{"id":250,"date":"2006-10-31T22:58:22","date_gmt":"2006-11-01T02:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/10\/31\/putting-in-a-good-appearance\/"},"modified":"2007-02-15T09:51:25","modified_gmt":"2007-02-15T13:51:25","slug":"putting-in-a-good-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2006\/10\/31\/putting-in-a-good-appearance\/","title":{"rendered":"putting in a good appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Halloween, the word “party” conjures up masks, costumes and poseurs — and looking less than your best can garner applause.\u00a0\u00a0 At court, however, parties need to show some discretion when deciding how to\u00a0look\u00a0for\u00a0their appearances.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"PhantomMaskNV\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The\u00a0article “The Beauty Bounty<\/a><\/em>,” in the new Nov.-Dec. 2006 issue of <\/font>Harvard Magazine<\/font><\/em><\/a> reminded me today to talk about how the pro se<\/em> litigant\u00a0dresses and otherwise preens\u00a0for court.\u00a0 The article discusses\u00a0the paper “Why Beauty Matters<\/em>,” by economists Markus M. Mobius of Harvard and Tanya S. Rosenblat of Wesleyan University, in\u00a0American Economic Review<\/em>, 2006, vol. 96, issue 1, pages 222-235 (abstract<\/a>; prepublication pdf. version<\/a>; summarized in NYT<\/em> article<\/a>, April 6, 2006).\u00a0 Professors Mobius and Rosenblatt took the fact that attractive people\u00a0earn higher wages than\u00a0ordinary-looking people and designed an experiment to “decompose”\u00a0the root causes of the beauty premium (which was 12 to 17 percent in their study).\u00a0 The professors found\u00a0that employers have a visual stereotype<\/em> that more attractive people are more productive; beyond that, attractive people are themselves more confident (probably because of a lifetime of positive feedback); and they also have better conversational skills.\u00a0 <\/font>\u00a0<\/p>\n
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This study is obviously not directly applicable to litigants at court.\u00a0 However, we can say with some certainty that human beings in the judicial system have similar positive “visual stereotypes,” and respond well to those who are self-confident and have good conversational skills.\u00a0\u00a0 The best evidence of a visual stereotype is the fact that court after court, across the nation (and even in Canada<\/a>),\u00a0stresses the importance for the self-represented of making a good impression by\u00a0their appearance.\u00a0 For example:<\/font><\/div>\n

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