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Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients

ASTC's Lifetime Achievement Award is not given annually, but only when deserved. There are no set criteria for the award other than the individual must have made a significant contribution to the field of litigation consulting. ASTC's Board of Directors must approve nominees for the award.

ASTC is proud to display the names of these previous award winners:

Doug Keene


Award Received: 2022 Conference: Denver, CO

Award Presentation by: Chris Dominic, Lisa DeCaro, and Rita Handrich

Doug Keene ran one of the most respected and successful small shops in the history of trial consulting. He made time for people new to the field and provided guidance and encouragement. When he was on the Board from 2005 to 2009, he was respectful but direct about practices that he didn’t think were good for clients or the field of trial consulting. When he served as President, he provided leadership that inspired many and contributed significantly to the field.  

Doug Keene grew up in the Northern suburbs of Wilmington, Delaware. He was the 4th of six children. His Father was an Episcopal minister, and his Mom was a Nurse. When he went tocollege, he went to the University of Delaware and changed his major four times, eventually landing on Psychology. He was interested in the Clinical path. He got a master’s degree at American University in DC. Then he went to the University of Texas and got his Ph.D. in 1983. He liked Austin but got a dream internship at the National Institute of Mental Health in DC.  

He met his wife Sally in Austin in the last year of school. Their first date was on Valentine’s Day, and they were engaged by Memorial Day. They both went off to DC until Doug completed the internship at NIMH, and then they went back to Austin, where they would live for decades and raise two children. After spending five years in an HMO, he went into Private practice. He was the Chief Psychologist at a medical hospital, and he did evaluations, which led to significant expert witness work. He testified over 100 times as an expert. 

Doug went to his first ASTC Conference in 1998 and went to TC 101. He realized over the course of a day just how much he still needed to learn. At the ASTC conference in 1999, Doug met his right-hand consultant, Rita Handrich, who many of you also know as the former editor of ASTC’s publication, The Jury Expert. They both retired at the same time in 2020 after working together and influencing the field and many consultants for more than 20 years.

Click here to view the award acceptance. 


Joyce Tsongas

Joyce E. Tsongas, a pioneer in the field of jury consulting, passed away with her family by her side on January 15, 2017. Joyce paved the way for modern day trial consulting and will always be known as one of the influential leaders in our field.

Joyce was the daughter of a speech teacher and college debater, so communication was in her blood. So much so, she was the first woman to graduate with a Master’s degree in Communication from Purdue University. She made legal communication her profession when she founded Tsongas & Associates in 1978. She frequently recalled the inspiration for her career. In the mid ’70s, she consulted with local politicians and other speech makers to improve the effectiveness of their language and delivery. She was asked by a local lawyer if she would watch his opening statement and offer advice for improvement. Little did she know she would soon be part of the birth of an industry. Wondering what other trial performances were like, Joyce went from courtroom to courtroom to observe the communication traits of lawyers. She quickly realized that lawyers needed help beyond delivering the opening statement. They needed help asking the right questions in voir dire. They needed help examining the witnesses. In fact, the witnesses also needed help delivering credible testimony. She found her calling.

Joyce started her business working from a folding card table in her kitchen. She liked to say that in her early days she was “raising her children, blueberries, and baby lawyers all at the same time.” Joyce learned of others across the country doing the same work she was. They joined forces and founded the American Society of Trial Consultants in 1982. Joyce sat as the organization’s second President.

Joyce’s business and reputation grew faster than she imagined, and she soon became known as one of the leading trial consultants in the country. That reputation never changed. She formalized the case strategy process still used by Tsongas consultants today. She developed a systematic approach to identifying and finding high-risk jurors in voir dire. She delivered hundreds of CLE programs. But Joyce will be best remembered for her work with witnesses. Joyce had an amazing knack for preparing people from all walks of life for testimony. “Joyce, I really need your help with this one,” clients would beg. Witnesses would come in the door a nervous wreck, or too eager to talk, or too defensive, or with any other common witness problem. Those who watched her would remark, “I don’t know what she said or did, but that witness completely transformed.” It was like magic. Those of us lucky enough to train under Joyce learned her technique, but she had a gift that belonged uniquely to her.

Even when Tsongas Litigation Consulting matured, moved from her home into prestigious downtown Portland office space, and grew in numbers, Joyce never lost sight of the family atmosphere. She had a heart of gold and treated every one of her employees like a member of her own family. She opened her home and lavish garden for company picnics, baby showers, client dinners, and staff retreats. She created a perfect blend of professional and personal.

