14.2.2Juror contact rules (Rule 3.5(b)–(c))

During the proceeding no ex parte contact is permitted on any subject unless law or court order authorizes it; after discharge, contact is generally permitted unless one of three specific conditions applies.

Jurors are drafted into a role, decide on what the courtroom puts in front of them, and then go home to ordinary life. A lawyer free to approach one mid-trial — even about nothing — would put weight on the verdict from outside the record, and a lawyer free to pursue one afterward would make jury service something people learn to avoid.

While the proceeding lasts, a lawyer may not communicate ex parte with a juror or prospective juror on any topic unless law or court order authorizes it — casual conversation counts, and no subject is small enough to fall outside it.

By settled practice and local court rule rather than Rule 3.5's text, you may discreetly investigate prospective jurors' backgrounds, including public social media, but not contact them or their families, not send a friend or access request, and not investigate in a vexatious or harassing way. After discharge, communication is permitted unless prohibited by law or court order, the juror has made known a desire not to communicate, or the communication involves misrepresentation, coercion, duress, or harassment.

Rule 3.5 says nothing about investigating prospective jurors or post-verdict surveys, so that material sits outside the box: the investigation and survey points below come from settled practice and local court rules, not Rule 3.5's text, and none of them adds a fourth condition to the three above.

Four points, and the first three run before the jury is seated.

• A lawyer may discreetly investigate prospective jurors' backgrounds, including reviewing publicly available social media.
• The lawyer must not contact the juror or the juror's family, and must not send a friend request or access request; such a request constitutes a prohibited ex parte communication.
• Even without any direct contact, the investigation itself must not be vexatious or harassing; indirect neighborhood-inquiry schemes — arranging for someone to canvass a juror's block asking pointed questions — qualify as harassment under this standard.
• Post-verdict surveys: a lawyer may contact discharged jurors for research purposes, subject to local court rules (often requiring judicial permission); where those rules bar discussion of evidence that was inadmissible at trial, that bar is an instance of condition (1) above, not a fourth condition.