From Lowering the Bar, via Cory Doctorow (boingboing):
1. This is an action alleging personal injuries . . . .
2. Trial is set to begin on June 15, 2009.
3. It is well known in the legal community that Michael Robb, Esquire, wears shoes with holes in the soles when he is in trial.
4. Upon reasonable belief, Plaintiff believes that Mr. Robb wears these shoes as a ruse to impress the jury and make them believe that Mr. Robb is humble and simple without sophistication. . . .
* * *
6. Part of this strategy is to present Mr. Robb and his client as modest individuals who are so frugal that Mr. Robb has to wear shoes with holes in the soles. Mr. Robb is known to stand at sidebar with one foot crossed casually beside the other so that the holes in his shoes are readily apparent to the jury . . . .
7. Then, during argument and throughout the case Mr. Robb throws out statements like "I'm just a simple lawyer" with the obvious suggestion that Plaintiff's counsel and the Plaintiff are not as sincere and down to earth as Mr. Robb.
8. Mr. Robb should be required to wear shoes without holes in the soles at trial to avoid the unfair prejudice suggested by this conduct.
See also this Palm Beach Post article.
UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Ming etc. for the pointer to this followup story:
A lengthy auto negligence case ended in a mistrial this week after jurors saw and discussed a Sunday Palm Beach Post column about two lawyers in the case.
Jurors had heard nine days of testimony and were about to hear closing arguments Monday when a juror showed other panel members Frank Cerabino's column headlined "Does lawyer who bares sole have ace in the hole?" Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Donald Hafele had earlier instructed jurors not to read or consider any information about the case outside court and not to discuss the case at all before they began deliberations....
Hafele, however, did not tell the jurors of the mistrial and allowed them to deliberate and reach an "advisory verdict." In that verdict, which will not apply, jurors found Bone's client should receive the entire $2.2 million in damages he had sought....
The case will likely have to be tried again, [Bone] said, and that will again cost more than $50,000 in expenses....
Nevertheless at trial, plaintiff's counsel won a $2.2 million verdict for his client. But then he lost it, after a Palm Beach Post article about the silly motion came to the attention of the jurors, causing a mistrial.
ouch.
Or is that story apocryphal?
Case ends in mistrial after jurors saw and discussed 'Palm Beach Post' column
http://tiny.cc/mV2BB
must... have... citation...
I don't remember the name of the case or the date, and it was before the Internet was revealed to the world. If you have access to Daily Labor Report indexes from that time, you might be able to find it.
It was followed up by an email from the judge that was three words "are you serious?" and the response "Sorry, we've since talked and worked it out, the motion is withdrawn."
The motion and attached emails made the rounds around a local bar that a lot of lawyers frequent.
The jurors objected to my friend's dangling earrings. In addition, two karat engagement rings, which would not be a big deal at a law firm, really don't set well with jurors.
Even in the big city, big firm lawyers don their plastic watches and ill fitting suits.
I used to work as a courier, and a common job was transporting boxes of files to and from the courts. One morning, I arrived to deliver a couple of boxes and some other items to discover that although the lawyers that hired us hadn't arrived (and therefore couldn't sign for it), the other side had. Usually when the client isn't there yet, a court employee can sign, but since other side was there I was instructed specifically to wait and watch the delivery.
But seriously - I knew a very senior litigation partner in a Biglaw firm who never took his $1000 custom briefcase to court. He always had his secretary rummage around for well-used redweld folders to carry his documents in. Never wore his hand-made suits or expensive Italian shoes for jury trials, either. And he demanded that the rest of the trial team from his firm go off-the-rack for trial, too. He once explained that looking decidedly middlebrow while representing large and wealthy corporate defendants was his "costume." His reputation for success was such that it apparently worked.
And then there's uber-litigator David Boies -- at least when I had dealings with him a number of years ago, he always wore sneakers to court. Black, fairly subdued sneakers, but sneakers nonetheless...
one that dresses appropriately and professionally.
but we are all familiar with the CLASSIC "rumpled defense attorney" look cultivated by such legends as kunstler. pj orourke has riffed on this, quoting from memory, but referencing lawyers getting their suits custom wrinkled at the pinko defense attorney dry cleaner.
i have also never seen a prosecutor with old school elbow patches on their suit jacket, but have seen defense attorneys wearing these.
there's also this one defense attorney (now a judge) who use to wear these RIDICULOUS high water pants.
don't the trial lawyers in england (barristers i think they are called) have to wear UNIFORMS, or is that only the judge?
there is some logic to requiring defense and prosecution to wear a uniform. i'm not saying i'm for it. and i don't mean a paramilitary uniform, like cops wear. i'm just referring to it in the classic sense - UNIFORM.
That's pretty crappy. I wonder if there's a due process violation there? A judge can order jurors to come server jury duty, but I don't think the can order them to come deliberate for his amusement, can he?
Yes, whit, although I believe there is a degree of flexibility (you can choose who makes your outfit but it must match specs). Those wigs are stupidly expensive.
It's not "for his amusement." An advisory jury is specifically provided for under the Federal Rules, and quite possibly under Florida law as well. If the jurors all get to go home early as a result of causing a mistrial through their own conduct, that certainly puts the incentives in the wrong place, among other things.
The judge also imposed a 30-day sentence of imprisonment for contempt (later stayed) on the female lawyer's co-counsel, who had attempted to defend her.
If I recall correctly, in the same district at roughly the same time, another judge originally refused to permit a female lawyer to wear a pantsuit in court, then relented and indicated he would permit her to wear pants in the courtroom . . . if she produced her husband's written consent.
A far different time, indeed. Or, as some might say (perhaps after ensuring no troublemaker is within earshot), "those were the days."
I'd say "time have changed" since then, except that I think the times changed quite a few years earlier - but the Judge apparently didn't get the memo.
Michael Robb may have taken a leaf from Adlai Stevenson's notebook. I remember seeing a picture of a hole-in-shoe sole-shaped notepad. Stevenson was trying to make the point that he was dedicated to finding out what the people wanted, using much shoeleather in the process.
I don't get it.
The theme is opposing counsel molesting one's exhibits.
The poster was making a delivery to a courtroom. The attorneys expecting the delivery weren't there. Courier had to remain with his delivery in presence of opposing counsel lest something bad happen to it. Had they not been there, courier could have simply left it with court personnel.
On the other hand, he said he thought it was good practice to have a kind of uniform precisely to keep distractions of appearance to a minimum. But, if the older barristers have ratty looking wigs, aren't they at a disadvantage?
According to Careless' link above, a barrister's horsehair bar wig costs £525.
On the other hand, I can buy a wig that makes me look like a white Don King for only $23.98 -- less if I shop around.
Anyone who has done insurance defense has written those valuations where you guess how a jury might come down, using verdicts in similar cases, your experience, etc. The advisory jury removes the guesswork.
I'm pretty sure it would have been unfairly prejudicial.
If anything we observed was a ruse, I can hardly cast the first stone. I delayed getting my hair cut short for summer in a failed bid to get dismissed from service. Fainting in the jury assembly room was apparently effective for one person though.
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