Josh and Aaron discuss the perspective on fashion and dress within the legal world. Also, a new segment is introduced!
Listen here or read the transcript below. FVF’s podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and more.
0:00:00.0 Aaron: Hey, Josh.
0:00:00.7 Josh: Hey Aaron.
0:00:01.5 Aaron: I like your shoes.
0:00:02.3 Josh: Hey, thanks man.
0:00:03.7 Aaron: Can I give you a tip about high tops?
0:00:08.1 Josh: Do I have a choice?
0:00:10.3 Aaron: Let me give you a tip. Pay attention. When you take your high tops off, do not use one foot to try to push the back of the other one in order to shove it off of your foot. What happens if you do that in high tops is the front foot, it slips, the front foot comes back, kicks you in your own shin.
[chuckle]
0:00:33.0 Josh: Right, you saw that on YouTube once.
0:00:35.7 Aaron: I saw that on YouTube once, and I experienced it this morning. Hurt, hurt bad.
0:00:43.8 Josh: I’ve removed my high tops very… It’s like removing a boot. It’s a two hand situation.
0:00:50.6 Aaron: It was hubris of me. I was just like, I can do this.
0:00:54.4 Josh: Reckless disregard for the shape and style of the high top.
0:01:00.1 Aaron: Yeah. I didn’t respect the binding on it either.
0:01:00.2 Josh: You didn’t.
0:01:01.6 Aaron: I thought I had more give.
0:01:02.1 Josh: No, you didn’t respect the binding.
0:01:04.2 Aaron: It was tight. So topic of the day is ‘Lawyer Fashion.’ And you have a unique style. Would you agree with that?
0:01:16.9 Josh: I think it takes people by surprise when they ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I’m a lawyer.
0:01:25.2 Aaron: Do you…
0:01:26.3 Josh: So, yes. Based on public feedback, I would say maybe I have a unique style.
0:01:31.5 Aaron: There is a lawyer here in Austin whose tagline was, “That’s how I sneak up on them.”
0:01:37.9 Josh: I remember those commercials as a kid. But he has the dreadlocks. He’s taken it a step further.
0:01:43.3 Aaron: Yeah, he went, I mean, we’re not here to say that anyone’s lawyer fashion is bad.
0:01:49.9 Josh: That’s right.
0:01:50.6 Aaron: But we can definitely break down what works and what doesn’t work with juries.
0:01:56.2 Josh: Yeah, that’s a good point. Yes, I think that’s right.
0:02:00.5 Aaron: So how do you feel about a shiny suit maybe a necklace, a pinky ring, and a big large watch with encrusted with diamonds in front of a jury?
0:02:14.3 Josh: Yeah, I think that’s a little bit of a loaded question. Because what you want me to say is that that might be really unappealing to a jury and send the wrong message. However, what I would say to that is the most important thing to be in front of a jury is yourself. So if for some reason that is who you are, if you’re a shiny suit, gold chain, golden diamond encrusted wearing person, if that is what you feel represents how you wanna present yourself to the world and the values you stand for, and this is without judgment, then I don’t have a problem with it. That’s not what I would choose to wear in front of a jury or not in front of a jury. It’s not what I would choose to wear. But I think what you wear does say a lot about who you are and who you are can be really impactful as to how a jury responds to what you’re trying to do with advocacy for your client.
0:03:33.2 Aaron: You definitely won up me on that one.
0:03:35.1 Josh: Yeah.
0:03:35.3 Aaron: I was…
0:03:35.5 Josh: You weren’t ready for that, were you?
0:03:36.8 Aaron: I was going for the law school answer, which is you don’t wanna be flashy in front of the jury, but you bring up a great point. Authenticity is I think, what we’re all about.
0:03:46.9 Josh: Absolutely, yes.
0:03:48.2 Aaron: Neither one of us claims that we have some sort of movie star magnetism with juries that’s just gonna like, we come in and just we’re just slick. We’re not trying to even do that. What we’ve always tried to do is be ourselves. And as long as ourselves is a person or a people who care deeply about the client and their fate, I think the jury can feel that. And so being true to yourself definitely resonates, best with juries. And if you are that person who, Joe Pesci, if you’re Joe Pesci, be Joe Pesci.
