Language

Apr

30

Goodreads Giveaway for The Articulate Attorney, Second Edition

Books / Careers / Gesturing / Language / Practice / Preparation / Public Speaking / Transactional / Voice  Posted by / 0 comments

Brian Johnson and I love language. We adore it! We love a beautiful turn of phrase, a thoughtful insight well-described, the law illuminated by the spoken word, the out-loud reasoning of a quick mind. We love it when speaking becomes an art. It makes us excited, eager to go to work each day and coach the next interesting lawyer with a unique presenting style.

We are excited to release the new edition of The Articulate Attorney on June 1. We wrote this book because speaking about the law—having it on the tip of your tongue—is not as easy as it sounds. Speaking clearly indicates a lawyer is thinking clearly, and speaking poorly indicates she or he is not. We are fascinated by the nexus of speaking and thinking, and amazed to watch how physical presence predicts fluent speech. How can lack of movement in hands and arms squash efficient word choice? Why does sustained eye contact with listeners make conversation easier?

We learn new things from our clients every week, if not every day. We gain insights into how language works at any given moment in history, or how the music of speech changes with the times. The more we observe lawyers speaking, the more we see nuances of how physical gesture connects ideas. Like passionate teachers everywhere, each year we streamline our teaching to get closer to the essence of instruction. How can we say something better, and get results faster? What objectives should we have for this person as opposed to that one?

When Brian Johnson first began coaching lawyers over 30 years ago, speaking was a denigrated “soft skill,” and there was a general belief that only defective lawyers couldn’t get the job done. Now, after decades of linguistic and attentional studies, sports psychology, gesture, brain, and human factors research, there is a vastly more complete picture of how humans think and speak. We know that it often requires deliberate nurturing to reveal a lawyer’s “natural” speaking abilities.

Speaking well is a teachable skill, but there’s nothing “soft” about it. This second edition of The Articulate Attorney: Public Speaking for Lawyers is more fully illustrated and has extensive revisions. We wanted to include the very best of what we’ve learned since the first edition appeared.

We’ve set up a Goodreads Giveaway for the new edition. You can enter to win one of ten free copies of the book by following the link below. And if you haven’t been to Goodreads, prepare to love this online community of people who love to read.

 

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Articulate Attorney by Brian K. Johnson

The Articulate Attorney

by Brian K. Johnson

Giveaway ends May 30, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Jan

03

Making CLE Video for Lawyers Talking

Courtroom / Language / Practice / Public Speaking / Video  Posted by / 0 comments

West Legal Education Shoot - Marsha Hunter

 

West LegalEdcenter will begin offering three of our courses online in late February. We recently spent time in their studio taping Courtroom Communication Skills, Interpersonal Communication Skills and Public Speaking Skills for Lawyers.

Over two days in late December, we had the pleasure of working with Mark Korf, in charge of new lawyer development at West, and his excellent production staff at the sprawling Thomson Reuters campus in Eagan, Minnesota. For almost seventeen hours, Brian Johnson and I held forth about how lawyers can improve their speaking skills. From those long hours, we have five hours of instruction “in the can.” We’re looking forward to posting links to the courses here.

The video studio at West is shared with a local television channel, and is impressively equipped. Watching Brian’s live lecturing in an adjacent editing studio, I could choose among monitors that showed him in various hues, resolutions, and reflected light. It was amazing at the objectivity we both developed rather quickly. After no time at all, I could glance at the video monitor and make an adjustment without also criticizing my hair, outfit, or other truly unalterable aspect of myself.

I’m not saying I was crazy about watching myself, but I did learn about my own habits and mannerisms. I learned that being still for the camera helps focus one’s mind for the task of speaking extemporaneously. Then, when we were required to read a few lines of learning objectives, we were both amazed at how difficult it was to switch to another mental mode. For our students who have their own version of “video reluctance,” I have a new appreciation for your feelings. But more than ever, I have a better appreciation of how watching video of ourselves can help us all improve our own skills.

Beyond that, of course, we hope our online courses for West LegalEdcenter will help us reach more of you, and move us toward our goal of improving legal communication skills, one lawyer at a time.

