Dr. Lee Meihls is recognized nationally for her expertise in jury selection, witness preparation, courtroom communication, graphics development, and developing effective trial strategies. She founded her own firm, Trial Partners, in 2003. Lee has consulted on over 1000 cases and assisted in selecting over 300 juries. She has also served as an expert witness in federal conspiracy trials.
For over 30 years, Lee has consulted on many high profile criminal cases around the country (state and federal), including Illinois v. Robert Kelly (for the defense), State of North Carolina vs. Evans, Finnerty and Seligman (the Duke Lacrosse Players Rape case, for the defendants), People v. Michael Jackson (for the defense), Christopher Wallace (Notorious B.I.G.) v. City of Los Angeles (for the plaintiffs), People v. Robert Blake (for the defense), U.S.A. v. Bruce Karatz (for the defense), U.S.A. v. Pierce O'Donnell (for the defense), People v. Abdelgany, et al. (also known as The Irvine 11; for the prosecution), People v. Haidl, et al. (for the prosecution in the retrial), The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. John E. du Pont (for the defense) and U.S.A. v. Governor Fife Symington (for the prosecution).
In addition, Lee has worked on several civil matters with bet-your-company verdicts at stake. Lee assisted MGA win a $310 million verdict against Mattel in a three-month trial in U.S.D.C., Santa Ana, CA (Mattel v. MGA Entertainment), she helped the plaintiff win a $350 million dollar verdict in Los Angeles (Auerbach Acquisition Associates v. Greg Daily) in a trial that lasted four and a half months, and she helped Union Carbide win a defense verdict after a six-week trial in Angleton, Texas (Kelly-Moore Paint Co. v. Union Carbide Corporation) in which the plaintiff was seeking $6 billion dollars. Lee also assisted the defense teams in the U.S.A. v. Henry Samueli/Broadcom and U.S.A. v. Cinergy/Duke Energy cases.
Lee has assisted clients in all major areas of litigation and in all major industries, including antitrust, aviation, bad faith, construction, contracts, criminal conspiracy, defamation, drug importation, employment, environmental, fraud, insurance, intellectual property, legal insanity, murder, professional negligence, products liability, securities, sex-related crimes, toxic tort, trade secrets, and wrongful death.
Dr. Meihls completed her Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California, San Diego, specializing in psychology, sociolinguistics, and law. As a faculty member and administrator at UCSD and National University for many years, she published articles on gender issues, communications, and media studies. She also co-authored a book on decision making (Stanford University Press, 1986). In addition, Lee produced live television shows (in cooperation with the former Soviet Union) that were aired nationally on PBS, and she was a film critic for a newspaper in San Diego for many years.
Lee frequently presents on trial consulting and juror decision making to ABA groups, judicial conferences, and other professional groups around the country. She has appeared as a jury expert commentator on numerous television and radio news programs. Lee is a member of the American Society of Trial Consultants.