Turn to Coaches : Attorneys Polish Up Their Acts

Randy Kramer had been in the business for a dozen years, but always there was the nagging feeling that he just wasn’t getting the hang of it.

He could never quite overcome the stage fright that pitched his voice up an octave, that stiffened his walk and stilted his talk, that made him someone else, someone cold and distant.

So the Norwalk trial lawyer did what increasing numbers of his fellow barristers are doing these days--he pushed his legal briefs and lawbooks aside and turned to an acting coach for help.

Convinced he could do better, Kramer swallowed his pride and hired former off-Broadway actor Richard Sogliuzzo, part of a growing corps of one-time singers, talk show hosts, dancers, directors, actors and speech experts across the country who are building a new industry based on the courtroom foibles of lawyers.

Growth Industry

It is an industry that has seen an explosion of growth in recent years, thanks mainly to the influence of television’s model lawyers, the growing complexity of today’s high-stakes cases, the cutthroat competition among lawyers and law firms for the chance to try them and a sense that something is amiss once the trial gets under way.

Using techniques as disparate as role-playing and body language, the coaches teach their students how to translate even the most complex legal quandary into a three-act play, with a beginning, a middle and a climax.

They teach them to drop their “lawyer persona” and walk and talk more like an average Joe. For hourly fees ranging from $85 to $200, lawyers learn to lower their voices, to pepper their speech with pauses, to look jurors squarely in the eye, to walk into a courtroom with confidence.

At least one attorney feels that, in some cases, how he comes across to a jury may mean the difference between winning and losing.

‘Always on Stage’

“One thing you recognize as a trial lawyer is you are always on stage,” said Ventura County Public Defender Kenneth Clayman, who participated in a Saturday coaching session last year. “If I had a jury feel I was likable and credible and honest, it may be a great percentage of winning or losing a case.”

Recognizing the need for more savvy courtroom performances, increasing numbers of the nation’s law schools are adding trial communications courses to their list of class offerings. Growing numbers of law firms, industry leaders like Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher among them, are bringing in communications consultants to tutor their members. Public interest firms, prosecutors and public defenders alike are sponsoring seminars.

And, increasingly, individual attorneys are opting for intense one-on-one instruction.

“You can’t keep lawyering and keep losing,” said New York coach Sonya Hamlin, an former television interviewer and the author of “What Makes Juries Listen.”

Although no data exists to quantify precisely how widespread the coaching phenomenon is or how it affects the outcome of a case, its acceptance in recent years is apparent in other, more subtle ways.

“It’s now much more mainstream,” said Gordon Zimmerman, a communications professor at the University of Nevada.

Legal publications, for instance, have begun to feature advertisements by coaches. Bar associations and other professional groups routinely invite the showmen to their conventions. And some consultants have formed a professional group all their own--the 130-member American Society of Trial Consultants.

“Over the past 10 years, I can’t believe the changes in attitude I’ve seen,” said actress and coach Katherine James. “It’s gone from people saying, ‘You don’t have anything you can possibly teach me’ to people saying, ‘Yes! Sign me up. Help!’ ”

In helping, consultants say they are simply taking aim at the most common grievance of juries: boredom.

‘The Major Complaint’

“That’s the major complaint of juries in trial,” said attorney Jeanine Kerper, a professor of trial techniques at California Western School of Law in San Diego. “The majority of lawyers are terrible . . . really awful.

“To the extent we as lawyers can make things come alive through the use of dramatic techniques, we’re just being more effective. . . . You can make yourself a great advocate. There’s nothing dishonest or phony about it.”

The consultants operate with a view that the courtroom is theater, the trial a play and the judge and jury an audience to be entertained and cajoled.

“It is very much theater, almost like cinema verite ,” said Seattle attorney Steve Krafchick, who was tutored by a coach last year. “You’re taking a slice out of somebody’s life and trying to . . . give the jury a picture of what the clients have gone through.”

For most lawyers, that kind of talent does not come naturally.

Traditionally, lawyers have presumed that their storytelling skills would take care of themselves. The real work, after all, was nonverbal and internal: poring over paper work, paging through legal books, thinking through legal precedents.

Many lawyers ended up sacrificing style for substance and, not surprisingly, juries were put off by what they saw in court.

‘Expect to See Perry Mason’

“The majority of them expect to see Perry Mason or ‘L.A. Law,’ but what they get is Mickey Mouse,” lamented San Diego acting coach Ron Arden, a one-time actor and director from Great Britain.

“In their heads, lawyers want to be like the lawyers on ‘L.A. Law,’ but something is preventing that,” said the newly polished Kramer. “I do feel passionate and involved. I just needed to communicate some of that to a jury.”

Unlike Kramer, however, most professionally coached lawyers are reluctant to admit they have summoned--even considered--outside help. Afraid of being identified, few will discuss specific examples of how theatrics helped them in court.

Their thirst for secrecy is so strong that often their associates, even their families, are kept in the dark.

“It’s my secret weapon,” said one attorney, who asked not to be named.