0:04:29.5 Josh: That’s right. Be Joe Pesci.
0:04:31.1 Aaron: ’cause he was great.
0:04:32.4 Josh: Yeah, that’s right. But you know it is interesting because you hear stories of trial lawyers coming to venues and trying to dress according to what they believe the jury’s expectations of them will be. Like you got someone that comes from not Texas and shows up in a Texas courtroom and has never owned a pair of cowboy boots in their lives, and they go and they buy the flashiest pair of Cayman belly Lucchese, and they throw them on their suit and walk into the courtroom and expect that a jury is going to be impressed in some way by this. When in reality, if it’s not genuine, juries are intelligent people, they’re going to see right through that vain attempt to…
0:05:37.0 Aaron: Curry favor.
0:05:38.1 Josh: Yeah.
0:05:38.6 Aaron: Yeah. I absolutely agree. And on the flip side, I will say that for any lawyer out there who is maybe considering trial law, or maybe they’re already a trial lawyer and they just have some insecurities about it there, you can’t control the prejudices that are in that jury pool. You have jury selection in which you can kind of ferret out people that can’t be fair to your client and will admit it. Although that sometimes doesn’t happen. Eventually you get 12 people in front of you who come in with the biases that they, the perspectives that they were raised with. Okay. And those perspectives could be all kinds of problematic.
0:06:19.8 Aaron: And they could be squarely against who you are, maybe your gender, maybe who you are in whatever capacity, what clothes you wear, etcetera. And that is something that no law firm can fix for you as a lawyer, okay. Your boss can be the most open-minded, enlightened person in the world and can’t fix that part of it for you. The way you can fix it is by truly caring about your client, wearing your heart on your sleeve, showing the jury the truth and letting that truth eclipse whatever bias or prejudice they came in with. We’ve seen that whereas people will have stereotypes and generalizations in their political beliefs and in their demeanor when it comes to a real story, they get sucked in. And they end up caring more about the truth. Then whatever bumper sticker they might have driven into the courtroom.
0:07:23.5 Josh: Yeah. And that’s interesting because your job is not to show up and try to impress the jury because you have impeccable taste in Italian silk ties. That is not your job. Your job is not to have your appearance be a distraction from your client’s day in court. You’re an agent for your client. Your job is to be a representative of your client. And while we do have formal rules and rules of decorum about how you are required to dress in a courtroom, you’ve gotta wear a suit and you’ve gotta wear a tie or at least a tie and a coat are and that’s just to protect tradition. And to be respectful to the court but being super thoughtful about what shirt and tie and suit combination and what shoes and what… Like, that’s just, maybe there was a time in society where that mattered in a courtroom, but I truly believe that that is not the time now.
0:08:44.4 Aaron: Modern consumers the way that people are educated and connected now, they are not bamboozled by a fancy suit. They’re not like fooled by, oh, that person wears glasses. They’re probably smart. There’s nothing like that going on anymore. These juries take the facts. They weigh them. And what they’re assessing is authenticity and credibility.
0:09:09.6 Josh: Yeah. It’s interesting. There’s a really famous trial lawyer who was known for, he tried cases all over the country, and he is extraordinarily successful and he’s built, unimaginable wealth over his career. He could afford whatever suit and tie and shoes he wanted to wear and to afford a new one of those every single day. And the story is that rather than show up in court with his custom tailored, French fabric suit every day when he was trying a case, he would go to Walmart buy a suit from Walmart or whatever the local…
0:09:58.1 Aaron: Department store.
0:10:00.0 Josh: Department store would be off the rack and buy some really inexpensive Walmart, black shoes and show up in a trial, because he didn’t want the jury to see him as something other than being of foreign by his client.
0:10:20.7 Aaron: Yeah. It’s a great mentality.
