Crying in Court? Trial Lawyers Debate the Unwritten Rules

Courtroom culture loves control and punishes messiness, and nothing reveals that faster than tears. We start with the joke everyone knows, “There’s no crying in baseball,” then follow it into a much sharper reality: for generations of lawyers, “no crying” has been treated like a rule of professionalism, especially for women and anyone who already feels out of place in the room. Karen Koehler shares what it was like to come up in a world where crying could cost you credibility, a case role, or respect, and why that pressure can feel tied to gender, race, and the constant sense of being watched.

We get practical and psychological about what tears actually are: a physical response to emotion, not a character flaw. Then we ask the uncomfortable questions juries force on trial lawyers every day. When does crying create connection, and when does it trigger annoyance, suspicion, or that “I don’t want to be here” feeling? We talk about the kind of witness jurors often reward, stoic, composed, almost breaking, and why fully grief-stricken testimony can get judged unfairly. We also discuss what lawyers do to manage the moment, from compartmentalization and “poker face” masking to finding safer outlets outside the jury’s view.

The conversation goes deeper into empathy, aging, and the way repeated exposure to horrific facts can desensitize anyone, including experienced litigators. We close on a simple challenge: stay clear enough to be heard, human enough to be trusted, and honest about the biases that shape how emotion is received. If you’ve ever swallowed tears to be taken seriously, you’ll feel this one. Subscribe, share with a friend in a high-pressure job, and leave a review with your take: when does showing emotion build credibility, and when does it cost it?

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Transcript

No Crying In Baseball Setup

Mo Hamoudi 0:06

Crying? There's no crying in baseball. I don't care about baseball.

Mike Todd 0:10

Well, you remember that. Oh yeah. I don't for the love of the game. No, no. What was it? It was the Rosie O'Donnell and Tom Hanks one? And Madonna. And Madonna. Yeah. Yeah.

Mo Hamoudi 0:20

Yeah.

Mike Todd 0:20

League of their own.

Mo Hamoudi 0:21

League of their own. Yes. You got it. Yes. There's no crying in baseball. There's no crying and lawyering. There's no crying in lawyering. Oh, I think there's crying and lawyering.

Karen Koehler 0:35

Let me tell you. Okay. All right. So. A lot of this also has to do with diversity

How Law Taught Shame Around Tears

Karen Koehler 0:45

in our legal profession. Uh, when I came into this world, there was not supposed to be any crying. In fact, the thought of anybody, any lawyer crying was associated with these adjectives: shameful, humiliation, pathetic, weakness, unprofessional. I think I covered most of them. And if you were caught crying, you risked getting kicked off of a case, getting kicked out of court. You risked a lot. You got you risked a mistrial. It was like hard and fast. There is no such thing as crying. And especially for a female, because you know, we are the weaker sex. Of course. You know, we also have hormonal issues that cause us to be weepy and are obviously, again, pathetic. So when I went into becoming a lawyer, there was no way I was gonna cry. Ever. I mean, and plus I was an insurance defense lawyer.

Mike Todd 1:52

So you didn't really have any reason to cry.

Karen Koehler 1:53

Unless I was, you know, failed or did something wrong, right? And I've talked about some of these stories before, but one of them was when I was in trial. Well, I wasn't in trial, I was in a court hearing, we used to have to argue every single motion. And I was a brand new attorney, and the associate, I had the senior associate, said, Here, take this, you just gotta go present it to the court. I told you this story before. And the court reamed me. I hadn't even done anything, but I was set up to go in there so the other attorneys wouldn't get reamed. I was gonna take the fall, they didn't prepare me. I got reamed and I knew I couldn't cry. I walked out that door and I started crying. And that that's when the plaintiff lawyer walked me out and was very kind, and I would never forget that, right? But I can remember being in there and saying, yeah, it wasn't even an option that I was gonna cry. So that was that was that's a starting place for me of to cry not to cry and when. And so I felt bad that I even cried when I left the courtroom, but at least I got out of the courtroom. And so that's that was what my plan used to be I'm not gonna cry until I get out of that courtroom, until I get into the hall,

