Gerry Spence and I met a couple of years before he created his Trial Lawyers College in Wyoming. We became friends, and he invited me to be one of the teachers for the first year he started the Trial Lawyers College. Unfortunately, I was involved in a 4-week trial in Oregon and couldn’t attend. However, I was asked by Gerry to teach at the program for the next 20 years. Each summer, I would travel to Dubois, WY, where Thunderbird Ranch was located, and spend a few days teaching during the 30-day program. I kept notes of observations I made about Gerry’s for jury selection because of his proven success in doing it. Here are just a few unedited notes regarding his approach to jury selection.

In a 1986 speech to lawyers in Texas, he pointed this out:

” I might to say to the jury something like this to open up, ” My name is Gerry Spence, and I am going to represent Mrs. Jones in this case. I just need to tell you something. I need to tell you that I have been at this business a long time . I have been a lawyer for a good many years, but I never start a new trial without being a little uptight, as my boy calls it, being kind of ” scared” as you might say. I don’t know you and you don ‘t know me and I am worried about whether or not I am going to be able to do the kind of job that I should do here this morning . I wonder, I suspect that maybe you have been involved and had feelings like that. Maybe you feel this way this morning .  My hunch is that you have not had a lot of experience doing this, have you?”

• Introduction: You don’t know me. You don’t know my client, Harry. You don’t know each other either. You don’t know the judge or the defense counsel. You need to know the truth, and you have enormous power and responsibility to do the right thing, and the truth is, even though I have been a lawyer for a very long time, I am afraid because we are all strangers. I’m wondering if this is a little bit frightening to you as well? Do we both have the same kinds of fear? Do we have that in common with each other? So it’s a matter of trust, isn’t it? Because we don’t know each other, trust is a problem for us. How do you feel about that?

• Gerry advice: We want to belong to something. We have a tribal need to belong group, a fan club, or a team group. We don’t want to be excluded. It is a survival need that we belong to a group or tribe. In jury selection, jurors have the same kind of need and the same kind of reaction to being excluded.

• To juror, he is going to challenge: Given what we have been talking about, do you think it would be proper for me to excuse you? You want me to do the right thing, don’t you? You know, I could be wrong about you, and maybe you would be fair. Can I trust that?
• I don’t think it would be fair to you for me to expect you to be on a jury because you would be under a lot of pressure. Would you mind if you were excused from serving on this particular jury?

• To the juror who said they didn’t like malpractice suits: You know, I don’t like malpractice cases like this one. I depend upon doctors. They work very hard and they do a lot of good for many people. I feel uncomfortable when I bring a lawsuit like this. How many of you would the reluctant to sue a doctor? (He raises his own hand) I agree with you. I feel we should embrace and protect doctors. What do you think about that? Do you think that the doctors can have a bad day? So, are we going to give doctors a free pass, or should we hear the evidence first?
• What would you do if you were me and you had a juror who said I don’t like malpractice lawsuits? What would you do if our roles were reversed?
• Recommendation re negative issues in your case: Identify the danger points in your case. Arrange in order of priority and tell the jury about them and your concern. Become the “Devil’s advocate.” e.g., Are we going to say that a person who has a felony conviction should be denied any justice? That anyone can do whatever they want to injure a person without accountability if they are a felon? That they are not entitled to a hearing and a fair evaluation by a jury? Are we going to say he is not entitled to justice? or “Joel has lied. I have lied in my life, have you? Hasn’t everybody lied about something sometime? When someone tells a lie it’s hard to believe them again, isn’t? So, are we therefore going to refuse to give justice to someone because they once told a lie?

• .Malpractice cases Yes, I agree with that. You are right. I totally agree with that. Note: he turns to his client after the juror has said something and says, “I agree with that. I’m hearing this man say the same thing I’ve already said to you.”

• I’m not going to ask you to make a promise because I don’t like people asking me to make promises, but would you be willing to apply the law as given to you by the judge in this particular case?

