Top 10 Reasons Why Jury Duty Gets Negative WoM
I learned something on Jury Duty yesterday thanks to a lecture by a defense counsel on soft spoken potential jurors. He could have been talking about WoM. He said:
- Public speakers must speak up and need to be heard
- Noise drowns out what people are saying
- Stand up and be heard
- You have a responsibility to listen
- Ask if you do not hear them (and incredibly in his 25 years of being a defense counsel, only a handful of times has a juror asked for something to be repeated.)
It is my second time on jury duty in the last 10 years. And it is the second time that the lawyers took a break from jury selection and came back to say that they had settled a long outstanding case. This case was out there for NINE AND A HALF YEARS!
In some respects, Jury Duty can only generate bad WoM. Why? Here are my top 10 reasons for Jury Duty to generate negative WoM:
- You get an official looking card in the mail which sounds and looks like you have been”Summonsed” YIKES!
- Upon arrival there is organized chaos. seemingly little planning.
- You hurry up and wait – very little is said except to fill out the back of your card and the information questionnaire
- You then get briefed on how important you are and how valuable your contribution is to society. Where do I line up for the medal? and then you wait, and wait, and wait
- And then …… you wait. And wait. And Wait. 30 get called. And you wait. and if you got to the bathroom mid-morning and happen to pass a judges office with the door open – he is…reading a paper as he… waits.
- It is not all fodder for negative WoM – they have free WiFi access – AND IT WORKS.
- Three plus hours later, you get called to a room as one of 30 to be selected as one of 6 jurors. when we are all there, the lawyers tell us we are breaking for lunch and should return in an hour! More hurry up and wait – Four plus hours and we have just moved rooms.
- The defense goes first, questioning 30 people sequentially. For 3 hours! Made jokes (some bad) and everytime someone came from somewhere other than NY, he commented “Very Nice!” (Huh??? He ever been there? Does he have any idea that for some of these folks it may not have been “very nice” and they are here because they were getting AWAY from that place?) Of course we had two breaks during the 3 hours.
- The defense attorney gets the underlying sentiment and decides not to question us, but goes on to metaphorically lecture us on what we are doing. The theme for both is can we be fair. Can we deliver justice. And that we should see ourselves as being the judge of what is fair once told by the real judge what our orders are.
- As we are getting close to cutoff time (4.30pm), we are told that at 4.30 the world ends and no-one can be found anywehere in the vicinity. And then the lawyers say that they will be back shortly – and we break again. And wait and wait. And at 4.30 they are not back. 4.35 – Nada. 4.40 there are visions of being locked in the building because no-one is around.
The judge and the lawyers come in to say that there is good news and bad news. The good news – after 9.5 years they settled! (Don’t go there Tonto!) The bad news – we are not done serving eventhough it appears that our group of 30 were so amazing that we tipped the scales of justice without hearing the case. And with all said and done and a day invested with more than half of that time on this case – We are not allowed to be told nor will we ever know what is purported to have happened; what the claim was; or the outcome! Now that is a satisfying day at the office!
So you tell me – other than the wi-fi working, what positive words would you pass along about this proicess?
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