Do You Like Me?

 

Likeability shouldn’t matter in the courtroom. A lawyer’s personality should be irrelevant. The facts should be paramount, the only thing jurors attend to, but jurors are persuaded by a combination of factors. Facts are but one of many.

Your likeability matters. Fortunately, this isn’t high school, and your likeability 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 the 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, strength of evidence and the like are fine. Pointing out opposing counsel or a witness’s weaknesses is fine. Beating up on opposing counsel or a 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 clearest, easiest-to-understand, succinct examination of witnesses, the clearest description of evidence, and the clearest 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.

Conviction vs Slash-and-Burn

It is often tempting to rip into opposing counsel, or disparage his/her client in emotionally charged vitriolic words, yet such an approach rarely wins over jurors. Sure, you have the shock value of a momentary deer-in-the-headlights stunned witness or a knee-jerk angry riposte from opposing counsel, but in the long run, that’s not what convinces jurors.

Jury studies systematically show that jurors tend to be highly critical and disapproving of such tactics. One time during trial, no problem. More than that, jurors will turn on the offending attorney. Over-aggressiveness has repeatedly been pointed out in jury debriefings as an advocate’s most common flaw.

This is not to say you must turn into Mr./Ms. Meek, not at all. It simply means that you persuade jurors more with positive arguments, such as appealing to devotion to an ideal, or the well-being of the community at large, or the importance of justice. These can be expressed with great vigor and emotional commitment, as long as you are sincere in your delivery.

Conviction in the name of a righteous cause is what wins jurors over, not slash-and-burn verbal onslaughts.

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Read my latest article, "Managing the Angry Client 101" in the September issue of Plaintiff magazine. Click here.

Do You Like Me?

Likeability shouldn’t matter in the courtroom. A lawyer’s personality should be irrelevant. The facts should be paramount, should be the only thing jurors attend to, but  jurors are persuaded by a combination of factors: facts are but one of many.

Yes, your likeability matters. Fortunately, this isn’t high school, and your likeability 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, strength of evidence and the like are fine. Pointing out opposing counsel or a witness’s weaknesses is fine. Beating up on opposing counsel/a 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 clearest, easiest-to-understand, succinct examination of witnesses, the clearest description of evidence, and the clearest 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!