Dec

06

Nailing Your Direct Examination

Brain / Courtroom / Direct Examination / Gesturing / Language / Preparation / The Mental game  Posted by / 0 comments

by Marsha Hunter

You might be interested in my article in the Fall 2012 Newsletter for The Woman Advocate, American Bar Association Section of Litigation. Brian Johnson and I are hoping to improve the way we teach direct examination in trial skills programs, and we’ve been intensely focusing on it for over a year. It isn’t an intuitive activity.

Here’s the link. We welcome your comments.

Nailing Your Direct Examination
By Marsha Hunter
Successfully pulling off a compelling witness examination may require turning conventional wisdom on its head.
Oct

28

The Presidential Debates in Technical Terms

Body / Body Language / Gesturing / Judges / Language / Preparation / Public Speaking  Posted by / 0 comments

by Marsha Hunter

Before the Presidential debates get washed from our minds by the end-of-election noise, I have a few comments about the public speaking styles we witnessed. Since I was so annoyed with the speeches at both political conventions, I feel an obligation to comment with less harshness about watching President Obama and Governor Romney speak without teleprompters. (I was out of the country for the Vice Presidential debate and the second Presidential debate, and haven’t watched them.)

For my money, it is always more interesting to watch and listen to people when they are talking instead of reading. Watching smart people think on their feet is fun, and when they explain things so we can understand, we feel smart, too. The format of the debates was problematic because both men kept looping back to soundbites, and the two debates I watched featured moderators who could not very effectively get the attention of two strong-minded debaters. Jim Lehrer no longer has the vocal power to interrupt. Bob Schiefer did a better job but still struggled to keep the debate on topic. There are no model rules of conduct for Presidential debates, apparently. I was trying to imagine an appellate lawyer saying, “I’m sorry, Your Honor, I’m not going to go into hypotheticals.”

Debate #1

Governor Romney was relaxed and seemed happy and confident, and his body language showed exactly that. From the beginning his arms were open and he gestured continually. He had practiced his soundbites well, knew he could nail them, and had a strategy to keep talking over both the moderator and the President. And it worked so well that he “won” that debate hands down. While he stood at the podium, he didn’t lean on it or let it get in his way. He had energy. He was louder than Obama. He stared the President down, literally.

Obama, for whatever reason, was the opposite. Was he just blindsided? Did he think it was going to be polite? I have no idea, but he misjudged the encounter and was left to shrink into the podium, look down at his notes, and avert his eyes. One camera shot from the side showed he was standing on one foot, leaning on the podium. His gestures were small and betrayed his discomfort. His eye contact was his greatest weakness. You’ve got to be able to look the beast in the eye, and he couldn’t make himself do it. He looked small.

And oh, how they repeated themselves! They had themes, they hammered away at them, and they both sounded like typical politicians worried about a gaffe or an impermissible offense. Parsing so carefully what they said, all that was left was how they said it. I imagine we could watch the entire debate without the sound and get exactly the same impression.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/SplitSc

Debate #4

This time the candidates were seated at a table. This debate was a much fairer match. Obama had energy and immediately went on the attack. He stared at Romney, fixing his eye contact problems from their first encounter. He was vastly more relaxed, and much more effective.

Romney began more tentatively, with a rambling answer to the first question. I felt he was talking just a bit faster than he was thinking, a common problem with public speaking, and especially with unscripted speaking (conceding that these candidates have a large store of extended soundbites on the tip of their tongues). The tendency is to rush into the first paragraph or two, with the result that it isn’t as coherent as it needs to be. He recovered, and began to gesture more, which had the double benefit of slowing the pace of speech and giving him better access to his ideas. Watch this without the sound, too (the link is at the end of this post), and notice when and how the hands of both candidates begin to flow with their ideas. When they stumble, they have often put their hands away. Hands know how the language flows.

Brian Johnson and I often train lawyers who practice in jurisdictions that require them to remain seated, and we have given lots of thought to the challenge of being persuasive while sitting down. Here are three things to remember:

1. Never lean or rest your elbows on furniture, whether it is a table or a podium.

2. Sit up straight as if you are standing, and let your hands gesture as they help you find the words.

3. Pay attention to the pace of your speech. Just because you are seated doesn’t mean you won’t talk too fast.

Politics disappoints me because it is so artfully NOT about substance. Avoidance of substance is key. The law is much more potentially thrilling because it usually has substance. That’s why I prefer lawyers who have not become politicians!

