5 ms·

The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on the merit of a case not personal prejudice. What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are th

by demarq 1y ago

The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on the merit of a case not personal prejudice. What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty?

_bin_ 1y ago
Lawyers are held to different standards of professional conduct than defendants. This also makes it much harder to read.
- demarq 1y ago
  I see what you are saying about there being different standards. I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other foot, do you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or purple hair should be allowed to practice? We may never agree? But I think that we should be more tolerant of individuality than prejudice.
  - demarq 1y ago
    I change my mind. A tattoo is individuality, a purple dragon on a client document is not an appropriate place to express that.
  - Zetaphor 1y ago
    You're comparing a person's appearance to the formatting of a legal document. Nobody is talking about the physical appearance of the attorney. There is procedure and standards in document filing for a reason, this is more difficult to read than a white background.
  - _bin_ 1y ago
    I disagree with the way the bar associations are currently constructed as state-sanctioned monopolies. Since they're technically the ones who determine who is "allowed to practice", that's a hard question to answer. I'd be comfortable establishing a stronger dress code for courtrooms - wear business casual or some such - but dyed hair and tattoos aren't easily fixable mistakes if you get called to court, so they have to be permitted for at least the defendant. For attorneys, it's probably fine to say that those with purple hair and tattoos can practice but not appear in a courtroom to represent a client. They can prep and file a patent but not represent you in a trial. That is, of course, if most people would hire an attorney with purple hair and tattoos. I would not do that unless I wanted to somehow get the death penalty for a speeding ticket.
    - int_19h 1y ago
      A friend of mine is a lawyer with numerous tattoos, and it didn't preclude him from successfully representing his clients in court. He's also a USMC veteran. Stereotypes can be funny like that.
    - rascul 1y ago
      I don't like the idea that one should be excluded from doing a type of work because of something arbitrary like hair color or skin markings.
      - rblatz 1y ago
        If you were facing the death penalty would you pick a lawyer with purple hair and face tattoos to defend you?
        jolux 1y ago
        I would if they were the best lawyer available? Their personal appearance is going to be pretty far down my list of concerns. See also Taleb’s Surgeon Paradox: https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-surgeons-23b0e2cf6d52 https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-surg...
        _bin_ 1y ago
        The point is this might work for a surgeon but does not for an attorney. There are enough jurors who would be strongly biased against anyone arguing before them with purple hair and tattoos that it's exceedingly unlikely anyone with such an appearance ever could rise to the top of his field. This would also be true in e.g. M&A. Even if Cravath's fieriest new partner looked like that I'd hesitate to hire him. Patent law might be an exception, but if I needed to actually go to court, WilmerHale's top guy would still be a liability. Even in a bench trial the judge could see it as disrespectful or look down on my representation because of it. You see my meaning here? On the table, the surgeon's appearance has little or nothing to do with his ability; in court, a lawyer's appearance can be crucial.
  - filoleg 1y ago
    > I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other foot, do you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or purple hair should be allowed to practice? Yes, they should be allowed to practice, because a lawyer’s tattoos and purple hair do not have anything to do with court documents and readability of those. Exceptions obviously apply, as not all tattoos are created equal, and having a visible gang-affiliation tattoo or a tattoo saying “cop killer” (which actually happened, but to a defendant) might be problematic as a lawyer. Here is an analogy that might help: my employer might not care if someone communicates in offtopic employee chats using gifs and emojis, but I can easily see an employee getting fired for doing the same thing either to an external customer or in cross-org sev 0 incident threads.
speerer 1y ago
I want to make two observations here. First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer, not against the lawyer's client - And it is in order not to do this in future. So, while your observation is good I think the conclusion you draw from it doesn't follow. Secondly, one aspect of your good point is that arguments are filed in a very plain format. The point being that the format does not detract from the message. In this case, the format heavily detracts from the message. Have you seen the PDF? It's absolutely nuts. I hope he doesn't turn up to court wearing a dragon mask.
- ceejayoz 1y ago
  > First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer, not against the lawyer's client… I suspect the client will be billed for the revisions, though.
gambiting 1y ago
And as the court pointed out, it's hard to judge the merit of the case when you're distracted by a huge purple dragon when reading the legal document. It's the same reason why you can't send documents written in yellow font on a blue background - technically not against the rules, but no judge will suffer through reading it. >>What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty? Obviously you can just choose not to watermark the document, tattoos cannot be removed that easily. And yes, there are various situations where you'd be asked to cover your tattoo if it was inappropriate for the situation too.
- toast0 1y ago
  > It's the same reason why you can't send documents written in yellow font on a blue background - technically not against the rules, but no judge will suffer through reading it. Using those particular color choices might not actually be suffering. It used to be a desirable color combination for word processing. I don't know if judges tend to review pleadings on screen or on paper though. On paper, black on white would be preferred, of course (unless the court had blue legal paper to print on)
orbital-decay 1y ago
I don't see how the order is making anyone more or less guilty. Judicial process historically has a certain seriousness flair and a code of conduct based on it. Making fun of the judge or the court of law is a quick way go get removed from the process or fined, or even jailed. As well as performing marketing stunts like this.
bmacho 1y ago
> The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on the merit of a case not personal prejudice. And specifying the style of something that they are able to change easily helps that.
secretsatan 1y ago
[flagged]
throwawaycities 1y ago
All courts have local rules or even standing orders governing filings and pleadings - from case styling formatting, font/size, spacing, max pages, ect… Federal district courts are not places to flaunt rules of the court or court orders. Beyond that lawyers are governed by state bars and rules of professional conduct — as an example the Florida bar has taken action against an attorney that used to advertise himself as a “pitbull.” Regarding tattoos courts have rules of decorum, which generally cover appropriate dress/attire in the courtroom. As far as tattoos, I’ve been to thousands of hearings and can give a single anecdote. It was a drug possession case and the defendant was allowed to transfer their case from circuit felony to drug court - basically allowing completion of drug classes while on kind of pretrial probation in exchange for either a nolle pros (dismissal) or withhold of adjudication. The drug court judge gave the defendant a hard time at this initial hearing over having a drug molecule tattooed on their neck - questioning if drug court was a good fit for someone the seemingly was pretty committed to drugs (based on the neck tat). The drug court judge can see a hundred or more defendants a day, they’ve seen it all and aren’t passing judgement, its just that their experience allows them to read people extremely well and they had legitimate concerns because getting in trouble in drug court can result in automatic conviction of the original charge + having to deal with any new charge. A rule of thumb professionalism and decorum go a long way in court - this attorney could be decent, but as a potential client any lawyer using a gimmicky dragon in a suit in their paperwork should probably raise some red flags for you.
DocTomoe 1y ago
In fact, in many societies, tattoos are considered a sign of low status, affiliation with lower class (which tends to get harsher sentences) and/or criminal activity, and may - consciously or subconsciously - lead to worse outcomes in trials.[1] Just tattoo 'cop killer' on your forehead and see if they give you parole. [1] https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/f/3051/files/2021/02/FunkTodorov2013PPPL.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/f/305...
StefanBatory 1y ago
> What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty? Unfortunately, it's true - that's how it will be seen. :(
bluGill 1y ago
> What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty? That question is for the jury to decide for better and worse. There are lots of good points to a jury trial which is why free societies usually (always?) have them in some form. However one downside is you will once in a while get someone on the jury who judges you not on the facts of the case but on things that shouldn't matter. Overall it is still better than the alternatives in my opinion, but it does mean you need to figure out what your local cultures are and avoid offending them (note cultures is plural - figure out them all).

