Carol Bauss, J.D., joined NJP in 1993, working first in Minneapolis and then New York, and has been a senior consultant in the firm’s California office since 2006. She is NJP’s vice president.
She advises attorneys on trial presentation and jury selection strategy and works with witnesses to improve how they communicate. Her knowledge of juror attitudes and decision making comes from years of focus groups, mock trials, post-verdict juror interviews and in-court jury selection. She designs juror questionnaires and voir dire questions that surface bias, and helps lawyers make the best use of limited voir dire time.
With a background in law and rhetoric, Carol helps trial teams cut through legal jargon and find the human story and universal themes inside complex disputes. Her work spans personal injury and wrongful death, commercial and antitrust litigation, trade secrets and product liability, with two decades of jury research and jury selection in the Northern District of California.
Her trials include the City of St. Louis’s suit against the major tobacco companies, the TFT-LCD flat panel antitrust class action, the TSMC trade secret case, and the criminal trial of Adelphia’s executives, where she ran four rounds of mock jury research and assisted in court with jury selection.
She is a frequent presenter and trainer for national, state and local bar and trial lawyer associations, including program chair and faculty for the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association’s Trial Skills Boot Camp, with recent programs on technology in focus groups and jury selection, expert witnesses, online investigation of jurors and presenting damages. She has served on the board of directors of the American Society of Trial Consultants. She holds a B.A. in communication arts and rhetoric from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a J.D. from William Mitchell College of Law.