Supporting High-Stakes Litigation for More Than Thirty Years

Overview

What if you could replace hindsight with insight? What if you could leave nothing about your case to chance? What if, before a trial began, you knew which arguments, themes, strategies and evidence made your case stronger – and which didn’t?

These questions are complex. But the answer is simple: DecisionQuest.

For over 30 years, DecisionQuest, a U.S. Legal Support company, has been a leader in strategic trial consulting. When everything’s on the line, we give trial attorneys information that helps them win. We provide jury research and consulting, legal graphics and trial technology services for law firms, major corporations and insurance companies nationwide.

Our work includes testing and developing case strategies, witness evaluation and preparation, juror attitude surveys and analysis and strategic graphics and trial presentation assistance. With over 85 physical offices across the country, plus strategically located graphic design hubs, we can responsively support all your litigation needs, anywhere.

Our mission is to give our clients proven, actionable and reliable knowledge about the effectiveness of their cases, along with technology that maximizes its impact. Specialized teams drawn from behavioral psychologists, physicians, attorneys and juror consultants conduct social science-based research to analyze juror behavior and identify the concepts and approaches which will be most effective at trial.

As you might imagine, what we do can be exceptionally complex and very technically involved.  But, again, the result is quite simple: we help you gain a winning edge.

Decisionquest litigation consulting services

Extensive Industry Roots

DecisionQuest has been in the litigation science business for more than 30 years. You could say we invented it. Although the first few years were under a different corporate umbrella, our team has both steadily grown and pioneered virtually every advance in the field. Beginning with research done with pencils and clipboards and moving forward to today’s online technologies, our growth and success have been entwined with that of our profession since our inception.

Through every stage of our evolution we have held fast to our core values. We believe they are the engine that drives our success. The most important thing is winning the case. Our role in that is to provide high quality research and strategy work with outstanding service in a timely fashion. In so doing, we aim to make a difference in the case’s outcome. We take enormous pride both in the quality of our work and in the outcome of the cases we support.

In the early days, we were a trial consulting firm and assisted courtroom lawyers in understanding how both the trier of fact and juries were likely to view their case. Our work centered around focus groups and in-person research. We would assemble 10-12 people, present information and data about a case, conduct interviews and prepare reports.

As we gained experience, innovations began to emerge, all in support of enhancing the value of our work for our clients. Increasingly sophisticated techniques were developed as the need for them became apparent and the value they provided became clear. We began, for example, asking attorneys to prepare opening statements and testing them. We then began to do the same with another piece of the trial puzzle – testimony from witnesses. Videotaping that testimony was our next step, as was preparing demonstrative exhibits.

An important milestone was the leap into data-driven jury selection, a technology we also helped pioneer. By surveying a random pool of participants from a group demographically similar to a potential jury pool, we were able to provide an empirically based prediction of whether a jury would be pro-plaintiff or pro-defendant. Interestingly, an early learning arising from this methodology was that demographics make little difference in predicting a jury’s reactions. Instead, values, attitudes, beliefs and relevant experiences correlate much more closely with outcomes. Many times, jury analysis like this has made a determinative difference in a case.

Innovation followed innovation. Other important examples are Moment-to-Moment™, our realtime tool for tracking the response of jurors to arguments, testimony and exhibits. Or issues mapping, which allows us to collect data and draw relationships between issues. Others included lifestyle cluster analysis, online jury research and more.

What ties all this together? First, of course, is our belief as an organization in the absolutely critical role of constant improvement. We are always, always looking for ways to do better. But perhaps more importantly, we do not innovate in a vacuum. The courtroom is our lab and our work is both propelled and directed by what we see every day and have seen tens of thousands of times over the years. We learn from our clients. They show us what they need. We watch, listen and then develop a technology. Refine it. See how useful it is. Refine it again. And we will repeat this process, we hope, for many years to come.

And all of our history, in the end, comes down to that.

