What's interesting is that the article claims the findings are that physical attractiveness has a greater effect (in gaining the judge's favor) than skin tone or "race". It also claims that while attractive women have a slightly higher success with male judges, even so gender is not that important for the effect to take place.
the argument that attractive caucaisan women and men vs attractive african american women and men are treated equally at American court, is undeniably wrong. Backed up by real world numbers.
The article doesn't claim they are treated equally, just that the effect of being physically attractive is more important than the rest of the factors.
From the article:
> "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."
> "This “treatment” variable (attractiveness) allowed for the isolation of its effect from other confounding variables such as attorney experience, ideological alignment, and financial resources."
> "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."
> "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."
Note that none of this says that race and gender don't matter, just that they don't seem to hugely impact the attractiveness factor.
