Sponsored with the Macaronis Institute for Trial & Appellate Advocacy, Flaschner Judicial Insitute and the Massachusetts Bar Association

Date: Thursday, December 07, 2006

Location: Suffolk University Law School, 120 Tremont St., Boston, MA
Time: 04:00 PM - 07:30 PM

Around the country, judges and lawyers are experimenting with new techniques to help the jury do a better job. These techniques involve changes in jury trial procedure designed to increase a jury’s comprehension of both the facts and the law. You are probably already familiar with some of these “innovations” in jury trial procedure such as juror note-taking and the more recently introduced practice of jurors asking questions to be posed to the witness. Other new procedures just emerging include instructing the jury on the law earlier in the case and/or frequently throughout the case and permitting the jury to discuss the evidence during the course of the trial. To help the jury understand the law, courts are trying out “plain English” instructions and letting the jury take a copy of the instructions into the jury room during deliberations.

And how do we know if all this is working? Judges can ask the jury about what helped them and what made their job harder, but the question of whether lawyers can speak to the jurors after a trial is over is a delicate one. The Massachusetts rule is far more restrictive than the rule in most states, and there is a movement to liberalize it.

Our program faculty includes the leading scholar on the subject, the former chief trial judge in Arizona who introduced these innovations into that state’s courts, and a group of experienced Massachusetts judges and trial lawyers who will share their views on these new methods.

Trial judges and trial lawyers, civil and criminal, plaintiff, prosecution and defense.

PLANNING COMMITTEE

Associate Dean Marc G. Perlin
Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA

Michele A. Himes, Esq., CLE Program Attorney
Massachusetts Bar Association, Boston, MA

Marianne C. LeBlanc, Esq.
Sugarman & Sugarman, PC, Boston, MA

Melissa Nawrocki, Director
Flaschner Judicial Institute, Boston, MA

Carole Wagan, Esq., Director
Center for Advanced Legal Studies
Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA

PROGRAM FACULTY

Professor Timothy Wilton, Chair
Suffolk University Law School, Boston, MA

Honorable Raymond J. Brassard
Massachusetts Superior Court

Craig R. Browne, Esq.
Prince, Lobel, Glovsky & Tye, Boston, MA

J.W. Carney, Jr., Esq.
Carney & Bassil, Boston, MA

Honorable B. Michael Dann (ret.)
Former Presiding Judge, Civil Division, Arizona Superior Court
Fellow, National Institute of Justice
U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

Professor Shari Seidman Diamond
Howard J. Trienens Professor of Law & Professor of Psychology
Northwestern University Law School
Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School
Senior Research Fellow, American Bar Foundation

Honorable Peter M. Lauriat
Massachusetts Superior Court

Mark T. Lee, Esq.
Suffolk County District Attorneys Office

Honorable Barbara Savitt Pearson
Lawrence District Court

Edwin L. Wallace, Esq.
Thornton & Naumes, LLP, Boston, MA

Honorable Herbert P. Wilkins (ret.)
Huber Distinguisged Visiting Professor, Boston College Law School
Former Chief Justice, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court