The Science of Jury Selection: Cognitive Bias, Case Testing, and Strategic Deselection

Faye Honig, Director | Dubin Research & Consulting Inc

Faye Honig, MA, serves as Director of Jury Research at DRC, where her work centers on jury research and trial consulting. Her professional focus includes performing qualitative and quantitative data analyses, preparing and facilitating focus groups, developing juror questionnaires, and leading jury selections. Her graduate specialization in cognitive biases and their impact on jury trials informs her approach to trial consulting work.

• Education & Credentials

Faye holds a B.A. in Psychology and Law and Society from American University and an M.A. in Forensic Psychology from The George Washington University, where she specialized in cognitive biases and their impact on jury trials.

• Recognition & Leadership

Faye served two consecutive one-year terms as President of the American Society of Trial Consultants (ASTC) in 2023 and 2024 and currently holds the Past President seat on the ASTC Board of Directors. In 2025, she received the ASTC Joyce Award, the society’s highest service honor, recognizing her leadership in launching the Tex-ABOTA collaboration with the American Board of Trial Advocates, delivering multiple annual conferences as Conference Planning Chair, modernizing the ASTC website, guiding the association’s management transition, and implementing the conference “Buddy System” as Membership Committee Chair.

• Professional Involvement

Faye’s professional involvement centers on the American Society of Trial Consultants, where she has served as Chair of the Membership Committee (2018–2021), Vice President (2022–2023), President (2023 and 2024), Conference Planning Chair, and currently Past President and Board Member. She serves as Editor of The Jury Expert, the official ASTC publication. Her speaking engagements include co-teaching “Trial Consulting 101” with Suann Ingle at the ASTC 2023 Virtual Conference and the ASTC 2024 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., as well as a guest lecture in The George Washington University Forensic Psychology Program’s Career Paths Workshop Series. She has provided national media commentary on jury strategy on CNN’s Trial by Jury: Diddy podcast with Laura Coates and across multiple Fox 5 NY Street Soldiers segments covering the Sean “Diddy” Combs federal trial.

• Experience

Faye serves as Director of Jury Research at DRC, where she performs qualitative and quantitative data analyses, prepares and facilitates focus groups, develops juror questionnaires, and leads jury selections. Her recent trial work includes jury services in Fraser v. City of New York, a Section 1983 civil rights matter in the Southern District of New York that resulted in a jury verdict of nearly $2 million in compensatory and punitive damages against NYPD detectives and the City of New York for violations of the plaintiff’s fair trial rights. She has also provided jury research and consulting in the federal prosecution of Sean “Diddy” Combs (S.D.N.Y., 2025).

Claudia V. Colon Garcia-Moliner, Director | Dubin Research & Consulting Inc

Claudia V. Colón García-Moliner, Esq., serves as Director of Litigation Strategy at DRC, where she provides clients with a decisive edge in high-stakes litigation. She develops trial strategies informed by both legal principles and psychological insights, ensuring a comprehensive and proactive approach to every case, and strategically emphasizes the value of visual aids to elevate persuasion and bolster jurors’ and judges’ comprehension where critical. Her commitment to client success is rooted in a broad legal background spanning complex commercial litigation, environmental law, and judicial experience.

• Education & Credentials

Claudia earned her J.D. from Vermont Law School and her B.S. in Environmental Science from Villanova University. She is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania. Following law school, she completed a judicial clerkship for the Honorable Denise A. Hinds-Roach in the Family Division of the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix, which gave her valuable insight from behind the bench.

• Recognition & Leadership

At Vermont Law School, Claudia was honored with the John Delemarre Award for her outstanding work in negotiating and securing a 20-year net metering agreement for a 500 KW solar array project that now supplies 50% of the school’s energy. At Villanova, she was recognized as a member of the International Geographical Honor Society. In 2024, she was promoted to Director of Litigation Strategy at DRC. Her legal strategy insights have been featured by major media outlets, including NewsNation, ABC News, Inside Edition, Univision, Telemundo, and CNN Español, showcasing her expertise on a national and international stage.

• Professional Involvement

Claudia serves on the Board of Directors of the Young Caribbean Professional Network (YCPN), to which she was elected in 2018. She is a member of the International Geographical Honor Society. She coauthored “The Trump Administration and EPA in 2019” with Carol F. McCabe, Esq., published in the Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox Environmental & Energy Forecast. While at Vermont Law School, she participated in the Clean Energy and Climate Change Program, working on behalf of the Conservation Law Foundation, and completed externships with the Environmental Quality Board of Puerto Rico and McGregor & Legere, P.C. in Boston. Her commentary on legal strategy has appeared on NewsNation, ABC News, Inside Edition, Univision, Telemundo, and CNN Español.

• Experience

Claudia serves as Director of Litigation Strategy at DRC, where she develops trial strategies informed by both legal principles and psychological insights and emphasizes the use of visual aids to elevate persuasion and support juror and judge comprehension. Before joining DRC, she handled complex commercial litigation as an associate in the New York office of Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors, and worked as an associate at Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox LLP, an environmental, energy, and land-use law firm based in the Philadelphia area. Earlier in her career, she completed a judicial clerkship for the Honorable Denise A. Hinds-Roach in the Family Division of the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix.

SESSION 1 – How Cognitive Biases Shape Juror Decisions | 1:00pm – 1:45pm

Examine the cognitive biases that shape juror perception, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, anchoring, including damage anchors, hindsight bias, implicit and in-group bias, the halo effect, and story model primacy and recency effects driving deliberation dynamics.

BREAK | 1:45pm – 1:55pm

SESSION 2 – Using Focus Groups and Mock Trials to Strengthen Strategy | 1:55pm – 2:40pm

Design focus groups and mock trials that test themes, build attitudinal juror profiles over demographics, translate findings into voir dire questions and supplemental questionnaires, and surface hidden bias through open-ended questioning, looping, and the funnel to lock in cause challenges.