Our Experience

  • Admiralty and Maritime
  • Antitrust
  • Aviation
  • Auditing and Accounting
  • Banking and Finance
  • Class Actions
  • Commercial Transportation
  • Constitutional Law Issues
  • Construction
  • Contracts
  • Copyright
  • Criminal
  • Environmental
  • Employee Retirement Income
    Security Act
  • Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
  • Fraud
  • Government Contract Fraud
  • Healthcare Fraud
  • Intellectual Property
  • Insurance
  • International
  • Labor & Employment
  • Lender Liability
  • Medical Malpractice
  • Medical Devices
  • Murder/Death Penalty
  • Oil & Gas Related Matters
  • Patent
  • Personal Injury
  • Pharmaceutical
  • Police Misconduct
  • Product Liability
  • Professional Liability
  • Professional Malpractice
  • Qui Tam/Whistleblower
  • Real Estate
  • RICO
  • Securities Fraud/SEC
  • Sexual Assault
  • Tax Fraud
  • Toxic Tort
  • Trade Secrets
  • White Collar Crime

Our Clients

  • Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
  • Alston Bird LLP
  • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP
  • Baker Botts LLP
  • Balch & Bingham LLP
  • Ballard Spahr LLP
  • Beveridge & Diamond PC
  • Bracewell LLP
  • Brinks Gilson & Lione
  • Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP
  • Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney P.C.
  • Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP
  • Cozen O’Connor P.C.
  • Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
  • Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
  • Alston Bird LLP
  • Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LL
  • Baker Botts LLP
  • Balch & Bingham LLP
  • Ballard Spahr LLP
  • Beveridge & Diamond PC
  • Bracewell LLP
  • Brinks Gilson & Lione
  • Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LL
  • Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney P.C.
  • Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP
  • Cozen O’Connor P.C.
  • Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
  • Crowell & Moring LLP
  • Dechert LLP
  • Dentons
  • DLA Piper LLP
  • Dorsey & Whitney LLP
  • Dykema Gossett PLLC
  • Epstein Becker & Green P.C.
  • Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP
  • Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP
  • Foley & Lardner LLP
  • Fox Rothschild LLP
  • Frost Brown Todd
  • Fulbright & Jaworkski LLP
  • Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP
  • Goodwin Procter LLP
  • Greenberg Traurig LLP
  • Hawkins Parnell & Young LLP
  • Hogan Lovells LLP
  • Holland & Knight LLP
  • Hunton Andrews Kurth
  • Jackson Lewis P.C.
  • Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP
  • Jenner & Block LLP
  • Jones Day
  • K&L Gates LLP
  • Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP
  • Kirkland & Ellis LLP
  • Latham & Watkins LLP
  • Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP
  • Littler Mendelson P.C.
  • Loeb & Loeb LLP
  • Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP
  • Mayer Brown LLP
  • McDermott Will & Emery
  • McGuireWoods LLP
  • Michael Best & Friedrich LLP
  • Milbank LLP
  • Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
  • Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP
  • Moore & Van Allen PLLC
  • Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
  • Morrison & Foerster LLP
  • Munger Tolles & Olson LLP
  • Neal Gerber & Eisenberg LLP
  • Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP
  • O’Melveny & Myers LLP
  • Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
  • Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP
  • Pepper Hamilton LLP
  • Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
  • Proskauer Rose LLP
  • Reed Smith LLP
  • Robins Kaplan LLP
  • Schiff Hardin LLP
  • Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP
  • Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP
  • Sidley Austin LLP
  • Segal McCambridge Singer & Mahoney
  • Steptoe & Johnson LLP
  • Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP
  • Stroock Stroock & Lavan LLP
  • Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC
  • Troutman Sanders LLP
  • Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
  • Vinson & Elkins LLP
  • Vedder Price
  • White & Case LLP
  • K&L Gates LLP
  • White & Case LLP
  • Vorys Sater Seymour and Pease LLP
  • Wilson Elser
  • Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP
  • Winston & Strawn LLP
  • Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
  • Wyatt Tarrant & Combs LLP
  • Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP

Litigation Consultants & Other Professionals

DecisionQuest team members are among the most experienced in the industry. Meet our executive team.

Nationwide Resources with Local Presence

With more than 85 physical offices across the country, plus strategically placed graphic design hubs, we have the teams, resources and expertise to help with any and all of your case needs. Please contact one of our local teams, we’re here to help.

Atlanta
404.876.4080

Boston
781.891.8300

Chicago
312.676.2260

Los Angeles
310.618.9600

Louisville
502.777.5042

Minneapolis
952.942.5495

New York City
212.577.9450

State College
814.867.4080

Washington D.C.
 202.408.1000