Compartmentalizing To Survive Court

Karen Koehler 3:10

until I will never cry in front of anybody. And I kept that religiously for many years. How did how did I do that? How do you do that? The only way that you can do that is basically to separate your emotion completely from what you're doing. And because I internally smo nose, um, segmented, uh, compartmentalized person, I could do it. You have to suppress your emotion. You have to ignore the knocking of, I want to cry, I want to cry. You have to, you the there's a physiological response, you know, you're gonna flush, your heart's gonna raise. You suppress that, and you go. And the way that I did that was my innate ability to compartmentalize. I had, you know, a mother who was pretty abusive, being untreated bipolar, and I would just sit there and I was practiced in having to listen to that. Now, I would argue more with her, you can't do that, but I would be damned if I would show her weakness, and I viewed crying as a weakness that I could control. And because of that long pattern of being being able to control that, I could control it in court. But it does something to you when you do that. And I and I changed as a plaintiff lawyer, which we can talk about later. But when you do that, you remove your humanity from the equation. I remove my humanity from the equation, and I was required to, and that's what I did without question for years and years and years. Many people still do that. That's the course of how they practice. They think, oh, it's unprofessional, whatever. But, and that's not the only, I mean, many times I wanted to cry and I wouldn't, even now, but it's very different because I have outlets and I do it in different ways. But then it was pure, the curtain comes down, the severing of emotion, you are there, you articulate, you are not off the mission, you just keep going. And, you know, I channeled, I channeled my grandfather. Sounds bizarre. I called it my calm yoga-like facade. And that I got from my grandfather, Tuck Fung, who my memories as a little child was just a very, and he was seen, I think he's probably kind, a stone, he just had no emotion on his face. It was stone face. He had a very unemotional face. And that's how I remembered him was I don't remember him crying, I mean not crying, but laughing and giggle. I just remember him being very stony-faced, like you couldn't read. Like when you when you play poker, people would call it a poker face, but it was my grandgrand, my grandgrandpa Gungong's face that I would mirror, and which I can still mirror to this day. It's a deadening, it's a it's a mask, and you go.

Mo Hamoudi 6:28

Mike? You go first. I mean,

Why Crying Is Devalued In Practice

Mo Hamoudi 6:33

uh crying is a emotion, and you don't suspend all emotional. Crying is a reaction to an emotion. Like sadness, grief, yeah, and like it's a physical. It's a physical response. So laughter is a physical response. Um raising your voice is a physical response to an emotion. I don't know if you I don't know, it's one of the responses that is not valued by um by the profession. That's what it is. It's just not valued.

Karen Koehler 7:07

Isn't it also in there's a bit of instinctual there. There's a bit of an involuntary ness to it. Like raising your voice, that's pretty voluntary. Um, but crying is not a I want to cry now, I'm going to, although people can do that, I can actually do that. Actors can do that. You, you know, you channel, you think, and then you do it. You can direct direction. But isn't there also just there if something happens, it's overwhelming, and your response is you want to physiologically cry.

Mo Hamoudi 7:40

Yeah, I just but going back, it's just that it's not something that is valued. Because if it was valued, it would be welcomed in the courtroom. Bill is I, hey, that's okay. But I think that what you're talking about is is that Well, wait, wait.

Karen Koehler 7:56

You say it's not valued. Yeah. But isn't it more than not being valued? Isn't it even being isn't it something that's used to denigrate another human being in a certain situation if they cry?

Mo Hamoudi 8:09

By some, but not all. I mean, I mean, but go into that.

Karen Koehler 8:13

Like, isn't isn't a person, I mean, you call people crybabies. You you say people are weak. I mean, isn't that taught even in the schoolyard?

Mo Hamoudi 8:22

Well, I mean, when the opening is is that there's no crying in baseball, that was used to denigrate. Like, hey, stop crying.

