Jury expert to give public lecture at KU School of Law
LAWRENCE – A national expert on jury decision-making will deliver a public lecture on “Convenient Courtroom Fictions: How Rules of Evidence Relate to Jurors’ Cognitive Behavior” at the University of Kansas School of Law.
Tom Beisecker, an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies, will speak at 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, in 107 Green Hall. A reception will follow in the Rice Room.
Beisecker is the inaugural Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy Fellow, and this is the second of two lectures he will give during his yearlong appointment. He spoke at the law school in November on “The Role of Narrative in the Courtroom.”
Beisecker’s main interests include persuasion, social influence, bargaining, negotiation and jury decision-making. He is currently studying when people should concede in the bargaining process, whether knowledge of a subject affects bargaining power and behavior, and how jurors infer missing facts and reconcile inconsistent facts when arriving at verdicts. He is nationally known for his work in legal communication. He is also a member of the board of directors of the American Society of Trial Consultants.
The Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy capitalizes on its namesake’s distinguished history in litigation to cultivate a new generation of trial lawyers. The Center has three broad goals: to offer unique skills-based training to KU law students; to present valuable programming for KU law alumni and the regional bar; and to open new scholarly opportunities through a fellowship program.
The Center was founded in June 2008 with generous support from Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, an international law firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that counts among its partners and associates many KU Law graduates.