u/Salary_Dazzling

For those of you who are plaintiff's attorneys and have trial experience, what do you wear for jury trials?

We've all heard the opinions that 1) jurors will almost always judge the women lawyers' appearance and 2) dressing/presenting a certain way can actually help/hurt your client in jury trials.

For those of you who have had to navigate this ridiculous quagmire (not only in our profession, I'm sure), what do you wear?

As plaintiff's attorneys, there appears to be a risk of looking "too fashionable," because the jurors might have that bias, "Oh, there just in it for the money, look at what they're wearing."

Now, I am far from big law or from a fancy firm. Even if I was, wearing well known and conspicuous name brands just isn't my style. However, I do respect those who choose to dress that way–you do you. 😄

I do like to wear mid-range nice suits (J. Crew, Ann Taylor, splurged on a Reiss), nice heels, and just look put together. I also found some work clothes on Poshmark and ThredUp that are in fantastic condition.

I have a couple of colleagues that probably haven't bought a new suit since they started working at the firm. One of my colleague's go to shirt has a stain (the suit jacket hides it). Their suits' material could definitely be more "crisp." Obviously, this is not a reflection of their knowledge and experience. Also, these are male colleagues, so you know. They may face less scrutiny, I don't know.

I just don't want to co-chair a jury trial and have the jurors judge me (I'm sure they will somehow anyway). It would be helpful to hear other bitches' experience. In my opinion, regardless of gender–if someone wears their suit well (size notwithstanding) and just looks like they made some kind of effort, that is always a plus to me. I would rather look that way than show up like I just rolled out of bed. Sadly, I have sat across the aisle from a couple of attorneys who literally looked like they just rolled out of bed because their hair was just really unkempt.

Thank you and hope you all can enjoy the shorter week!

When attorneys post on here about having 100+ cases–are you guys doing all of your case management duties as well? Like paralegal and administrative tasks?

I'm not trying to minimize the craziness of having 100+ cases whatsoever. But I was just wondering if there was some reprieve in knowing that a 100+ case attorney at least has a rockstar (or cool indie label star) paralegal/legal assistant/secretary who competently handles all legal support. So, at least the attorney can focus on, you know–the attorney stuff.

My friend has about half that amount of cases but unfortunately has really unreliable support staff. And this isn't a "control freak" thing. Unless being a control freak means anticipating what needs to be done once a case is initiated or a document gets filed instead of being told what to do, not organizing the files whether it's a physical file or in a database system where it's not labeled correctly, incorrectly calendaring deadlines and other important dates and/or failing to update the calendar if a hearing gets continued or a meeting gets canceled.

I mean, I see comments about attorneys saying they also handle their own admin/para tasks because support staff in their firm are outright hostile towards them and/or will only help the senior attorneys and partners. Mind you, the same paralegal never treated the senior associates the same way when they first started.

Also, I can see if a solo might do their own admin/para work. IRL, I always observe that there is almost always that one, long term loyal employee who is truly the backbone of a solo's firm.