Shari Diamond - Real Jury Deliberations: Inside the Black Box

  • Professor, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
  • Howard J. Trienens Professor of Law
  • Professor of Psychology

Shari Seidman Diamond is the Howard J. Trienens Professor of Law and a research professor at the American Bar Foundation. An attorney and social psychologist, she is one of the foremost empirical researchers on jury process and legal decision-making, including the use of science by the courts. She has authored or co-authored more than a hundred publications in law reviews and behavioral science journals. She is currently completing a book on juries based on a unique field experiment in which cameras recorded real jury deliberations.

Professor Diamond practiced law at Sidley Austin in the areas of Litigation and Intellectual Property. She has also taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and the U. of Illinois at Chicago, served as editor of the Law & Society Review, and was president of the American Psychology-Law Society. She has lectured widely to scholarly and judicial audiences, and has served as an expert witness in American and Canadian courts on matters concerning juries, trademarks, and deceptive advertising. Her publications on juries and surveys have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court as well as other federal and state courts.

Professor Diamond received the 2010 Harry Kalven, Jr. Award from the Law and Society Association for contributions to research in law and society, and the 1991 American Psychological Association award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy. As a member of the ABA’s American Jury Project, she helped draft the Principles for Juries and Jury Trials adopted in 2005. She currently serves on the Seventh Circuit Committee on Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.