Richard Waites, J.D., Ph.D.

With international recognition in jury and courtroom research (a field he helped define), Richard C. Waites provides innovative solutions for all things legal and psychological. To date, he has written three books on both the law and psychology, including Courtroom Psychology and Trial Advocacy. While he's well respected within these communities, he is also asked to speak often with various media outlets, including Fox News, USAToday, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Court TV. He's been credited as being one of the first within the United States to ''achieve a total integration of law and psychology by education and practice''. Although he entered the psychology and legal fields at different times in his life; to him, it was clear the line was thin and that it was difficult, if not impossible, to have one without the other. Becoming fascinated by the courtroom and the organized manner in which proceedings flowed from an early age, and after having been introduced to a Georgia state judge, Dr. Waites was invited to attend a court session. It was bound to happen. From that point on, he made it a point to sit in on court proceedings as often as possible. It was a logical process for him to realize that extensive research would provide insight to how the American justice system works as a whole and how the sums, including judges, juries and legal teams, played in to the experience.

Combining several areas of psychology, including social, experimental, developmental and organizational, Waites was able to demonstrate how social science research could assist legal teams as they moved forward to help their clients. It stands to reason his first order of business was to lay aside everything he believed about the conventions of the legal sector as well as the psychological field. His research into juries and their collective behaviors provided incredible insight via his revolutionary techniques that have remarkable accuracy in determining perceptions of those jurors. It has proven quite beneficial for use both in a legal education setting, as well as those who are already practicing attorneys.


Dr. Waites has received many awards and honors. He is a member of the American Bar Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Society of Trial Consultants, the Defense Research Institute and the State Bar of Texas, where he currently resides. He received his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center and for the next decade, worked as a trial attorney. He felt like there was more; he graduated summa cum laude from Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he received his Ph.D. in psychology.

He is one of the founders of The Advocates, which is the largest jury and trial consulting firm in the U.S. His company employs more than twenty three professional consultants in seventeen cities around the nation. He currently serves in the role of CEO and Chief Trial Psychologist.

We are pleased to have Dr. Richard C. Waits as this week's Legal Staff Profile and if you'd like to learn more about Dr. Waites, visit his site at TheAdvocates.com.