0:10:23.5 Josh: Yeah, it’s a great mentality. It cuts a little bit against maybe, well, I guess it’s, it would be presumptuous of me to say that it cuts against, our perspective that a person should be genuine. That maybe that’s really who he genuinely was, despite tremendous success. People can remain very humble and people can present themselves as being very humble and…
0:10:48.6 Aaron: Yeah. If humility’s a core value for him and he’s going in front of a jury, he’s presenting that as his authentic self. I think it’s a fair way to look at it.
0:10:55.7 Josh: But it’s an interesting anecdote because regardless of whether that was or not his true self in front of the jury, it does really demonstrate the importance of appearance at least as we’ve been trained to understand that. For how you should, how you should appear or how you should dress, how you should present yourself, in the courtroom. It’s something that, like you said, we learned it in law school. It’s something that people are observing. We’re trained on it. We practice that, at our law school at Baylor, you had to be really thoughtful about those appearing in front of our professors and things like that. It’s certainly an interesting an interesting aspect of our career.
0:11:48.2 Aaron: Have you ever been underdressed in court?
0:11:52.1 Josh: Man, I have had to appear in court when I was not prepared to… Just emergency situation. You have to be there right now. I’m not ready to be there right now. I can’t do it. And you walk into a courtroom and you just immediately begin, the first things out of your mouth have to be an apology. I recognize this is an emergency. It will never happen again. And just hope for mercy.
0:12:25.8 Aaron: I’m sorry, I’m out of uniform. Judge.
0:12:28.3 Josh: Yes.
0:12:28.9 Aaron: Basically.
0:12:30.2 Josh: Yes.
0:12:31.2 Aaron: I did have to put on another lawyer’s tie once, because of a similar situation. And at that time, judge Wong was not having it. He was and to be fair, I didn’t, I enjoyed the fact that he was keeping that standard. I don’t know why. I think it’s the court doesn’t have an army. It doesn’t have a purse. It doesn’t have any real power except for the power that we believe in it having.
0:13:00.4 Josh: Yeah, that’s right.
0:13:00.6 Aaron: And so by keeping those standards, I think, it helps, it helps the jury to feel empowered. Ultimately the jury’s the only form of government that I believe is really holding, corporations accountable these days. And so, from my perspective, I think those standards are great. I think we should keep them up.
0:13:22.6 Josh: Well, in what other context in American culture could you be thrown in jail for not wearing a suit?
0:13:35.7 Aaron: Yeah, just TV.
0:13:38.1 Josh: Right. Just TV.
0:13:38.5 Aaron: Just TV and podcasts.
0:13:39.9 Josh: So, there’s something to be said about the tradition of that it’s amazing. You look back at old photographs. I don’t know if you ever do this, but, I like baseball.
0:13:50.1 Aaron: Do I?
0:13:50.4 Josh: I like baseball. It’s history. You look back at old, I like to look at old photos. You look at old photos of people going to baseball games and sporting events. Everyone’s decked out in a full suit tie. They got the hat on the whole deal. And you look around now at what people are wearing in most places. And you really question, legitimately, other than going to a wedding or a funeral, which I’ve been to many funerals lately where a suit and tie was, seemed to not be the norm. I would wear one, but seemed to not be the norm. And you really have to ask yourself, where else does that uniform still hold as, not just like the accepted standard, but the mandatory standard.
0:14:46.8 Aaron: Yeah. It’ll be a long time before it changes I think.
0:14:51.5 Josh: Yeah. Well, now of course, I’m sure that there have been many people who have shown up to court in recent years with no Pants.
[laughter]
0:15:03.9 Aaron: Maybe as cats.
0:15:04.7 Josh: Maybe as Cats.
0:15:07.3 Aaron: On something called Zoom.
0:15:09.7 Josh: But when you have to peel yourself out of your chair, and actually enter the courthouse. I don’t think it’s gonna change for a long time.
0:15:18.7 Aaron: Yeah. I gotta tell you something about those old photos of the baseball games.
0:15:25.0 Josh: Sure.
0:15:25.5 Aaron: Those suits, had been on those people for about a week.