“We’re involved in important litigation,” another explained. “I don’t want the other side to come into court and say we’ve been coached.”

Communications expert Noelle Nelson believes that “a lot of times wives don’t even know” that their attorney spouses are being tutored.

“I’m probably the most closed mouth in town, and that’s why I stay in business,” the Sherman Oaks coach said. “It’s very touchy.”

The secrecy is due, in large part, to the faulty assumption that any “smart” lawyer has the power to persuade.

“It’s certainly true that at least younger lawyers believe they should be equipped to do everything, right off the block, right from the beginning . . . that there’s a natural gift people have,” said Lee Campbell, associate dean of the USC Law Center.

“You’re born great (and) if you don’t have it, you are part of the people who are not so good. . . . You’re not really smart enough. It’s a guilty secret.

“Well, it doesn’t come naturally.”

When coaches and attorneys begin assigning blame for courtroom awkwardness, law schools are first on the list.

The schools, one attorney complained, “teach you a body of law and a way to analyze problems. They don’t teach you how to convince a judge and a jury of the justice of your cause.”

Making matters worse, he added, is the “legalese” lawyers routinely learn to speak, a jargon of legal terminology that only confuses jurors.

“Jurors don’t understand it,” he said. “They don’t like to be patronized; they don’t want to be talked down to. They want to be talked to.”

It was only after years of practice that Santa Monica attorney Guy Nutter recognized the gap in his law school education.

“You realize you might have been better off taking an acting course somewhere along the line,” Nutter said. “Acting is precisely what you do all the time.”

Importance Stressed

Some lawyers believe the impact of their courtroom style is important enough to make or break just about any case.

“I think in today’s practice the technical knowledge of being a lawyer is about 10% of it,” said Encino attorney Edward Steinbrecher, a board member of the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Assn. “The other 90% deals with skills in communication. . . . I’ve found that being a good lawyer is nothing more than being a good salesman in the final analysis. You’re always trying to convince some judge, some jury of your point of view.”

How far attorneys are willing to go to make themselves convincing is a matter of individual choice. The consultants present a panorama of training opportunities, from simple voice lessons to complete make-overs.

Although the emphasis and methods vary from coach to coach and program to program, the aim is much the same--to turn lawyers into polished storytellers and their cases into dramas worth telling.

With the help of video equipment to show them how they look and sound, lawyers learn how to dress for effect and how to move for impact--where to put their arms, how use their hands, where to turn their eyes.

“We don’t want them to be actors,” insists acting coach James, who, along with her character-actor husband and a writer-director associate, founded the Applied Theatre Workshop, one of the most highly regarded of the drama consulting groups. “I don’t care if he can do Stanley Kowalski in ‘Streetcar Named Desire.’ Can he keep this guy from being sent up the river or not? That’s the bottom line.”

Many of the techniques taught to the attorneys come straight from acting workshops.

The coaches use theater games, improvisational exercises designed to loosen up bodies and free attorneys from their inhibitions. They use role playing, a means of creating fantasy situations where the imagination turns one person into another.

Like the other tricks, role playing can work magic. James, by way of illustration, tells the story of a young woman client repeatedly flustered in court by a powerful and condescending opposing lawyer. Through role playing, the woman attorney turned the tables on him by envisioning him in a pink ballerina’s tutu and toe shoes each time he spoke.

“He had no power over her anymore,” James recounted. “She completely disarmed him. She did great.” And she won.

The coaches preach the gospel of brevity, of using action verbs and sensory-filled images, of putting aside mechanics and persuading through emotions.

“An attorney must create a complete visual image of his client and his situation and be able to reproduce it orally,” said Vacaville coach Sanya Severson Urquart. “I make them aware of their own surroundings. . . . I tell them to be aware of smells, sounds, taste. The wind blows; the sun shines. When a car screeches, what happens to your body?

“So when you’re trying to create in the juror’s mind what happened to the client when that child darted out in front of the car, you can create the physical responses he felt.”

Sending Messages

They teach nonverbal communication, how to send messages without uttering a word: The lawyer slumps to say the witness is unimportant. The lawyer crosses his arms to say the witness is lying. The lawyer faces forward to say the witness is being truthful.

They teach simple gimmicks, like shifting focus in the courtroom.

James explained how one lawyer-client prevailed in a case virtually no one expected him to win by throwing the focus off a particularly crucial witness for the other side.

“He needed to discredit their expert witness,” James said. “We told him all you have to do is keep your focus on the jury. They keep their focus on you, and they’ll never even look over there. They’ll be looking at you . So (the witness) can be talking and talking and talking . . . and (the jury) is thinking he’s wrong, we know he’s wrong. Our client got him. The (opposition) had tried to settle for $5,000. The jury award was $359,000.”

The coaches teach movement, using the courtroom space as a tool. To upset a witness, draw uncomfortably close. To emphasize a point, make the statement and stop, walk a few steps, then resume talking. To tell a witness you know he is lying, turn your back on him.

