How To Prepare for Trial — What to Wear

Utah divorce trials are tough and complicated things. Thankfully, attorneys take the reins and deal with those complications. That’s what you pay them for.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you (as the client) are off the hook. You have responsibilities to do everything you can to make sure trial goes well. That means collaborating with your attorney to prepare your case and make it as strong as possible.

I won’t talk about that collaboration process now. I’ll do that another time. Today, I want to talk about something a bit more straightforward.

Why Dressing Poorly Affects Your Trial (not in a Good Way)

At some point, you get to the day of trial and you have to decide what to wear. Most people don’t put a lot of thought in to what they wear at trial. That’s a mistake, and it’s what we’re going to talk about.

We would all like to think things like what you wear don’t make a difference in divorce and child custody matters. Clothes can make a big difference, however, and here’s why:

1. Dressing well (suits for men, dresses or suits for women) is the standard in court, so dressing down goes against the grain.
2. Dressing poorly takes away from the evidence and focuses attention on you. Trials are won with evidence, and anything that detracts from the evidence will annoy the judge and muddy the issues.
3. The better you dress, the more people respect you. We’d all like to think we treat people with the same level of respect no matter their clothes, but, for the most part, we think about and treat people with more respect when they dress better.
4. If you dress poorly, you send the message that you don’t respect the Court and don’t take the trial seriously. This might not be what youintendto do, but it is what you do.

When you look at all of these things together, you come to one a couple pretty clear conclusions: (1) dressing poorly for trial makes your attorneys job harder, and (2) dressing poorly makes it less likely you will win.

What Should You Wear at Trial?

So, what should you wear? Like I said above: suits for men, dresses or suits for women. Your hair should be neat. If you’re male, shave your beard. If you’re female, shave your legs and wear stockings. If you wear nose rings, gauges, or lots of earrings, take them out during trial. Those things call attention to you, and take away from the evidence.

Remember, choose clothes that will help your attorney and your case. That should be your guiding principle.