Module 1: Why Acting for Lawyers?

Acting For Lawyers: Connecting to the Jury & Finding Justice Through Dramatic Technique

Michael DeBlis III, Esq.

• Trial Lawyer• Actor• Author• NCDC Graduate• Marathon runner

Why I Began Acting

• Recently, I’ve discovered something that has been buried deep inside me for the last 34 years and that has been yearning to break out: the hidden actor.

• Why I began acting still remains a mystery to me even to this day.

• I wish that I had a better answer, but I was just following a need within myself.

Why I Began Acting

• While I didn’t know it at the time, my journey into acting was to lead me on a journey of self-discovery that has carried me on a voyage through the uniqueness of myself as a human being to a spectacular destination – the actual realization of my imagination, humanity, instincts, and talent.

Why I Began Acting

• Along the way, I began to see the parallels between what actors do on stage with what lawyers do in a courtroom and how the tools and techniques of actors could be used in the courtroom to bring the human element to the jury.

Why Acting for Lawyers?

• One of the guiding principles in theater is that “art expresses human experience.”

• The very essence of a trial is a story – the story of a human experience.

• The goal of the attorney is to draw the jury into a re-constructed reality of past events, such that they “see” what happened, even though they were not present to witness the original event.


• The attorney is the producer of that event as well as the writer, director, and the actor in that event.

• A play is also a live event with story at its core. The goal of the actor is to transform personal experience into a universal and recognizable form of expression that has the ability to change something in the spectator. Actors must guide the audience on a journey bringing with them their minds and hearts.


• Lawyers, like actors, serve something bigger than they are.

• This presentation reveals how the creative world of acting overlaps with the courtroom and how the connections between these two disciplines can be exploited for the good of our clients.

Meisner Technique

• There are as many different approaches to the craft of acting as there are actors.

• My philosophy is that there is no one “way” to approach acting. What works for one actor, may not work for another. Heath Ledger was a “Method Actor.” Robert Duvall was trained in the Meisner technique. It’s about finding what works for you.

Meisner Technique

• The acting technique that has had the deepest impact on me, both as an actor and as a lawyer, is the Meisner Technique.

Sanford Meisner

One of the most respected and influential acting teachers of the twentieth century.

Meisner Technique

His contributions to acting are legendary.

Meisner defined acting as follows: “Acting is the ability to live truthfully

under imaginary circumstances.”

Meisner Technique

Take note: The word, “pretend” is no where to be found in this definition.

Meisner Technique

• Friends and family often ask me, “What is the secret to acting?” My answer often takes them off guard. The secret to acting is that it’s not “acting,” in an artificial and inflated sense.

• The ability to come to life in imaginary circumstances as if they are real is the very essence of acting.

Meisner Technique

• This definition is widely embraced by the most successful and influential actors of the twenty-first century, not the least of which is Harrison Ford.

Meisner Technique

• During an interview, Harrison was asked, “What is the most important thing an actor needs to know?” “He needs to be real,” Harrison said.

• “But he is only acting. How can he be real?” “The actor has to become the person, feel the person – be who he is. He has to honestly portray the person he has become. If the actor isn’t honest, no one will believe the character he has become.”

Meisner Technique

• This definition can be uncoupled into two parts: “ability to live truthfully” and “under imaginary circumstances.”

• Living truthfully rests on the foundation of the “reality of doing.”

• Imaginary circumstances is the script.• Reality of doing means that you must really do

the thing.

Reality of Doing

• Example # 1: Chris Meloni played the role of Detective Eliot on the hit series, “Law & Order.” He is a Meisner trained actor. He said, “If you’re playing the role of a detective interrogating a suspect, you must really interrogate. If you’re the suspect, you must really resist.”

Reality of Doing

• Example # 2: If you’re playing the role of King Lear, you have to really be raging against something, otherwise you’re just an old cantankerous English guy.

Reality of Doing

• For those who would prefer the reader’s digest version, Robert Duvall said it best, “Acting comes down to talking and listening.”

• In fact, many scenes are nothing more than a debate, albeit an emotionally-loaded debate.

• This is what we refer to accordingly as, “Conversational reality.”

Reality of Doing

• A good conversation follows the pattern of a heart monitor with peaks and valleys. The changes come when they have to. When it’s bad, it flat lines.

