Here’s an excellent article by Attorney Randi McGinn to which I have posted a follow-up comment:
Elaine Whitfield Sharp says:
August 14, 2011 at 9:09 am
Maybe it’s just me. I am usually in smart business dress and jacket, but with some color, such as a scarf, and some modest jewelry, such as a broach and simple necklace. I wear comfy shoes. My hair always looks a litte less than perfect. It’s just the way it is. I’ve done cross in my snow boots on winter days. No one seems to care, and they are really comfy. What jurors do care about most, in my experience of 25 years, is delay. No matter how much we micro-analyze the jury, they have one thing on their minds: themselves and all that surrounds their existence. Years ago, PBS aired a UK-produced, two-part series, “The Jury.” It was excellent because it illustrated the fact that the jurors all had so many things going on in their personal lives. The trial in which they sat as triers of fact was but a somewhat (to say the least) inconvenient interruption in their lives. (Of course, that was before the days of demoralizing unemployment when a trial might be welcome and an empowering reprieve to some.) Thanks to Randi’s well-thought out comments about clothing, and all of the other follow-up comments, but I continue to believe that it isn’t what you’re dressed in that matters. It’s whether you are well prepared, don’t waste time, and get jurors in and out of their civic duty and back to their own lives for which they are most grateful. More than the togs, it’s the teacher in you that wins the day.