Source of article 2's Company - Magnus Insights.

I was speaking with someone recently who was lamenting about how cost is a factor in decisions, sometimes, with a penny wise and dollar (pound) foolish approach. This person quickly related a story about when he was buying a piece of equipment for his office and asked what it cost. The astute salesperson said, “it doesn’t cost, it pays…??? I like that! (And, I told my new acquaintance that I was going to appropriate it for this post.) That is exactly the message I try to share with prospective clients. The cost of mock jury research (or whatever we are being asked to do on a case) should not merely be seen as a cost; rather, it should be seen as an investment. It is an investment in a better, more certain outcome. It is an investment in information to facilitate better decisions about whether to settle or try a case. It is an investment in the witness to ensure that she/he can tell her/his story in the most compelling manner. The problem, however, is that it is usually impossible to quantify this investment. We certainly have anecdotal examples of this, for example, when a plaintiff’s demand was $2 million, and our clients, the attorney and the insurance adjuster, disagreed on the likely outcome. After the mock juries (several) rendered their verdicts, it was obvious that the adjuster had undervalued the case, badly. The mock jurors found liability and awarded significant damages. Settlement occurred soon thereafter and later, the attorney and I discussed the situation. He related that the adjuster calculated the cost of settling the claim and realized that, because of what was learned, it settled for less than had been demanded, and further, that the cost of hiring us, while not insignificant, actually saved the insurance company considerable dollars in trial costs alone. Nevermind the possibility of a higher verdict, the investment paid off on just the trial costs. The insurance adjuster and his company would not have settled the claim absent the research, so it was true that it didn’t cost, it paid! This message is harder for some people to understand than others, but it recurs frequently, thus, we keep trying to spread the word.