Since you study this stuff, do you mind sharing a description of the kinds of situations in which the 'sharp appearance' or related type of tactic has a negative effect?
Re: David Boies (who is a prominent Manhattan attorney):
> Part of the David Boies legend is his rejection of high fashion. He’s a millionaire many times over, and many aspects of his lifestyle reflect what I’m guessing is a nine-figure net worth — his primary residence, an 8,000-square-foot mansion on almost 10 acres; an $8 million pied-à-terre here in New York City, at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel; and a racing yacht, because you’re nobody until you have a yacht. But his wealth doesn’t go into his wardrobe. He eschews Prada and Patek Philippe in favor of navy blue suits from Sears or Lands’ End, inexpensive plastic wristwatches (worn over his sleeve), and what look like black sneakers (but are actually walking shoes by Merrell).
People who think that a little bit off. The point of fashion is so people don't mistake you for being a little lower status than you are. So high status people can afford to wear clothes with holes in them, because nobody is going to mistake them for people who are poor (royalty can wear what they want, Queen Elizabeth looks like she just picks a colour to me). That can't be imitated by ordinary people, because they would just look poor.
Also, fashion isn't for strangers. I mean, I don't know anything about what is fashionable. Nearly nothing at all. So obviously stranger can't impress me with expensive clothes because I can't detect it. The situation is similar with most fashions which are signals for inside an in crowd.
It is like a developer putting "Haskell" or "Scheme" on a resume. The goal isn't to impress randoms in HR who don't know what a Haskell is and are suspicious of scheming programmers. It is to signal within a group of semi-peers who don't specifically know who you are.
But they can sure as hell read subtle social cues that occur between the lawyers and the judge. I'd reason that those cues have an outsized impact on how the jury rules.
After he was Bill Clinton's attorney in televised impeachment hearings? You have to remember that the jurors' office casts a wide net. With the worst will in the world, the attorneys can't strike everyone who has heard of someone.
I mean... David Boies is a pretty famous lawyer! There is likely a huge amount of people who recognize the name, even if they don't know anything about the person. The guy has been on cover of magazines!
Maybe _everyone_ on a jury is filtered out to only take people completely disconnected from society but.... probably not.
(case in point: many people on this website are not in legal professions yet recognize the name)
talk about disconnected from society. a lot of people have seen him on a magazine or heard the name on the news. along with about 20 other names. every day. for decades. and the name is forgotten an hour later, with a thousand other names.
as far as your point, the 1% of people here reading recognized the name. didn't know why, then googled and remembered. the jury is not here. it's '12 random people from the dmv,' and they don't recognize it, nor will they care to google it. they don't even know who steve jobs is, and won't google it on their iphone.
Defense attorneys usually put on a show to relate to you in some way. The prosecution usually looks like undertakers and usually appeal to the institution of justice, sacred duty as a citizen, etc.
Just guessing, but in some places there used to be automatic exemptions and substantially fewer people were eligible to be called so they had to serve more.
Reforms expanded the pool, for instance in NY.
From a 1996 NY Times article:
"As of Jan. 1, all 27 former exemptions and disqualifications for jury duty in New York State have been repealed"
"...as many as one-third of Long Island's residents have been exempt from jury duty because of their white-collar professions, particularly doctors, dentists and lawyers"
I live in New York, which has no exemptions. I suspect that having a last name early in the alphabet has some significance in my county as well, I’m called about every 4.5 years, starting the week after my 18th birthday. I’ve been selected about half of the time.
Also, I’m fortunate to have a job where there is no financial penalty for service, I find it interesting, and I’m not comfortable hamming up some nonsense to avoid it. I’m always surprised I’m picked because of my job (lawyers don’t like engineers on juries), and I am friends or relatives with a bunch of attorneys and policemen.
Engineers have an often-times pedantic fascination with debugging deeply detailed problems.
Consider a legal trial to be a giant machine executing a huge set of detailed and arcane and sometimes arbitrary instructions. Either the machine does the right thing (one side arguing there was no crime) or the wrong thing (the other side arguing there was a crime). What engineer doesn't love figuring out why the machine's behaviour is correct or incorrect?
I'm pretty sure that this is a bit of a myth, mostly repeated by engineers who want to feel important and superior to lawyers, who are often hotter, richer, and higher-status.
Trial lawyers present a narrative to the jury, and thus prefer jurors who are more likely to believe the presented narrative. Your typical engineer believes themselves to be capable of discerning truth independent of expert opinion. This could be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on how the trial lawyer plans to present their narrative.
To expand on this, the engineering type is going to work their way through problems and situations systematically. More likely to try to dissect and analyze what they're being presented.
That's not universal -- two of the most religious people I've met were some flavor of engineer; they never bother to challenge their own biases -- but in aggregate they're a riskier jury pick than a teamster or housewife or cashier.
I feel like humans are good in identifying privileged person and would like to think them different. If someone is dressing up perfectly but it is clear that the person is not rich/confident it will have negative effect than them dressing moderately. Some non rich born people are able to get in high societies but for most of us, it will be how you are born and raised.