Mike Todd 8:31

Oh, well, that went right back. That's everybody I didn't know that. That's that's what Karen was talking about. That's everything. That's what crying's looked at pretty much across the board, in my opinion. Now, if you look at the other side of it, people say that crying is good, crying's a release, it's you know, a positive thing. But it's looked at as a weakness and always has been.

Karen Koehler 8:54

But it makes people uncomfortable too.

Mike Todd 8:57

Well, yeah, nobody likes to be around someone that's crying.

Karen Koehler 8:59

And why is that?

Mike Todd 9:00

But the witnesses cry because you think they're weak.

Mo Hamoudi 9:04

The witnesses cry and the jurors connect with them.

Karen Koehler 9:07

Not always. The witnesses, the witnesses. I used

What Juries Reward And Punish

Karen Koehler 9:10

to think that having a client that cried was actually a good thing. The opposite is true.

Mo Hamoudi 9:16

But it depends on the circumstances. Almost never. When you're talking about somebody talking about losing a child, and they're talking about it on the stand. If it's moved to tears. The jury is not going to be like, come on.

Karen Koehler 9:29

That's not true. There's a difference between having a reticent reaction where the crying seeps out, that's what the jury loves, versus unable to do anything but cry when you're testimony, with which a jury doesn't like.

Mo Hamoudi 9:46

Well, that's different. If you're somebody who's like blubbering and like it's hard to comprehend what you're saying.

Karen Koehler 9:51

Sometimes it's very hard. If you lose a child, you will incoherently cry because you're so grief stricken. Um, but they will actually think, like, wow, can't they get it together to even just testify? Or they're overdoing it, or it's been so long by this time, they should be more over it. Like, people are critical of other people. The favorite witness, the favorite plaintiff, take it from me. The favorite plaintiff is a stoic plaintiff that is brought almost to tears, but the tears don't come out. You can hear the shaking in the voice, there's that loss of composure, and then they regain it. The jury loves that person, loves them.

Mo Hamoudi 10:35

I yeah, I guess uh, you know, I you know, you I'm trying to think about um, I think about movies and probably like the most powerful scene at you remember Paul Newman's The Verdict? It's a great old movie about a lawyer who has um alcoholism. He he has ruined his career and is sort of like chasing cases to try to, and he has this opportunity to like try a case. And in this closing argument, he is making the case for his client, and he is moved to tears, but he is really talking about his own life, and you see, you know, and then I remember that what you're describing. Like Newman is like stoic and just a quiet presence. So yeah, there is like that is the most admirable.

Karen Koehler 11:35

If you could clone that, that's that is the and it's hard because a real person, right, that is grief stricken, yeah, will be cannot, cannot go back and give you well, which is you you want to talk to them about what it was like back then, you know, what happened. You have to go back and bring them into the trauma. They're gonna be totally traumatized, and yet you don't want them crying the whole time. You can't have that happen. You have to work really hard with with clients that can't stop crying. I learned it the hard way. People don't even believe it. It's like, what are you talking about? Like, how do you fake cry unless you're an actor? But they think it's I just already told you what they think. They want that stoic person that's almost brought to tears but doesn't lose it out of respect for the jury. But isn't I've heard them. We've heard them. We heard them on Summer Taylor when they they were so grateful that we didn't show them the terrible moment of her getting getting impacted because they felt that we were manipul wanted to manipulate their emotions otherwise. And the fact that we didn't do that, they were grateful for. They feel the same way with a crying, yeah, an overly cl crying plaintiff or witness.

Mo Hamoudi 12:51

Well, um maybe there's value to being stoic. Maybe well, apparently Karen. Maybe, maybe it's just maybe it's just like it's situational. Like it's not in a It's whack.

Karen Koehler 13:06

You guys, it's whack. I mean, maybe Why should you be penalized for crying?

Mike Todd 13:10

Not penalized, but like they'll penalize you. I don't know about penalized, but like Well, if a jury's not gonna pay attention to a uh their testimony because they were crying, yeah, that's a penalized. What well let's doesn't that speak to like them feeling uncomfortable? Oh my god, I'm watching somebody cry. Yes, that's exactly what it is. I tell I'm telling you, it the the reason that that works is because once the tears start, yeah, everybody on the jury goes, Jesus, I don't want to be here.

