A father-daughter conversation on why jurors don't simply award money—they decide whether a defendant deserves accountability, and how credibility, character, and courtroom choices can dramatically change the value of a case.
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John G. Simon’s work as Managing Partner at the firm has resulted in hundreds of millions of...
Mary Simon is a devoted advocate of the injured, particularly those suffering from serious injuries related to...
| Published: | August 5, 2026 |
| Podcast: | The Jury is Out |
In Part 2 of this father-daughter conversation, trial attorneys John Simon and Mary Simon continue exploring what truly drives jury decision-making. Through real courtroom stories and side-by-side scenarios, John explains why a defendant’s conduct, credibility, and character often matter as much as the injuries themselves. Together, they discuss why jurors don’t simply calculate damages—they make human judgments about responsibility, accountability, and whether someone has earned their trust.
Special thanks to our sponsor Simon Law Firm.
Announcer [00:00:01 – 00:00:20]
Welcome to The Jury Is Out, a podcast for trial attorneys who want to sharpen their skills and better serve their clients. Your co-hosts are John Simon, founder of the Simon Law Firm, Tim Cronin, personal injury trial attorney at the Simon Law Firm, and St. Louis attorney Eric Veith.
Mary Simon [00:00:21 – 00:01:08]
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of The Jury Is Out. I’m Mary Simon, and I’m here with my dad to pick up for part 2 of our conversation about jurors. I feel like when you first start observing trials and then your first hearings and first trials, I have sat in the courtroom before. It was a case that we tried together and the opposing attorney in a med mal case is standing up there asking. It got to the point where the judge cut him off and said, we get it. We get what she does for a living. We’re not going to hear any more questions about that. And in my head, I’m thinking maybe he just is trying to tee her up I couldn’t figure out the reason, but in my head I was thinking, maybe he just wants the jury to, like, by the time she gets cross-examined, all they know is that there’s nothing this woman hasn’t done in her career and she’s brilliant and she does all these things.
Mary Simon [00:01:09 – 00:01:17]
But if that was the plan, it definitely is going to undercut you if the judge is saying, we get it, we all know what an OB does, we don’t need to hear anything else about that.
John Simon [00:01:17 – 00:01:48]
You know, I’m sitting here smiling because I had a I had a case years ago, and it was in federal court with a very, very good judge. And I had— I was cross-examining the defense witness in the case. It was an automotive product case. And I had prepared a ton. I got this guy’s background and all the cases he had testified in. And, you know, I thought I was doing a really good job. I was about 40 minutes in, 45 minutes in, and I was about halfway through. And the federal judge didn’t say, counsel, approach the bench.
John Simon [00:01:48 – 00:01:50]
He said, Mr. Simon, come up here, please.
John Simon [00:01:50 – 00:01:50]
Oh, wow.
John Simon [00:01:51 – 00:02:01]
Like right in the middle of my questioning. And the defense lawyer said, he goes, no, just Mr. Simon. And I get up there and he leans forward and goes, Mr. Simon, nobody in this room believes anything this guy says anymore.
Mary Simon [00:02:01 – 00:02:02]
Oh, what?
John Simon [00:02:02 – 00:02:11]
He goes, so my suggestion for you is that you’re done and you need to quit questioning, because if you keep going, they’re going to feel sorry for him and this is all going to backfire on you.
Mary Simon [00:02:11 – 00:02:11]
Oh my God.
John Simon [00:02:11 – 00:02:20]
And I went, oh, thank you. And he goes, so let’s get— let’s wrap it up. And I went back and said, got to the podium. looked up and said, Your Honor, no further questions. And I went and sat down.
Mary Simon [00:02:21 – 00:02:24]
Oh my God. I can’t believe that happened.
John Simon [00:02:25 – 00:02:25]
Yes. Yes.
Mary Simon [00:02:25 – 00:02:26]
Oh my God.
John Simon [00:02:26 – 00:02:28]
He said, Mr. Simon, I think you’re done.
Mary Simon [00:02:28 – 00:02:28]
You know—
John Simon [00:02:28 – 00:02:30]
And I went, I think you’re right, Judge.
Mary Simon [00:02:30 – 00:02:39]
You know what’s interesting is I feel like, I mean, obviously the judge had the goodwill to pull you aside and tell you what he really thought.
