Using Graphics to Strategically Feed Your Jurors’ Memories

Joshua Foer, author of the New York Times Bestseller Moonwalking With Einstein asserts that something, such as an argument at trial, becomes more memorable when “ideas are distilled into as few words as possible and whenever possible are illustrated with images.”

A Strategic Edge: More Jurors Retain Visual InformationIt is well understood in educational research that people have different learning styles. You may recall classmates from school utilizing different techniques to memorize information. Some people highlight textbooks, some people need to re-write their class notes, and others can get away with just listening to the lectures in order to fully comprehend the lesson. Just like your old classmates, jurors, judges and arbitrators retain information in different ways.

Research has shown that the majority of people are primarily visual learners, and a smaller percentage are primarily auditory. Attorneys who provide their complex case information in both modes will therefore have a strategic edge on ones who provide a primarily auditory presentation of case facts.

Visual learners are people who remember information more accurately when they see it, and typically make up 61% of a jury or about 3 out of 5 jurors. Auditory learners remember information more accurately when they hear it, and typically make up 18.5% of a jury or about 1 out of 5 jurors.

In addition, research on cognition and memory has shown that, three days after an event, people retain 65% of information from a visual and aural presentation, as opposed to 35% from a visual presentation only, and just 10% from an aural-only presentation.

Promoting Juror RecallThese varying learning styles indicate that a combined auditory and visual media approach will ensure that all members of the jury receive the information in a manner that they can best process and recall.

These visual and auditory elements can be made more digestible by “chunking” them into more memorable nuggets. By breaking down a concept into smaller pieces that can be processed one at a time, you will allow your jurors to take incremental steps towards understanding and

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ultimately towards recall during deliberation. Attorneys should repeat these chunks of memorable visual and auditory material to aid in their memorization.

Repetition: Variations on a ThemeImportant material can be repeated in varying ways throughout a trial to help jurors remember and to process information visually. Foer states “Like a computer, our ability to operate in the world is limited by the amount of information we can juggle at one time. Unless we repeat things over and over, they tend to slip from our grasp.” To illustrate an approach to addressing different learning styles throughout a trial, we have created three different graphics depicting the same concept – that women in an employment matter were less likely to be promoted to managerial positions than men. The three graphics can be used at different intervals throughout the trial. For example, the first can be used during opening arguments, the second during expert testimony, and the third during closing arguments.

The first graphic depicts the makeup of non-managerial sales force and management at the company. With a simple glance, jurors will see that the number of women who work in non-managerial positions is roughly equal to the number of men. The managerial workforce presents a stark difference from the non-managerial sales force; jurors can easily discern that men far outnumber women in the management positions, which is attributable to gender discrimination for promotion.

The second graphic depicts the same concept, but instead uses pie charts to show the gender disparity in the two workforces. The side-by-side comparison of the non-managerial sales force and the managers offers the same information in a different fashion. For some jurors, this serves as repetition to drive home a key issue. For other jurors, presentation of the data in this way will be more intuitive than the previous graphic.

The third graphic once again depicts the underrepresentation of women in the managerial workforce. This time it is depicted on a colored $100 bill to highlight the fact that employees who are not promoted are compensated less. As the graphic suggests, women are promoted less often than men. The conclusion which naturally follows is that women are compensated less than men. Like the two previous examples, this graphic is intuitive enough for a juror to grasp right away and is a novel approach to conveying your argument.

One of the obstacles to winning your case is presenting the information to each juror in a way that they can all easily understand. By creating different versions of the same concept, we are ensuring that a key concept essential to your case theme does not elude jurors, while simultaneously reinforcing the arguments through repetition. The graphics must clearly and simply present the information, however complex it may be. All three gender disparity examples are readily understandable without delving into mathematics and statistics. Furthermore, the three examples were recently used in a successful labor and employment case.

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Newsletter April 2011 www.DOAR.com

Phone: 800.875.8705E-mail: info@doar.com Web: www.DOAR.com