Trial lawyers often labor under the mistaken impression that people hate jury service. I did. When I was a trial lawyer, people often asked me at cocktail parties how to answer jury-selection questions to ensure attorneys would strike them from the panel. From these all-too-frequent conversations, I assumed that citizens generally did everything they could to avoid jury service and didn’t much care for it when they were selected.
Then I became a judge and was able to interact with hundreds of citizens annually who actually serve on juries. After a few years, I came to a surprising conclusion: While many people try to avoid jury service, once they get on a jury, they actually enjoy it.
