What Not to Say

Think jurors know what you mean when you use the term the court? Think again, says Chicago-based jury and communications consultant Theresa Zagnoli of Zagnoli, McEvoy & Foley. “In post-trial interviews with jurors who sat on a jury, they revealed that it took them three days to figure out that ‘the court’ and the judge on the bench were the same people,” Zagnoli says of one of her cases. Other words Zagnoli tells her lawyer clients not to use in front of jurors include subsequent, decedent and commence. That made us wonder what words or phrases you think should be avoided in front of a jury. Plead your case in the comments below.

Between 2008 and 2012, 2 of 8,591 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act requests were rejected.

Source: The Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Jumping on the Blogwagon

Nearly 4 out of 5 of the top 200 law firms in the world have blogs or lawyers who blog.

Firms with blogs increased their gross revenue by more than $1 million over firms without.

Am Law 200 firms have a collective 91 blogs devoted to employment law.

Source: State of the Am Law 200 Blogosphere: 2012 in Review, Lex Blog Inc., April 2013.

30 Days in the Hole

12,460 prisoners, or 7% of the population housed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, are currently held in solitary confinement, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

If You’re Happy and You Know It

56 percent of Australian lawyers are happy or very happy in their jobs; 32 percent are mostly happy and 12 percent are unhappy, according to a survey of more than 1,000 attorneys Down Under.

Source: Robert Walters Employee Insights Survey.

Health care reform is the regulatory issue that 57% of general counsel, human resource professionals and C-suite executives say will have the most impact on workplaces in the next year.

Source: Littler Mendelson Executive Employer Survey Report, July 2013.

Marijuana arrests now account for 52% of all U.S. drug arrests.

8.2 million marijuana arrests were made between 2001 and 2010; 88% of those arrests were for possession.

Source: The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests, American Civil Liberties Union, June 2013.

Every 37 seconds, police in the United States arrested someone for marijuana possession in 2010.

Source: The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests, American Civil Liberties Union, June 2013.