Preparing Voir Dire Questions

Jury voir dire is the selection of a certain number of jurors from a jury panel. The number of jurors required in a case will depend on the court. Voir dire is the way lawyers find out about the prospective jurors. The lawyers (or the judge in certain instances) will ask questions of the jurors to identify qualifications, experiences and interests, knowledge about the case, relationship or familiarity with parties, witnesses, and lawyers involved in the case, and bias or any other reason why a juror should or should not be selected to serve on a jury.

Most often, jury voir dire is conducted through verbal questioning of potential jurors, though in some cases written juror questionnaires may be used to facilitate the selection process.

Questions are asked in order to determine whether a juror should be removed from the panel because the juror cannot fairly hear and decide the case.

Draft a minimum of five voir dire questions to help your supervising attorney pick the best jurors for the case. Your questions should relate to the subject matter of the case and focus on issues that could help your supervising attorney to determine if a juror might be biased in any way. The questions could be used for both challenges for cause and peremptory challenges. Assume that you are working as a paralegal for the lawyer who represents the plaintiff.