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/LynnUni

 

Oct

16

More on the Public Speaking Scourge of Teleprompters

Body Language / Language / Memory / Preparation / Public Speaking / Voice  Posted by / 0 comments

by Marsha Hunter

An article in The New Yorker caught my eye after my post about teleprompters at the Republican and Democratic conventions. Having watched a few teleprompted speeches on my recent trip to the U.K., I dislike these “blasted contrivances” more than ever. (That was Herbert Hoover’s description; see “Rolling Rhetoric” in the magazine above. I was reading back issues on the plane to London.)

Depressingly, the teleprompter industry seems alive and well, surely preying upon the well-documented general fear of public speaking. An Internet search gave me 1,640,000 results on the topic, showing equipment, mirror-image equipment, free-lance so-called “prompters,” information about the patents, news articles about their use and misuse, and on and on.

Since I do not teach lawyers how to use these contraptions, I had no idea how they actually worked until I did some digging around. Once, on a tour of the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, I saw one up close, though I’d assumed it was an antique. I’d imagined that modern teleprompters were mechanized, with the speaker in control of the rate of speech rolling past their eyeballs.

How wrong I was! A person, like the Great Oz behind a flimsy curtain, still rolls lines of words manually, by turning a knob. The speaker is not in control. This further explains why speakers sound mechanical and unnatural when reading off a teleprompter. They aren’t even controlling their own rate of speech!

A speaker’s pace and breath make them sound like themselves – authentic, real, and natural. Only when a speaker overcomes her adrenaline and finds her own talking groove can she settle into delivering an excellent presentation. It is a skill that can be learned, because there is theoretically unlimited practice time to improve. It is up to each speaker to decide how much work to put into the task.

With a teleprompter, though, rehearsal time is extremely short. It is expensive to include technicians and a free-lance actor turning a knob, partly because it often must take place in the actual space such as a convention center. The chances of making it all seem “real” become vanishingly small. Judging from this season’s political speeches on both sides of the Atlantic, the results are dismal.

In my previous post, I critiqued the fast pace of reading, the limited “baton” gestures, and the stilted vocal delivery of teleprompted speeches.

Let me add another shortcoming: speakers’ faces do not look quite right. Whether from concentrating on words passing in front of them (at someone else’s rate), or because of the facial reading “mask” that so many teleprompted speakers wear, they appear distracted and far away. They are far away – inside the teleprompter. If they had their speeches on a piece of paper in front of them, at least they would be masters of their own speaking destiny. When their minds are focused on keeping up with the scrolling knob, we can hear it in their delivery.

As teleprompted speakers lean toward the screens, they crowd the podium, leaving themselves no space for their normal gestures to assist the language. Thus, language sounds dull, its music monotonous. Teleprompters suck speakers into a negative gesture-language loop, where gestures inhibit language and language fails to stimulate instinctive gesture.

Teleprompters simulate reality. I’d rather have reality, so I can hear the real person I’m considering voting for. Our virtual teleprompted speaking world is far from satisfactory, and only serves to reinforce that politicians, their wives, and surrogates live in a parallel universe, where Oz controls the knobs and the Emperor has no clothes.

Oct

04

What Romney, Obama’s Body Language Says to Voters – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com

Body Language / Gesturing / Language / Video  Posted by / 0 comments

by Marsha Hunter

Having just watched the first Presidential debate, I went back to this body language interactive graphic from yesterday’s New York Times. It is interesting, which is why I’ve been following the New York University Movement Lab’s work over the last months. The video tracking is very cool, and I like some of the labels used.

What’s missing for me is any integrated discussion of body language, gesture, and spoken language. Given individual variability, leaving linguistics out of the discussion leads in the direction of dance – abstract movement not attached to words. So these observations are speculation, not specifics.

Still, I like them. Take a look. What do you think?

What Romney, Obama’s Body Language Says to Voters – Interactive Feature – NYTimes.com.

Sep

05

A Pox on Teleprompters for Public Speaking

Audiences / Body / Brain / Language / Practice / Preparation  Posted by / 0 comments

by Marsha Hunter

While the Democrats get their convention underway in Charlotte, I have a couple of things to say about my least favorite public speaking tool, the teleprompter. I hate them and wish they had never been invented.

