Lawyers have complained for generations that trying complex suits requires them to dumb down the content of their cases for the jury.
Dean Erwin Griswold wrote in the 1962-1963 Harvard Law School Dean’s Report, in words quoted widely since, that the jury trial in civil cases “is the apotheosis of the amateur. Why should anyone think that 12 persons brought in from the street, selected in various ways for their lack of general ability, should have any special capacity for deciding controversies between persons?”