by demarq 1y ago

The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on the merit of a case not personal prejudice. What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty?

_bin_ 1y ago

Lawyers are held to different standards of professional conduct than defendants. This also makes it much harder to read.

demarq 1y ago
I see what you are saying about there being different standards. I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other foot, do you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or purple hair should be allowed to practice? We may never agree? But I think that we should be more tolerant of individuality than prejudice.
- demarq 1y ago
  I change my mind. A tattoo is individuality, a purple dragon on a client document is not an appropriate place to express that.
- Zetaphor 1y ago
  You're comparing a person's appearance to the formatting of a legal document. Nobody is talking about the physical appearance of the attorney. There is procedure and standards in document filing for a reason, this is more difficult to read than a white background.
- _bin_ 1y ago
  I disagree with the way the bar associations are currently constructed as state-sanctioned monopolies. Since they're technically the ones who determine who is "allowed to practice", that's a hard question to answer. I'd be comfortable establishing a stronger dress code for courtrooms - wear business casual or some such - but dyed hair and tattoos aren't easily fixable mistakes if you get called to court, so they have to be permitted for at least the defendant. For attorneys, it's probably fine to say that those with purple hair and tattoos can practice but not appear in a courtroom to represent a client. They can prep and file a patent but not represent you in a trial. That is, of course, if most people would hire an attorney with purple hair and tattoos. I would not do that unless I wanted to somehow get the death penalty for a speeding ticket.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    A friend of mine is a lawyer with numerous tattoos, and it didn't preclude him from successfully representing his clients in court. He's also a USMC veteran. Stereotypes can be funny like that.
  - rascul 1y ago
    I don't like the idea that one should be excluded from doing a type of work because of something arbitrary like hair color or skin markings.
    - rblatz 1y ago
      If you were facing the death penalty would you pick a lawyer with purple hair and face tattoos to defend you?
      - jolux 1y ago
        I would if they were the best lawyer available? Their personal appearance is going to be pretty far down my list of concerns. See also Taleb’s Surgeon Paradox: https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-surgeons-23b0e2cf6d52 https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-surg...
        _bin_ 1y ago
        The point is this might work for a surgeon but does not for an attorney. There are enough jurors who would be strongly biased against anyone arguing before them with purple hair and tattoos that it's exceedingly unlikely anyone with such an appearance ever could rise to the top of his field. This would also be true in e.g. M&A. Even if Cravath's fieriest new partner looked like that I'd hesitate to hire him. Patent law might be an exception, but if I needed to actually go to court, WilmerHale's top guy would still be a liability. Even in a bench trial the judge could see it as disrespectful or look down on my representation because of it. You see my meaning here? On the table, the surgeon's appearance has little or nothing to do with his ability; in court, a lawyer's appearance can be crucial.
- filoleg 1y ago
  > I would follow up with, if the shoe was on the other foot, do you believe that a lawyer with tattoos and or purple hair should be allowed to practice? Yes, they should be allowed to practice, because a lawyer’s tattoos and purple hair do not have anything to do with court documents and readability of those. Exceptions obviously apply, as not all tattoos are created equal, and having a visible gang-affiliation tattoo or a tattoo saying “cop killer” (which actually happened, but to a defendant) might be problematic as a lawyer. Here is an analogy that might help: my employer might not care if someone communicates in offtopic employee chats using gifs and emojis, but I can easily see an employee getting fired for doing the same thing either to an external customer or in cross-org sev 0 incident threads.

