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Law Practice

Jul. 21, 2020

Face masks and juror credibility

Those not knowledgeable in the art of jury selection see little harm in masking jurors and lawyers. But for those of us who spend our careers in the trenches of the courtroom reading the subtleties of juror reactions in order to decide how to exercise the precious few preemptory challenges allowed by law, we will be stumbling blindly — deprived of the essential signs of facial expression.

Gary A. Dordick

Dordick Law Corporation

Phone: (310) 551-0949

Fax: (855) 299-4444

Email: gary@dordicklaw.com

University of West Los Angeles; Los Angeles CA

Gary A. Dordick is a trial attorney in Beverly Hills with over 125 jury trials in his career. He won CAALA's Trial Lawyer of the Year in 2001, and CAOC's (Consumer Attorneys of California) Trial Attorney of the Year in 2009. He was one of the Daily Journal's Top 100 Lawyers in California in 2017, as well as one of the Daily Journal's Top 30 Plaintiff Lawyers in California for 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020. He is also a Diplomat with The Los Angeles Chapter of ABOTA and an Emeritus Board Member with CAALA. Mr. Dordick frequently lectures trial practice, ethics and civility in the courtroom.

We are seeing different rules now in different jurisdictions for how the courts are handling civil cases. This week, Tulare county denied our motion to have counsel appear by phone or video conference for a court conducted mandatory settlement conference. Last week, the court of appeal in San Francisco affirmed a trial court ruling ordering criminal jury trials to proceed with counsel, jurors and witnesses wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. And Los ...

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