Practice Management

Redux: Do jurors see your associates as white-collar creeps, generic dweebs, robot law weenies--or just stone freaks?

By Dan Hull

Juries are not dumb and miss little. They watch you and yours in the courtroom, the back of the courtroom, hallways, restrooms, parking lots, restaurants.

Whether or not you think the people you bring to trial with you are capable of looking or acting like stone "creeps" at any moment during the roller-coaster ride of a trial, explain to these men and women in advance the importance of "maintaining" a demeanor which appears professional yet likable, amiable, fair and genuinely good-hearted.

Because if they do, it's bad. Well, maybe. There are important subtleties here--so please pay attention.

Jurors, of course, will always surprise you.

No matter what an expert might tell you, or how hard you've worked at selection, you are always wrong about two or three of them. You've heard that.

Creep Control. Now hear this: don't go out of your way to antagonize jurors with sideshows which have nothing to do with the trial itself. Bring no "creeps" with you to trial. Keep them in the office. If they must show up--even for a moment--teach them to "un-creep" themselves, starting at 60 second intervals, and practicing until they can hold out for five minutes at a stretch. Hint: They pretend they are happy confident people who genuinely like other humans. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat. And remember, you seek progress--not perfection. Be gentle at first.

Non-Creeps--and Recovering Creeps Who Under Pressure of Trial May Relapse in Public. Bring to trial no "non-creeps" capable of any snide, "mean" or creepy gesture, facial expression or body language glitch lasting more than one half-second. Instruct your non-creeps to read this post to be on the safe side. Reformed creeps--you spotted them early and sent them to rehab but they are ultimately powerless over they way they look or act--need pep talks, and brief courtroom appearances. See above.

A Note on Nerds. In doses, however, a few generic dweebs and law weenies running in and out of the courtroom carrying a huge box of documents, a phone message from your wife about Nantucket next summer with the Bloors, a good luck note from your mistress, your lucky bow-tie, your spats, your black cape with red lining, or your reserve pair of Bass Weejuns--the kind of people you routinely made fun of in high school--is okay. Jurors expect that. You're a lawyer. You live in a world where nerds are almost normal. Jurors get and tolerate that.

But jurors just don't like self-important "assisting creeps". That's really personal.

Let us explain more.

Full post as published by What About Clients? on August 16, 2009 (boomark / email).