The Los Angeles Daily Journal
December 17, 1986
Some Lawyers Are Learning to Act the Part

Kathleen Tuttle took the acting class because she wanted to improve her litigation skills.

Tuttle, now a litigation associate at the Century City firm of Alschuler, Grossman & Pines, said she knew that substantive knowledge of the law was not enough to carry a lawyer through a trial. "In front of a jury you can't be this nerd lawyer who only knows the law," she says. "You have to be comfortable with yourself and what you're saying."

Tuttle spent one evening a week for the better part of seven weeks as a member of Gillian Drake's "Acting for Lawyers" class. Tuttle went through such exercises as arguing with another lawyer for possession of an apple, giving a speech in gibberish, and reciting Lincoln's second inaugural address as if she were trying to rouse a crowd of tough union organizers.

And she feels changed by the experience. "I went from polished, flat delivery to steamy buttonholing folks to get their support," she says.

"Lawyers' initial reaction is that 'my word will carry the day.' But it's not true. It's other people listening to the words you're saying."

Drake says that at first many lawyers are disdainful of the idea of an acting class. "They think it has to do with being fake or pulling the wool over people's eyes and flailing their arms and being theatrical."

"But it's learning to speak the truth with conviction," she insists. "And for the litigator, that's critical; and also for the negotiator, it's important to know how to reach the audience in an effective and humane way."

One of Drake's graduates views the course as nothing more than an essential professional-skills update. "As we move more and more into the information age, communication skills become more important to the success in what we do," says Niels Holch, vice president and counsel for Hills & Knowlton Public Affairs Worldwide. "I think people need to hone in on these skills. They're not something you get through the normal educational system."