Picking Justice

By Harry Plotkin & Dan KramerBusiness Education Careers

Picking Justice episodes

October 19 Jon Marko – Why Bad-on-Paper Jurors Can Deliver Big Verdicts
The juror who looks worst on paper can end up delivering your biggest verdict. Jon Marko, a Detroit trial lawyer fresh off an $896 million verdict, has seen it happen more than once. While the defense in one of his trials ran AI searches on every juror, Jon stuck to quick social media checks, and he tells hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer why he wouldn't trust AI to pick his strikes. He also makes the case that repetition, not study, is what builds great voir dire. Tune in to hear how he handled a lawsuit-skeptical juror after using his last strike, and why she ended up leading the jury to a $36 million verdict.
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☑️ Jonathan R. Marko | LinkedIn | Instagram
☑️ Marko Law | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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50 min
October 05 Steve Vartazarian – How to Keep Biased Jurors From Being Rehabilitated (Rewind)
A juror who says they won't award money for pain and suffering only becomes a cause challenge if that answer holds up when the judge or defense tries to rehabilitate them. Steve Vartazarian, founder of The Vartazarian Law Firm, shares with hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer the simple questions he uses to lock those jurors in, and why he stops short of pushing them too far. He also explains why he welcomes jurors' worst answers, why he calls it "human harm" instead of pain and suffering, and the one line about damages that jurors love to hear. Tune in for jury selection techniques to use in your next voir dire.
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☑️ Steve Vartazarian | LinkedIn
☑️ The Vartazarian Law Firm | LinkedIn | Facebook
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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1 hr 35 min
September 21 Joe Fried – How to Win Over Hostile Jurors (Rewind)
Some of the toughest jurors aren't the ones to strike; they're the ones to win over. Joe Fried, an Atlanta trial lawyer with Fried Goldberg who has tried cases in 43 states, builds his approach around what jurors share rather than what divides them. He joins hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer to unpack what turns skepticism into trust: modeling "shockingly vulnerable" honesty, framing a case around a juror's oath, and running a voir dire that surfaces the universal values a case is really about. Joe also explains why he now drops his exact damages number in his opening, and why less is more when arguing them. Tune in for practical takeaway on inclusive jury selection.
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☑️ Joe Fried | LinkedIn
☑️ Fried Goldberg | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | X
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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58 min
September 08 Non-Economic Damages: Spot the Jurors Who Won’t Award
Most jurors haven't decided how they feel about giving millions for pain and suffering until the trial's nearly over — so how do you spot the ones who never will? In this deep dive, hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer unpack the "Health Is Wealth" question sequence Harry uses to surface which jurors value non-economic damages. They dig into the counterintuitive power of telling jurors the money isn't meant to help, how to read jurors who dodge or push back on open-ended questions, and the tricky calculus of brain-injury cases and waiving future care. Tune in for a practical playbook on making quality of life feel like real wealth to a jury.
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☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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48 min
August 24 Brett Schreiber – Two Cups and a Pitcher of Blame
Federal court voir dire is often "judicial speed dating" — sometimes just 25 minutes to question 55 strangers. Brett Schreiber of Singleton Schreiber pulled it off before landing a landmark verdict against Tesla, and he joins hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer to unpack how he picks juries under brutal time pressure. Brett shares his "two cups and a pitcher of blame" framing for shared-responsibility cases, why he primes reluctant jurors to say "yes" before diving in, and why emotional intelligence and reading the room beat any rigid script. He also explains why a story of betrayal is the most powerful motivator for jurors. Tune in for a masterclass in high-stakes jury selection.
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☑️ Brett Schreiber | LinkedIn
☑️ Singleton Schreiber | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | X
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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55 min
August 10 Mel Orchard — Get the Wrong Jurors to Out Themselves
Most trial lawyers walk into voir dire with a script and a checklist. Throw both out, says Mel Orchard of the Spence Law Firm in Wyoming, a member of the Inner Circle of Advocates. He opens instead by asking jurors whether anything affected them on the way in that morning — then stays silent for a long time. Talking with hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer, Mel explains why preconditioning doesn't work, why he no longer lets the panel debate the case in real time, how a personal share draws the poison out of a tough case, and how he preconditions jurors to tens of millions of dollars in voir dire using David Ball's framework.