At last week’s Republican convention, the speakers used them throughout, of course. There is no other option. Democrats are using them this week. The fear of misspeaking and gifting a laugh line to comedians or the opposition’s negativity sharks is too great. So everybody, Clint Eastwood excepted, has to use a teleprompter, making them all sound the same, look the same, talk like robots, and stop thinking about anything except reading off the teleprompter.

(Regarding Mr. Eastwood, he proved the point Brian Johnson and I keep trying to make: actors are often lousy public speakers, most especially when they don’t bother to rehearse. Please do not use them as role models. Q.E.D.)

The art of remembering what to say is dead. Wouldn’t we love someone who could hold her own when she looked straight at us and talked? Someone who was sure of her opinion? Someone who didn’t have to think backwards to what a focus group told her campaign? Someone who actually, really, unbelievably, KNEW what to say?

Reading a speech was always an art. Churchill could do it, especially when his country was threatened with annihilation. (Motivation!) There was once a great tradition of reading beautifully, of reading at a pace that made sense. But now, so few speakers can read well that it is not just endangered, it is extinct. I think the teleprompter killed it.

A political disclaimer: I’m a registered independent who has actually voted for different parties. So the dog I have in this fight is a linguistic purebred, not a political mutt.

Here are my core complaints about folks who read to us from teleprompters:

They read too fast. Their delivery is monotonous, and at these conventions, they are shouting. Monotonous shouting wears out its welcome very quickly. Tele-readers look like deer in the headlights as they shift focus from the screen to the people who are listening. People who look scared make listeners uncomfortable. When people read off a teleprompter, they have never practiced enough, so they stumble and misspeak, partly because they read too fast (see above). Reading, which happens in a part of the brain not connected to improvisational speech, shuts off the thinking brain. Once the capacity and gift for improvisational speech withers, it is very difficult to get it back again. So here we are, arrived at a cowardly new world of mediocrity. The art of thinking and then speaking is lost because everyone is afraid to make a mistake.

When a speaker reads, natural gesture disappears. At these conventions, we’re seeing an endless parade of “baton gestures,” hands that do not enhance the message but instead merely beat time to the rhythm of language that is already too fast. Because the verbal delivery is unnatural, these time-keeping gestures make the speaker look uncomfortable. They reinforce a listener’s discomfort.

Once a speaker falls into a speaking rhythm that is unnatural (reading), and then keeps time to that rhythm with repetitive baton gestures, they are stuck in a rut that few can escape.

Partisans excuse their own politicians, and then criticize the opposition for their mediocre teleprompter skills. For an Arizona teleprompter fail—I grew up in and currently live in the Grand Canyon State—see this Fox News clip about Republican Governor Jan Brewer.

Now, really.  How many of us could not have finished that sentence? Come on! What courageous citizen will run for office using his own brain instead of a video feed of vetted party-speak? What elected official will honestly tell us what happened and what they think of it? They would more likely consider jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Most will consider me a crackpot for suggesting it.

We ought to have stiffer standards for running for office than the ability to limp through a speech on a teleprompter. We can do better. And so can you, every time you stand to speak. How? Talk to your audience, don’t read.

Vow that you will be better than politicians!

 

Aug

11

The Bullying Culture of Medical School: A Lesson for the Legal New Normal

Body Language / Careers / Language / Professional / The New Normal  Posted by / 0 comments

by Marsha Hunter

When I speak to legal women’s groups, whether at a bar association or a law firm diversity forum, I invariably field the question, “What about the overbearing guy who talks louder and faster than anyone and drowns me out? How do I get a word in edgewise?” We discuss strategies for politely interrupting, holding one’s own in an assertive and respectful manner, or getting out of the way of a verbal bulldozer so you live to work another day.

But sometimes, I hear of a darker side of professional behavior. This article (link below) about a UCLA study of bullying in medical school is disturbing for several reasons—not merely because I’ve heard a few similar stories in the law. First, as law schools work to reinvent themselves, the medical school model often comes up in the discussion. Second, the bullying recounted in the study describes a dark moment when a resident “became” the top-dog oppressor, having learned the behavior from enduring verbal abuse herself. Third, and not at all last, institutionally-sanctioned bullying is a short step from formal hazing, which is a stupid practice. Medical residents live through a ridiculous sleep-deprived schedule during which they must make life-or-death decisions and perform important tasks that should be left to well-rested, high-functioning professionals.

