What do beer pong and voir dire have in common? Apparently, quite a lot! That’s what the Mass Torts blog concluded with regard to Mark Bennett’s Simple Rules for Better Jury Persuasion article in the most recent issue of The Jury Expert.

We think Mark’s a pretty creative guy and we’ve pointed our readers to his blog a number of times: here and here for example. And we like his rules. They are catchy, easy to read, fun, and likely pretty effective (since they mirror much of what we recommend!). We liked Mark’s simple rules so much, we stole the idea from him for our series on Simple Jury Persuasion. The persuasion literature is huge. Our series is meant to give you a taste of it and see how we apply emerging research findings and random thoughts to the litigation advocacy.

So we thought we’d give you a few amusing excerpts from recent juror questionnaires since Mark’s used up all the funny rules for better jury selection. It takes a LOT of preparation to make the actual work of jury selection/voir dire simple and even fun! And when you are bleary-eyed at 11pm from poring over juror questionnaires for hours and know you have hours and hours to go, every little bit of amusement goes a long way!

• Question: What is your occupation?
  • Answer: I am a frozen food stalker at Wal-Mart.
    • Watch out frozen food!

• Question: Have you heard anything about this case prior to today?
  • Answer: I am a physician and I will side with the physicians. I know everything about this situation and I know all the doctors involved. I know how sleazy the defense side behavior was. I am very busy.
    • Hmmm…I would say she doesn’t want to serve!

• Question: Is there any reason you should not serve on this case?
  • Answer: I have issues. I could bring a note from my psychiatrist.
    • It’s okay judge. Let her go!

At 2am, these sorts of comments are hysterically funny. And by 4am, they are likely to make you cry with laughter. It’s tedious work. Painstaking. And that’s why we like the humor and engaging style of Mark’s 16 Simple Rules for Better Jury Selection. We hope you like it too.