I've been running a program here at the School of Government this week for new lawyers called Defender Trial School. We have 20 public defenders and 10 private lawyers that do appointed work honing their trial skills through plenary sessions and small workshop groups. Yesterday, they had an opportunity to practice voir dire, which is the term for interviewing potential jurors. We rounded up about 24 people to be mock jurors for the program and provided them a breakfast, but we learned a little something about our jurors yesterday when it comes to food.
The Indigent Defense Education team at the School has been running Defender Trial School for over 10 years. This annual program becomes really exciting for those that get to become mock jurors for the morning. Our biggest recruiting target is the retirement community down the road from the School. John is the faculty member in charge of this program. His mother lives in the retirement community and this program is the "talk of the town" for the people that live there.
Mock jurors enjoying breakfast and coffee outside the bookstore at the School of Government prior to Defender Trial School (2015)
One of the perks for giving up your morning to be interviewed by young lawyers is breakfast. By John's request we needed to provide lox and bagels. Being from the Northeast, I love lox and bagels, so I was excited! This is something that we've provided in year's past, but we've also been able to have fruit and yogurt also. Having recently changed caterers for our lunches at the School, we opted to pickup food from a local place for our breakfast. Changing caterers meant losing the great deal that we had with our previous caterer. We were only able to afford the bagels and lox. We had to omit the fruit and yogurts.
When it came to actually serving the breakfast, it wasn't a big hit. Because many of our mock jurors are 65 and older, we found that many of them couldn't eat bagels and lox for health reasons. It was a disappointment. Because some have been mock jurors for more than 10 years, they have many years of comparison. Serving them a breakfast that they couldn't eat was frustrating, and I can't say I disagree.
The biggest lesson learned here is that the food you want to have may not be a big hit with the audience you're trying to serve. I know that for some of my programs my clients have "meat and potatoes" kind of palates. Serving them calamari or couscous may not be the best idea. Other client groups are very into natural foods and have more vegetarians than your standard group. Serving this group lamb is not the best choice for their personal tastes. Each group has it's own personality. For next year's Trial School jurors we'll be serving yogurt and sliced fruit. I'm sure I can pickup two bagels with lox and cream cheese for John and his mom if need be!
Picking food for your groups can be tricky. Tune in tomorrow to get some advice about making those big decisions!