Unhelpful Lawyers or Unhelpful Survey?
A recent Law.com post reported on a survey indicating that news reporters who cover litigation say that lawyers are not particularly helpful when it comes to helping reporters understand the core issues in a case.
Before continuing, I have to confess to a pet peeve about over-reliance on surveys of dubious value. Cable news shows, for example, get me going when they cite their “informal” viewer polls, and admit to a lack of “scientific” validity but go on to discuss the conclusions as if they are entirely valid. Grrrr.
Nonetheless, my hunch is there is some validity to the notion that lawyers and reporters may not speak the same language when identifying or talking about “core” issues in a case.
But, here’s my problem: the second paragraph of the Law.com post says outright that the survey may not be “bankable,” which I interpret to mean “reliable.” Then, by training, I have to think like a lawyer. If the only evidence - - the survey - - is not reliable, there is no reliable evidence to support the proposition that lawyers are unhelpful to reporters in identifying core issue in litigation. If there is no reliable evidence supporting that proposition, then why is there an article discussing it?
Here’s another problem. Long ago I learned that in sampling, the problem is not the size (or lack of size) of the sample but the representative nature (or lack thereof) of the sample. Thus, if the only problem is that the sample is small, the survey may be reliable after all. But, we may never know because all we know is that the response rate was low.
I suspect that we’re left with the intuitive notion that some lawyers may not be helpful to reporters. I also suspect that there’s an easy solution; it’s just a matter of finding the right lawyer to ask.
In this blog, we try to be helpful to all our readers, especially if they are not lawyers, in understanding a variety of legal issues within our primary areas of practice. Reporters (or all readers) are invited to comment to let us know how we’re doing.
