Trial science is a real, established field that applies social science research methods to litigation strategy. It draws on psychology, communication, sociology, and other disciplines to help legal teams understand how jurors think, what arguments resonate, and how to present a case more effectively. The industry is substantial: the broader litigation consulting services market is valued at roughly $61 billion in 2025 and projected to nearly double over the next decade.
That said, the term “trial science” can mean different things depending on who’s using it, and parts of the field are genuinely controversial. Here’s what it actually involves and where the skepticism comes from.
Where the Field Came From
Scientific jury selection originated in 1972 during the Harrisburg Seven trial, where academic researchers helped defense counsel because they were concerned the government had a disproportionate degree of power and control over the outcome. Those researchers used survey data and social science methods to identify jurors who might be more sympathetic to the defense. The approach worked well enough that it spread quickly into civil and criminal litigation.
Over the following decades, the field professionalized. The American Society of Trial Consultants became the only professional organization for the industry, requiring members to follow a code of practice developed over its 40-plus year history. Its members come from communication, psychology, sociology, theater, marketing, linguistics, political science, and law. Today, trial consulting is a routine part of high-stakes litigation, not a fringe practice.
What Trial Consultants Actually Do
The work falls into a few core categories, each borrowing methods from academic research and adapting them for the courtroom.
Mock Trials and Focus Groups
Before a case goes to trial, legal teams often test their arguments on people who resemble the actual jury pool. In a legal focus group, participants hear a condensed version of each side’s case, then share reactions with a moderator who probes for deeper insights about witnesses, evidence, and key narratives. There’s typically no deliberation or verdict. The goal is to identify which arguments land and which fall flat.
Mock trials go further. Participants receive simplified jury instructions and a verdict form, then deliberate in a separate room and attempt to reach a unanimous decision. Afterward, a moderator debriefs them, asking follow-up questions and sometimes introducing hypothetical evidence that may or may not be admissible at the real trial. Legal teams use this to hear how jurors talk about the case in their own words, drawing on their personal experiences and knowledge. Some teams even use mock trial results to inform settlement negotiations at mediation.
Scientific Jury Selection
During voir dire (the jury selection phase of a trial), consultants help attorneys identify jurors whose attitudes or life experiences suggest they’d lean toward one side. This goes well beyond simple demographics. Research confirms that jurors’ preexisting attitudes and preferences are greater predictors of verdicts than demographic information like age, race, or income.
Supplemental juror questionnaires sometimes include seemingly odd but revealing questions, like what bumper stickers are on your vehicle. The real focus is on attitudes: Does a juror believe that if a case makes it to court, the defendant must have done something wrong? Do they support caps on damages? Have they had negative experiences relevant to the case’s subject matter? The goal is to surface hidden or implicit biases that jurors may not volunteer on their own.
Shadow Juries
In a technique that gained attention during a landmark IBM case, trial teams recruit a small group of people who mirror the demographic and psychological profile of the actual jury. These shadow jurors sit in the courtroom as paid members of a research team, watching the real trial unfold. They report back daily on their observations, giving attorneys near-real-time feedback on what’s working and what isn’t. This provides insight into how jurors process evidence, where they lose the thread, and how social dynamics in the courtroom shape understanding.
How Well Does It Actually Work?
This is where things get complicated. The effectiveness of scientific jury selection, specifically, has been tested and the results are underwhelming. One study of 367 actual jurors found that the statistical models used in scientific jury selection could account for only 5 to 16 percent of the variance in verdict preferences across four simulated cases. The researchers concluded that survey-based methods of selecting juries are “not an effective method of selecting juries and pose no threat to the impartiality of the jury system.”
That finding is important context. It doesn’t mean the entire field is useless. Mock trials and focus groups serve a different function: they help lawyers refine their arguments, identify weak spots, and understand how ordinary people interpret complex evidence. That’s less about manipulating outcomes and more about preparation. But the headline claim that consultants can pick the “right” jury through scientific profiling has limited empirical support.
The Ethical Concerns
Critics raise two distinct objections to trial science. The first is about access. These services are expensive, which means well-funded parties (large corporations, wealthy defendants) can afford tools that the opposing side cannot. If trial consulting provides even a modest advantage, it widens the gap between those who can buy sophisticated litigation support and those who can’t.
The second concern involves expert witnesses and litigation-driven research. When a company funds scientific studies specifically to support its legal position, the resulting evidence carries an inherent risk of bias. One federal court found that pharmaceutical company Merrell Dow had played an “active and deliberate role, motivated by its litigation interests,” in shaping the scientific consensus around one of its products. In another case, a judge characterized an expert’s testimony as “justification science, not inquisitive science,” meaning the conclusion came first and the research followed.
Courts have tried to draw a line. Experts whose findings grow from research conducted independently of any lawsuit are generally considered more credible than those who developed their opinions specifically for the purpose of testifying. The reasoning is straightforward: researchers who aren’t being paid by a party in the case are less likely to be biased toward a particular conclusion. This distinction, while imperfect, has become a standard consideration when judges evaluate expert testimony.
A Real Field With Real Limits
Trial science is not a made-up marketing term. It’s a multibillion-dollar professional field with an established trade organization, academic roots in social psychology and communication research, and decades of use in both civil and criminal courts. Its methods, particularly mock trials and witness preparation, are now standard practice in major litigation.
What it is not, at least based on available evidence, is a magic formula for winning cases. The scientific jury selection techniques that launched the field in the 1970s have modest predictive power at best. The more valuable contributions tend to be the less dramatic ones: helping lawyers understand how real people interpret evidence, testing whether a narrative makes sense to someone who isn’t a lawyer, and identifying blind spots in case strategy before they become problems in front of a real jury.