Karen Koehler 13:37

It makes them so uncomfortable.

Mo Hamoudi 13:39

Well, because maybe because they can't like do what instincts tell them is go up to them and give them a hug. They can't, and most people wouldn't want to.

Karen Koehler 13:47

And they're just on the jury.

Mike Todd 13:49

Okay, that's true. Yeah.

Karen Koehler 13:51

So now, so now if your own client who's been traumatized or a witness who's traumatized and the jury has those actions, imagine what it's like for the lawyer.

Mo Hamoudi 14:01

Oh, yeah.

Karen Koehler 14:01

Okay. Now the lawyer is viewed as someone that can manipulate. Yeah. Right? So you got a manipulative lawyer. In my case, I am highly aware that they're always watching me.

Mo Hamoudi 14:12

Yeah.

Karen Koehler 14:12

Always watching me, uh, especially as plaintiff

Managing Trauma On The Witness Stand

Karen Koehler 14:15

off often sits closest to the jury. And we'll take the ride-the-deck case. The most excruciating trial I've ever done, damage-wise, because there were 50 frickin' plaintiffs. And we had to put all of them up over a period of four months. And some of them just cried. One of them collapsed. One of them got three words out, and we had to take a break, and they tried to recoup in the hall. She flew all the way from Japan and then flew all the way back. She didn't want to even be in Seattle. You know, people so traumatized. And I'm sitting there, and I can't cry. But I did a couple times, and it and because it was so overwhelming. And what did I have to do? I had to hide it from the jury. So normally, here's my technique.

unknown 15:02

Okay.

Karen Koehler 15:04

My eyes will glisten. That's how I cry. I can almost always, nine out of ten times, will have that tear and it will not drop. Nine out of ten times, I'm confident that it's okay for me. I cross the line. I'm different than when I was a defense lawyer and I just had that guardrail up. As a plaintiff lawyer, I have become much more holistic in how I do things, right? Moe knows this. I will glisten, and then when I'm done with the test, I will come down. Normally I'll stick my head under the desk or I'll turn away and I'll like go like that and release the release the teardrop. And then I will just go cry later if I really need to. But there's still a version of that because I would be. Why are you laughing? This is really serious.

Mo Hamoudi 15:57

Well, because your batting average is like not nine out of ten. No, because the last two trials I've been in with you, they the tears have come down. There's not been a glistening and the stop. There's been a glisten, and then there's been a glisten, and then the glisten, and then the and then the trail. So your your batting average is plummeted to like two out of ten. How much do I cry? You cry a lot. No, be real. I'm being real. How many tears come down? I mean, I I see like tears come down, and I see it all the time. I don't know what I don't know what you're talking about. You were in a different generation of non-crying. That's what in and with you. Because I was taught not to cry. Yeah.

Mike Todd 16:42

You know, as a as a male growing up in the 1970s, I was told crying was not strong. The jury did not see. What? Especially by your my dad didn't believe in crying.

Mo Hamoudi 16:57

I mean, the jury didn't see it, but I saw it. Wait, wait.

Karen Koehler 17:02

But that's what I just told you. Nine out of time, ten. Not nine out of time, nine out of ten times I can make it. It will glisten, it will do it. The jury will not see it.

Mo Hamoudi 17:12

But Mo sees it.

Karen Koehler 17:14

Because I turn my head or I stick it under the desk or I dab it, but I do it out, the jury cannot see it. And and And this is true. I'm not saying I don't cry.

Mike Todd 17:22

I know, but I kind of disagree with that. Depends on how much the jury's watching you. But if I was watching, I'd know you were crying. But you know me. No, but I'm saying if anybody did it.

Karen Koehler 17:36

Yeah.

Mike Todd 17:37

If I saw if I saw an attorney duck down under their deck under the desk and move their hands, I'd know they were crying.

Karen Koehler 17:44

Okay, but what what do you know also? You know that the attorney is not exposing you to them crying.

