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A Rare But Scary Thing: More on Franchise Jury Trials

April 23, 2002

Reprinted with permission of the Franchise Law Journal (American Bar Association), Volume 21, Number 4, Spring 2002


At the risk of offending many readers, I offer this not so humble opinion: trying a lawsuit, especially to a jury, is the ultimate expression of the lawyer’s art and craft. On an intimate stage before a live audience, no second takes available, the trial lawyer is the producer, director, occasionally bit player, and sometimes star of a play with no fixed script and an ending entirely unknown, until the jury knocks on the door and returns to the box to deliver its news. Even when the news is bad, or downright devastating, it is a privilege to participate in the jury system, a cornerstone of our democracy that requires even the most powerful among us to stand before average citizens and answer for their conduct.

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