International Law

Nicholas Rule of the University of Toronto and Nalini Ambady of Tufts University had people judge photos of 73 managing partners from the top 100 US law firms for dominance, maturity, attractiveness, likeability and trustworthiness. Half of the judges rated current photos downloaded from law firm websites. The other half rated photos from college yearbook photos, which on average were taken 33 years prior. Law firm profits were obtained from public records.

Ratings of dominance and facial maturity together formed a measure of power, and this facial power measure was a strong predictor of law firm profitability. Power in the managing partners' faces predicted profit margin and overall profitability of the law firms. Not only did facial power in the current pictures correlate with profitability, but facial power in the decades-old yearbook pictures was nearly as effective at predicting profits.

Firms with relatively more female managing partners do better, as do firms with relatively more female and minority associate attorneys (these data were compiled from the AMLAW diversity surveys). This may relate to client pressures for these large law firms to hire (and promote) more female and minority attorneys. In any event, these finding seem worthy of further exploration.