• we are all held to the same standard of care, you, me, and everybody. You shouldn’t get any more rights then anyone else gets –  does that sound fair? It sounds fair to me.

• Client with past medical history: the fact that she had had medical problems before doesn’t give the defendant “an open ticket to injure her again does it?”

• What are we going to do about that? Don’t we have to take him as we find him?

• (Juror who says he got by with the same problem client has) Would you make room for the possibility that not all of us are as strong and courageous as you are regarding this?

• Would you want us to hear evidence about that before we make up our minds?

• Will you help us work through that problem?

• Billy here wants justice. What kind of justice are we going to be able to give him?

• Does anyone have feelings about that?

• Do I have your permission to ask …

• Could you make room for the possibility….

• You’re going to hear us talk about what seems like to me an unbelievable amount of money. In this case, I’m going to be asking you to return, after we prove our case to you, the amount of  $2 million a year, each of those 25 years they were in prison, when they were innocent. Would you be willing to give fair consideration to such a demand? How many of you would be willing to consider that? I was taught it isn’t polite to ask for money, and here I am asking you to appraise this case for $_______.  Is anyone else bothered by this?

• I wonder if anyone else has felt that way. Thank you. That takes courage. Who else?

• Thank you for asking that question, because I was afraid to ask that question.

• How many of you feel uncomfortable sitting on this case?

• I want you all to know it took courage for each of you to share your feelings.

• I have been at this for 60 years, and every time I start a jury trial, I’m afraid. You would think after all those years that I wouldn’t be that way, but I am.

• (Introduces associate lawyer and paralegal) We are awfully glad to finally have an opportunity to present our case to an American jury. We are awfully glad to finally have an opportunity to present our case to an American jury. I think that I speak for all members of our team, and I’m pretty sure that counsel for the defense will agree with me that we’re grateful that you’re here. We are proud to be part of the system with you.

• About Bias I think we have to begin with the proposition that we are all human beings and almost all alike. I want to start off with myself by saying that I have certain biases and certain prejudices, and I don’t think there’s anybody alive that doesn’t have some bias or some prejudice. For example, I have a bias in favor of the police. I believe that most cops are good cops. I’ve spent 84 years believing that almost all policemen are good, hard-working, decent, honest people. How many of you agree with that? So that’s my bias.

• Police Lawsuit I’ve been a law-and-order man all my life. And so my question to you is, if we are biased in favor of the police to begin with, you believe, as I do, that most officers are decent and real, but this is a suit against 2 police officers. Can you make room for the possibility that there are, in our system, 2 police officers before you who don’t fit that mold? How many of you could make room for that possibility? How did you come to that belief?

• Sympathy Now, let me ask you about this business of sympathy. We’re all human; we want to be sympathetic. I have to start with me, and I’m going to say that I’m going to forget all sorts of things, and I am as old as Methuselah, and I ask if there’s no sympathy for me. Nobody asked for sympathy for anybody here. I don’t want sympathy for my client because sympathy is cheap, and I don’t want sympathy for all police officers either. All we want in this case is justice, that’s it. Justice. Are you all okay with that? Does anybody have a problem with that? No sympathy. I would hate to go home and say, “Well, they felt sorry for me, so they gave me the $50,000,000 I was asking for.” How do you feel about taking on this job? I want to hear from each of you. How do you feel, each of you about taking on this job as a juror?

• Are you interested in doing this work? It’s marvelous work, and it’s great work. I guarantee you one thing: you will be a better person when you walk out of here, a broader person. You will have learned a lot, and you will have grown. Why do you think you want to be picked to be a juror here?

• If you were to put your finger on one thing that makes you especially qualified to sit on this case, what would it be?

• What do you think you could add to this jury, as a person?

Note his approach of being totally open about issues in the case or raised by jurors. He was totally committed to the belief that “truth and credibility are the most powerful tools a trial lawyer possesses.”