In 2004, Joyce passed the torch to a group of employee shareholders so she and her business partner and husband, Dennis Brooks, could enjoy part-time retired life. They travelled, spent time with grandchildren, and of course, Joyce tended to her garden. But not even retirement could keep Joyce away from the work she loved. Up until 2016, Joyce blessed clients with her innate talent and wisdom.

Joyce left an indelible mark on the people she worked with, the consultants she mentored, and the entire trial consulting industry.

It is with great pride that the current members of Tsongas continue her namesake. We will continue to work to honor her legacy.


David Island


Award Presentation by Ron Beaton

David Island was one of the pioneers of the Trial Consulting Field. As a psychology professor at Sacramento State University, he did extensive research on nonverbal communication. He used that knowledge as the foundation for his consulting practice--Trial Behavior Consulting, which he started in San Francisco in 1984. In 1984 the ASTC was only two years old, and trial consultants were rare. He joined the Board and served as President in 1986.

David’s combination of scientific knowledge, skill at reading people, and individual drive helped him rapidly develop a witness preparation practice. David’s success led to Trial Behavior Consulting growing and broadening their practice areas.

Clients have described David’s invaluable guidance on how to present their cases more effectively. He helped shape the direction of countless trials, equipping attorneys with the tools they needed to excel.

Colleagues have described David as a devoted father to two sons and an inspiration to them professionally. David recognized well and appreciated others’ strengths and helped them lead with them. He did not try to mold his developing consultants into a preconceived notion of what a trial consultant could be. His high standards and values helped them achieve their potential.


Ronald Matlon

Award Received: 2015 Conference: Nashville, Tennessee
Award Presentation by: Kenneth Broda-Bahm, Karen Lisko, and Charlotte Morris

Ron Matlon was a founding member and first President of ASTC. Also, he was the Society's first Executive Director, a position he held for 34 years. Ron was born October 5, 1938 in Chicago and grew up in Whiting, Indiana. He graduated from George Rogers Clark High School and went on to earn a B.A. in Speech and Theatre from Indiana State University in 1960. There, he participated on the speech and debate team and was in several theatre productions. Ron got his M.S. and Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1966 (Communication Studies). At Purdue, he served as debate coach and taught public speaking classes.

Academic Life. From 1962-65, Ron was an instructor at the University of Illinois-Chicago teaching speech and debate. From 1966-80, he was an Assistant/Associate Professor and Director of Debate at the University of Massachusetts. Twice, he was invited to teach in Japan. While at UMass, Ron began his research in communication and the law. In 1980, he became Associate Professor at the University of Arizona where he taught graduate seminars in legal communication and advised pre-law students. From 1998-2004, Ron was Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Mass Communication and Communication Studies at Towson University in Maryland, a program that had 1600 majors and nearly 100 faculty. There, with Ken Broda-Bahm, they created a graduate certificate program in trial consulting. Ron also took teaching junkets to Korea and Russia. His major books include Communication in the Legal Process (1988) and Opening Statements and Closing Arguments (1993, 2009). In addition, he wrote nine chapters on trial practice in books authored by others, created five editions of a table of contents and key word index to 24 scholarly journals for the National Communication Association (1975-1995), published 27 refereed articles in various legal and speech communication journals, and delivered about 100 speeches, seminars or professional position papers before education and legal groups across the country.

Consulting Life. Ron began litigation consulting in 1974 and formed Matlon & Associates in 1978. His consulting involved mock trials, focus groups, witness preparation sessions, jury questionnaire design, jury selections, post-trial juror interviews, and trial strategy sessions. Ron served as a judge at the ABA Client Counseling competitions, spoke at several American Inns of Court as well as the Young Lawyers Division of ATLA, taught seminars for the AJA and NITA, and conducted workshops for the National Intellectual Property Law Institute and the U.S. District Attorney's Office Trial Advocacy Program. In 2005, he served as an advisor to the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association and Special Council on Jury Selection Use and Management regarding voir dire practices and the use of questionnaires. After 40 years of trial consulting, Ron retired in 2014 after accumulating nearly 200 clients, one of which was the Special Prosecutor in Maryland in a criminal case against a sitting mayor of Baltimore.

ASTC Life. In 1982, Ron, along with a few other individuals, founded the American Society of Trial Consultants in Arizona. The first decade were the building years with the development of by-laws, a membership directory, a logo, a code of ethics, and well-attended national conferences. After serving as the Society's President in its first year of operation, Ron went on to become ASTC's Executive Director, a post he held from 1984 until June 30, 2015.