Mike Todd 17:49

No, I know. They're trying to hide it, but that's just as bad as it's not. If I'm on a jury and I see that, then I know they're then I know that they're vacant zone.

Karen Koehler 17:57

Like even if you were a defense lawyer that said, objection, Your Honor, the plaintiff is w uh counsel is crying, which that has never happened to me, but I know that has happened to other people, right? The plaintiff lawyer is crying and they bring an objection, which okay because the jury so they would have to say objection, they're crying. Objection, Your Honor. She's no crying. She almost she's crying but turning but making sure the jury can't see that she's crying, but we think that she knows we know that the jury thinks that she's crying. Like, so so I know that that that it's safe for me. No one's gonna make that objection because it's stupid, right? No one's gonna make that the jury knows she's crying, even though she's turning away because they I think they think that they no one will say something that stupid. But here's the deal.

Mo Hamoudi 18:43

What's the deal?

Karen Koehler 18:44

As a young lawyer, I would never have cried, not only because of the lessons like you talked about Mike and Mo,

Gender, Race, And The Right To Feel

Karen Koehler 18:49

because I would have felt like a failure to my gender and my race. I would have felt like, because I already feel so different in those forums, so unexpected. Like this is a lawyer with a high voice in here who's only five foot three and um and uh and not norm, not nor as as John Henry Brown called me, not American. Um an American, he used the words, an American. Um I feel like I owe it, you know, not just to myself, but my whole gender to elevate the trial practice of law. I do not want that to happen. Now, you know, fast forward as to a senior lawyer in her 60s. I don't care. I don't care. Now, I'm not gonna cry out of respect to the jury that they can see it, but I am not gonna, I don't have all those boundaries. And in fact, that's why people are fine with me in trial. Well, how much was I blubbering?

Mo Hamoudi 19:53

You you cry a lot. Because I care. Well, I don't think it's a bad thing, but like this idea, you were like nine out of ten, I hold the dribble here. No. It's like it's not Niagara Falls. No. It's like, you know, it's like uh a couple tears. A couple, you know, it's like uh soft rain. A drizzle. In a drizzling from the eyes. Drizzling from the eyes. Like a rainforest drizzle. Like up in Maui, bound the mountains. You know, I just I mean, I see it, I go, Oh, that's just Okay.

Karen Koehler 20:28

Have you not cried in trial?

Mo Hamoudi 20:30

I don't cry.

Karen Koehler 20:31

There you go. Who's more emotional, me or Mo?

Mike Todd 20:34

Mo.

Karen Koehler 20:35

And he doesn't cry.

Mike Todd 20:36

I'd be surprised. I mean I wouldn't be surprised if you told me that Mo was crying in trial.

Karen Koehler 20:41

I know, but it's the opposite. Now, in deposition, I could full on cry. You know why? Because I want my client to know that I'm right there with them.

Mike Todd 20:51

Well, and it makes their defense turn you like. It drives me.

Karen Koehler 20:54

Well, what are they gonna say? Objectively.

Mike Todd 20:56

They can't, they can't. That's a great way to screw with them.

Karen Koehler 21:00

I mean, the video's going, it's on the client, not on me. But again, let the record reflect that Ms. Kohler is crying.

Mike Todd 21:08

And you said just there that you don't care about it anymore. I don't it's the same for me. You know, I grew up with that. Yeah. But now

Empathy, Thick Skin, And Desensitizing Evidence

Mike Todd 21:15

I cry all the time. Like if I'm crying commercials. Like TV commercials? Yeah, I cry movies, commercials, books, reading. Like I'll be reading next to Debbie and tears will just be streaming down my face. But I and part of it, it seems like since part of it since my surgeries, like I'm more sensitive or something.

Karen Koehler 21:35

But older men too are more like in their 70s and 80s, and they're very nostalgic.

Mike Todd 21:41

So I you know, I guess if I went to be the male that I was grown up to believe, I wouldn't do that. But I kind of now I'm like, well, what's so wrong about it?

