I'm stumped. I'm not so sure what is the answer. I'll do some investigation and get back to you if I discover an decent answer. You should email the people at Lending Tree as they probably could answer your Lending Tree question..

It will depend on your state's laws, but you can usually ask for jury trial at any point before the case is heard (depending on the how much notice the court needs). All you have to do is pay the "jury" fee, in order for a jury to hear it...

I was of the impression that in order to have a jury, you have to have been accused of a criminal "jailable" offense. At least that's what I was told by a judge once. Maybe that's just in my state. I don't know..

Anyway, if you were to have a jury, I think you'd either want to have an attorney with you (to help you with jury selection) or go watch several live trials (especially the jury selection part) before you went in blindly. Because there are some REAL IDIOTS in the jury pool..

I was on jury duty this week and about 40 of us were selected to go into a courtroom for a trial that was just beginning. The first step in the actual trial is jury selection. So the defense got up for about an hour and questioned us all at random for about an hour about our thoughts on certain subjects. Then the prosecuting attorney got up for an hour and did the same. And THANK GOD! Because during the course of listening to my peers answer relatively simple questions for two hours I became aware of just how ignorant much of our society is!!! Some people were spouting off the stupidest responses I've ever heard. I was literally just dumbfounded when I came out of there.

Fortunately, the attorneys weeded out most all of the stupid ones and ended up with a group of fairly smart people. But of the original 40 of us, they discarded a good 25 before both sides were happy with the 12 people up there. Fortunately, I was at the very end of the line of backup jurors and they never got to me so I was released. Still, I went home feeling VERY happy that we have a jury selection process. Because if I had been stuck with a trial using the original 12 that were up there, I'd have been damn scared!..

It depends on your state. However, jury trials do not pertain only to criminal trials. Who ever disseminated this information is incorrect. I have seen jury trials for civil and family law cases...

Constitutionally, one only has a RIGHT to a jury trial (which I believe was the original question) in a criminal case. States permit jury trials in civil cases but never in my life have I ever heard of a jury being permitted in small claims (or any other court not of record). Usually you have to file in the next higher court (the first court of record) and you MUST specifically request a jury trial in your pleadings or your right to demand it is waived...

Texas allows jury trials in small claims court, but doesn't allow collection agency cases. Just found this out a couple of days ago...