The Tsarnaev defense team’s poll of potential jurors’ attitudes toward the bombing suspect is apparently an unprecedented legal tactic in Massachusetts that is catching the eye of other lawyers.

“That’s good lawyering,” said Terrence Kennedy, a criminal defense attorney not involved in the case. “I haven’t seen it in the past. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable thing to do, especially in a case like this. This is the highest-profile terrorism case maybe ever in Massachusetts, so this isn’t out of bounds.”

Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers hope to use the taxpayer-funded poll to convince Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. their client must be tried elsewhere due to bias here.

Their poll claims 57.9 percent of Boston-area people polled said Tsarnaev is guilty, and 37 percent think he deserves the death penalty. The poll could give the lawyers ammunition for an appeal if the change of venue motion is denied. Boston residents have been inundated with media reports about the bombings, and thousands were there — or know people who were — when the horrific attacks took place.

Making every legal move to get the case out of Boston is entirely reasonable for attorneys who are trying to save their client’s life.

“It’s unique to this case, but the publicity here was so pervasive and so negative that almost everybody has heard about it,” said Randy Chapman, a criminal defense attorney not involved in the case. “In this case, given the death penalty, it’s certainly appropriate.”

Typically, jurors are vetted during an extensive process, known in courts as “voir dire.” In this case, the process is likely to be cumbersome. If O’Toole tries to empanel a jury, and fails, he can at that point change venue. While the Tsarnaev lawyers would like a trial in Washington, D.C., — which polled favorably to their cause — O’Toole could move the case to Springfield or Worcester with less disruption if he finds less bias there.

David Paleologos, a pollster at Suffolk University, said he’s never been asked to conduct a poll for a defense attorney, though he’s been called into court to cast doubt on litigants’ statistics. He did, however, think it was a good idea.

“Research is more substantive than a lot of other legal arguments,” said Paleologos, whose own 2013 poll found that 56 percent of local respondents were ready to see Tsarnaev executed. “Survey research gives you, within a margin of error, a picture of what public sentiment is.”