How Many Bbreaks In An 8 Hour Day In The State Of Nj

How many hours/days does jury duty take up?

There are so many pieces to this puzzle and variations of the pieces that I’m going to narrow it down and answer two questions that I am most often asked-Assume that you have been pulled out of the main jury pool and are now a potential juror for a specific trial.How many total days should I expect?What do the typical hours per day look like?How many total days should I expect? Most jurors, if they are planning on actually showing up when summoned, think about their life and what adjustments they would need to make to accommodate the commitment. Many lawyers will tell you that the great majority of trials last less than a week. Many Human Resource (HR) professionals make the same assumption. Sooooooooo a good rule of thumb is to anticipate one week.Note- So you are a potential juror for a specific trial. You’re sitting in a courtroom with your fellow potential jurors. One of the first things that will happen is the judge will give you a brief description of the case. This will include his estimate of the number of trial days needed.Every once in a while the potential jurors receive a shocker and the judge says three weeks or six weeks or very rarely even worse. The next words out of his mouth will be some variation of “Will that be a problem for anyone?” Of course dozens of hands go up and away we go! Everyone involved is expecting this when a trial is very long. Now you might begin to understand while it is sometimes very difficult to find jurors!What do the typical hours per day look like? 9 to 5 is very common but a little more detail is needed. You can anticipate at least one break in the morning and one in the afternoon. Lunch will be at least an hour and quite often more. If the judge senses a natural break in the testimony, you could be sent home early.Don’t expect to be watching testimony the entire time. Depending upon what’s happening, you can be sent back to the jury room to twiddle your thumbs!Note- When the testimony is over and your deliberations begin your hours might be longer. It’s not uncommon for a judge to have dinner sent to the jury room and ask you to continue deliberating well into the evening. Soooooooooo for planning purposes, I would say 9 to 5 until deliberations begin and then anything goes!Note- On both of my trials we were given a “working dinner” and asked to deliberate into the evening. In each case we were sent home at 8:00 pm.