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What is Litigation Consulting and What Do Litigation Consultants Do?

Kenneth J. Lopez, J.D.
By: Kenneth J. Lopez, J.D.

Jury Questionnaire, Trial Graphics, Trial Technicians, Trial Consultants, Litigation Graphics, Trial Presentation, Jury Consulting, Courtroom Presentations, Mock Trial, Litigation Consulting, Litigation Technology, Trial Consulting, Demonstrative Evidence, Hot Seat Operators, Trial Technology, Litigation Support, Jury Consultants, Animation, Trial Preparation, Jury Selection, Storytelling, Practice, Scale Models, Trial Boards

A very close friend just asked me what we do at A2L Consulting. Last week, a 30-year colleague and client remarked that he didn’t realize that half of our business involved jury consulting. Last night, a high-profile trial lawyer kindly complimented our firm while speaking to a group -- but called the company by its former name of 10 years ago.

It’s my job to explain to people who we are and what we do, and some of the people closest to me don’t understand what we do as litigation consultants at A2L Consulting. Clearly, I am doing something wrong.

The purpose of this article is to provide a detailed overview of the work we do as litigation consultants. Still, it will also educate anyone involved in trying cases about best practices in specific areas of trial preparation and trial practice.

The Big Picture

Our firm was one of the first (if not the very first) to call itself a Litigation Consulting firm back in the mid-1990s. At a 30,000 foot level, litigation consultants like A2L are hired by top trial lawyers and large corporate legal departments to help increase the odds of winning a particular case.

We help increase the odds of winning a particular case by:

  • testing and refining cases during a mock trial and jury consulting process by soliciting and measuring feedback from mock jurors and mock judges;

  • helping to refine the narrative and key arguments to be delivered at trial through our peer-to-peer litigation consulting process. This litigation consulting process often includes multiple rounds of practice, particularly of the opening statement;

  • designing litigation graphics presentations rooted in persuasion psychology that help judges and jurors both understand our cases and help to persuade those same fact-finders to take our side in the case; and

  • using highly trained hot-seat operators (trial technicians) to display electronic evidence on the fly and leave the trial attorney in a position to connect with judge and jury;

I call these four areas, jury consulting, litigation consulting, litigation graphics consulting, and trial technology consulting. Collectively, I call them all litigation consulting. Within each category, there are MANY sub-services. Below is an overview with linked articles that explain each of these four areas in more detail and offer best practices. If you are in the business of trying cases, there is a lot of value here for you in the materials below.

1. Jury Consulting

  • Focus groups: These exercises are conducted either to test litigation issues at an earlier stage (often as a precursor to a full mock trial) or to save on budget.

  • There are even more types of work we do in the "jury consulting" category like shadow juries, social media monitoring, and juror questionnaire consulting. Search our blog for more articles on these and other topics by clicking here.

2. Litigation Consulting

We use the term "litigation consulting" to both broadly describe the overall trial consulting work that we do, and we also, somewhat confusingly, use the term to describe a unique process where A2L's trial lawyers, consultants, and psychologists work with trial counsel to refine how arguments are presented at trial. Most of the time, this work is centered around developing an opening statement. Some of that work relates to the visual trial presentation, but just as much is focused on developing a persuasive narrative, enhancing the opening by including storytelling techniques, and above all else - practice. Lots of practice.

 

3. Litigation Graphics Consulting

 

4. Hot-Seat/Trial Technician

The hot-seater is a critical part of a sophisticated trial team. They run the electronic display at trial and bring up evidence on a moment's notice. Used wisely, they allow first-chair to connect with the fact-finders better, and they make the trial team look more credible and persuasive.

 

Conclusion

I hope I have made some progress explaining not just what A2L Consulting does but also what a litigation consultant does. In some ways, these four service areas are a complicated set of offerings with a lot of nuances. Perhaps, it is easiest simply to remember that each of these offerings is geared at one thing -- winning more cases. It's why we are hired by the best trial teams in the business. The ROI of what we do is very high, and the best trial lawyers know it.

For additional reading about litigation consulting and A2L Consulting, these free publications are very helpful and some of our best:

top jury consultants best litigation graphics firm hot seat trial techs

 

 

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