Here is the video that the three presenters above showed at the beginning of the Nashville program that honored Ron.



Pete Rowland

Award Received: 2014 Annual Conference, Asheville, North Carolina
Award Presentation by: Bob Gerchen and Merrie Joe Pitera

As a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington (and on leave from the University of Kansas Political Science Department), Dr. C.K. “Pete” Rowland began his trial consulting career in 1985 when asked by an attorney at a social event if he could replicate some of his academic research for “a real case.” Pete naively and predictably answered, “Sure.” For several years after that, Pete and Dr. Larry Wrightsman (also a professor in the University of Kansas Psychology Department) conducted jury research for clients as diverse as Newsweek and National Iranian Oil Company, and for the Medgar Evers trial. This laid the foundation for what now has become Litigation Insights.

In the past 28 years of his career, Pete has advanced the litigation consulting field in several important ways. First, his focus on theme and story development led to his building jury research models that have been particularly efficient and efficacious with Mass Tort litigation. One such model focused on early case assessment – he called it “Discovery Insights Research.” This research helped clients develop an approach built on juror input rather than assumptions. In essence, the information gleaned from the DIR would provide building blocks to refining themes and strategies for presenting a case at trial. During his development of innovative jury research models, he was also instrumental in devising models for jury selection that included counterintuitive juror distinguishers that went beyond stereotypical and experiential factors. With this approach, he helped put the “de” into deselection.

Pete served on the ASTC board from 1991 to 1994. He has also played an instrumental role in nurturing new talent in the industry. From helping to found the Litigation Science program at the University of Kansas to hiring interns for LI, he has mentored many students who are now practicing consultants.



Richard Crawford, Ph.D.

Award Received: 2012 Conference: New Orleans, Louisiana
Award Presentation by: Karen Lisko, Ronald Matlon, Charlotte Morris

Richard Crawford was a founding member of the organization and served on the first Board of Directors and as the third president of ASTC in 1985. He began his career as a professor, teaching communication and persuasion and coaching debate at the University of Northern Colorado and, later, teaching trial advocacy at the law school at the University of Colorado. Although he considered a career in law, once Dr. Crawford discovered the field of trial consulting he never looked back. Initially he founded his own nationwide consulting firm. Later in his career he joined the law firm of Holland and Hart in Denver, becoming the first ever in-house trial consultant at a law firm. Over his 30-year plus career Dr. Crawford worked on more than 400 cases.

In the early 1980s, Dr. Crawford co-edited with Dr. Ronald Matlon his first law and communication book entitled Communication Strategies in the Practice of Lawyering. In 1988 Dr. Crawford published the The Persuasion Edge, a trial manual based on juror psychology and communication theory that became known as the book litigators should not be without. In 2006 he teamed with ASTC member Charli Morris to modernize the classic, publishing it under the new title, The Persuasive Edge.

Dr. Crawford is described by colleagues as having “a great intuitive sense” and an ability to perceive jurors’ innermost thoughts and feelings through the responses they gave in voir dire. He is known for teaching lawyers to forget about what they learned in law school and to relate to the jurors as real human beings with real human emotions. Dr. Karen Lisko, the consulting colleague who followed Dr. Crawford at Holland and Hart, said that trial consultants are “coaches for powerful advocacy and for teaching fact-finders in an ethical way." Dick Crawford took those roles seriously and set an example for all. You know a man is a legend when he becomes a verb. Long after his retirement, people would ask me, “Can you ‘Crawford’ my opening?”

With typical eloquence and style, Dr. Crawford made the following remarks when he received a service award at the 1997 annual ASTC conference:

When I try to explain of describe our profession, I often think of lines like these:
We don’t make the evidence; we make it more relevant.
We don’t make the speeches; we make them more persuasive.
We don’t make the witnesses; we make them more direct.
We don’t make the verdicts; we make them less random.
We don’t make the attorneys; we make them more complete.
And we don’t make justice; we make it more frequent.

In 2009 Dr. Crawford passed away after a battle with cancer. His contribution to the field of trial consulting cannot be measured. Many of today’s leaders in the ASTC personally knew and learned from Dr. Crawford and his unique perspective on courtroom persuasion and advocacy.



