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Could This Be the 'Rite' Way to Win a Case?

By Brendan McKenna

Did you catch last week's New York Times report on the variety of superstitions and rituals that some top lawyers follow in the belief that they could help secure a case win (or, put a different way, prevent a loss)? Some attorneys stick to the same food for lunch every day throughout the entire length of a trial, while another puts off getting his hair cut until trial's end. A lawyer who tries to insert the name of his dog (Watson) into summations told the Times' Benjamin Weiser: "The trial gods are very powerful. You respect them. You make little offerings." Weiser notes that the rituals often stem from something attorneys did during a prior case that ended successfully for them. For some attorneys, a recurring superstition involves wearing a particular item of clothing during a trial (a "lucky suit" -- no pun intended). The rituals go all the way up to Supreme Court cases. The National Law Journal's Tony Mauro noted a few years ago the example of an attorney who makes a point of wearing a tie given to him as a memento eight years previously by the widow of a partner who used to wear it when...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on February 20, 2011 (boomark / email).