“When should I do jury research on this case?”
Most lawyers who ask me that question have a specific moment in mind: six weeks before trial. That’s when they’ve always done it. In-person, full day, the whole production, right before they pick a jury.
They’re not wrong that jury research helps before trial. It just isn’t only for trial.
The most valuable jury research happens earlier — early enough that what you learn can still change what you do. After signing the case, during early discovery, before key depositions. That’s the window where jury research stops being a rehearsal and starts being a course correction.
The Mental Model That Gets in the Way
The trial-prep model of jury research assumes you’re testing a finished case. Of course you need the case to be done first. Of course you need discovery in. Of course you need to know the defense’s position. That’s the right framework for a mock jury six weeks before trial.
But that’s only one use of jury research. The other use — the one that’s harder to see if you’ve only ever done pre-trial mock juries — is using jury research to figure out what case you should be building. Not to test a finished product. To direct the work.
Different question. Different stage. Different value. And the lawyer who only thinks of jury research as trial prep misses the entire second category.
What Early Jury Research Actually Does
Blake Erskine is a 30+ year trial lawyer in Austin. He’d been using in-person focus groups and mock juries for years before he worked with me. When he signed a bicycle vs. last-mile delivery truck case — severe injuries, traumatic brain injury, broken bones, hematoma — he didn’t wait for trial. He didn’t wait for mediation. He didn’t wait for depositions.
He brought the case for a virtual focus group with just the police report and the witness video from the scene.
Focus group one — we ran a neutral narrative of the facts. The group was clear on liability against the delivery driver. But damages were unclear. They had a hard time understanding how the cyclist sustained certain injuries.
That insight told Blake he needed medical illustrations. Not because he didn’t already know illustrations are useful — because the focus group told him which illustrations would do the work.
Focus group two — we tested the first draft of illustrations. The feedback was specific: the group caught details the lawyers. But they also came away thinking the client was wheelchair bound, not working, almost non-functioning.
That was not what Blake wanted communicated. His client was working. The illustrations were over-correcting.
That insight told Blake he needed video evidence of the client functioning — before and after — to balance the illustrations.
Focus group three — we tested the illustrations alongside video clips of the client living his life, plus before-and-after witness clips from his coworker and neighbor. This time, the group asked the question Blake hadn’t yet built an answer to: what about lost income? How much was he going to lose?
That insight pushed Blake to get statement videos from the client’s supervisor and boss, and to hire a vocational and lost-earning-capacity expert.
Three virtual focus groups, twenty-five months, leading up to mediation.
Opposing counsel wasn’t offering real money. Then the vocational expert came in, and the video clips from the supervisor and coworker — both of which the focus groups had pushed Blake to go get — and the case settled at mediation for a confidential amount.
Every one of those adjustments was only possible because there was still time to make it. A vocational expert can’t be designated late. Witness statements can’t be gathered after discovery closes. The virtual focus groups produced their value because they happened while Blake could still act on what he learned.
The Structural Point
Blake had thirty years of trial experience when he brought this case for the first focus group. He’d built dozens of damages cases. He knew what worked.
And the focus groups still told him things he hadn’t seen. Jurors thought his client was non-functioning. Illustrations were communicating something other than what he intended. And participants raised lost income as a damages issue — even though Blake hadn’t planned to pursue it, because his client was working.
This isn’t about experience. It’s a structural point: you can’t be in the room as the lawyer and the audience at the same time. No amount of trial experience generates a stranger’s reaction to your case. That information exists only outside your own head.
A Different Case, One Hour
A different case. Business dispute. One hour, one virtual focus group, done before the client’s deposition and before key witness depositions.
What the focus group surfaced:
- The right tone for the client to bring to deposition
- Confusion about what was actually being claimed
- Bad behavior on both sides — something the lawyer’s own judgment, defending the client, hadn’t fully reckoned with
The depositions that followed were different because of what came out of that hour. The questions were sharper. The client was prepared differently. The case got framed around what jurors could actually follow.
Whether the engagement is twenty-five months or one hour, the principle is the same: get strangers’ reactions to the case while there’s still time to use them.
How I Work
I can work with lawyers 30 days before filing, or six weeks out from trial, or anywhere in between. The format changes. The work doesn’t.
No matter when in the case we start, I’m a team member, not a vendor. That means two things. Before the focus group, I take the time to actually learn your case. The better I understand it, the better the questions I ask the group — and the more useful the feedback you get back. After the focus group, I sit down with you to walk through what the feedback means: what helps you, what hurts you, and how to actually use it.
That’s the part most lawyers don’t get from jury research. A focus group is a tool. The work of turning it into something you can act on happens before and after.
The earlier we work together, the more decisions are still ahead of you — and the more you can act on what the focus group tells you. A focus group thirty days after signing can change what discovery you take and which depositions to set. A focus group six weeks before trial can sharpen your opening, your themes, and your witness presentation. Both produce real value. The earlier one shapes the case; the later one refines it.