Sound familiar? Law school may not be as brutal as medical school, but life in a big firm certainly can be. Young associates are serving what we could view as the equivalent of a medical residency. Last fall I lectured at a large firm to an audience of associates. One looked so ill that I almost stopped and asked if he needed help. This spring I coached one-on-one with a big firm associate whose eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and who could not stop yawning as we worked. What client wants these exhausted people to work on their cases?

From a human factors point of view, sleeplessness is a terrible idea. When exhausted (and let’s face it—low-functioning) people are permitted to bully subordinates, we’re heading in the wrong direction. As we look to the future of the New Normal, our legal culture should take note of the pitfalls reported in this article. And beware.

Read the article here: Doctor and Patient: The Bullying Culture of Medical School – NYTimes.com.

Apr

13

Choosing an Attitude for Speaking in Public

Body Language / Courtroom / Judges / Language / Preparation / Professional / Public Speaking / Video  Posted by / 0 comments

by Marsha Hunter

Like many of us curious to hear the charges against George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case, I tuned in to the press conference held by Angela Corey on Wednesday. Immediately, I was distracted by public speaking issues. I was surprised and then puzzled by Ms. Corey’s demeanor and attitude. Brian Johnson and I often help lawyers choose an attitude for trial or other public presentations, and I was baffled by the special prosecutor’s slight smile and—for lack of a better term—pseudo prayer-meeting overlay to her remarks.

Here’s a link  to the full press conference, so you can see for yourself. For starters, why did she need to read her introductory remarks? I’m betting  that she really does know the names of her staff, so she shouldn’t have to read them. Occasionally lawyers tell me that they write down the first words they plan to say, including, “Your Honor, my name is……” May we all please stop doing that? If you got through law school and passed the bar, you know your name and those of your colleagues. Just take a deep breath before you start talking. Reading from that little monitor on the podium at the press conference got Ms. Corey off to an disconnected, clunky start.

That doesn’t account for her demeanor. Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe she’s a politician first and a prosecutor second. Maybe she is truly concerned about the Martin family. But she could have chosen an attitude that showed a concern for justice, the family, and the nation. Some suggestions are tough, uncompromising, serious, confident, compassionate for the victim’s family. How about some disgust or outrage? Watching her again, I can’t tell what her attitude is. It is too out-of-focus. I can’t reconcile the misplaced smile with second-degree murder charges.

I’m glad to see a woman in this position of power, and happy that the female judge is a respected former trial lawyer. Maybe women are redefining public discourse with traditionally feminine attitudes. I just wish I understood this one.

Apr

10

Judge Reads Disciplinary Hearing Results in Maricopa County, Arizona

Courtroom / Judges / Language / Professional / Public Speaking / Voice  Posted by / 0 comments

Presiding Disciplinary Judge William O’Neil handed down the decision by the panel in the eagerly-anticipated case of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his deputy Lisa Aubuchon this morning. Both Thomas and Aubuchon are disbarred. Attorney Rachel Alexander has been suspended for six months for her role in whole mess.

Listening live, as many of us here in Arizona were, I was struck by the increasing outrage I could hear in O’Neil’s voice. Reading the 33 ethical violations and findings, he began with an even-handed tone. The first allegations included a few findings that there was not clear and convincing evidence of ethical violation. But it didn’t take long for the judge’s voice to take on harder attitudes: impatience, outrage, disgust, exasperation. The unanimous decisions piled up, as Judge O’Neil read, “We find that there IS clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Thomas violated that ethical rule,” etc., etc. By the time he read that Aubuchon was disbarred, we all knew that Thomas was next. The climax of the 18 minutes of findings was dramatic.

To listen, go to:

http://azcourts.gov/pdj/VideoPage.aspx

Today’s video is already archived (bravo, Arizona Supreme Court!). Here you can also watch the proceedings from last fall’s hearings in all their lurid detail.

Listen especially to the inflection, clear voice, and tone of Judge O’Neil’s delivery. It’s an excellent example of reading with conviction.