Internet Jurors Plug Into Cases
The next time personal-injury lawyer Roy J. Konray asks jurors to award a client thousands of dollars, he may base his pitch on responses pulled off the Internet.
Already, Konray is noticing all sorts of trends--from what jurors read to whether they side with the plaintiff or the defense--in responses to his “cyberjury” site on the World Wide Web.
While some lawyers question the worth of previewing cases on the Internet, Konray says it will help him better argue his cases and build a database showing potential jurors’ preferences.
Lawyers have long presented complex cases to pretrial “focus groups” of paid volunteers, then interviewed them to glean hints of what might work in court.
The Web site is “designed to complement or supplement them,” said Konray, one of 20 lawyers at a personal-injury firm in Rahway, N.J.
Paying 10 members of a focus group and experts to analyze responses can cost $1,500 to $25,000, Konray said. The cyberjury site cost $1,500 to set up, and Konray pays $75 a month to keep it on the Web.
Konray says Internet surfers are, on average, better educated and make more money than volunteers getting $10 an hour.
“The great thing about it is with larger numbers, even though you are dealing with a specific population, you get a better sense of the differences within that population,” Konray said.
The big numbers--almost 1,000 respondents have rendered verdicts since the site went online in April--also teach Konray about juror tendencies.
For instance, pretrial questionnaires typically ask potential jurors what books and periodicals they read. Konray now can go into jury selection knowing whether readers of People magazine, for instance, are more or less likely to sympathize with a woman suing her psychiatrist over a sexual affair.
The woman suing her psychiatrist is one of three cases posted on Konray’s Web site.
“I thought both of them were nut cases,” cyberjuror Jocelyn Lofstrom of Arlington, Va., said. “She didn’t really deserve a settlement. She was an adult and entered into the affair.”
Lofstrom, 27, added that the psychiatrist “should be disbarred, or removed from practice.”
The other cases involve a man who accuses his doctor of botching penis-enlargement surgery, and a printing press field technician who is suing his employer for firing him after he told superiors he planned to undergo a sex change.
The cases were posted with the clients’ permission, Konray said. “They’re all very enthusiastic about the idea.”
Other lawyers expressed reservations.
“I would tend to think that it is a mode of advertising, rather than a true mode of how to conduct a trial,” said Newark lawyer Theodore D. Moskowitz, chairman of the State Bar’s Committee on Professional Responsibility.
Some Web pages openly serve as advertisements for law firms, allowing browsers to read attorneys’ biographies and submit their problems, said Raymond M. Trombadore, chairman of the American Bar Assn.’s Committee on Professional Discipline.
The cyberjury site appears to be a valid form of trial preparation, Trombadore said, but he warned of the potential for misuse. Legal adversaries, for instance, could recruit confederates to enter responses that would induce Konray to drop a lawsuit or seek lower damages.
“It’s certainly susceptible to that kind of abuse,” Trombadore said. “I would hope we don’t get that clever.”
Konray said his system gives him some protection against ballot stuffing, such as recording the e-mail address of each respondent. He said he doubted many visitors would leave frivolous responses.
“People who do it do it because they are interested. It’s not something I expect an 8-year-old to do, because it takes too much thought,” Konray said.
Internet address is:
https://www.cyberjury.com.