Beth Bonora

Award Received: 2011 Conference: Seattle

Beth Bonora has been zealously providing consulting services for the advocates she worked with for more than 40 years. In the early 1970’s, before there was an ASTC or a trial consulting field, there was just a group of folks working toward the goal of ensuring a fair jury where it was not likely that there would be one. Beth Bonora was among those pioneers who were committed to social justice and to training others to take up the challenge of jury work.

The first case Beth worked on took several years and demonstrated the value of jury workers in supporting the trial team by preparing a change of venue motion followed by successful jury composition challenge. Using a survey to support a change of venue motion was still a new technique back then, and it required a huge undertaking with no funding. But that effort paled in comparison to the effort required for the jury composition challenge. The team discovered that the new county where the case was moved underrepresented women, African-Americans and young people. Through many months of careful research Beth and her team developed a challenge that the judge could not ignore.

Beth went on to help attorneys representing the Attica Prison inmates involved in prison rebellion. Selecting a fair jury was challenging and complex. False pretrial publicity claimed the inmates committed unspeakable acts of violence during the uprising. The jury selection strategy involved a survey and Beth helped to refine the new survey techniques that Jay Shulman began to develop in earlier trials involving unpopular, antiwar protesters.

To further develop the field of jury work, Beth contributed several chapters to a manual called “The Jury System: New Methods for Reducing Prejudice A Manual for Lawyers and Social Scientists.” In 1975, Beth and others formed the National Jury Project, an organization of jury consultants committed to pursuing social justice. Business and commercial litigators soon recognized the value of jury consultants, and Beth found herself immersed in antitrust work. In 1979 Beth and Elissa Krauss became the editors for National Jury Project’s two volume manual called Jurywork: Systematic Techniques, designed to bring together relevant tools and research from law, sociology and psychology to promote a better understanding of the jury system and jury behavior. In 2000, Beth left NJP and with her partner, Idgi D’Andrea, founded a new firm, Bonora D’Andrea, LLC



Patricia McEvoy

Award Received: 2010 Conference: Minneapolis

Patricia McEvoy is a founding partner of Zagnoli, McEvoy and Foley. Dr. McEvoy retired in 2010 after dedicating more than twenty years to the field of trial consulting. She began her esteemed trial consulting career in 1987. Prior to earning her Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa, she received an M.A. in Education from Northern Arizona University and a B.A. in English from the University of Iowa.

Dr. McEvoy was introduced to the field of trial consulting as a graduate student when she took a position with Hale Starr. Since then, Dr. McEvoy helped found the American Society of Trial Consultants and has served as an elected Board of Directors member and annual conference planner.

Dr. McEvoy prides herself on the close bonds she has formed with trial teams over the years and relishes the challenges that many of her cases posed.



Andrew Sheldon

Award Received: 2009 Conference: Atlanta

Dr. Sheldon helped pioneer the field of trial consulting. After earning a law degree from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Georgia State University, he started Sheldon Associates. He later partnered with DeAnn Gibson Sinrich and formed SheldonSinrich, LLC.

Since entering the field of trial consulting, Dr. Sheldon has volunteered his time and resources to assist on a host of pro bono efforts. Dr. Sheldon served as President for the American Society of Trial Consultants. He is most renowned for his efforts to help resurrect several Civil Rights era murder cases including the State of Mississippi’s 1994 prosecution of white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Civil Rights activist Medgar Evans. Dr. Sheldon also assisted with the prosecution of Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry, who were responsible for the 16th Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham that killed four girls in 1963.

Over the span of his nearly 30-year career, Dr. Sheldon has exhibited a strong sense of moral justice and equality. He is one of those rare individuals who chose to act on these beliefs rather than simply stand on the sidelines. As he explained in a 2009 interview: “If you live or grow up in the South you are particularly attuned to racial attitudes and the effects of racial violence in the culture. If that bothers you, then at some point you want to do something to change that. At some point, I needed to get involved instead of skating through life focused on my own narcissistic goals.”



Marjorie Fargo

Award Received: 2008 Conference: Chicago

Marjorie Fargo has worked in the field of litigation since 1975, giving practical advice in hundreds of criminal and complex civil matters across the country. She was court-appointed in both capital and non-capital murder cases and has submitted affidavits and testified as an expert on jury procedures in state and Federal courts. Among Ms. Fargo’s contributions, her diligent work for defendants in capital cases was instrumental in achieving verdicts that did not result in the death penalty for her clients. While she took on some of the most demanding and difficult cases, Ms. Fargo has always maintained a positive attitude with her everlasting good spirit and sweet Georgia smile.

