Tag Archives: Big Data

June 9, 2026 · 9:08 am

What is a Big Data Study and How Does it Help with Trial Strategy?

Most attorneys are familiar with focus groups and mock trials. Perhaps you’ve heard about a big data study but don’t know what it is. Perhaps you’ve run one but are still learning how to maximize the impact of the information you gleaned from it. In this post, I will go through what a Big Data study is, how it is different from a focus group or mock trial, and what it is best used for.

Until recently, the only method we had for testing a case was a traditional focus group or mock trial. These tools are still invaluable for testing the case, finding holes, case framing, and guiding you through discovery. But they always had limitations, namely that they could never predict the outcome of trial. Prediction was never their purpose: the purpose was stress testing and finding themes and worst-case scenarios. If any consultant ever told you that they could tell your chances of winning or losing, the value of the case, or a juror profile based off anything less than 6 panels of focus groups (and more like 20 panels for a juror profile) at a bare minimum, they were lying to you. The participant numbers in a focus group or mock trial are simply too small to have any way to determine statistical significance.

Enter, Big Data studies. Big Data fills the gaps that focus groups and mock trials could never fill and these tools all work synergistically together.

So, what is a Big Data study? While some attorneys call them online focus groups, this is somewhat of a misnomer. You won’t see these jurors or talk to them and they won’t talk to each other (this is their main limitation – you can’t get a good feel for WHY people feel a certain way or how they communicate with each other in a Big Data study). A Big Data study is really an online survey. Depending on who runs it (more on AI focus groups/data studies in the next post – be sure to read!), these should be sampled from real human beings and preferably in your venue or similar venues. The studies I run are through Campbell Law, so I will discuss how those are run as I personally believe they are the best quality Big Data studies.

What do jurors see and react to? 300+ jurors read scripts drafted by you (and edited/collaborated on by me if you run them through me) that lay out the plaintiff and defense arguments, including photos and video. Throughout, they are given attention checks to ensure they are paying attention. They answer 50+ juror intake questions, some of which I personally customize based on the case, and then answer leaning/attitudinal questions at the end along with a verdict form.

Importantly, jurors are broken into 3 groups of approximately 100 each. All jurors review the same information except that they are presented with different damages asks at the end. So, one group might be asked to award $10M, the second group asked for $25M, and the third group $40M. You might also add extra groups of 100 jurors to test different variables: what if defense admits liability? What if the video is in or out? What if a party settles? All of that information is analyzed and returned to us in a 60-70 page report.

What is in the report? The report contains a wealth of information, so let’s break down the important parts:

Win Rate Based on Damages Ask: The first thing you will see in the report is your win rate based on what amount jurors were asked to award and any other variables tested. Perhaps surprisingly, your chances of winning or losing can often depend on the number you throw out at jurors. Below, you can see three different damages asks as well as a test with one party removed (NoHouston). Since the high ask tested best overall, we then ran that same High ask with Houston out of the case so we can compare whether having Houston in or out affects the verdict. This chart shows that the best ask is the High ask at an 89% win rate and that if Houston is out of the case, that greatly hurts our chances of winning as the win rate drops by 13%.

Likely Verdict: The next thing you will see in the report is the amount of money you are likely to recover (which accounts for defense leaning jurors and the deliberative process) on your best day, worst day, and average/median. Here is the same case. You can see the average expected recovery is about the same from low to medium, though the medium drops slightly, and then climbs again in the high, but drops if Houston is out. Perhaps shocking is that the best case and worst case scenario is better in the low ask and high ask but worst in the medium ask. This shows how important the damages ask is. Selecting a number in the middle can tank your case. While the best case scenario is higher without Houston, it’s not worth having Houston out of the case as the win rate is lower and average recovery is also much lower:

Themes: The report will give you some information on framing. Jurors are asked to rank the two most important issues in making their decisions. Those are tallied and ranked to show you the most impactful themes, biggest danger points, and what potential issues rank low (and therefore should be eliminated from your main themes). While this is ranking is mostly accurate, there is a limitation in that humans are notoriously horrible self-reporters. Therefore, a juror may list something as the reason they came to their decision when in fact something else entirely was driving it. This is where I like to add in focus groups and mock trials to hear jurors talk. In watching their thought process, you can often determine if something hidden is driving them or if some other issue was more important but perhaps seemed so obvious that they skipped past it. Here are samples from a hospital sexual abuse case showing the top themes for plaintiff jurors and for defense jurors:

How Much Does It Matter?: The report will tell us what jurors think about the case issues (for example, “I think the defendant’s motive was pure but they were just being careless”) as well as how much those attitudes and beliefs matter in terms of your win rate or damages. The charts on these tend to be hard for attorneys to read and decipher, so I won’t share the chart, but in simple terms, it will tell us how much that sentiment mattered for win rate and damages. Someone who agrees the defendant was careless but had pure motives, for example, may be 60% worse for you on liability compared to the average juror in the study and may give 45% less money. Consider a statement “I think the plaintiff was likeable” garners 50% agreement and 50% disagreement. That means half the jurors dislike your plaintiff. But, consider if the data shows that you are still winning over the jurors who dislike your plaintiff. That may mean you don’t have to worry about your plaintiff being unlikeable as it’s not affecting win rate or damages.

Juror Profile: In focus groups and mock trials, we always warned against profiling jurors. It’s not always true that conservatives are bad for you or certain ethnicities and ages are good or bad; but, sometimes it is! The trouble with smaller sample research is that there is no way to know. If we run a four panel mock trial and 4 of the 5 African-Americans are bad for you, does that mean you should be wary of African-American jurors? Perhaps, but perhaps you simply flipped a coin too few times for the average to come out to 50%. If your first 4 flips are tails, it would be a gave mistake to assume a coin flip is 80% tails over time. We need over 200 jurors to find enough data points to compile a juror profile. Sometimes, the strangest things show up, such as people they admire (in one case, those who admired Angelina Jolie were 167% better on damages for us) or TV shows they regularly watch (NFL football watchers was a -44% on liability on another of my cases). But we also see traditional data points show up, such as tort reform attitudes or case-specific backgrounds and beliefs. This can help aid the jury selection process in addition to more holistic questioning. Here is a sample of a scoring sheet I compiled for a client based on their data. In this case, we had very little time for voir dire, so we ran through as many of these questions as we could in the time permitted:

Where Is Data Weak?

Data studies are powerful assets to trial preparation, but they do have some limitations. Personally, I need to hear people talk. It gives me a 3-D view of what the data is showing and allows me to better frame the case. As mentioned, you also have to be aware of self-reporting biases, which is again where mock trials and focus groups come in useful.

Data cannot capture strong personalities of counsel or defendants of whom you do not have video evidence. I had one case that I’m convinced we won due to the horrific personality of the defendant (along with a strong jury selection).

I also worry about really complex cases in data studies as it can be hard to determine when jurors are simply misunderstanding or not entirely following an argument. Mock trials and focus groups would reveal this, but it can hide in the data.

How Do I Use Data?

In very large cases (8-figures and above), I strongly prefer a mix of mock trials and data studies. I believe that captures the full picture and allows you the best all-encompassing view of framing as well as prediction. In 7-figure cases, we may run a smaller focus group and then data. In other cases, we may pick one or the other depending on what is most advantageous to the case.

I have a relationship with Campbell Law in which I can run data for/with you for the same cost as you would pay going direct to the Campbells. This is due to our synergistic relationship in that I can help prepare the data scripts with you, hand off a polished script to them to run, and then help you to understand the report at the end. They do less work, you get a consultant for free, and it gets me involved in case which may need further help such as jury selection or focus groups and mock trials. In fact, it often saves money in the end to have me run the data as it will decrease intake fees for me to get up to speed on the case if you need my assistance otherwise.

Stay tuned for the next post regarding AI testing of cases. If you have not yet subscribed, you may subscribe to this blog to get automatic updates in your email when I post.

If I can help with your case, please contact me at: Jessica@TrialDynamics.net

How did we get a $10 million verdict for broken heel with $10k in meds?

A week before Thanksgiving, a trial team and I won a $10 million verdict in a case involving a broken talus bone in a conservative county (Indianapolis) with $10,000 in past medical bills (which we fought to keep out but which defense was allowed to bring in). This was a hard fought battle with a tough judge and some really bad rulings, but we prevailed with grit and foresight.

