Do You Like Me?

 

Likeability shouldn’t matter in the courtroom. A lawyer’s personality should be irrelevant. The facts should be paramount; they should be the only thing jurors pay attention to. Would that be nice if it were true? The jurors on any one of your jury panels are persuaded by a combination of factors. Facts are but one of many.

Yes, your likability matters. Fortunately, this isn’t high school, and your likability isn’t based on an indecipherable “cool factor.” Likeability is based on traits anyone can easily acquire or express. Among those traits are:

1. Politeness and civility

Jurors appreciate attorneys who are polite and civil with everyone in the courtroom, from clerk to hostile witness to alternate juror.

2. Appropriate passion

Jurors like attorneys who show zeal for their client’s cause, without stooping to unwarranted bashing of the other side. Arguing inconsistencies and the strength of evidence are fine. Pointing out opposing counsel or a witness’s weaknesses is fine. Beating up on opposing counsel or witness is not.

3. Clarity

Strange as it may seem, the attorney who provides the clearest, most to-the-point roadmap through the trial, the easiest-to-understand, succinct examination of witnesses, description of evidence and explanation of jury instructions—is the attorney who is most liked, and will, in most cases, carry the day.

Master these three traits, and you’ll soon be the “best-liked” and “most-winning” lawyer in the courthouse.

 

The Enduring, Maddening CSI Effect

 

In my ongoing research of what jurors think and how they decide cases, I am once again reminded of the enduring “CSI effect,” and how lawyers would do well to pay more attention to it.

Simply put, the “CSI effect” is jurors’ overriding, sometimes obsessive, need to explore for themselves every bit of physical evidence in an attempt to come to a fair and just decision. This is true whether the case is civil or criminal. Contracts are scrutinized, emails pored over and signatures examined with the same zeal as skid marks and bloodstains.

What’s the lesson here? It’s up to you, the attorney, to look at your evidence every which way and give a forceful, compelling, interpretation to your evidence so it cannot be re-interpreted in some unfavorable way by a jury that examines the evidence with a keener eye than yours. Use visuals of all kinds, videos, graphics, charts, and mock-ups where appropriate, to emphasize and bring home your position on the evidence. Even when there is no way for you or your experts to say with conviction “Here’s the smoking gun!” offer the jurors the strongest probable interpretation that can be drawn from the evidence.

Leaving the interpretation up to the jurors is taking a chance you can ill afford when you want to win.