John Simon [00:02:39 – 00:02:41]
I was probably going on a little too long.
Mary Simon [00:02:41 – 00:02:41]
Yeah, sure.
John Simon [00:02:41 – 00:02:42]
And he wanted me to wrap it up and move on.
Mary Simon [00:02:42 – 00:03:47]
Yeah, but it reminds me of sometimes it’s hard to figure out whether or not the jury’s caring Or if you’ve got them thinking about the stuff you want them to be thinking about when you’re actually standing up, putting the witness on. And in a case that I tried with Tim, and Tim and I just had a, we just work so well together and it’s our personalities are great before a jury and we just complement each other really well personality-wise, I think. And there was one witness who the defense was relying on heavily and she just came in and I, even after her direct examination, you know, I tell Tim, I’m like, you know what? I know we’ve got some good stuff to ask her, but I think she’s kind of scared and like concerned and doesn’t really want to be doing this. And Tim’s like, yeah. You know, and it kind of made some edits to the questions he was asking. In his rebuttal, or at some point in the case, we didn’t want the jury to think that by asking her very direct, you know, questions that directly contradict her testimony, that we were trying to like beat up on her or something, because she was like kind of like a sympathetic witness. And I’m pretty sure in rebuttal or, Maybe in my clothes. We told the jury, you heard from Ms.
Mary Simon [00:03:48 – 00:04:00]
So-and-so, we feel for her. We had to ask her those questions, but like, we’re not sure what’s going on with her and we feel deeply for her. I think that sometimes she was uncomfortable sitting there because we didn’t want the jury to think they do care about the witness.
John Simon [00:04:00 – 00:04:17]
Yeah, you know, when I first started practicing, I was at a defense firm for 4 and a half years on the railroad, FELA defense. We were defending a case, and in those days, my participating in the trial was sitting on a bench 6 rows back watching the other 3 lawyers. I was like 4th on the list. You know, in the trial.
Mary Simon [00:04:17 – 00:04:18]
Started from the bottom.
John Simon [00:04:19 – 00:04:29]
And so what happened was we had surveillance on this worker, this railroad worker, and he was doing something that he denied being able to do.
Mary Simon [00:04:30 – 00:04:30]
Like cartwheels?
John Simon [00:04:31 – 00:04:54]
Yeah, well, they set him up. They set him up for it. Yeah, of course. And he wasn’t, you know, honest about it. And again, I was on the defense side and I’m sitting there watching. And this guy was, you know, a hardworking guy. He’d been at the railroad for, you know, maybe 20 years, had 5 or 6 kids. And they brought that out in a very, very aggressive way, you know, the video and set him up for it, made it a big deal.
John Simon [00:04:54 – 00:05:05]
This is the firm I was with. And what happened was not surprising, but it was surprising. And while it was being played, this grown man, 40-something years old, started sobbing.
Mary Simon [00:05:06 – 00:05:06]
Oh.
John Simon [00:05:07 – 00:05:21]
Yep. Started sobbing in his chair while they were playing the video of him doing something that he denied doing. And the jury whacked us. The jury, like, punished our client. So there you go.
Mary Simon [00:05:21 – 00:05:22]
Consequences.
John Simon [00:05:22 – 00:05:44]
And again, I have all these sayings, you know, you never kick a wounded dog. And that’s what we did. You know, if somebody’s hurt, you acknowledge it. You tell the jury how bad you feel about it and say, we’re here to try to find some reasonable compensation we can’t agree on. We need your help with that. So again, what did I say earlier? It’s all about emotions. It is about emotions.
Mary Simon [00:05:45 – 00:06:18]
So here’s the $10 million question, and it goes directly to what you’re saying about how jurors make decisions. You’ve obviously built, you know, a pretty well-off practice for yourself. But I think a lot of folks, especially folks who are listening, would be wondering, and I am too, is how do you get a jury? It has to do with damages. The question I’m thinking has to do with damages. And they’re making decisions on emotions, as you’ve said. How do you get jurors to care about damages?
