Biography

Maureen McLaughlin has worked as a trial consultant for over twenty years. She began her career as a trial consultant working with the National Jury Project in the 1970's. At that time, overt racial discrimination in most of Georgia's 154 counties compelled defense attorneys to routinely mount composition challenges to the venire. Maureen spent months is dusty courthouse basements, manually tallying statistics gleaned from 3x5 cards containing juror information. In these early days, she also began participating in jury selections in both state and federal courts.

When the opportunity arose to leave the NJP and to partner with Cat Bennett on the Howard Hughes Mormon will trial cases in Houston and Las Vegas, Maureen took it. While working on those cases, Maureen and Cat wrote some of the first Supplemental Juror Questionnaires. This early acceptance made it easier for other attorneys to begin asking for SJQs, mainly in death penalty cases.

Since that time, although she has continued to consult on selected civil cases, her main interest has been in criminal defense work and fighting the death penalty. Maureen has participated in over sixty capital trials, working with both public defenders, and private attorneys. She has also had the honor of working with representatives from a number of public interest organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Her writings on jury questionnaires, voir dire, media influences on the jury and other topics have been published as articles and monographs. To further the education of attorneys and paralegals, Maureen enjoys participating in seminars and training programs. She lives in Athens, Georgia with her two daughters.