Transcript:
Adam Bloomberg:
Trial teams pour enormous time and money into jury research to answer one question before they ever walk into the courtroom. How will jurors actually respond to their client's case? Most trial teams answer that question weeks after their research has concluded and the moment to act has passed.
I'm Adam Bloomberg, senior client success advisor here at IMS Legal Strategies, and today we're talking about what changes your trial strategy when you can get those answers in real time. And to do that, we commissioned Forrester Consulting to study the economic impact of our data analysis tool called The Advantage®, which is used by our jury consultants in focus groups during discovery and later in mock trials. It gives clients real-time access to the research as it unfolds and the findings were striking.
Joining me to discuss it are two people who work in this field every day, Senior Director of Jury Consulting Chris Dominic and trial consultant Michelle Cooper. And also joining us from Forster Consulting is principal consultant Julia Fajeva, who led the study.
If you enjoy our content, please like and follow us here on LinkedIn or over on our YouTube channel. Chris, for the attorneys out there who don't know what The Advantage is, how about a brief overview? And I think you're going to show us an example.
Chris Dominic:
Yeah. Well, Adam, as you mentioned, The Advantage is our live data collection and analysis platform throughout the day, the research day, whether we're conducting a focus group or a mock trial, we're collecting a tremendous amount of information from our participants. The Advantage brings all that information together in real time, letting us slice and visualize the data to identify patterns and explore data relationships and better understand how jurors respond to the case.
Adam Bloomberg:
OK, so I see a lot of tabs here. How about, if you don't mind, why don't you start with leanings?
Chris Dominic:
Sure, let's start with leanings. That's a popular one. This shows how the jurors attitudes toward the case develop over the course of the research.
We're interested not simply in which side they're favoring, but in how their positions change as they encounter themes and evidence and arguments. So for example, maybe I want to figure out after the plaintiff's case, who is this one person that is basically in a situation where they are favoring the defendant. So they basically don't buy the prima facie case. I can click on that person, they'll show up.
I see that it's David C's juror #26 season, and I can see his explanation and I can go and take a look at him in his profile. And we can pretty much do this and cut the data in all sorts of different ways however we want throughout the course of the day. And all the attorneys can too. That's what all these slicers up here are.
Adam Bloomberg:
How about witness eval?
Chris Dominic:
Witness eval? All right, let's go to witness eval. Witness eval. It allows us to examine how jurors respond to individual witnesses. You can see we've got the supervisor here, we've got Jenkins, the HR representative here. It allows us to look at overall credibility and its sub-components, as well as descriptive participant responses driving those evaluations.
It's particularly useful for identifying opportunities to improve witness preparation. After reviewing the witness evaluations, we can compare the data against our historical database of witnesses ratings across the categories, giving us a benchmark for how the witness performed relative to others we've studied over time. It's a powerful capability that adds context to what would otherwise be just a set of numbers.
Adam Bloomberg:
All right, let's just do one more tab here. How about verdict?
Chris Dominic:
Sure verdict. It brings us to the ultimate decisions jurors make, including liability, infringement, invalidity, and damages. Where applicable, we can examine those outcomes and explore how they relate to the attitudes and evaluations we've been tracking.
So for example, if we clicked on damages here, you can see that the data is visualized and aggregated into different visualizations. This is a box of whiskers diagram which some people find very descriptive. Other people prefer the histogram plus bell curve overlay and there's other visualizations as you can see.
Adam Bloomberg:
Yeah, OK. Thanks for that summary, Chris. Julia, you've also brought a few slides here today. Why don't you give us the headline? What did Forrester find out?
Julia Fadzeyeva:
So Adam, before I dive into the results, just want to provide some context for those who never heard the word TEI before. Forrester did a total economic impact, or lovingly call it TEI study, for The Advantage. And we spoke to four customers who are actually using The Advantage. And we asked them about all the problems that we see from using the tool. And then we look at the commonalities and the differences between the interviewed organizations, and we create that composite or a hypothetical organization that is representative of the stories that we heard.
So when I talk about the study results and throughout this conversation today, just know that I'm referring to this blended outcome of using Advantage for the customers that we spoke to. So we defined that composite organization as a mid-size law firm with 100 million in annual revenue and 70 attorneys.
