First Court Litigation Insights

How to win (or defend) a billion dollar verdict

Nov 8, 2019 3:55:32 PM / by Mike Liffrig posted in Jurors, Voir Dire, Advocacy, Jury Research, Emotion, Law, jury trial, voir dire rehearsal, jury selection, North Dakota

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First Court has helped our clients to win some of the biggest cases in recent judicial history. 

Four years ago, our research assisted the defendants in the Aurora Theatre shooting civil case in winning a defense verdict. 

Recently, we helped the plaintiff victims of a drunk driver win a record verdict of more than $1 billion to compensate for the death of two young women and catastrophic injuries to a third. 

We have compiled and shared the key lessons from these landmark decisions for advocates on either side of a case with big verdict potential:

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How to define “Bad Faith” for Jurors

Jun 3, 2019 3:30:08 PM / by Mike Liffrig posted in Advocacy, Jury Research, Testimony, Emotion, Law, Experts, bad faith

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First Court recently completed jury research projects on a handful of bad faith cases, and developed some insight on how jurors understand and interpret the concept of bad faith. Since this can be a tricky topic for regular people to understand, we’ve shared a few insights on what we learned, and how to effectively communicate the important points to the laypeople in the jury box.

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How Jurors Value Less-Visible Injuries

Jan 24, 2019 1:41:40 PM / by Joe Liffrig posted in Jury Research, Focus Group, Witness, Testimony, Emotion, innovation, jury trial, jury selection

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We recently completed a private jury trial in a major motor vehicle collision, and learned some fascinating lessons about how jurors value less visible injuries such as cognitive impairment.

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How Jurors Work: Emotions Lead the Law

Oct 17, 2018 10:49:27 AM / by Mike Liffrig posted in Jurors, Jury Research, Emotion, Law

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Consider this fact pattern and outcome from a case we recently worked on: Plaintiff rear-ends trailer pulling a large load of logs. I repeat: Plaintiff rear-ends defendant. But the jurors assign most of the blame to the defendant… who was rear-ended.

Juror's Feedback:
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