Choosing the Right Jury Focus Group Package for Your Case
Three packages sound like a pricing page. They’re not. Foundation, Insight, and Perspective aren’t tiers of the same experience with more hours bolted on, they’re built around different questions about where your case actually sits, and picking the wrong one usually means one of two things: you paid for depth you didn’t need, or you didn’t get the read your case actually required.
The packages differ by hours, juror count, and structure, but the real decision point is earlier than that. It’s about what you need to know before you can move forward with confidence, and that question is usually more specific than “which package is biggest.”
It also isn’t purely a budget decision, even though budget is real. A case that needs Perspective’s two-panel structure won’t get that value from Insight no matter how the extra hours are used, and a straightforward case doesn’t become better tested by adding hours it doesn’t need. The fit comes first. Budget determines how you get there.
What Actually Separates the Three Packages
The surface differences are straightforward. Foundation runs 4 hours of juror time with 10 VA jurors. Insight runs 6 hours with 12 jurors. Perspective runs two separate 4-hour panels, each with its own set of 12 jurors, for 8 hours of juror time total across two independent groups.
What that structure actually buys you is different at each level:
| Package | Juror Time | Jurors | What It’s Built For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foundation | 4 hours | 10 | A first read on how a case lands |
| Insight | 6 hours | 12 | Room to test more than one theme in depth |
| Perspective | 8 hours (two panels) | 12 per panel | Two independent reactions to the same case |
All three include voir dire, opening-style presentations from both sides, jury deliberation, a follow-up feedback session, and full video and audio recording. The difference isn’t what happens, it’s how much room there is for it to happen, and whether you’re hearing from one panel or two.
It’s worth separating this from the extras that sit on top of each package, additional jurors or additional client meals. Those are scaling tools within a package, not reasons to move up a tier. If Foundation covers what your case needs, adding a couple of extra jurors for a broader read is a smaller decision than jumping to Insight for six more hours you may not use.
When Foundation Makes Sense
Foundation is the right call when the question is simple: how does this case land, generally, with people who’ve never heard it before.
This fits cases earlier in litigation, before every theme is locked and before there’s a full trial team invested in one version of events. It also fits firms running their first focus group, when the goal is getting comfortable with the process and getting a baseline read, not stress-testing five different arguments at once. If the budget or timeline is tighter, Foundation delivers the core value, real juror reactions, real deliberation, without the extended session length.
What it doesn’t do well is hold multiple competing themes at once. Four hours of juror time is enough to test a case, not enough to test three versions of a case. If the honest answer to “what are we testing” is a list rather than a single narrative, Foundation will feel rushed by the deliberation stage, and that’s usually the tell that a case has outgrown it.
When Insight Makes Sense
Insight is built for cases that already have some complexity to them, multiple liability theories, a damages picture with more than one moving part, or a narrative that could be told a few different ways.
The extra two hours of juror time isn’t padding. It’s room to walk through more than one theme without rushing the deliberation that follows, which is where the real signal shows up. A case with one clean liability question and a single damages story rarely needs Insight. A case where the attorney keeps saying “it depends how we frame it” usually does.
Insight also tends to fit cases somewhere in the middle of litigation, past the earliest stages but not yet locked into a single trial theory. The added time gives the panel enough room to react to each version separately, rather than blending impressions of two competing narratives together in a single, rushed deliberation.
When Perspective Makes Sense
Perspective solves a different problem entirely: not depth on one panel, but two independent panels reacting to the same case.
This matters most for cases heading toward trial where a single panel’s reaction, however thorough, is one data point. A second panel, run the same day with the same materials, tells you whether the first panel’s reaction was representative or an outlier. That distinction is the entire value of the format. It isn’t the same case tested twice for a bigger sample, it’s two separate juries, two separate deliberations, and two separate reads you can compare directly against each other.
This is why Perspective tends to fit high-stakes cases closer to trial, where the cost of an unrepresentative single-panel read is highest, and where the trial team needs more confidence than one deliberation can provide. If two panels land on the same conclusion independently, that agreement carries real weight. If they diverge, that’s information worth having before trial, not after.
Matching the Package to Where Your Case Actually Is
A simpler way to think about it than hours and juror counts:
- If the question is “how does this land, generally” — Foundation.
- If the question is “which version of this case is strongest” — Insight.
- If the question is “can we trust this read, or was it one panel’s quirk” — Perspective.
None of these questions is more valid than the others. They just belong to different points in a case’s life, and the package should follow the question, not the other way around.
If You’re Not Sure Which One Fits
Most cases don’t arrive with a perfectly obvious answer, and that’s normal. A useful gut check: if you had to describe your case’s biggest open question in one sentence, does it sound like “how will this land,” “which framing is stronger,” or “can we trust this read”? Each of those maps directly to one of the three packages.
What You Walk Away With, Regardless of Package
Every package, at every level, gives your team the same core deliverables:
- Recorded voir dire, presentations, and deliberation you can revisit with your team
- Direct feedback on which arguments held up and which didn’t
- A documented read on witness credibility and presentation
- A basis for adjusting themes, openings, or witness prep before it counts
The scale changes. What you’re testing for doesn’t.
Choosing between Foundation, Insight, and Perspective isn’t about budget alone, it’s about matching the format to the question your case is actually asking right now.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the real difference between Foundation, Insight, and Perspective?
Foundation runs 4 hours of juror time with 10 jurors, Insight runs 6 hours with 12 jurors, and Perspective runs two separate 4-hour panels with 12 jurors each. All three include voir dire, opening-style presentations, deliberation, and full video and audio recording — the difference is depth and, in Perspective’s case, whether you’re hearing from one panel or two.
Is Perspective the same case tested twice?
No. Perspective runs two distinct panels, each with their own jurors and their own deliberation, so you get two independent reactions to compare against each other, not a repeat of the same result.
Which package fits a firm running its first focus group?
Foundation is usually the right starting point. It delivers a genuine baseline read on how a case lands without the added complexity of testing multiple themes or comparing two panels.
Do all three packages include recording?
Yes. Every session, regardless of package, includes full video and audio recording so your team can revisit presentations and deliberation afterward.
A session only helps if it answers the question your case is actually asking right now. If you’re not sure which package fits, book the courtroom and we’ll help you match the format to your case, or check the FAQ for more on how sessions are structured.