Trial consultants and their role in legal proceedings

Trial Consultants

The American legal system has evolved and shape shifted much throughout the creation of the laws which govern this country and all of its very complicated and complex laws. The numerous trials that are conducted each year has allowed for advocates of the court to grow and expand their base of knowledge in achieving success within the court room. The idea of trial consultants is one of these developments that has helped shape and mold the current legal system into the form that it exists in today's world.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the qualities of trial consultants and describe how they can affect any single trial and how they have significantly altered the way in which the law is practiced. This essay will examine the varying duties that trial consultants undertake and explain how these roles can benefit one side or another within the context of the trial. Ultimately this essay will highlight, that despite some of the tricky ethical issues associated with trial consultants and their role in a court proceedings, these individuals still have a role to play within this system and are important concepts that need to be understand wishing to fully grasp the larger themes of criminal justice and how these themes can be critical in performing in a successful career within the industry.

Discussion

Before examining the impact of what trial consultants contain, it is necessary to understand what roles these individuals play within the courtroom. Trial consultants are not limited to one area of the proceedings, and can have a direct effect on many different aspects of the way that the law is practiced and eventually judged. Trial consultants are essentially certified professionals that have certain insights to the human psyche and how that psyche will react under the circumstances of a trial examination.

According to the Professional Code of the American Society of Trial Consultants (ASTC) " trial consultants strive to maintain high standards of competence in their work. They recognize the boundaries of their particular competencies and the limitations of their expertise. Trial consultants are dedicated to providing the legal community with information on litigation related behavior and communication. They provide only those services and use only those techniques for which they are qualified by education, training or experience."

This summary is useful in understanding the general overview of what trial consultants do in terms of the macro vision. These individuals are hired intellects used in determining factual information within a trial scenario. One of the baseline premises within the trial environment is that people are not to be trusted. Oaths are taken to swear to tell the truth, but this is no guarantee against perjury and deception. It is therefore necessary for trial consultants to be held as a beacon of truth and honesty.

Science appears to be very important in how a trial consultant conducts his or her job. The processes of inductive reasoning are very critical to gaining an understanding about what can be considered fact and what can be considered circumstantial. Trial consultants must have a scientific mind that relate the big picture by using individual experience and wisdom to help guide the participants in the trial to a firmer understanding of reality. Trial consultants have become critical pieces in the court systems today and their strong role in these instances also show how important science and inductive reasoning is to society in general.

Trial consultants exert their expertise in several ways in a trial, but traditionally these professionals have been very involved in the relations with the jury. Gruppie, (1999) wrote "though it is difficult to measure the results of this approach with any precision, the consensus of both plaintiff and defense trial attorneys is that use of trial consultants can yield successful results. Trial consultants offer a variety of services that are directed at anticipating or shaping a trial result. Such services include opening statement consultation, community attitude surveys, damage award assessment, jury instruction review, conducting focus groups, designing and presenting jury questionnaires, jury selection and juror surveillance."

Trial consultants seem to have a very psychological role in the proceedings of the trial. One of the many questions that critics have towards trial consultants lies in the ethical applications of its practice. It appears to many of these detractors that the trial itself has become less about achieving justice, but who can use psychoanalytical tools to the best advantage. Perhaps that is the essence of the court room, but to some staunch idealists who feel that justice is something that can actually be attained in a trial, these consultant figures cast a dark shadow on the validity and worth of human reason and empathy.

Trials are held a taxpayer costs and anything that exacerbates this trend should be held in some critical light. Trial lawyers and the industry of trial consultants have demonstrated that there is great profit to be made in the criminal justice arena. Prisons, agents of the court, and the entire criminal justice system stands to gain, at least monetarily, with a bloviated and expensive trial system. This tradeoff between principle and method demonstrates an inherent riff in the legal system that trial consultants cannot fix. It is naive to think that an industry of professionals will participate in their own financial demise by supporting a principle of fairness. This ideal goes against the scientific mind that the trial consultant community holds in such high esteem. The weeding out of reason, empathy and idealism, qualities that are celebrated in a successful trial consultant, ultimately can weaken the system.

Trial consultants are dealt a blow to their legitimacy when their practice comes under close scrutiny. Hutson (2007) suggested that "Does scientific jury selection even work? Real-world success rates are impossible to measure. If scientific jury selection is just a crapshoot, why is the industry thriving? Even when attorneys do know the social-science research showing the relative ineffectiveness of scientific jury selection -- and the power of evidence -- they are still willing to hire consultants for big-money civil cases." The answer lies in the motives of these consultants. It is impossible to ignore that a career in this field is rewarded with high compensation.