Attorneys who are considered more physically attractive are more likely to win their cases and receive favorable votes from judges, according to new research published in the Journal of Law and Courts. This advantage holds even when taking into account other important factors like race or the attorney’s experience. These findings suggest that, despite efforts to maintain fairness, judges might still be swayed by the appearance of attorneys, highlighting an unconscious bias that could impact legal outcomes.
The investigation into the impact of attorney attractiveness on judicial decisions stems from a long-recognized human bias: the “beauty is good” stereotype. A vast body of psychological research has established that physically attractive individuals are often perceived more favorably across various life domains, from employment and education to social interactions. This advantage is rooted in the halo effect, where positive attributes are ascribed to people based solely on their appearance.
While the impact of attractiveness has been studied in various fields, its effect within the judiciary — a domain where decisions have profound implications for justice and societal norms — has been less explored.
“I have always been intrigued by questions that have real-world implications and are inherently interesting to many people. Physical attractiveness is an intuitive topic to study because, to some extent, it resonates with everyone, and everyone is capable of making an evaluation of it,” said study author Nicholas W. Waterbury, the Assistant Research Director for the Center for State Policy and Leadership at the University of Illinois, Springfield.
“But as the paper says, to the extent an outside factor like attractiveness affects legal decision-making, it raises significant concerns about the fairness of the justice system and the way researchers study judges. I think exploring the effect this readily observable trait can have on something as significant as federal court decisions has been interesting, important, and at times surprising.”
To establish a causal link between attorney attractiveness and judicial decision outcomes, the study employed sophisticated matching algorithms to pair attorneys who were equivalent in all respects except for their level of attractiveness. This “treatment” variable (attractiveness) allowed for the isolation of its effect from other confounding variables such as attorney experience, ideological alignment, and financial resources.
Waterbury first compiled a dataset of attorneys who orally argued cases within the United States Courts of Appeals between 2017 and 2019. He chose the Courts of Appeals for his study due to the impartial assignment process of cases: neither attorneys nor judges have control over the selection process, ensuring that attorneys cannot choose judges likely to favor them, and judges cannot choose their cases based on the attorneys arguing them.
The researcher then employed four distinct measures of attractiveness to assess the impact of attorney appearance on judicial decision-making.
The first measure relied on survey respondents’ evaluations of attorneys’ professional photos obtained from their websites. Attorneys were rated on a scale from 1 to 10, with these scores averaged to represent each attorney’s attractiveness.
The first measure introduced an objective counterpart to human ratings by employing a machine learning algorithm developed by Megvii (Face++ Beauty Score). This algorithm analyzed facial features, symmetry, and other elements to assign a comparable attractiveness score.
The third measure was designed to assess how attorneys’ appearances might influence perceptions in a courtroom setting. It utilized ratings from video clips of attorneys during oral arguments before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, capturing the dynamic aspects of attractiveness that static images cannot convey. This method aimed to mimic the judges’ visual experience as closely as possible.
Lastly, the four measure focused on the comparative aspect of attractiveness by calculating the score difference between opposing attorneys and U.S. government attorneys in the Ninth Circuit. This measure sought to explore the competitive edge that attractiveness might confer within the specific context of a legal case.
Analyzing over 3,000 judicial votes and 1,000 cases, Waterbury found that attorneys perceived as more attractive consistently enjoyed higher success rates in securing favorable votes from individual judges and winning cases outright, compared to their less attractive counterparts. These findings were robust, holding true across various measures of attractiveness and even when accounting for traditional factors known to influence courtroom success, such as experience, ideology, and financial resources.
“I consider the main takeaway to be that ‘judges are people too,'” Waterbury told PsyPost. “When judges are overburdened with work they rely on some of the same mental shortcuts (heuristics) the rest of us use to make decisions. Researchers have shown in many settings that attractive individuals have advantages over less attractive counterparts. This research suggests that when judges need to quickly evaluate an attorney’s argument they extend the same attractiveness advantage as everyone else.”
Waterbury not only investigated the general advantage of being perceived as more attractive but also on how this advantage may intersect with the race and gender. Female attorneys with higher attractiveness scores appeared to receive a greater advantage, especially when arguing before male judges. But otherwise, there was little evidence that race or gender significantly influenced the attractiveness advantage.
“To some extent I was surprised that the results were consistent regardless of the race and gender of the judges, attorneys, and survey respondents involved in my study,” Waterbury said. “There was some suggestion in my review of previous research that race and gender effects would impact attractiveness ratings and thus impact the relationship between attractiveness and success in court. I did not find strong evidence to support that expectation in my analysis.”
One of the primary limitations is the study’s focus on the United States Courts of Appeals, specifically cases involving the U.S. government as a party. This specific context raises questions about the generalizability of the findings to other judicial settings, such as state courts or different legal systems altogether, where the dynamics of attorney-judge interaction and decision-making processes might differ.
“The next step in this research agenda is to study the downstream effects of this result,” Waterbury said. “Who are the parties/attorneys most likely to benefit from the attractiveness advantage? Are any individuals or groups systematically more likely to win or lose in court as a result?”
The study, “Justice Isn’t Blind: Attorney Attractiveness and Success in US Federal Court,” was published March 4, 2024.