For a focus group or mock Trial to produce the most usable feedback, sometimes the moderator/consultant has to play devil's advocate to get to the bottom of the participants' opinions and biases.  This means challenging the depth of the respondents' views, or forcing the participant to defend his/her views.

While I have had the privilege of working on a myriad of cases over the years, I have actually worked on three alienation of affection cases.  Simply, if a spouse cheats in a marriage, the other spouse can sue the "mistress" for damages.  All three alienation cases I have worked on involved the wife having the affair, and the husband had filed a claim against the man with whom she was having the affair.  This could be due to male pride, or the fact that there is generally more money to be sought from a man than a woman (most mistresses don't earn $300k/year).

In one case, the Plaintiff had been a house husband.  His wife was a physician and had an affair with a surgeon.  Without warning, my client (Plaintiff firm) brought the husband to the research session.  Immediately, I knew that I would not be able to thoroughly probe the respondents' biases against a man wanting to sue another man for millions, as well as the stigma in the South against house husbands.

As luck would have it, once the round table discussions began, the "good ole boys" in the group had some choice words for the Plaintiff.  I felt very uncomfortable exploring those views with the husband right behind the one-way mirror.  Finally, we took a short break and I relayed my concerns to my client.  He sent his client away early, and we ended up getting some great information.  The Plaintiff was actually awarded $3 million at trial!