Hang being earnest, just try likeable

Oh the joys of jury service! For seven days now I have been coming to Inner London Crown Court to perform my civic duty and there is something a little soul destroying about it. This is the third time I have done jury service and the excitement wanes after about the third hour of your first trial. After that it just becomes another form of work.

The function of a jury is to judge the evidence of the case. We are randomly drawn from the electoral roll (which explains why I have been called three times and many of my friends have never served) and then from the pool of potential jurors rattling around in what amount to two fairly large dentist waiting room type areas, we are randomly allocated to trials when a court rings up and asks for a jury.

The first thing any judge says to a jury after it has been sworn in is to remind them that they are not permitted to discuss the contents of the case they are hearing with anyone other than fellow jury members. Equally the first thing anyone says to you when they hear you are on jury service is "got an interesting case?". So you will forgive me for not sharing the details of the cases I have heard so far. But in the process of hearing evidence and deliberating over it before reaching a verdict I have had time to reflect on the importance of being likeable.

In our first case it quickly became clear that the defence barrister really wasn't fond of the prosecuting counsel. Intermittently, as she laid out the Crown's case he would tut loudly, sigh with exasperation or roll his eyes to the heavens. Not, I believe, because that is what barristers do to undermine each other's case but because he genuinely seemed to dislike her.

As the case progressed it became clear that the judge wasn't enamoured of her either. He kept reminding her of the time and suggesting that the point she was labouring had already been sufficiently made. And she did go on a bit. It is possible that she was newly called to the bar but she lectured us in a condescending and occasionally rather brittle manner which contrasted with the judge and the defence counsel's more relaxed authority which never seemed to grate. It was as if she was demanding to be heard rather than quietly expecting to be heard.

The importance of this became clear in the jury room. While I am not allowed to discuss the content of the case I think it is safe to say that the defendant admitted being present and participating in the offence in question. His defence was one of duress - a big boy told me to do it. So our job as a jury was to decide whether we believed he had been coerced. This was going to be difficult as his account was riddled with holes.

Yet initially when we retired to consider our verdict a number of us were convinced on the evidence that he was guilty but so unimpressed with the prosecution barrister and by extension the Crown's case as to have a reasonable doubt. It took us several hours to realise that we believed the story, we just didn't like the storyteller.

Co-incidentally four of us from that jury (remember it is a random process) ended up together on another trial with the same prosecuting counsel. As the trial started it became clear that her rather ponderous approach to setting out the case was winding up her female counterpart on the defence side (so it wouldn't appear to have been sexism in our first trial). However this time the judge dealt with it by falling asleep (or so it would appear - he could have just been thinking deeply). Fortunately or unfortunately for those involved in the case, one of the key witnesses failed to make it so we were disbanded as a jury and sent back to the waiting room and were never asked to return a verdict. But I wonder how much our personal impressions of the person presenting the case could have affected our deliberation.

I wonder if some barristers could learn from training professionals? On these pages in the past, I have criticised extensively those L&D professionals who rather than concentrate on results have built successful careers on the sole ability of getting 12 people in a room to like them for a couple of days. Depending on what those 12 people are expected to do, I wonder if I may have undervalued the importance of being likeable.

Hugh Greenway is managing director of Reed Learning. He can be contacted via www.reedlearning.co.uk