My name is Edmond Koester. I’m a trial lawyer. I work for the law firm of Coleman, Yovanovich & Koester. My office is located in Naples, Florida. I have a national practice, and I practice of course, all over the nation. I’ve also had a case in Barcelona, Spain, not too long ago.

In my practice, I deal with all different types of personalities. I deal with people from small towns, people from large towns. When I try cases, I’m never sure what type of jury that I’m going to get, or whether I’m going to have the appropriate experience to deal with that kind of person.

What I like about Magnus Consulting is they help me with the cases that I have; and they help me know all of the issues that I ought to be looking at; and they help me consider different viewpoints and how different demographics might review or see the issues. I have used other jury consultant companies. I actually tried a case recently against a jury consultant, and I have to say that Magnus is far better than their competition and I would have to say that they add a level of professionalism, integrity, and honesty to the process that’s not only refreshing, but very much value-added. Some of their competitors I would say fall short, and provide advice that isn’t very helpful. For example, one of their competitors would give advice that one ought to strike all black jurors from a jury, as the type of thing that one ought to do in preparing to have the case tried before the jury. I know that to be inappropriate under Florida Supreme Court precedent. Furthermore, it’s not actually helpful, because racial profiling in that way is really not an intellectual way to go about trying your case. When you work with Magnus they’ll help you work with the actual issues. They’ll help you work with the actual facts in your case, and they’ll help you make those issues and facts appealing to any trier of fact; whether it’s an arbitrator, whether it’s a judge, whether it’s a juror, whether it’s a juror who’s Hispanic, who’s black, who’s white, who’s a woman, who’s a man; it doesn’t matter. They will help you present the good, honest, consistent, objective case that will be persuasive, and that’s really what our roles as lawyers are.

What I particularly like about Magnus is if you bring them in early in a case, they’ll really help you get ready for trial. You can have them work with your witnesses. They can go through and look at all of the different issues in the case. They can help you decide which issues are going to be the issues in the mind of the later of the jury, or the judge if it’s a judge trial, and really facilitate the preparation.

I try a lot of cases. Every time I take a case in I immediately begin to think about trial. I begin to think about what witnesses I’m going to call, what exhibits I’m going to use, what I think the judge is going to think the issues are, or what I believe the jury is going to think the issues are. And throughout the rest of the case as I take depositions, as I meet people, as I do things, I focus consistently on how I’m going to present at trial. I like to use Magnus Consulting, because when Magnus comes in they help me see a perspective that I don’t see on my own. They help me focus more on the presentation by raising issues by looking at the issues that I’ve thought of and figuring out how they’re really going to play, whether the issues are consistent. How the juries and the judge might consider and view the issues. How different demographics or personality types might look at the issues and I find it to be very helpful. I find it to help us focus, and it certainly allows us to, and encourages us, to spend enough time presenting the case and preparing to present the case, as opposed to being lost in the trees researching topics that may never see the light of the jury trial.

In my practice, I see a lot of lawyers not focusing on what’s actually going to happen in the courtroom. So every once in a while I’ll do the math in my head if I see a big case where each side spends $2 million dollars in attorney’s fees and it goes to a two week jury trial. You start to realize how much money is spent per minute of trial. And then if you go back and you look at that $2 or $4 million dollars, and you see how much time was spent on everything, but what they were actually going to do at trial you can see that a trial consultant with a great deal of experience in picking juries, helping with issues can really facilitate a better use of the money. Because if you spend all of your time, looking at all of the issues that aren’t going to be heard, that aren’t really going to be the issues that are going to be in the mind of the jury you’re much, no, much less likely to win, and you’re much, much less, likely to be actually prepared for what is going to occur.