The case involved an admitted liability trial against Frito Lay. Plaintiff, a 47 year old female, shattered her talus bone in the wreck.

Her talus bone healed but post-traumatic arthritis became apparent later and progressed quickly from mild to severe over the course of two years to the point that she can no longer walk more than a block or two, cannot stand for longer periods of time to cook meals, cannot fall asleep until 4am due to the pain, and cannot sit to work longer than an hour or two without tears.

Her physicians all opined she needed a subtalar fusion which she had yet to get due to high blood pressure that predated the wreck but that she could not control post-wreck due to inability to exercise.

Defense tried to use blood pressure as its biggest red herring throughout the trial and said the fusion would fix it all. We argued that there was no magic pill for her and even if she got the fusion, she would forever have pain.

Paid medicals were $10,000, incurred medicals were $45,000. We wanted to waive these but defense was allowed to bring them in.

Defense IME opined that plaintiff had a new injury during the recovery period. Defense pulled the plug on him and didn’t call him to testify which likely backfired as he was their star witness.

One of the big claims for damages was the fact that the plaintiff was unable to complete her doctorate and work. The pain in her foot is so severe that she cannot sit for more than a couple of hours without tears and can’t walk without assistance. She had dreams of starting programs to help aged-out foster children which would help heal some of her wounds from her broken and abusive childhood. Lost earnings were $600k, but the loss was so much more than that. She lost her passion and purpose.

Defense economist refused to acknowledge that chronic pain and loss of sleep could make it more difficult to focus or sustain employment long term and that she could sit to work but she broke down in tears during testimony and needed a break. She was far from a complainer and was a stoic woman with a tough life. Jurors knew this was not theatrics.

The judge was so harsh on my attorney clients that they almost called off trial days before. “We can’t get a fair trial with this judge,” they said. After talking it through with them, I convinced them to push forward. Trials are never clean, judges often make bad rulings, and yet it all comes down to the story, the client and the jury. I knew we had a great client, a compelling story, and we had to get to trial to see the jury (who also turned out to be fantastic).

The judge denied demonstrative animations, including a surgical animation that even defense agreed was admissible. In opening, he cut us off on any part of undermining defense contentions stating that we could not preview the defense case at all. During jury selection, he did not seem to properly account for juror numbers and denied a very clear cause challenge (while granting a lesser one for defense).

He was good at engaging jurors, however, and did calm down when we got moving.

Final offer during trial was $200,000. The jury took 90 minutes to come forward with a $10,000,000 verdict.

I helped with case framing, witness prep of the client and her family members, review of client-conducted focus groups, aide in opening statement and closing argument preparation, and select the jury. Brandon Yosha of Yosha Law and his team took my advice and eagerly applied it. They weren’t afraid to put in the hours or change course and the results speak to that.

I’m very proud of this one: it could have been a case about a broken heel and speculative surgery but jurors knew it was about so much more.

A note about trying a case during holidays: trial timing is rarely convenient. But when your closing argument lands during the holidays, you can either ignore it or use it to anchor the jury in the real-world human consequences of their decision.

In closing, Brandon went through how long the verdict has to last. By showing a timeline of past events, he was able to get jurors to realize how long 40 years is. This gets jurors primed to think of the consequences of their verdict over time.

Since we closed a week before Thanksgiving, I told Brandon to add this:

“Thanksgiving and the holidays are upon us and we will all go back to our families and friends. In twenty years, when Thanksgiving rolls back around, maybe you will think of Karen and your verdict. I hope that you will be proud of the decisions you make here today and look back without any regret. Because somewhere, at that very same moment, at some other Thanksgiving table, Karen will be living out your verdict. What does that look like for her? That’s up to you.”

If you want to hear more about this trial, we will be speaking on Trial Lawyers University on December 18th at 10:30am PST and it will be recorded and available on demand thereafter.

If there is a case I can help you with, please reach out. I’d be honored to help.

Big Data: What’s All the Fuss?

Big Data is becoming ever more pervasive in trial preparation, and for good reason. To use it effectively, you must understand what it is, what it is not, and how it best fits in your toolbox. Conventionally, trial preparation has included focus groups and mock trials, but now that big data is on the scene, how do these tools play well together? When should you use one over the others? What exactly is Big Data, and why should you adopt it?