John Simon [00:06:19 – 00:07:02]
So when lawyers in this office and outside of this office call me and ask me about the value of a case, there’s one lawyer who I’ve known for literally since I’ve been practicing, and every once in a while he’ll send me a demand letter without a number, a draft demand letter that he wants to send out. And then I will call them and say what— tell them what number I’m thinking of. And when lawyers in this office come up and they start asking me about the damages in the case, they tell me first, everybody wants to tell me about the injuries. They want to tell me about the medical bills, the disabilities, which is fine. And I always say the same thing. Tell me about the defendant. I want to know about the defendant, who they are and what they did wrong.
John Simon [00:07:02 – 00:07:02]
Right.
John Simon [00:07:03 – 00:07:44]
That’s what I want to know. Because, you know, jurors— in my 41 years of doing this, I have learned the hard way, later rather than sooner. I wish I had learned it sooner. You know, jurors don’t give money. Jurors take money. Jurors are very reluctant to give anybody money that doesn’t deserve it, but they are absolutely willing to take money from somebody who did something bad. So when you ask for damages in a case, I don’t care how you ask for it or what the instructions are. In my opinion, jurors don’t say, okay, we’re going to see how much damages this company, you know, say this railroad needs to pay.
John Simon [00:07:45 – 00:07:54]
They’re not going to say, okay, well, they did this wrong, here’s what they did, and let’s set that aside. Let’s look at the damages of the plaintiff.
Mary Simon [00:07:54 – 00:07:55]
Oh, sure.
John Simon [00:07:55 – 00:08:23]
Okay. Let’s look at his medical bills. They don’t do that. They say, well, wait a minute. They go back and they say, we heard all the evidence. So our question, you know, they’re negligent, that was their fault. Our question isn’t just what are the damages sustained by the plaintiff? The question is, from a bigger perspective, what should this defendant pay? And that equation, that question includes their conduct. It includes whether they think this is going to happen again.
John Simon [00:08:23 – 00:09:02]
It includes whether They think the company or the defendant changed its policies. All of those things go into it. What are the damages in the case? It’s the damages are, you know, jurors look at everything when the— and you know, that’s the way you should argue it. You should say, when you’re arguing damages in the case, you know, I always say, look at all the evidence, right? Look at all the evidence and decide what damages. You know, it’s sort of like there’s a punitive component In every case, whether you want it to be or not. Perfect example, and this is just common sense stuff. Let’s take 2 scenarios. Let’s say one scenario that you have an 81-year-old woman on her way to church.
John Simon [00:09:03 – 00:09:43]
She’s not paying attention and she hits somebody on a bicycle and breaks their leg. Okay, same exact person, same exact bicycle, same exact injury to a T, same picture of what the damages are. And let’s change the facts a little bit. What if we have an executive of a multibillion-dollar company driving a Maserati that hits this person? Okay, or, you know, what if you have somebody who’s on their phone? As simple as that, right? So you have a 16-year-old driving looking at their phone or a 20-year-old driving looking at their phone. So you can’t look at those 2 and say, well, the damages are X, now let’s talk about liability. You can’t, and people don’t do that.
John Simon [00:09:43 – 00:09:43]
Right.
John Simon [00:09:43 – 00:10:08]
Everybody knows that. It’s not just— not a surprise or a secret, you know. Put it this way. Let’s say you don’t have punitive damages, but somebody was speeding in a school zone. Same damages, same accident in a school zone versus not in a school zone. Do you think the damages are going to be the same in those 2 cases? I don’t think so. Same exact accident, and one person stops and calls 911. The other person leaves the scene, and they arrest them in a tavern, you know, down the street.
John Simon [00:10:08 – 00:10:10]
Actually, there was a case that I handled.
John Simon [00:10:10 – 00:10:10]
Wow.
John Simon [00:10:11 – 00:10:20]
Same injury, same speed. same broken leg, whatever it is. Do you really think those damages in that case are going to be the same? You need to think again.
Mary Simon [00:10:20 – 00:10:47]
It reminds me of— this was years ago, maybe like 6 years ago, I don’t even remember. But you and I were working up a case for trial. And I remember you took a— you took one of the defendant’s depositions, and I sat in on it. And you know what you asked him? And I could not— I was like, why is he asking him these type of questions? But you were asking him, he killed someone, and you asked him what he did the rest of the day.
