Making preponderance work: almost all jurors expect you to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt, and you won't change their minds by explaining preponderance. But if you make preponderance a working theme throughout trial, jurors will make preponderance-based decisions about liability and damages.

Trial, March, 2008 by Ball, David

In most civil trials, one of your most important tasks is to get jurors to make decisions based on a preponderance of the evidence. Throughout your career, you'd probably have won most of the cases you lost if the jurors had decided based on preponderance. But they didn't.

There is a simple and highly effective template you can follow to ensure that jurors will make preponderance-based decisions. Follow the template meticulously. Omit nothing, change nothing, unless forced to. (Because this template works so well, don't use it when a lowered burden will hurt you--such as with a dangerous affirmative defense. Don't do the defense any favors.)

The goal is this: In deliberations, when a defense-oriented juror says, "I'm just not sure," you want the other...

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