0:15:29.5 Josh: Yeah. Yeah. They didn’t smell good.
0:15:31.5 Aaron: They shut, they… In the cartoons, they say they bathed on Saturdays. The good old days are now.
0:15:38.4 Josh: The good old days are now.
0:15:39.5 Aaron: Thanks to FVF Law.
0:15:40.8 Josh: That’s right. [laughter] trademark registered.
0:15:43.2 Aaron: Trademark. Yeah. Thank you. [laughter], can I interrupt you for a second?
0:15:46.9 Josh: Yeah, of course.
0:15:47.7 Aaron: I got a new…
0:15:48.9 Josh: Again.
0:15:49.4 Aaron: I Got a new segment on our podcast.
0:15:51.5 Josh: Stop Interrupting me.
0:15:54.1 Aaron: Dang it. Josh.
0:15:56.7 Josh: Yes.
0:15:57.1 Aaron: Are you ready for my new segment?
0:15:57.7 Josh: I’m Ready for your new segment.
0:16:00.2 Aaron: It’s Called, Josh, what’s scaring you lately?
[laughter]
0:16:02.1 Josh: This is going to provide rich content for many years to come. I am sure.
0:16:07.6 Aaron: This is how I’m gonna start it. This is how I’m gonna start it. Every time I’m gonna be, Hey Josh.
0:16:11.5 Josh: Hey Aaron.
0:16:12.7 Aaron: What’s scaring you lately? [laughter]
0:16:16.1 Josh: So the other day we were driving around…
0:16:20.2 Aaron: You actually have an answer to this.
0:16:21.3 Josh: I have An answer to this.
0:16:22.2 Aaron: All right.
0:16:22.4 Josh: The other day we were driving around, it was in the downtown area, the judges hill area. Its kind of like 16th and Rio Grande, give or take.
0:16:33.7 Aaron: Love Judges Hill.
0:16:35.8 Josh: Great area. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t, I don’t even know what this is. I don’t even know what this is. There was some robot, it was probably like 24 inches wide and maybe four feet tall. And this robot was cruising itself around the streets, navigating its way. I have no idea what this thing was doing, but it scared the hell out of me. I thought I was gonna run over it. I thought it was gonna jump out in front of my car. I froze with terror. I didn’t know what to do. What was it?
0:17:17.6 Aaron: It was an autonomous vehicle.
0:17:19.9 Josh: It’s this big.
0:17:21.5 Aaron: It 1as a delivery vehicle. Don’t be scared.
0:17:24.1 Josh: Was it really? What was it delivering?
0:17:26.2 Aaron: Should I end this segment every time with, Don’t be scared [laughter]
0:17:29.3 Josh: Probably, what was it delivering?
0:17:32.6 Aaron: And that’s how I end all of our conversations on the phone. Anyway, [laughter] Don’t be scared, Josh. That is just an autonomous vehicle delivering a pizza.
0:17:41.3 Josh: Is that, what is it doing? What’s it delivering?
0:17:43.6 Aaron: Delivering shoes.
0:17:45.0 Josh: To who?
0:17:46.0 Aaron: Definitely eggs.
0:17:46.9 Josh: Who’s delivering eggs in a robot?
0:17:49.1 Aaron: It’s delivering.
0:17:51.3 Josh: How is the robot defending itself.
0:17:53.4 Aaron: A legal brief?
0:17:54.5 Josh: What happens if the robot jumps in front of my moving vehicle? Am I gonna kill the robot?
0:18:01.9 Aaron: No. No. The, the situation…
0:18:03.7 Josh: What happens to the eggs.
0:18:05.4 Aaron: Never ends with you killing the robot.
0:18:06.4 Josh: Are the eggs gonna damage my paint?
0:18:08.1 Aaron: All Robots situations end with robot kills you. [laughter]
0:18:11.6 Josh: Of course.
0:18:12.3 Aaron: This is known.
0:18:13.1 Josh: Of course. How can I forget.
0:18:15.4 Aaron: Josh, don’t be scared.
0:18:17.5 Josh: Okay.