John Simon [00:10:48 – 00:10:49]
Yes.
John Simon [00:10:49 – 00:10:49]
Yeah.
Mary Simon [00:10:49 – 00:11:12]
Oh my gosh. And then I was like, why is he asking him what he did the rest of it? And you’re getting all kinds of objections and everything, and he’s talking about it. And I do remember what his answer was. Talk about the 24-hour rule. This is the 6-year rule. I still remember what he said. And he got back in his truck and he attended a family member’s birthday party that afternoon.
John Simon [00:11:12 – 00:11:22]
He went back to work, worked 3 more hours at work after he killed our client’s father. And then after that, drove 30 miles to another town to attend a birthday party.
Mary Simon [00:11:22 – 00:11:23]
Yeah. And that case didn’t get tried.
John Simon [00:11:24 – 00:11:25]
No, it didn’t.
Mary Simon [00:11:25 – 00:11:26]
It did not get tried.
John Simon [00:11:26 – 00:11:33]
But again, like I said, try as we may, people are incapable. I am incapable. Everybody’s incapable of separating those two. Right.
Mary Simon [00:11:33 – 00:11:40]
Because think about the difference if he would have said, I didn’t know what to do myself, do with myself. I went home and cried all afternoon.
John Simon [00:11:40 – 00:11:47]
Yeah. Or somebody coming to that deposition and crying through the deposition and saying, this is horrible, this is terrible. Guess what? The damages in that case are plummeting.
John Simon [00:11:48 – 00:11:48]
Right. Right.
John Simon [00:11:48 – 00:12:40]
You know, same thing, too. It’s not just— it’s the impression of the defendant. I’ve had many cases where I’m taking the deposition of the defendant, either the corporate representative, whoever it is. And they show up and wow, they are straightforward, they’re honest, they’re truthful, they admit things they need to admit. And I leave that deposition with genuinely liking the— when I like the person on the other side, I’m like, okay, well, that’s, you know, the jury’s going to like them too. And that goes into the— I mean, the value of your case goes down. On the other hand, if I have somebody and I’m questioning them, a corporate rep or the defendant, And they’re being a real asshole and, you know, being sarcastic and not admitting the obvious, it’s warming my heart and I’m just delighted because if I can’t stand sitting in a room with them asking them questions, you know, jury’s probably not going to like them either.
Mary Simon [00:12:41 – 00:13:02]
Something along those lines that I want to ask is, are you able to ever tell in a case? I mean, I don’t know how you could. I’d be shocked if you said yeah. I don’t know if I’d believe you if you said yes to this. Are you able to tell during a trial if a lawyer, whether it’s you or the opposing lawyer, has lost the trust of the jury?
John Simon [00:13:03 – 00:13:04]
Yeah, sort of.
Mary Simon [00:13:04 – 00:13:05]
You really think so?
John Simon [00:13:05 – 00:13:08]
Not 100%, but you get some good indicators.
Mary Simon [00:13:08 – 00:13:09]
Maybe of like 1 or 2 of them?
John Simon [00:13:10 – 00:13:11]
Yeah, it’s like—
Mary Simon [00:13:11 – 00:13:14]
You think it’s a credibility and then it just— you can’t come back from it?
John Simon [00:13:14 – 00:13:50]
It isn’t even, well, okay, I saw the jury react this way or that. It’s a matter of what they’re saying. You know, for instance, we had a case Tim and I tried And it was a mental health facility where our client was a, you know, at the time she was 13 years old and she was raped by one of the male patients who was 16 and wasn’t supposed to be in the same ward. They put him in, and he was violent, and they put him in a room right next to her. And the defendants in that case, for whatever reason, I still can’t figure out why they would do this, they hired—
John Simon [00:13:50 – 00:13:50]
A lawyer.
John Simon [00:13:50 – 00:13:55]
you know, a trauma expert to say that the rape wasn’t that bad.
Mary Simon [00:13:56 – 00:13:56]
Yeah, that’ll do it.
John Simon [00:13:56 – 00:14:26]
And, and, uh, and so I was sitting at a— I was sitting at counsel table and Tim was cross-examining the— this expert. And, uh, he was even— had suggested that she’s doing much better now after the, you know, the rape, because she did have issues before. And at one point when he said something that was just a completely outrageous, ridiculous. And again, I’m sitting at the counsel table, and one of the women on the jury, she was— I think she was a— she was an assistant dean. She was dean of students at one of the universities.
