Acting workshops for lawyers

The prosecutor showed the jury grisly photographs of the victim, whose head had been severed with a hook. He looked each juror in the eye, his voice quivering with emotion, and urged them to do the right thing and convict the defendant of murder. Meanwhile, the defense attorney read blankly from his notes, never glancing up.

"One of the best actors I'd ever seen," is how Michael Souveroff, a juror and a veteran of All My Children and Unsolved Mysteries, described the prosecutor. "When we got to the jury room, there were people who said, 'I don't like that defense attorney. He never looked at us. I don't think his client can be innocent.' "

The jury eventually convicted but Souveroff says the verdict was based on the facts, not a spell cast by the prosecutor.

A month ago, Souveroff was drawing from that experience as he stood in front of a group of lawyers from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, leading an acting workshop designed to make more effective advocates. The workshop was organised by Fordham University law professor James Cohen.

In the five-year-old programme, actors play witnesses in a corporate lawsuit - either a breach of contract or a shareholder dispute - while associates, usually second to fifth-years, question them in simulated trials and depositions. Afterward, the actors critique the young attorneys. Lawyers from Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison and Ropes & Gray have also taken part.

"I had a lot of anxiety going into it, but it was a really positive experience," says Marisa Sarig, a Simpson Thacher associate. "They gave us little tips that could make a big difference in our performance."

Sarig was advised to speak more slowly and to vary the inflection in her voice - her nervousness had resulted in a rapid-fire monotone. Other attorneys were told to stand with equal weight on both feet, to not put their hands in their pockets and to make eye contact with the jury.

"We don't ask them to talk with an accent or walk around like pirates," says Souveroff.

But they are expected to perform. Sarig cross-examined Barbara McCrane, who has appeared on One Life To Live. McCrane played a tough, steamrolling executive.

"There was no intimidation factor with her," says Sarig. "If you asked a question the wrong way, she wouldn't let it slide."

Afterward, McCrane gave the attorneys feedback while remaining in character. This kind of feedback is hard for attorneys to get, says professor Cohen, who also handles criminal cases in New York's Southern District.

"As a profession, we don't get a lot of critique beyond the verdict," he says. "I try a lot of criminal cases and the jury usually votes guilty. If I took that as a complete comment on my performance, I would have gotten out of this business a long time ago."

Actors provide a level of realism that an assistant flipping through a case file can't offer. McCrane, for example, often adjusts her performance to the skill level of the associate.

"If a [very talented] attorney asks a question I perceive as slightly insulting, I'll stare the person down or say, 'Do you have credentials in this? Where did you get your MBA?' If someone is struggling with their skills, I'll go a little easier," she says.

Since the programme began, Cohen and his troop say they have worked with six East Coast firms, whose professional development departments found them through word-of-mouth and listservs (Cohen doesn't advertise). The cost varies with the length of the workshop and the number of instructors and actors but generally it starts at about $15,000 for a two-day workshop with one instructor and two actors.

Cohen has been holding simulated trial and deposition programs since the mid-1980s, with assistants or paralegals playing the witnesses. In 2000 and 2001, Shearman & Sterling and Paul Weiss started using actors instead, mostly because they are less expensive than paralegals. But Cohen quickly found that the attorneys responded well to the different perspective and vocabulary of the actor.

"The lawyers look at me as a law professor," says Cohen. "What do I know about breathing and hand gestures? But when an actor says it, they sit up and listen."

By Sarah Eckel. A version of this article first appeared in The American Lawyer.