions about the case, they may defer to the older members of the jury during the discussions.
As for public opinion surveys, good legal teams should have high standards regarding relevance of the study, the validity of the conclusions established, the similarity of the sample’s demographic profile, and the repeatability of the researchoutcome. How was the design conceived, and how were extraneous factors prevented from confounding the study? Was there a strong correlation or cause and effect relationship between the independent and dependent variable? Who commissioned the research, and how does that funding affect the claims being made?
Going through all these concerns in formulating a good legal research strategy can be time- and resource-consuming, making it advisable to seek the help of legal consulting firms such as Dubin Research and Consulting in Manhattan, New York. Visit DubinConsulting.com today to know more.