What is Big Data, and Why is it Useful?

Big Data is the nomenclature for any large data set study. Several vendors run Big Data jury studies, some of which are more valid and reliable than others, a topic I won’t cover in this article. However, you can contact me privately if you have a vendor and want to know my opinion.

The benefits of Big Data are its ability to extrapolate and predict. Most often, they are used to predict both liability and damages case outcomes. By running the case by several hundred jurors, we can fairly accurately predict what your best, worst, and average day in court would yield across different variables (such as damages “ask” or liability factors). For example, we can test the same case facts with three different damages asks: $10 million, $40 million, and $75 million. Let’s suppose that the low ask yields an average verdict of $5.5 million with a 75% win rate, the middle ask yields an average verdict of $30 million with a 78% win rate, and the large ask yields an average verdict of $25 million with a 60% win rate. That tells us that you are leaving tens of millions of dollars on the table by asking for $10 million, but $75 million angered jurors and caused them to punish you with a lower case value and win rate. You would then know that your ask at trial should likely be around $30 million and that you have a high probability of winning.

You will also receive a juror profile. At the outset, jurors fill out answers to several questions, often answering up to 80 intake questions. Their answers are then correlated with their liability and damages verdicts to give you a profile of a good or bad juror. These criteria are often things we can only learn from Big Data. For example, someone who watches the NFL might be 47% less likely to find in your favor while someone who regularly watches Double Jeopardy may be 35% more likely to give large damages.

How accurate is Big Data? It’s hard to tell as many cases settle and trial often brings surprises, but it is known to be fairly accurate, often within 5% of verdicts. Some of this accuracy, however, stems from properly preparing a Big Data study, which many fail to do.

Do I Need a Consultant to Run a Big Data Study?

No, you are not required to have a consultant, though I think it’s a mistake to run one without. I regularly review Big Data scripts submitted prior to my retention. I find various errors, including weak defense arguments, missing information, confusion, damages asks that are outside the limits of the venue caps, misinformation regarding expert opinions, and very frequently weak case framing. All of these can render Big Data results misleading and invalid, and all were missed by the Big Data vendors.

Avoiding these pitfalls is hard when you are immersed in the case. Most Big Data vendors will suggest having a consultant assist with the project. Those who run Big Data studies are statisticians and know how to work with data. Some are even attorneys. However, they do not have the skills or the time to read through case documents and converse with you about small but important details of the case. They may review your scripts and make suggested changes, but they are not involved in the depths of the case necessary to catch errors or create proper framing. Therefore, to save the integrity of the study, it is suggested to have a consultant assist on the front and back ends. When I work with Big Data, the costs are only slightly higher to have my involvement as I’m taking work off their plates in preparing the study properly. Thus, you can have a consultant on board to direct the research and dive deep into the case for the same price or a few thousand more.

Having a consultant help with Big Data is also essential for moving forward and implementing findings. When you find out what jurors are good or bad, how do you implement those questions into your voir dire? How much weight do you give them compared to what jurors say during voir dire? How do you implement the Big Data findings into your case framing? These are all issues a consultant can help with.

Big Data vs Focus Groups & Mock Trials

How does Big Data interact with focus groups and mock trials? Do we still need these smaller juror studies? Absolutely. Big Data is excellent at predicting damages and trial outcomes but not very useful for framing or understanding what jurors like or dislike about the case. It does nothing to show deliberations or group dynamics. Conversely, focus groups and mock trials are terrible at predicting damages or case outcomes but are fantastic for case framing, group dynamics, and getting feedback on issues with the case.

When budgets allow, I prefer to run a focus group or mock trial first to adjust case framing and then use that new frame for a more accurate Big Data study. However, suppose you are headed to mediation and need an early read on the case value. In that case, it may be worth running a Big Data study first and then running focus groups and mock trials, potentially running a second Big Data study later.

Costs

What does this all cost? As with most things in life, it depends. The price varies with the length of the statements and videos, as well as the number of damages anchors or other variables tested. If you would like a quote, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Tag Archives: Big Data

What is a Big Data Study and How Does it Help with Trial Strategy?

How did we get a $10 million verdict for broken heel with $10k in meds?

Big Data: What’s All the Fuss?

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