Opinion 517 made your consultant's methodology your problem.

The new diligence duty

On July 9, 2025, the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility issued Formal Opinion 517. Its holding: a lawyer who knows or reasonably should know that the exercise of peremptory challenges constitutes unlawful discrimination violates Model Rule 8.4(g), and unlawful discrimination in jury selection is not legitimate advocacy.

The opinion reaches beyond the lawyer's own judgment: a lawyer may not follow a client's directive, a jury consultant's advice, or AI software's guidance to exercise challenges the lawyer knows or reasonably should know are discriminatory, and where offered reasons look pretextual there may be a duty of inquiry.

The practical consequence: before relying on a juror evaluation tool or consultant, diligent counsel now asks what the methodology is, whether it can be explained on the record, and whether it operates on protected characteristics.

The ground that moved under jury selection

The opinion landed on ground that was already moving. Arizona eliminated peremptory challenges outright in January 2022, the first state to do so; voir dire there is juror discovery through conversation and observation, and challenges are for cause only. California's section 231.7 reached criminal trials in 2022 and all civil cases in January 2026: strikes survive but carry reversal risk, with reasons tested against an objective observer aware of unconscious bias. Washington's General Rule 37, from 2018, is the template the reform states copied. New Jersey and Connecticut are moving the same direction.

Strikes are scarce, scrutinized, or gone. Where they are, the remaining levers in jury selection are lawful ones: the quality of the questions, the reading of communication in the room, and cause-challenge advocacy built from what jurors actually say and do.

The four questions diligent counsel now asks

Opinion 517 diligence comes down to four questions. Any methodology a trial team relies on should be able to answer them on the record.

1. What is the methodology? For the Entend Method: a codified communication discipline. Published curricula, a defined vocabulary, more than 135 recorded lessons, thirty-five years of documented practice.
2. Who authored it, and can they explain it? A named human author, Kathryn Kellner, available to explain any technique in deposition-plain language.
3. Does it rely on protected characteristics? No. It teaches observation of communication behavior and lawful cause-challenge advocacy. Nothing in the method turns on group membership.
4. Does it predict outcomes? No, and it says so as a founding rule. The work describes how a room communicates. It never predicts what a jury will decide.

What the method is not

The boundaries, stated proudly. The method does not score, rank, or profile jurors. It does not infer or operate on race, ethnicity, gender, religion, disability, or any protected characteristic, and it teaches attorneys to build challenges on lawful, articulable grounds. It conducts no juror surveillance and mines no social media. It is not a black box: every technique has a name, a written definition, and a human author who can explain it on the record.

Citations: ABA Standing Comm. on Ethics and Prof. Responsibility, Formal Op. 517 (July 9, 2025) · Ariz. R. Crim. P. 18.4, 18.5 and Ariz. R. Civ. P. 47(e), as amended eff. Jan. 1, 2022 · Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 231.7 · Wash. General Rule 37 (2018). Counsel confirms current law in their jurisdiction.

Strike-Free Voir Dire, the working session →