William M. Orth

I second chaired my first jury trial in 1978 at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minneapolis. I second chaired numerous civil and criminal trials before my first solo jury trial in 1982. I lost. For the next eight years, I tried every kind of civil and criminal case I could get my hands on and talked to every foreperson or juror who would talk to me. I stopped this practice in 1990 for one reason: They all told me the same things, over and over. Things like: we don't decide the truth, we decide who to believe. Maybe someday I'll write a book.

My clients took the lumps for my early mistakes, but I took what the jurors told me about why I lost and used it like insider knowledge for the next jury. I saw the cases the way jurors did. I did not care about the "evidence". I cared about what the jurors would consider evidence. The results started coming. I have not looked back.