speerer 1y ago

I want to make two observations here. First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer, not against the lawyer's client - And it is in order not to do this in future. So, while your observation is good I think the conclusion you draw from it doesn't follow. Secondly, one aspect of your good point is that arguments are filed in a very plain format. The point being that the format does not detract from the message. In this case, the format heavily detracts from the message. Have you seen the PDF? It's absolutely nuts. I hope he doesn't turn up to court wearing a dragon mask.

ceejayoz 1y ago
> First, the order being reported is made against the lawyer, not against the lawyer's client… I suspect the client will be billed for the revisions, though.

gambiting 1y ago

And as the court pointed out, it's hard to judge the merit of the case when you're distracted by a huge purple dragon when reading the legal document. It's the same reason why you can't send documents written in yellow font on a blue background - technically not against the rules, but no judge will suffer through reading it. >>What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty? Obviously you can just choose not to watermark the document, tattoos cannot be removed that easily. And yes, there are various situations where you'd be asked to cover your tattoo if it was inappropriate for the situation too.

toast0 1y ago
> It's the same reason why you can't send documents written in yellow font on a blue background - technically not against the rules, but no judge will suffer through reading it. Using those particular color choices might not actually be suffering. It used to be a desirable color combination for word processing. I don't know if judges tend to review pleadings on screen or on paper though. On paper, black on white would be preferred, of course (unless the court had blue legal paper to print on)

orbital-decay 1y ago

I don't see how the order is making anyone more or less guilty. Judicial process historically has a certain seriousness flair and a code of conduct based on it. Making fun of the judge or the court of law is a quick way go get removed from the process or fined, or even jailed. As well as performing marketing stunts like this.

bmacho 1y ago

> The whole point of a judicial process is to make judgments on the merit of a case not personal prejudice. And specifying the style of something that they are able to change easily helps that.

secretsatan 1y ago

[flagged]

throwawaycities 1y ago

All courts have local rules or even standing orders governing filings and pleadings - from case styling formatting, font/size, spacing, max pages, ect… Federal district courts are not places to flaunt rules of the court or court orders. Beyond that lawyers are governed by state bars and rules of professional conduct — as an example the Florida bar has taken action against an attorney that used to advertise himself as a “pitbull.” Regarding tattoos courts have rules of decorum, which generally cover appropriate dress/attire in the courtroom. As far as tattoos, I’ve been to thousands of hearings and can give a single anecdote. It was a drug possession case and the defendant was allowed to transfer their case from circuit felony to drug court - basically allowing completion of drug classes while on kind of pretrial probation in exchange for either a nolle pros (dismissal) or withhold of adjudication. The drug court judge gave the defendant a hard time at this initial hearing over having a drug molecule tattooed on their neck - questioning if drug court was a good fit for someone the seemingly was pretty committed to drugs (based on the neck tat). The drug court judge can see a hundred or more defendants a day, they’ve seen it all and aren’t passing judgement, its just that their experience allows them to read people extremely well and they had legitimate concerns because getting in trouble in drug court can result in automatic conviction of the original charge + having to deal with any new charge. A rule of thumb professionalism and decorum go a long way in court - this attorney could be decent, but as a potential client any lawyer using a gimmicky dragon in a suit in their paperwork should probably raise some red flags for you.

DocTomoe 1y ago

In fact, in many societies, tattoos are considered a sign of low status, affiliation with lower class (which tends to get harsher sentences) and/or criminal activity, and may - consciously or subconsciously - lead to worse outcomes in trials.[1] Just tattoo 'cop killer' on your forehead and see if they give you parole. [1] https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/f/3051/files/2021/02/FunkTodorov2013PPPL.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/f/305...

StefanBatory 1y ago

> What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty? Unfortunately, it's true - that's how it will be seen. :(

bluGill 1y ago

> What if someone comes to court wearing tattoos are they more guilty? That question is for the jury to decide for better and worse. There are lots of good points to a jury trial which is why free societies usually (always?) have them in some form. However one downside is you will once in a while get someone on the jury who judges you not on the facts of the case but on things that shouldn't matter. Overall it is still better than the alternatives in my opinion, but it does mean you need to figure out what your local cultures are and avoid offending them (note cultures is plural - figure out them all).