Do Good Looking People Negotiate Better Deals?

Both the Wall Street Journal Law Blog (Do Looks Matter in the Law?) and the ABA Journal (Good-Looking Lawyers Make More Money) are reporting — the WSJ beside a photo of the none-too-beautiful but apparently universally “sexy” Matt Damon — that good looking people — even those in the legal profession — make more money than their less comely peers.

One of my favorite blogs, Deliberations, also covered this topic from the angle of jury persuasion in How to Be Better Looking here.

We’ve also covered this topic as thoroughly as we believe it deserves in the Power of Beauty here.

The executive summary?

Physical beauty creates a “halo effect” that leads us to believe that our better looking peers are smarter and more talented, generous and good-natured than the rest of us.

The Lesson?

If we live life joyously and authentically, we will possess the qualities people automatically ascribe to the “beautiful” among us.  More imporatantly, we will have become beautiful by being the kind of person people imagine — say — Angelina Jolie or Matt Damon to be.

                       

Victoria Pynchon

Attorney-mediator Victoria Pynchon is a panelist with ADR Services, Inc. Ms. Pynchon was awarded her LL.M Degree in Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute in May of 2006, after 25 years of complex commercial litigation practice, with sub-specialties in intellectual property, securities fraud, antitrust, insurance coverage, consumer class actions and all… MORE >