Edward Felsenthall
The Wall Street Journal
January 3, 1996
Lawyers Learn How to Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk

EXCERPTED

[While] the best litigators have always had a sense of fashion and drama, today's 8 courtrooms are beginning to seem almost as theatrical as Broadway. "In the theater, every single thing that is viewed by the audience is a choice, down to the buttons on a character's costume, how they roll their hair, the props, the lighting; the same is very true in law," says Gillian Drake, a part-time theater director who owns the consulting firm of On Trial Associates, Inc., in Rockville, Md. Ms. Drake started coaching lawyers on their opening statements a decade ago.

Television has contributed to the steady decline of solemnity in the courtroom. As America watched, Los Angeles prosecutor Marcia Clark changed her hair, her clothes and her mannerisms. Obsession with style can also be exacerbated by complex scientific or financial testimony, which sometimes leads jurors to pay more attention to cues than words.

... Part of Ms. Drake's advice to lawyers involves the way they walk across the courtroom. Moving in a straight line, Ms. Drake says, is "very strong and confrontational" and thus useful for approaching hostile witnesses. When conceding a point to the other side, she says, a lawyer should walk from right to left "because you're going against the way people read," and that takes attention away from what you're saying. For approaching the jury, she recommends walking slowly in a curving path to create intimacy.

Jerry Goens, a juror in the now-famous case of the woman who was burned by McDonald's coffee, says he was bothered by the body language of the fast-food chain's attorney. The jury awarded the plaintiff $2.8 million, an award Mr. Goens says was based on the facts. But whenever the McDonald's lawyer was about to raise an objection, Mr. Goens says, he felt she conveyed "immaturity" and "lack of experience" by the way she would "kind of squirm and rock back and forth." By contrast, he says, the plaintiff's lawyer conveyed a sense of "experience and confidence."