Legal News

The Rule of Seven

By Brian Harris

 In case you were wondering, there is a reason why phone numbers have seven digits.  It is because studies in human learning have found that most people can only retain up to seven pieces of new information at once (and for people like me, even fewer). After pieces of new information cross the magic number seven, they start to get lost. It is just too much for most folks to retain ? especially in short term memory. This has been studied in several different ways. Using verbal lists of numbers and words, research has found that people remember up to about seven items before memory starts to drop items.  The rule of seven has also been studied visually by showing folks quick glimpses of pictures with a number of dots or other shapes and then asking those folks to report how many shapes they saw. Again, folks tend to perceive the number of items accurately until about seven, and then they need to guess or estimate when larger numbers of shapes are presented.

Well, that is all very interesting, but what does that have to do with jury trials?

How much information are you asking jurors to remember?

Considering that people tend to remember only about seven pieces of new information at a time, it may be a relevant and useful exercise to evaluate how much information we are asking them to remember at trial. 

When I conduct mock trials, I engage the surrogate jurors in focus sessions at the end of the day to get a clear understanding of how they perceived the case. I ask what stood out as strong evidence for one side or another and what they really paid attention to.  Regardless of the complexity of the case, jurors reliably will focus on a few main arguments or pieces of information. Usually no more than six or ? seven.

Needless to say, a mock trial is typically one day with truncated evidence and jurors will have more time to digest information during a trial, moving repeated information from short to long term memory, which has a bit more storage space.  Therefore, I am not saying by any stretch that you could or should whittle a complex commercial case down to seven pieces of evidence. If you can accomplish that, please do, but it is likely just not possible.

What I am saying, though, is that the case should be whittled down to a few overarching concepts in which evidence can be categorized. This way, even though jurors may not remember every piece of evidence (and they won?t), they will be able to keep straight in their minds the subset of key points, breaking things down into smaller pieces so they can better remember evidence within the separate key point categories.  

If you throw too much information out at trial, jurors will likely remember only some of that information, and you won?t get to choose what is remembered and what is lost. It is critical to take control of the information jurors will retain by narrowing your focus onto your strongest evidence and key messages.  The evidence in trial will obviously go beyond the magic number seven overall, but keep that number in mind as you make decisions about trial strategy and what you will emphasize in openings and closings.  

The critical point is this: Evidence is only helpful at trial when people remember it.

Melissa M. Gomez is a jury consultant and owner of MMG Jury Consulting LLC. She holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. Her experience includes work on close to 200 jury trials in Philadelphia and across the country, with a focus on the psychology of juror learning, behavior and decision-making. She has more than a decade of expertise in research design and methodology, as well as in behavioral and communication skills training.

This posting is for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as advice specific to any matter. Each case is different and no strategy applies uniformly to all.  

If you have any questions regarding jury psychology that you would like to see addressed in this blog, please contact Gomez at melissa@mmgjury.com or call 215-292-7956.

Melissa M. Gomez, Ph.D.
MMG Jury Consulting, LLC
www.mmgjury.com

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on May 06, 2010 (boomark / email).