Who Has the Authority to Judge Nuns?

Here’s something that caught my eye: “Judge wears nun disguise before convicting woman of bank robbery,” by Kim Janssen, about a judge that really used creativity to crack a case in his courtroom. He wore a nun outfit to demonstrate that the skin color around his eyes could be seen because the defendant in a robbery case claimed the outfit she wore didn’t expose her skin color.

What I like about the case is that the judge thought outside the box to prove his point in court. We usually think of the need for law firms to be careful about what they say, whether it’s in a court of law or the court of public opinion. However, attorneys should think creatively, especially when it comes to public relations.

Sometimes it takes a creative approach to crack the media because people like unique ideas and angles. In a previous post, I mentioned an attorney who was super-creative in court when he submitted a cartoon legal brief instead of the usual text version that people see all the time. It got him a lot of publicity and he still got his point across in court. I know another attorney who represents churches in land use battles, and he will often quote the Bible in oral arguments.

What can you come up with that’s unusual? It’s something to think about to get you and your firm more attention.