They teach speech techniques, how to use pace, inflection and pauses.

Teaching the Obvious

They teach what seems obvious--not to pick up paper while your hands are shaking, not to bark questions at the grandmotherly witness, not to mumble and slump when you are facing Mister Suave.

The coaches teach eye contact, a crucial building block of courtroom rapport. While it cannot make up for a bad case, legal experts believe good courtroom feelings, good rapport, can better an attorney’s chances for a winning verdict.

“When an attorney has terrific eye contact, taking time to acknowledge the jury, really look at them, it energizes them,” said acting coach Sogliuzzo, who recommends lingering on each juror for at least five seconds. “They are thinking, ‘This guy really notes me. I feel an exchange between us. I react, he seems responsive.’ ”

They teach attorneys how to write, how to present the courtroom conflict as three-act theater with, as Sogliuzzo explained, “an opening exposition, the development of the conflict and the climax and resolution.” They teach how to simplify especially complex issues through repetition and what James calls the “Dick and Jane” technique--”Oh look. See Dick. See Jane. See Spot.”

Seattle attorney Krafchick said simplicity was the key to winning a difficult case for an alcoholic client, a father of two who had nearly died when he was negligently treated for his disease. The client was unsympathetic, and the case was technical, requiring numerous expert witnesses.

“It was very complicated, and it was easy to confuse people,” Krafchick said. So he and his partner called in an acting coach to help them “make sure the message we wanted to communicate was the one the listener was hearing--that what happened to our client affected a family basically.”

The consultant did the job, helping them trim and translate their opening statement into a story the jury could appreciate. Krafchick won a $120,000 verdict for his client, more than double what a settlement judge in Seattle had recommended.

Not least important, some coaches teach attorneys how to dress, an art that was mirrored on one episode of television’s “L.A. Law” last season when consultants literally tried to remake one of the fictional firm’s attorneys. Although not all real-life coaches are willing to go that far, most agree that a “right” image can tip the scales in a close case.

“You’re going to make an impression in the first four minutes,” lawyer coach Nelson said. “You’re going to make an impression whether you do it deliberately or not. You might as well do it deliberately.”

Image Problems for Women

Woman attorneys have special image problems. Coaches generally agree that women should not look too feminine in court. They should not button their suits to the top and look too masculine. They cannot wear jewelry that floats, jangles and distracts. Their nails should not be too red, their hair not too stylish.

To look warm and approachable, for instance, attorneys of either sex are told to wear pastels, to discard their three-piece suits and tie shoes for less formal blazers and footwear. To put aside their sleek eel-skin briefcases and carry well-scuffed ones.

But if looking intellectual and in command is the aim, then another approach is recommended. Attorneys are told to go traditional: dark blue suit, white shirt and glasses.

“The idea isn’t to turn out a lot of phony people,” Nelson insisted. “The idea is to express whatever you have inside. . . . It has to be your own tweediness, your own softness, or it won’t work.”

Although the conversion of showmen into courtroom coaches is relatively recent, the push to make lawyers better communicators actually began in the early 1970s. It was then that an American Bar Assn. task force concluded that something had to be done to upgrade the level of trial proficiency.

Concerned that a substantial chunk of the nation’s trial lawyers were not skillful enough to adequately represent their clients, the blue-ribbon panel recommended the creation of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, a nonprofit group of lawyers and judges who could minister to their colleagues.

In a very real sense, the institute readied the legal world for the coaching boom that followed.

Gives Legitimacy

Essentially a crash course in courtroom conduct and procedures, the prestigious National Institute for Trial Advocacy program also gave legitimacy to the concept of drama in the courtroom by pressing the importance of communications skills. Through mock trials, the institute teaches attorneys how, among other things, to quiz witnesses, when to object, how to pick a jury.

“We bring the courtroom to them,” explained Notre Dame law professor James Seckinger, the institute’s national director. “We’re trying to give them practice in honing their skills when nothing is at issue.”

In the 15 years since the National Institute for Trial Advocacy held its first forum for lawyers in Colorado, thousands of attorneys have participated in regional workshops across the country and numerous law schools have added courses based on the institute’s methodology. Many drama and communications experts who first taught at the institute have gone on to launch their own consulting businesses.

“I’m a supporter . . . a firm believer in lawyers getting this kind of expert help,” said Oakland attorney Gary Gwilliam, president-elect of the California Trial Lawyers Assn. “I’ve been trying cases 25 years, and it’s a different ballgame in the 80s. . . . We need to begin to take the trial process into the 21st Century, and they can help.”

Randy Kramer, meanwhile, has been gearing up to try his first case as the new Randy Kramer.

“Personally I feel much better about what I’m doing already,” the Norwalk attorney said. “Some lawyers with great charisma wouldn’t need this . . . Clarence Darrow, F. Lee Bailey, Melvin Belli.

“But not everybody’s a natural. . . . What this does is make communication techniques available to people besides the naturals. Why shouldn’t our clients benefit?”