Try not to be so macho (Image: Getty)

In the adversarial, macho environment of the courtroom, a booming voice might seem like a good trait for a lawyer to cultivate. Not so – men who sound very masculine are actually less likely to win a US Supreme Court case than their more gentle-sounding peers.

It’s well known that the sound of our voice shapes how people perceive us, which in turn may affect how successful we are in various walks of life. Men, for example, are more likely to vote for men with deeper, masculine voices in leadership contests, and both men and women prefer women with a more masculine tone as leaders. CEOs with deeper voices tend to manage larger companies and earn more money.

To explore whether the vocal characteristics of male lawyers affect trial outcomes, a team led by linguist Alan Yu of the University of Chicago and legal theorist Daniel Chen of ETH Zurich in Switzerland collected 60 recordings of male lawyers in the Supreme Court making the traditional opening statement: “Mister Chief Justice, may it please the court”. Then 200 volunteers rated these clips for how masculine they thought the speaker was, as well as how attractive, confident, intelligent, trustworthy and educated they perceived the voice to be.


Bias in the court

After accounting for the age and experience of the lawyers, statistical analysis showed that only one of the traits could predict the court outcome. Lawyers rated as speaking with less-masculine voices were more likely to win. “It was a surprise to all of us,” says Yu, whose results will be presented at the annual meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in Portland, Oregon, in January.

Although legal systems are based on the principle of fair, objective trials, we know that obscure factors, such as whether the judge has eaten recently, can bias a case. Yu’s results suggest that the masculinity of the voice is another source of bias, but why remains a mystery.

Yu now wants to explore whether the perceived likelihood of winning affects how lawyers speak. “Lawyers who think they’re going to lose may project a different kind of voice, perhaps overcompensating by sounding more masculine” says Yu, who is keen to stress that the findings are just the beginning of wider project looking at the impact of voice and gender in the courts.

If there is a genuine bias, it could be hard to overcome. “You could have legal writings without oral arguments, but that’s not a feasible change,” says Casey Klofstad, a political scientist at the University of Miami who carried out the studies on how voice affects voting preference. “The only way around it is to make people aware of the bias, and hope they are mindful of it when listening”.