Ms. Fargo is a dedicated member of ASTC. She served on ASTC’s Board of Directors and assisted in drafting the jury selection section of ASTC’s Professional Code. In addition to being a highly skilled practitioner and valued member of ASTC, Ms. Fargo has given back to the field through her ability and willingness to teach attorneys and others in the profession. Her gift for teaching interview skills has benefited many of her clients and CLE attendees by showing attorneys the most effective way to probe into juror attitudes, including sensitive topics that many lawyers try to avoid. Over the years, Ms. Fargo has trained many new trial consultants to do jury work. She helped write sections of the National Jury Project’s original edition of Jurywork: Systematic Techniques and has continued to mentor interns in her private practice. As one of the field’s pioneering members, Ms. Fargo did ground-breaking work to shift the view of voir dire as a short opening statement to the prevailing view that voir dire is the best and only opportunity to identify potential cause and peremptory challenges.

Ms. Fargo’s work has impacted the justice system as a whole. She has been successful in composition challenges, uncovering the systemic nature of the underrepresentation of African-Americans in certain jury pools – a task that requires great coordination between attorneys, experts, staff, and volunteers, and an enormous amount of dedication. These efforts have had a lasting impact on jury selection procedures.



Susan Macpherson

Award Received: 2007 Conference: Long Beach

Susan Macpherson is a founding member of the profession of trial consulting and of the ASTC. She joined the National Jury Project in its infancy in 1976 and attended the first ASTC meeting back in 1982. Since that time she has built a very successful career while tirelessly working on behalf of ASTC, upholding the highest standards of the trial consulting profession, serving as a mentor to many new consultants, working with court systems and other legal organizations on jury trial innovations, and promoting the value of pro bono work. Ms. Macpherson served on the ASTC’s Board of Directors.

Some of Ms. Macpherson’s many contributions to ASTC include spearheading the task force on jury reform which has researched and written position papers opposing the reduction of peremptory challenges and the difficulties in obtaining accurate information from jurors during voir dire because of systemic problems, such as poor questioning styles and the courtroom atmosphere. She remains part of ASTC’s Jury Trial Issues Task Force.

Additionally, Ms. Macpherson was a leader in developing the ASTC Professional Code (standards and guidelines for trial consultants), helping to draft the first set of standards governing venue surveys, serving as Standards Committee Chair and continuing to work on this committee to this day, navigating the new challenges to venue research presented by emerging technology.

Having consulted in over 800 cases, Ms. Macpherson has a long and distinguished record of working on complex commercial and white collar criminal cases but is always willing to roll up her sleeves and do pro bono work. Attorneys describe her as being someone they trust and respect. Always willing to lend an ear, Ms. Macpherson’s colleagues say she is the first person they turn to when facing an ethical dilemma or need advice about a challenging issue. Her wisdom and willingness to share her experiences make her a valuable resource for consultants, novice and experienced alike.



Cathy Bennett

Award Received: 2006 Conference

Widely considered one of the key pioneers of modern jury selection strategy, Cathy “Cat” Bennett was the inaugural recipient of the ASTC Lifetime Achievement Award. Ms. Bennett was known for persuading attorneys to ask probing, open-ended questions in jury selection at a time when voir dire was typically cursory. She taught lawyers to connect with potential jury members, to listen to their answers, and to observe non-verbal indicators of attitudes and beliefs. In so doing, Ms. Bennett helped pave the road for the type of meaningful jury selection that ASTC members assist their clients with in most jurisdictions today. While Ms. Bennett received media attention from her work on high profile cases like the successful defense of William Kennedy Smith against rape charges, the dispute over Howard Hughes’ will and the 1984 John DeLorean cocaine trial, she was better known amongst her colleagues for her tireless dedication and service in political charged civil rights and capital cases. Her consulting work began with the case of the Oglala Sioux Indians who were charged in connection with a shootout with Federal agents at Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973. She also assisted in cases that won $20 million in judgments against the Ku Klux Klan, the White Aryan Resistance Group and skinheads. Tragically, Ms. Bennett was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 34, and passed away in 1992 at the young age of 41. Before her death, Ms. Bennett also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers – she remains the only woman and non-lawyer recipient of the award. Morris Dees, founder of the Southern Law Poverty Law Center introduced Ms. Bennett by saying, “If Rosa Parks was the mother of the civil rights movement, Cat Bennett is the mother of modern criminal law practice in America. She has taught lawyers to be feeling, loving human beings, and that comes across to the jury.

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