I just got a summons to jury duty in the mail. I’m self employed and just started a new contract. This is a big issue, both contractually and from loss of income. What’s the best way to address this? How can I get out of jury duty?!?
What we trolls do is just blow it off and not show up.
Err… that’s not legal advice, and probably not good advice in general, though.
Will day 1 screw up your contract? Take it with you and explain to the judge, or if they interview you, tell them you know the defendant. That’s lying, and it’s a moral call.
I wonder why I’m never called for jury duty myself? My employer makes up the income difference, and I’d personally like the experience. As long as it’s not some stupid, long trial where I’ll be sequestered or interviewed by the national media like in the Stephen Grant case. But a wife beating or something like that would be nice.
Hmm I’d prefer something other than just blowing it off. Isn’t that illegal?
I won’t lose the contract over it, but it’s certainly going to be a hardship. It’s going to be a busy time. Let’s not even get into the financial loss. If I don’t work, I don’t get paid.
I’ve been on juries before and I don’t mind doing my duty when I can. This time, however, it’s a real problem for me.
I don’t know how things work in your jurisdiction, so take this for what it’s worth. Now I can’t be called for jury duty in Ontario, since I’m a lawyer, but when I was going to law school, I could. In first year law school, I got called for jury duty around exam time. I wrote a letter to the sheriff, explaining my problem, and about the day before I was supposed to show up, I got a call from the sheriff’s office telling me not to bother.
Is there some sort of contact information on the notice? I’m used to there being an attached form that can be filled out for a hardship postponement. Try to contact them ahead of the time that you’re supposed to attend (that would be asap).
If you can’t get a postponement or release ahead of time, explain the hardship the first day of attendance. I can’t imagine that you’d be forced to serve.
Good luck, Athena.
Here in NC people have gotten jury duty deferred if it was a hardship for a specific time. It seems like a case-by-case decision is made. So state your case for a hardship as convincingly as you can. Also, it might be prudent to find out what it takes to subcontract what you do so that you don’t lose the client even if you lose out on the profit-making opportunity.
Many states allow you to postpone jury duty for reasons of financial hardship. In our experience it can be quite a while before they get back around to you again.
I was on a jury at the beginning of 2006. During the jury selection process, the judge excused potential jurors who were directly responsible for someone’s care (so the woman who took care of her mother was excused, but not the woman who took care of her son’s children) and those who would suffer a financial hardship (either they were self-employed or their employers wouldn’t pay them during the trial). My employer paid me fully during the trial (and I also got to keep the compensation I received from the court) so I was not excused and served on the trial.
So I recommend that you go to court for jury selection and if you’re called up, explain your situation.
Judges are pretty reasonable, I’ve found, if it looks like you’re not trying to shirk service. That said, like others have mentioned, there should be a way to defer your service on your jury slip. In the end, even if you do get called in, you might not make the jury anyway. I was at jury duty two weeks ago (for the first time), and I’m in the same situation as you except I could reschedule most of my work (except Fridays) around the jury schedule. In my group, there were about 50 potential jurors with 12 + 2 alternates being selected, so the odds were pretty good I wasn’t going to get picked. Just my luck, I was the second name called, but either the prosecution or defense kicked me off and I went home anyway.
So, even if you have to show up, there’s a good chance you won’t serve anyway.
Ugh, find some way to get out of it if you can. I actually got called for jury duty this past Wednesday and if anyone else is familiar with the judicial system in our nations fair capital they can tell you that it isn’t fun. The entire day I was there I didn’t get called for a jury. Period.
Let me tell you I just love sitting in the jurors waiting room alllll day long with nothing but “National Treasure” playing over the TV’s there over and over again. I was almost hoping I would get called for a jury just to break the monotony.
What’s your new employer’s opinion?
I’m not exactly sure what there is to complain about. Jury duty isn’t regarded as “fun” by most people and you didn’t even actually have to serve on a jury which mean, if you’re on the one day/one jury system like Illinois, you’ve fulfilled your obligation for a year. I’m not one to stand on a soapbox and wave the American flag, but I really do believe it is our duty as citizens to offer our time as the system requires.
In Massachusetts, you get one “free” deferral where you can push off jury duty to a later time. After that, you’d have to plead hardship. Dunno how similar Michigan is – if there were a deferral mechanism, it would be explained pretty clearly on the materials they sent you.
I can only speak for Massachusetts jury duty, having served several times in the past. Some (or perhaps now all) counties have a “one day or one trial” policy. If you serve, you can’t be summoned again for three years. Serving consists of showing up that day, even if you don’t actually land on a jury and are subsequently dismissed. Further, you can defer up to one year, thereby effectively making it every four years.
You must show up for at least that one day. I don’t know the penalties for not doing so, but I know that you will be in trouble. So, you will be out the pay for that one day.
The courts estimate an average trial to last three days, and expect your employer to pick up the tab for that period of time. So, if you get a trial that lasts three days, you won’t be paid at all. Even if it goes longer, the amount that they offer is chump change. Many/most employers make up the difference. You are obviously in a different situation.
When the judge starts the selection process (s)he will ask people to raise their hands if serving on the jury will present a hardship. You should do so. You will not actually be asked to offer the explanation unless you are selected. If you are selected, that is your opportunity to inform them that you are self-employed, and that a trial will cause financial hardship.
My layman’s guess is that you may not be excused if the trial is anticipated to be a short one (three days or fewer). On the other hand, the last time I served (last month), the trial was going to last a few weeks, and a fair number of jurors were excused.
Good luck.
Our judge told us it was one year, not three. Illinois is on the one day/one trial system. Perhaps different states have different regulations as to when you’re back in the pool. We also were not asked about hardships during voir dire.
Seeing as I’m self-employed, I can say with all seriousness that my employer (me) really doesn’t want me to go to Jury Duty.
I just talked to the bailiff. She told me to write a letter and I’d probably be excused, and even if I’m not, July is a very slow month for trials here and it probably wouldn’t be an issue.
I think you found your answer! 
You would have loved the case for which I served on the jury. The defendant stabbed his estranged wife to death after a counseling session intended to determine the child custody plan after the divorce. And the “nice” part was hearing from the victim’s sister after the trial describing how the now orphaned children were handling things.
I wouldn’t bet on it. I’ve been picked for juries the last two times I was called.
California has automatic deferrals also, and sometimes they forget to call you again. If you have that, that would be your best shot. Different judges have different policies about excusing people. The first time I got called, just before Easter, I got off from having tickets to go on vacation, but the judge was letting people off for just planning to to the mountains the next week. The last two judges were pretty strict.
I just got called for July 2, and I’m betting not many trials will start July 4 week.
I didn’t exactly say “bet on it,” but, just going by the number, in my instance the chance of being picked on the jury was 14 in ~ 55. As it turns out, since it was late in the day, 9 got picked, 5 were excused (including me–perhaps the fact that I worked for a defense lawyer helped in this regard, I dunno), so it was less than 20% odds. When I worked for the the defense lawyer, it looked like the jury pool was usually about 5x the amount of jurors needed. If it’s early in the day, you might get sent back into another pool, but the odds of serving on the jury seem to be less than 50% around here. I don’t think anybody in my immediate family (mom, father, brother, me) has ever served on a jury, despite being called up at least a half dozen times in the last ten years.