Hell Out of Dodge
Jennifer Auer Jordan
brings a touch of
South Georgia
to Atlanta
BY CANDICE DYER
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STAN KAADY
WITH EACH ANSWER FROM A POTENTIAL
juror, Jennifer Auer Jordan’s manicured nails
flitted across her iPad: question, answer,
tap; question, answer, tap.
A founding partner at Shamp Speed
Jordan Woodward in Atlanta, Jordan was
using an app called JuryStrike, which she
helped develop and which facilitates the voir
dire process. On this day, Jordan was looking
for jurors who combined empathy with a
respect for rules. “I was looking for folks who
do volunteer work, folks who care,” she says.
But she was running into trouble. “They
were generally very friendly toward the
medical establishment. I worried for a
moment that we were in for an uphill
battle. We even ended up with a lawyer on
the jury, which is a big no-no. If she had
been predisposed against us, she could’ve
advocated against us to the other jurors.”
At issue was a nightmarish case of
sexual assault. An 18-year-old known as
J.B. had gone to a high-end Atlanta dental
practice for routine oral surgery. While
unconscious, under deep anesthesia, her
anesthetist sexually assaulted her orally
and video-recorded his actions.
“At first glance, it seemed like a case
where a criminal actor had committed a
crime without the knowledge or help of
anyone at the dental practice,” Jordan says.
“However, as we investigated, it became
clear to us that it was the intentional
decisions and actions of the principles of
[the dental practice] that gave her assailant
the means and opportunity to commit sex
crimes against multiple patients.”
A petite woman with ash-blond hair,
Jordan, 41, focuses on complex civil cases,
including medical malpractice, investment
fraud and consumer class actions. She’s
tech-savvy. Not only does she help develop
apps, but she lectures on the role of social
media in the justice system. She knew, for
example, that her teenage client would have
hyper-documented her life as a University of
Georgia cheerleader on Facebook, and that
the defense would use these upbeat photos
to claim she had not been traumatized by
the assault. “I started heading that off in voir
dire by asking who posts negative things
about their lives on Facebook,” Jordan says.
“I made it clear early on that this young
woman is more than just a Facebook post.”
The defense wound up taking a tack
that Jordan found more outrageous. The
lawyers argued that because J.B. was
asleep, she could not suffer from post-
traumatic stress disorder.
“Can you believe that?” Jordan asks.
“They showed no awareness that this event
will haunt this young woman for the rest
of her life. It may affect whether or not she
gets anesthesia for childbirth later on. It
was a bizarre defense. And it backfired.”
At one point, the defense introduced
into evidence J.B.’s high grade-point
average ( 3. 7) as further proof she was not
traumatized. In response, the jury handed
down a verdict of $3.7 million—a sum
presumably calculated to send a message.
Jordan likes this kind of math. It
squares with her David-versus-Goliath
ethos as a small-town girl who likes to
take on the big firms.
Asked where she is from, Jordan invariably
answers “Dodge County” in a barely
perceptible drawl. “Down there, it’s so rural
we identify more by county than city.”
Technically, she’s from Eastman,
population 5,000. “Growing up in a place
like that lends texture to who you become,”
she says. “I don’t want to say it was idyllic,
but it was … different.”
Less Mayberry, you might say, than
Southern Gothic.