Mary Simon [00:14:26 – 00:14:26]
Works with—
John Simon [00:14:26 – 00:14:33]
Yeah, works with students. And, and she was about my age, probably 60 at the time. And, uh, I’m not trying to stare at them.
Mary Simon [00:14:33 – 00:14:34]
Stare at them, sure.
John Simon [00:14:34 – 00:14:55]
She wouldn’t— she was trying to make contact with me. And when I looked over while this guy was still on the stand, She looked right at me and went and just shook her head no. Now, at that point, I had a fair indication that, yeah, I mean, that they weren’t doing so well with that particular juror. You know, the rest of them, you know, who knows?
Mary Simon [00:14:55 – 00:15:28]
I mean, so much has changed over the last 4 decades that you’ve been doing this. I mean, think about even just the sheer changes in technology, and there’s studies on jurors’ attention spans, and there’s You know, all sorts of juror psychology that we all try to keep up with. What’s the biggest tenet of what jurors care about that has stayed the same as the time you’ve tried your first case till today? Is there something with jurors that you think has been held steady for you?
John Simon [00:15:29 – 00:16:04]
I think that overwhelmingly the jurors, you know, year in, year out, from 40 years ago to today, as a group, individually, they want to do the right thing. And sometimes they don’t agree with what the law is. Sometimes they don’t understand, you know, strict liability, for instance, but they want to do the right thing. And that’s the key. They want to make sure that, you know, if somebody did something wrong, they’re responsible for it. They want to make sure if somebody is, you know, is injured, they’re compensated. But I think that’s it. I think it’s, you know, as a group, they’ve got a better memory than any human being that’s ever lived, in my opinion.
John Simon [00:16:04 – 00:16:08]
They’re smarter as a group than any human being that ever has lived.
Mary Simon [00:16:08 – 00:16:08]
Yeah.
John Simon [00:16:09 – 00:16:35]
And it’s funny because they don’t miss anything as a group. Somebody will always bring something up. Well, I heard him say this, I heard him say that. And that’s the other thing too. I’ve watched probably 100 focus groups, and I remember the first few that I was watching years ago, one of the first ones I watched, I was watching them deliberate and I almost was like, why did I ever go to law school? They were heading down paths that I was like, why are they even thinking of that?
Mary Simon [00:16:35 – 00:16:35]
Right.
John Simon [00:16:36 – 00:17:19]
They always got back to the right questions. They didn’t always answer it the way we wanted them to, but they always did it the right way. You know, they always were thinking about identifying the right issues, looking at it just like with, you know, they’ll go back and talk about, well, is there insurance and how much insurance? All the things we don’t think they’re thinking about, guess what? They’re thinking about it. That flows right into what we were saying when we started, and that is they want to trust you. You know, they’re listening to you. They want somebody Especially in a close case where there’s a lot at stake, they want to feel comfortable with their decision, especially if it’s an important decision. And they want to know that they’re doing the right thing for the right reason, in my opinion. And they really lean on whoever it is that they trust.
John Simon [00:17:20 – 00:17:36]
Let me put it this way, you know, trust goes a long way. If the jury trusts you, I don’t know, I think that is very influential. But I can tell you this, if they don’t trust you, you can pack up your bag. If you lose your trust, not just with the jury, but with the judge, you know, you lose your trust, you’re done.
Mary Simon [00:17:36 – 00:17:53]
If there’s an attorney listening to this who takes notes on these podcasts and tries to prepare themselves the best to get into the courtroom, what would you tell a lawyer who’s going in to try their first case of what is the most important thing they can do to connect with the jurors in that case? What would it be?
John Simon [00:17:53 – 00:18:09]
Be yourself, period. Be yourself. Be the best version of yourself. Don’t try to be anybody else. You know, watch— I watched lawyers as a young lawyer, watch them. I still watch them. You can see things that lawyers do or questions that they ask or how they phrase things, and you can adopt those, use them, steal them, whatever. We all do.
