Articles
Has this ever happened to you? You begin to tell someone a story and preface your remarks by saying, “I want to tell you this first and then the story.” What you’re really saying is, “I have to put my story in context to be sure you’ll get it.” We always make choices when we tell our client’s story, and there’s always a back story that explains the context.
Early one June day I was driving to John Wayne/Santa Ana Airport, a route I knew well. I was on autopilot, headlights breaking the dawn. My mind was on the cross-country flight I would be taking from California to Newark Liberty Airport and then on to Westchester, New York to moderate a five day focus group project for an upcoming trial. Cresting a hill I saw the full moon suspended to my left. And to my right was the rising sun. Unexpectedly, I was caught in the embrace of two heavenly bodies that give us light and guidance—only because I chose to look out the window.
Then, with uncanny universal timing, the moment was punctuated by the richly resonant voice of David Whyte, the Welsh poet whose DVD I was half-listening to. He warned me—as if I needed reminding—that there are grave challenges confronting us. And he went on to say that while humans can control some of the challenging events that bring us grief, despair, and heartache, we cannot control them all. We can make choices but even the choices have consequences.
His words echo in my head as I think about the choices we make when we write. We can all choose to imbue our writing with power, passion and precision. And when you choose to tell your stories with such vitality they will follow you home, sit at your table, sleep in your bed. When you choose to tell your client’s story with power, passion and precision you choose to bring a story to life. And today more than ever, we need attorneys to make that bold choice. Why? Because most people are not inclined to care about The Other—the one who is not them—the one whose story is being told.
Begin With Power
One way to tell stories with power is to read them aloud. Words sound so very different when we give them voice. A proven technique to communicate with power is to choose to stand and claim the space from which you will speak. Say you have the opportunity to talk about your client’s case on the telephone to opposing counsel or the insurance adjustor. If you chose to stand up and tell your client’s story as you moved about your office, you would experience the power of striding into the legal story without the boundary of your desk confining you. When you come to the courtroom to litigate your client’s case, deliberately take a stand somewhere in the well. Claim this point as your spot. Return to this point often in delivery, when you question or cross-examine a witness. The jury will expect you to be there. And having a place to claim as your own will ground you with the power of assertion.
Consider the power you have in your body. Someone observing Hillary Clinton’s delivery style commented favorably on her ability to move her body around the message. Use your body like the tool it is. Give it a workout—unlike Al Gore who used his body as a place to hang his suit. There is power in movement. Harness it by taking a deep breath just before you speak and looking around the room. Pause. Focus your eyes on someone and begin to tell him or her the client’s story.
Deliver With Passion
What does it mean to have passion? It’s having conviction for your position, recognizing that you have this one moment in time to tell your client’s story in a way that will make a difference. Passion can be fiery. I think we expect that. And yet how often have we been compelled to lean toward the car radio to hear Garrison Keillor tell us another story from Lake Wobegon, a story told in cool and quiet tones—and yet with undeniable passion.
Here’s a tip: Know your client’s story so well that you can put down the paper you’re reading from, and let go of the lectern—it’s not a life raft. How do you make this happen? Practice. Writing and practicing what you’re going to say doesn’t take the edge off your delivery as some people maintain; rather, it gives you a polished, provocative, passionate delivery. Through practice, you can tell even a mediocre story with rhythm, timing and cadence. And when you are delivering your client’s story with the passion born of conviction and practice, you end up feeling confident. The more you practice, the more you get a chance to hear what you are asking others to listen to. Listen to what you are saying. Hear your own words. Feel them resonate in your chest. And astonish yourself with the passion of the spoken word. Your goal isn’t to memorize your speech. You don’t have to get every single word exactly right every single time. What practice gives you is the clarity of knowing how to get your point across with power and passion.
Practice Precision
Law school trained us to pay attention to what we could see. But human beings have five senses, not one. The devil is in the details of your story. And the details come to life through each of the five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Each of us has a sensory pathway we favor for learning. But when we incorporate all the senses into the client’s story, we encourage listeners to step inside that story so that they’ll remember it. Practice on yourself: describe breakfast in your kitchen using each of the five senses. Then transfer these descriptive skills to your next case. Suppose you have a malpractice case in a hospital. Ask yourself: what does a hospital look like, what are some sounds you might hear, what are the smells you could encounter, is there a particular taste you might associate with a hospital, what about the sensation on your skin as you enter a hospital? If you’re working on a breach of contract issue, ask yourself: what is the bitter taste of betrayal, what is the sound of a broken promise, what is the feel of a gentleman’s handshake that isn’t? And then write your client’s story.
Precision also depends on choosing the right word. Not all words are created equal. Choose words carefully and limit your choices. In days gone by lawyers were paid by the word for their work. Today their legacy is ‘heretofore’ and ‘party of the first part.’ Enough! Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address using only 271 words. Imagine that! Read it aloud. Listen to the precision of a message crafted by deliberately choosing each word:
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which they who fought here have thus far so nobly, advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
As my mother would have said, “They just don’t make them like that any more.” Maybe so. But the next time you tell your client’s story, choose to communicate with power, passion and precision. Prove my mother wrong.