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☑️ Mel C. Orchard | LinkedIn
☑️ Spence Law Firm | LinkedIn | Facebook | X
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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44 min
June 15 Kimball Jones – Voir Dire Lessons from a 9-Figure Verdict Run
Imagine trying a case with clear liability and catastrophic damages, with each day of evidence going your way — and still walking away with a defense verdict. That 2018 loss shaped Nevada trial lawyer Kimball Jones' voir dire philosophy and the verdict run that's followed: at least 12 seven-figure verdicts plus multiple eight- and nine-figure results since 2019. Kimball joins hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer to unpack his approach — starting with the passions question to build rapport, signaling damages early in his mini opening, and addressing juror skepticism about trial lawyers head-on. Tune in for what jurors are really telling you when they claim no passions, and the surprising habit Kimball considers more important than any technique.
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☑️ Kimball Jones | LinkedIn
☑️ Bighorn Law | LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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Episode sponsored by Focus Graphics.
52 min
June 01 Bernard Alexander – The Beauty of Employment Litigation, from the Lawyer Who Won $136M Against Tesla
The way employment litigator Bernard Alexander sees it, the beauty of these cases is that most jurors are employees. At voir dire, the plaintiff’s lawyer’s job is to get jurors to slip into their client’s shoes. In this conversation with hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer, Bernard describes how he does that. His experience includes winning $136 million against Tesla in what was the largest single plaintiff harassment verdict in the U.S. at the time. “I get people talking,” he says. “But the people that aren't talking, those are the ones that I really want to talk to.” How? With direct questions like, “Has anyone here or someone you know ever experienced discrimination or harassment?” or, “Has anyone ever made any complaints inside the workplace about anything or know someone that has?’”
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☑️ Bernard Alexander | LinkedIn
☑️ Alexander Morrison + Fehr | LinkedIn | Facebook | X
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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Episode sponsored by Focus Graphics.
51 min
May 18 Jennifer Keller – Business Behaving Badly? Telling Jurors "It's a Company" Isn’t Enough
Some corporations may be “evil.” Others may be “heroes.” Good or bad, they’re made up of people. “Just saying ‘it's a company’ isn't enough. What company? What does the company do? And who are the people in the company?,” says Jennifer Keller, speaking from her experience going up against and representing companies. She recommends finding out what kind of company you’re representing – like the upstart with a doll that competed against Mattel – and what your corporate client actually does – like the company trying to protect its pioneering colon cancer detecting process. She won $170 million against Mattel and $300 million for the cancer detection company. Tune in to this conversation with hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer for her insights about humanizing corporate clients, evaluating every juror individually rather than relying on demographic assumptions, and eliminating “cagey jurors.”
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☑️Jennifer Keller | LinkedIn
☑️ Keller Anderle Scolnick LLP | LinkedIn | Facebook
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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Produced and Powered by LawPods
Episode sponsored by Focus Graphics.
48 min
May 04 David deRubertis – How I Stopped Hating Jury Selection
David deRubertis, one of California's preeminent employment trial lawyers, once had a streak of consecutive trials resulting in eight-figure verdicts. And yet he hates jury selection. How did he move past that? By embracing what comes naturally to him and how his mind works. In this conversation with hosts Harry Plotkin and Dan Kramer, David describes how he’s leveraged that lesson to persuade jurors to shift their focus in an employment case – where anger, not necessarily emotional distress, often drives the verdict. He also reveals why one winning strategy may be to not pin the case on the individual client but rather on a corporate defendant’s systemic wrongdoing. A great example: His $464.5 million verdict against Southern California Edison in a workplace harassment case, the largest contested employment verdict ever.
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☑️ David deRubertis | LinkedIn
☑️ The deRubertis Law Firm
☑️ Harry Plotkin | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Dan Kramer | LinkedIn
☑️ Kramer Trial Lawyers on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
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Produced and Powered by LawPods
Episode sponsored by Focus Graphics.
57 min

About Picking Justice

From the publisher's feed

Attention Trial Lawyers: You’ve meticulously crafted your opening statement, mastered your directs and crosses, and fine-tuned your closing argument. But have you developed a strategy for jury selection? What will you do when a potential juror gives an unexpected answer? Do you even want that person on your jury? The clock is ticking — you need to think fast.