John Simon [00:18:10 – 00:18:22]
But, you know, never try to be somebody else because you can’t be authentic and believable and trustworthy if you’re not yourself. I was never very eloquent and big words kind of person.
Mary Simon [00:18:22 – 00:18:22]
I know that.
John Simon [00:18:22 – 00:18:23]
I know that. And, you know, I’m very—
Mary Simon [00:18:23 – 00:18:24]
and you’re not good at spelling either.
John Simon [00:18:24 – 00:18:40]
Right. So, you know, and you know what? That’s me. And I don’t try. Yeah, I’ll forget somebody’s name or I’ll use the wrong names in trial. And when I first started trying cases, I thought everything’s got to be perfect. No, it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be truthful.
Mary Simon [00:18:40 – 00:19:09]
So I get to— I’ll take my own authority here and cut you off and tell you one of my favorite moments of you in a trial. And for all those listeners, my dad’s left-handed. We didn’t have a demonstrative for this one exhibit. And it was one of those ones that you just wanted to like put on a whiteboard. So talking about, you know, my dad say, I’m not real eloquent and stuff. And people might not believe him when he says that, who listens to this, but— But I’m not. But he’s not. And he also doesn’t know how to spell at all.
Mary Simon [00:19:09 – 00:19:50]
So it’s fine. He’s got a lot of strong, strong strengths. That’s not one of them. Anyway, we’re in trial and he wanted to put something up on a board and we didn’t have it on a board. And my dad like, Grabs this whiteboard and is like swinging it around and trying to write on it with his left hand. He hit one of my cousins, who also is a lawyer at this firm, hit one of my cousins and was like, oh, sorry, and then is clunkily walking through the courtroom to get it in front of the jurors. It’s crazy because I know you, and I know that when your brain is so focused on one thing, there’s nothing getting in the way from you and that one thought that you want to put in front of the jury. So just watching you grab this board and swing it through the courtroom, and people are ducking their head, and you’re just— I’m just going.
Mary Simon [00:19:51 – 00:20:39]
Finally, you got it in front of them, and then it’s awkward with your left hand trying to write it. It’s just like in that moment, when you talk about authenticity, there’s no difference in that moment between John Simon trial lawyer and John Simon dad, who’s, who’s in my house that I grew up with, who was trying to explain something to me. Just taking up space, unapologetically moving forward with what you’re going to say and doing it in a way that just it’s almost like nothing else matters other than you being in that same room with those jurors. Yeah, I’ll just never forget that. And I was laughing. I mean, no one else, I was personally laughing to myself watching, ’cause I’m like, that’s so my dad to do something like that. But yeah, I mean, I feel like I’m, you know, maybe I will listen to the podcast more often. This has been a great— this has been a great—
John Simon [00:20:39 – 00:20:40]
Well, let us know how we’re doing.
Mary Simon [00:20:40 – 00:20:44]
Yeah, I mean, this has been a great conversation. I hope I’ve done a good job and I’ll get invited back.
John Simon [00:20:45 – 00:20:46]
Maybe. We’ll think about it.
Mary Simon [00:20:47 – 00:20:54]
Okay, great. Yeah, keep me posted. Well, thanks so much for listening to another episode of The Jury Is Out. Again, I’m Mary Simon.
John Simon [00:20:54 – 00:20:56]
I’m John Simon. We’ll see you next time.
John Simon [00:21:00 – 00:21:39]
The Jury Is Out is brought to you by the Simon Law Firm. At the Simon Law Firm, P.C., we believe in the power of pooling resources in order to create powerful results. We often lend our trial skills and experience to lawyers around the country to achieve better results for their clients. Our attorneys welcome the opportunity to work with you on your case, offering vast resources, seasoned litigators, and a sterling reputation. You can contact us at 314-241-2929. And if you enjoyed the podcast, feel free to share your thoughts with John, Tim, and Eric at [email protected] and subscribe today. The Jury Is Out is a production of The Jury Is Out Law Group. Because the best lawyers never stop learning.
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The Jury is Out |
Hosted by John Simon, Erich Vieth, and Timothy Cronin, 'The Jury is Out' offers insight and mentorship to trial attorneys who want to better serve their clients and improve their practice with an additional focus on client relations, trial skills, and firm management.
