Author Archive | David Fauss

2020

Well, here we are. It’s 2020. Lots of celebrations, talk about the new decade, and the roaring 20s. But, many of us think of it with the term “hindsight” attached, as in “hindsight is 20/20,” meaning that when looking backward, things that were once unclear become clear. Monday morning quarterbacking is related. If we see […]

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As we enter into a new year and a new decade, many people enjoy reminiscing about the past, while others eschew the past and focus their sights on the unknowns that will occur in future times.  As business owners, David and I spend some time reflecting on our past successes and failures (and their have […]

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Don’t Confuse Expenses with Investments

This post is prompted by a comment made by someone with whom we frequently work in our litigation consulting business. He remarked how he hoped clients would recognize the value of our work, and his work, and see it as an investment, not just another litigation expense or cost. As I explained to someone yesterday, […]

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The quote David mentions was made by Bob Howe, who is an investigator with whom I have had the pleasure of working during jury selection.  A mutual client retained Bob for an upcoming case but was initially undecided about whether to retain me.  It seems that, in today’s litigation world, the services of a private […]

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Know when to ask for help

We, at Magnus, recently ventured into new technological waters and various challenges surprised us. This is not about the specifics of that situation, but rather, a more global commentary on the need to be open to asking for help. In this situation, we, or rather our most excellent research assistant – tech person, got bogged […]

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Any post that includes lyrics from a Lynyrd Skynyrd song is an excellent post, in my opinion!  This being said, as David mentioned in a recent post, there are times to “do it yourself” and there are times to obtain expert advice and/or turn over a task entirely to someone who possesses greater expertise than […]

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False Equivalents

A Point of View

David H. Fauss, M.S.M.

On January 23, 2020

Category: Getting Through Life and Work, Magnus, Mental Health, Psychology

Melissa and I do our best to keep politics out of these posts, as well as our professional lives. So, this is the disclaimer, this post is not about specific politics, politicians, or even impeachment, though the topic arises from various political battles of the day. Unfortunately, I need to set the stage for my […]

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Another View

Melissa Pigott, Ph.D.

On January 23, 2020

Category: Getting Through Life and Work, Magnus, Mental Health, Psychology

Well, David has opened the proverbial can of worms with his choice of a topic for our blog.  I will begin my part with a quote that my late Mother used to repeat, relatively often: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”  Mom was on to something.  This phrase is widely known in both rhetorical and […]

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Whistleblowing isn’t easy

Much has been in the news lately about people blowing whistles on allegations of corruption and abuse. Without discussing these specific situations, I want to address the act of sounding an alarm, or blowing a whistle. I have written something on this previously, but it warrants revisiting. I will start by saying that, if you […]

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To the uninitiated, whistle blower means the same thing as tattletale.  In fact, dictionary definitions of both terms list them as synonyms, along with others, such as betrayer, informant, nark, rat fink, and snitch.  In my view, there are different circumstances that lead to the characterization of people who “tell on” others.  For example, in […]

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Social Media Monitoring doesn’t end when the jury is seated

Background checks conducted of prospective jurors are becoming, or should be becoming, routine. We’ve written about this before, see https://magnus.lisawhitsell.com/2019/01/juror-background-checks/. Though there are some constraints on these practices imposed by courts and each state’s bar rules, they are here to stay. When I say “background checks,” I am referring to searches of both public information […]

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I spoke with an attorney not long ago who told me that, if he were a judge, no one would be permitted to perform social media searches or background checks of prospective jurors.  It’s a good thing he is not a judge because the judges who preside over the court cases in which I am […]

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Magic Bullets

A Point of View

David H. Fauss, M.S.M.

On January 2, 2020

Category: Getting the Job Done, Jury Behavior, Jury Consultants, Litigation Tips, Magnus, Magnus Insights, Psychology, Trial Consultants, Trial Consulting

I recently read an article about a “brand new, state of the art jury selection program to bring data science to jury selection.” That is not a direct quote, but a synopsis of the news story I read about the program. (Disclaimer: I don’t really know anything about this program other than what was in […]

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A well respected attorney with whom I have been acquainted for almost 30 years alerted me to this latest attempt to make jury selection easy enough for a trained monkey to perform.  Please do not think I am, in any way, disparaging monkeys.  I have nothing against monkeys, but I do have something against humans […]

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Hospitality

This post is about hospitality. Not the at home type, I think we’ve covered that before; but rather, the industry type. As trial consultants, we are road warriors. I don’t know how many nights we spend away from home, but I once calculated that Melissa, Melissa and I, or I, by myself, spent 75 nights […]

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Because my personal and work lives lack routine and involve many unknowns, I find it comforting to stay in the same hotels when I travel to certain cities.  In my hometown of Fort Myers, Florida, my “hotel” used to be my childhood home until 2010, when it was sold after my mother’s passing in 2009.  […]

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The Joy of Photography, Part 2

Picking up where I left off about the joy of photography, there are at least 2 more, somewhat related, primary sources of joy in photography. The first is in taking the photos. As an aside, it is interesting to me that different terms are used for this part of photography – “taking a photograph” and […]

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Recently, David and I went on a “dream vacation” to Great Britain, the land of The Beatles, with two longtime friends.  All of us shared photos with each other, resulting in over 10,000 photos among us!  While David took professional quality photos with real (and real expensive) cameras, the rest of us busied ourselves taking […]

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The Joy of Photography, Part 1

Many people know that, in addition to working as a trial consultant, I am a professional photographer. During college, and afterwards for about 5 years, this was my full time occupation. After that 5 years, I returned to graduate school, finished my M.S. degree and got into the trial consulting world; as I have told […]

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David’s photographs are lovely!  Indeed, he has brought joy to many people over the years with his beautiful images of their lives.  When people appreciate his generosity in sharing his photos, it is wonderful.  There are, thankfully, more people like Debbie who thank him for going to great lengths to send them photos than others […]

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