And back to the original question, what did Forester actually find? Well, we found significant economic value and for this specific organization the composite we conservatively calculated it as at $1.75 million in benefits over the course of three years.
Adam Bloomberg:
All right. So where does that value come from?
Julia Fadzeyeva:
Two places actually. First would be the trial preparation based on the stories that your customers shared with Forrester, we modeled a 20% reduction in the time that attorneys spent preparing witnesses and experts. And we also modeled a 50% reduction in cost of unnecessary experts because teams can see what the testimonies are doing and how they're landing and which ones are not working for them.
And then the second value driver, and that's actually a larger one, is improved attorney utilization. So we saw that since they've started using the advantage, companies settled about I'd say 2% more matters ahead of trial and they pulled their mock trial insights forward by a whole week that freed attorneys to take on more billable work and that accelerated revenue recognition for the full firm.
Adam Bloomberg:
So the, the bigger number on the page is essentially attorneys getting their time back, right?
Julia Fadzeyeva:
Yes, correct. But I do want to be very clear here. The tool doesn't do the work of the legal team or the jury consultant. It gives them better information sooner and that's what allows attorney hours to be redirected towards the next matter faster.
Adam Bloomberg:
Chris, with that much data coming in real time, where does technology stop and human judgement begin?
Chris Dominic:
Yeah, well, I think about it as signal versus noise. Adam, more data isn't automatically more insight, right. It's in any mock trial, there's a dozen things you could focus on or more. The key really is knowing which few actually move jurors and what the trial team should do about it. The judgement really is the work. And as jury and trial consultants, the technology helps us move faster and gives our clients much greater visibility into the data, but it doesn't interpret the research or make the strategic call.
Adam Bloomberg:
Michelle, how does that judgement play out for you and the work that you do?
Michelle Cooper:
Well, the data doesn't interpret itself. So that's the piece that people really underestimate about this. You have to connect what you're seeing in the numbers with what you're hearing in the deliberation rooms. So the reasons that our juror landed where they did, you know, you need to make that connection. That's exactly what the Forester study confirmed. Clients value that technology and the consultant type of relationship because one without the other really leaves value on the table.
Adam Bloomberg:
So The Advantage tells the team, I think I lost my camera, let me back up there. So The Advantage lets the team see the data as it's developing, but the consultant is connecting those results with what you're observing and hearing from jurors, right?
Michelle Cooper:
The dashboard can show you that, you know, ten jurors reacted really strongly to a certain theme, but it's not going to tell you whether to lean into that theme, reframe it, or just drop it all together. And that is the difference between having data and then knowing how to act on it when it's 4:00 on a research day while you have the whole team in the room.
And when we're in that room together, we keep A-Team from over-reading one really loud juror or just generalizing a single reaction. Because when you leave people alone with the raw numbers, it is extremely easy to draw the wrong conclusion with total confidence.
Adam Bloomberg:
Yeah, Julia, does the research bear that out?
Julia Fadzeyeva:
Yeah, that really tracks with what we heard. The interviewees repeatedly talked to us about the real-time dashboard and the ability that it gives them to slice and dice the findings during the exercise to see how jurors are assessing the case or the witnesses or the damages risks. They did talk to us a lot about how they appreciated having those experienced consultants who can translate findings into the decisions with them.
Adam Bloomberg:
Let's talk about real time results and strategy. Julia mentioned pulling insights forward by a week. Chris, how does that change what your team can do while the research is happening in real time?
Chris Dominic:
Well, I think it helps to compare it to the old model, right? The old model was run the full mock trial exercise, go back to the office, wait for the report, then combine the quantitative with the qualitative data to draw conclusions from the research exercise with The Advantage we're already working through the data while the jury's still deliberating. The numbers point us to what's worth learning, and the qualitative really just adds color and detail.
We're making trial decisions during the exercise. We've made decisions about witnesses after seeing their credibility assessments, refocused preparation on the ones that could be helped by some communication training. And in some cases we've decided an expert was doing more harm than good and pulled them before trial. I mean, one firm in the study summarized the experience. They sat and watched your reactions to their expert, realized his credibility wasn't acceptable and they made a different call.
