When it comes to me and rom-coms, well—it’s complicated.

Oh wait, who am I kidding? Groundhog Day? A classic. Crazy Rich Asians? Loved. It. Bridget Jones’s Diary? To this day, I still chuckle about that blue soup.

In addition to being a time-honored way of passing an afternoon, however, rom-coms offer lessons about how people communicate that can be applied to many aspects of our lives, including our professional lives, says Kellogg’s Eli Finkel. After all, the workplace is hardly immune to gaffes, misunderstandings, stonewalling, and the fear of being let down. (Though to be fair, I haven’t seen much blue soup.)

This is why Kellogg Insight recently sat down with Finkel, a professor of management and organizations, to discuss what watching a bunch of rom-coms can tell us about communication more broadly. Also this week: what a new study on the social ties between judges and defendants tells us about the impartiality of our courts.

10 things I hate about vulnerability

Finkel explores relationship science through the lens of rom-coms in his new podcast, “Love Factually,” co-hosted with UC Davis psychology professor Paul Eastwick. One lesson from rom-coms that translates well to the office is the importance of occasionally making yourself vulnerable.

This is something the main characters in rom-coms are often loath to do, leaving them unable to form a meaningful connection, says Finkel. Consider Kat’s character, played by Julia Stiles, in 10 Things I Hate about You. For most of the movie, she seems prickly and indifferent to affection, but we eventually learn that her disposition is a self-protective stance against rejection or betrayal.

“In a lot of rom-coms, people are a little wary of expressing how interested they are,” Finkel says. But whether in romantic relationships or at work, “we can try to have a strong meaningful connection with somebody, but what that requires is we must make ourselves vulnerable to that person.” In a professional context, that might look like emotional vulnerability, or it could mean putting one’s trust in a colleague to deliver on their part of a project.

Vulnerability and trust come with risks. “If you and I are going to collaborate on a project, I have to trust that you’re going to get your side done on time and with high quality. And if I trust you to do that and I’m wrong, there are real costs for me,” he explains. “If the other person treats us badly, exploits us in some way, doesn’t deliver a high-quality product, we are sort of screwed, right?”

But what are the alternatives? The other option is to remain closed off, or to express one’s mistrust by micromanaging. “All of us, always, in relationships confront a trade-off between really leaning in and saying, ‘This is a relationship that I’m going to allow myself to depend on in various ways,’ versus ‘I’m going to make sure that I’m safe and that this person can’t ever exploit me or disappoint me in some way,’” he says.

Thoughtfully considering these trade-offs, then—and not being too risk-averse—is as key to professional success as it is to romantic success.

Read more from Eli Finkel in Kellogg Insight. Or subscribe to his new podcast, Love Factually.

Chummy alums

Do social ties between a judge and defendants make a difference? Research by Kellogg’s Sugata Roychowdhury and colleagues provides striking evidence that they do. In particular, the researchers found that firms under securities litigation had overwhelmingly favorable outcomes if one of their executives had attended the same academic institution at the same time as the judge.

And the more direct the connection was between the judge and the firm executive, the more favorable was the outcome. Such cases were more likely to be dismissed (by 24 percent), were resolved more quickly (by 21 percent), and were associated with lower lawsuit payouts (by 49 percent).

Perhaps even more concerningly, in cases subjected to media scrutiny, judges were less likely to offer defendant-friendly outcomes, suggesting that the judges were weighing the optics of their connections and deciding to behave less leniently.

Roychowdhury hopes that mandatory disclosures could help reduce judicial bias in cases without as much media scrutiny. “A requirement of transparency would go a long way in assuring the public, assuring plaintiffs, and assuring defendants that what they’re witnessing is at least transparent, and possibly fair,” he says.

You can read more from Roychowdury’s research in Kellogg Insight.