Handbook of Trial Consulting (PDF)

Handbook of Trial Consulting

Richard L. Wiener and Brian H. Bornstein, editors

Since its beginnings in scientific jury selection, trial consulting has engendered a growing academic literature, a professional association, and a thriving industry covering many discrete areas of practice. And while there is no specific course of study for trial consultants, much of what constitutes the field falls under the heading of legal psychology, with a number of available volumes on the subject. The Handbook of Trial Consulting differs from the others in its emphasis on social analytic jurisprudence, an empirically-based interdisciplinary lens for understanding legal issues and testing the assumptions that the law, and lawyers, make about human behavior, helping to ensure impartial, efficient service in diverse contexts while minimizing procedural and ethical pitfalls. Contributors focus on applied research methods, effective testimony strategies, specific psycholegal issues, and professional concerns to examine what trial consultants should know about:

• Jury selection and jury decision-making
• Social-cognitive aspects of legal persuasion
• The admissibility of expert witness testimony.
• Using survey research, statistics, and technological evidence
• Assessment of monetary and neuropsychological damages
• Avoiding conflicts of interest

Occupying a crucial intersection between disciplines (and even advising legal professionals about what they can expect from consultants), the Handbook of Trial Consulting is a field-defining resource for legal psychologists,  andpsychiatrists, lawyers, criminologists, sociologists, and political scientists as well as graduate students and academicians in psychology and law.