Adam Bloomberg:
So, so during the research, the team can identify a problem and, and you can recommend pulling an expert, maybe tightening a weak spot or pivoting a theme based on what you're learning Exactly.
Chris Dominic:
And every one of those pivots has a dollar figure attached. If you think about it, an expert, you don't need the prep and put on the stand. Abandoning a theme that isn't working on day one saves weeks of misdirected preparation. That's the efficiency that the Forrester report modelled. And it only exists if you can treat the jury research also as a war room strategy session.
Adam Bloomberg:
Julia, how big a shift is that from the way this this used to work?
Julia Fadzeyeva:
It's a pretty significant one. Before The Advantage, companies we interviewed used vendors that kept them waiting for multiple weeks to get that final report before they could change anything about the strategy or the preparation. And by then, the moment has really passed. Instead, today, what they're telling us with The Advantage, they can get those insights in real time compared to, you know, a couple weeks later. And that insurance pulls that timeline forward and drives that attorney utilization gains that we monitor.
Adam Bloomberg:
Michelle, I want to, I want you to unpack something here. The data doesn't just change who testifies. It can change what your demonstratives look like when you walk into the courtroom, right?
Michelle Cooper:
Yes, this is my favorite use. And during research, The Advantage lets us see the patterns in which the jurors can be getting confused or while the deliberations help us understand why, for example, the damages calculation, presentation of a timeline or a technical sequence, there's a signal where we can act on it immediately because confusion at a mock is confusion at trial. So we'll take that data back to the graphics team. If jurors couldn't follow how an injury progressed, for example, we're going to build a cleaner visual timeline. If the damages model lost them, we're going to redesign it so the number tells its own story.
On one particular matter, the mock jury kept misreading causation, so we rebuilt a single demonstrative around this one sticking point. When decision makers saw the revised graphic, the objection disappeared.
Adam Bloomberg:
So the data can literally redraw the exhibits.
Michelle Cooper:
Absolutely. And that loop that we just talked about, the mockters show us confusion and then we clarify the visual. We test whether it works. It's almost impossible without live data. And someone in the room was trained to catch it.
Adam Bloomberg:
Chris, beyond any single number, what's the real experience of running a matter using this platform?
Chris Dominic:
Well, The Advantage isn't something we simply hand a client and say here are your results. It's part of how we conduct jury research now. Our consultants use it. The trial team can also interact with the data themselves. Whether some of the trial team logs in remotely or they're in the observation room for a live project, we all see the same information as the research happens. So we're all on the same page throughout the course of the day.
Adam Bloomberg:
Michelle, what's your, what's been your overall experience?
Michelle Cooper:
The value really compounds. So the associate that's in the room is learning faster. The client is starting to trust the plan more because they watched it earn its way there. And then the trial consultant carries what worked into the next matter. Those are exactly the benefits that the Forrester study flagged, the ones firms felt but just couldn't put a number to, and that's the point. The tool is genuinely powerful, but the value shows up when the right people are in the room to turn all that signal into a decision. That's what moves the case.
Adam Bloomberg:
Julia, bring us home here. What should our audience take away from the research?
Julia Fadzeyeva:
Yeah, it was just said throughout. But the obvious is that $1.75 million in total benefits that we could quantify. And I do want to emphasize we could quantify for a reason because the number on the page only tells that half of the story. And what comprises the second part of that equation is actually that combination of the real time data paired with the people who know how to understand it and interpret it. And that is what turned faster insight insights into better decisions and ultimately delivered value to customers.
Adam Bloomberg:
Well, Julia, Michelle and Chris, thank you guys for being here. I really appreciate it. And if you're still here, you've made it. Thank you for sticking around. Again, if you enjoy this content, please like and follow us here on LinkedIn or over on our YouTube channel. Until next time, thank you to our guests for speaking with us today.
To discover how the IMS team can help give your case an edge, check out imslegal.com or shoot us an e-mail at contactus@imslegal.com.
IMS has served trusted law firms and corporations worldwide for more than 30 years in over 70,000 cases. Our integrated consulting and expert witness solutions span the full litigation life cycle, helping clients solve complex challenges, develop informed strategies, and position disputes for the best possible outcome. Together, we win.
