While preparing for trial, litigators in medical malpractice lawsuits are inevitably confronted with the conundrum of how they will communicate to jurors the complex medical concepts involved in the case. Most jurors have only a cursory understanding of biology, and a rudimentary knowledge of medical procedures and jargon. But a majority of jurors rely on digital technology. As a result, many jurors expect that information will be conveyed to them in a technologically sophisticated manner. With this in mind, an advocate who can use advanced technology to convey complicated medical information to lay people should have an advantage at trial.
Testimonial evidence, the traditional mechanism for eliciting proof at trial, can be an inefficient method for educating jurors. Demonstrative evidence, on the other hand, allows jurors to perceive evidence through the direct use of their senses.1 Demonstrative evidence, which is a physical representation of a fact presented at trial, includes diagrams, photographs, and films. It is well known that people typically retain more information when it is presented both visually and orally, rather than just orally.2 So, in conjunction with expert testimony, trial lawyers are increasingly relying on demonstrative evidence to illustrate issues in science and medicine. Trial judges generally instruct jurors that demonstrative evidence is not “evidence of the actual event or how it happened, but rather for the limited purpose of illustrating and understanding the opinion [of the expert].”3
