Massachusetts Judges, Trial Bar Embrace Six-Person Juries

Litigants, lawyers, and judges in Massachusetts are embracing smaller juries in civil cases even as pandemic-era limitations on their size have lapsed, suggesting their increased efficiency outweighs concerns about any impact on the outcome of a case.

Judges are facing pressure to quickly clear the backlog of cases that piled up from courts operating at reduced capacity during the Covid-19 pandemic, and starting a trial with six jurors seated, rather than 12, is a useful tool.

“What we learned during the pandemic was that smaller jury pools and smaller jury sizes are much more efficient for the administration of justice ...