Karen Koehler 21:55

Yeah, how does it feel when you do it? Do you feel like, oh no, I cried?

Mike Todd 21:58

No. No. I mean, if Debbie Debbie teases me about it sometimes. Fun teasing. But uh well, when she does that, you know, I might uh I I might be a little self-conscious. But general, and it's and it's a movie, and usually it's when she's crying too. Like, you know, when you're watching a movie and you tear up, she'll look over, see if I'm tearing up, kind of deal. Um but I don't care anymore. You know, like it it like I said before, it's a physical response to make you feel better.

Karen Koehler 22:30

Yeah.

Mike Todd 22:30

What's wrong with that?

Karen Koehler 22:32

So here's the odd thing. Here's an odd thing, right? I am not empathetic compared to Mo. Mo is like, he's like the creature out of um Um Galaxy of the Guardian, Guardians of the Galaxy, what you know, the one with the antennas. That's Mo, right? I am like, I am like not that person. However, when I am in trial, when I am deficit, what there's some, I connect, I intentionally connect to my client. So I am exactly that person. But it's because of what I'm doing. I believe, I talk about it all the time, that I am channeling my client because that's how they are being heard. So I it's like I do the mind, I call it the Spock Mind Melt, whatever you want to call it. I don't do it in really in real life. But when I'm in that work and that is my job, that's my duty, and we are connected. And so if they're crying, I'm gonna cry in a deposition, not in trial. Mo, in real life, his little tentacles are out whether you want them out or not. And he is really truly empathetic. And he doesn't cry. Well in in the legal proceeding.

Mike Todd 23:45

Yeah. So because you already said you're not supposed to, and he's a man, so he's trained not to do it. Okay. I've been trained not to cry.

Karen Koehler 23:55

And I know that that's not true. Because I've he has blubbered all over me so many times outside of the practice of law that I know he cries and he knows.

Mike Todd 24:05

But that's that's not when there's a bunch of other guys around.

Karen Koehler 24:08

Okay. I just want to hear this acknowledged. I want to hear it acknowledged.

Mo Hamoudi 24:11

Well, okay. First of all, I mean, uh now I go back and think, I've cried in courtrooms, but you know, being empathetic in a courtroom is helping create space for the other person to fill the space with what needs to happen. And so I'm very good at like directing them to through their emotions, and then I get out of my own self. But yeah, no, when when the most recent verdict was being read, I was in tears.

Karen Koehler 24:42

That doesn't count. You're not up there performing, which we do. We are we have a job to perform. And in fact, in fact, when we were doing, when we were taking the testimony in our sex abuse, 50-year-old sex abuse abuse, I was the one that was super emotional. He was just like killer mole. He was just like this. He was just like, I mean, he was just he was more frightened.

Mike Todd 25:05

I think there's a certain amount of uh, I guess I don't know what to call it properly, but just thick skin that gets uh happens. Well, it's uh I think for everything that we do, you know, like that case in particular, you had to read about horrible, horrible things, right? Horrible. And there's other times where I I mean, there was a case where I had to listen to somebody get shot 50 times, probably. It was a bunch of times, over and over and over, listening to the audio. You get dead to it after a little while, I hate to say. Yeah, but but that's important.

Karen Koehler 25:41

Wait, that's important. That's why if you have horrible evidence, you don't do yourself any favor by playing it multiple, multiple times.

Mike Todd 25:48

No, no, you don't, because you're gonna lose the connection to it.

Karen Koehler 25:52

You desensitize, it becomes a norm.

Mike Todd 25:55

And I think that uh I think that you guys in trial have to be able to put yourself into those situations. So if you become desensitized, the jury's gonna know it. Yeah, you know, your your poker face that you were talking about, the stoic face, that's not the time for that, I think, at least from you, maybe from the maybe from the witnesses,

Closing Rule Of Thumb

Mike Todd 26:15

maybe from the experts, but not from the not from the attorneys. Yeah. Good. Very good.

Karen Koehler 26:24

Okay. Don't cry.