Meisner Technique• A step-by-step procedure of self-investigation

for the actor now recognized as one of the foremost acting techniques taught today.

• A major goal of the Meisner technique is to get each student working truthfully and instinctively from themselves and to replace thinking with doing.

My Approach

• Meisner was very analytical and logical. While he found these traits useful in everyday life, he realized that logic and intellect were as toxic to the actor as venom is to the Cobra. He worked tirelessly to develop exercises that would assist actors to trust their instincts, follow their impulses, and to react spontaneously moment to unanticipated moment.

My Approach

• Why is “thinking” so detrimental to an actor? Impulses are more honest than thoughts. Thoughts are filtered through the brain where they are edited and censored until the true meaning is wrung out of them.

• When you put “polite” before the real response, you’re not truthful.

What is an impulse?

• An urge to do something.• Examples:– (1) An urge to scratch an itch.– (2) An urge to laugh when something amuses you.– (3) An urge to honk your horn when the car in

front of you doesn’t move even though the light has turned green.

What is an impulse?

• Actors are taught to pick up on impulses, not just cues. Impulses happen all over the place, not just at the end of a line.

• Example: “Mike, who is your favorite Beatle: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, or Ringo Starr?”

The Wrap on Impulses

• The lubricant of life is manners. As a result, we curb our impulses.

• The tendency nowadays is to follow your instincts only when they are socially acceptable. We fear being branded as uncivilized.

Word Repetition Exercise

• Example of what it means to not honor your impulses: Your colleague gives a presentation that you attend. Your real reaction is that it was terrible. Yet, afterwards, you go up to him with a smile on your face and through gritted teeth say, “That was great!”

• Your jaw tenses to keep the real, instinctive remark from coming out.

• This type of control is diametrically opposite to the spontaneous, deeply instinctive behavior that Meisner’s technique is meant to stimulate.


• In acting, we are taught to follow our impulses and allow them to dictate the changes in our behavior. This makes scenes so much richer and organic because it becomes a “ping pong” game of impulses.


• Because we spend a good deal of our day explaining, describing, and interpreting dense material, even if we honor an impulse, we tend to describe it instead of acting on it.

• Act before you think! You don’t want to have time for reflection: i.e., to think about it or figure out how you’re going to respond. How it comes out of you will take care of itself.


• “Curb your impulses on the subway, but not on the stage!” James Brill


• Otherwise, what we’re left with is two pleasant people that are committed to staying pleasant. There can be nothing more dull and uninteresting than two accommodators. People don’t go to the theater to watch moments of nothingness.

My Approach

• While the Meisner technique was developed specifically for the acting community, the impact that Meisner’s technique is having on the legal community has only now begun to be felt. This presentation merely scratches the surface of how the Meisner technique can be applied in the courtroom.

My Approach

• In order to get as much as you can out of this presentation, a mind-shift is necessary. You must view yourself not only as a lawyer but as a performing artist.

My Approach

• Acting is a felt experience. Very simply, you cannot respond to anything that you cannot receive.

• You have to open yourself up and allow yourself to be affected by other people. Implicit in this is that you have to let your guard down, let your partner in, and let her “happen” to you.

Vulnerability

“An actor’s greatest asset is his vulnerability – his ability to be affected by things both real and

imaginary.” – James Brill

Vulnerability

• In acting, there is an implicit agreement that actors have with the audience that they are going to let them see what’s going on on the inside.

Vulnerability

• Emotional vulnerability is a vague and ambiguous term. It means different things to different people.

• When I speak of emotional vulnerability, I’m not suggesting that you look to the Titanic for inspiration. Working yourself up to the depths of despair is better left for actors.

Vulnerability

• Consider the famous words of the legendary Gerry Spence: “The most powerful person in the courtroom is the vulnerable person, the lawyer who is aware of his feelings and can share them honestly with the jurors.”

Example

• Teflon versus Velcro– Teflon is a non-stick surface. People who are Teflon don’t

let things happen to them. They put up a wall. That’s what I was like when I started acting. It was as though I was in an isolation chamber. My scene partner could have slung mud at me until it splattered all over my face and I still wouldn’t have reacted to it.

Example

– Here’s the problem. If you don’t unlock the door, the other person can’t get in. And you can’t get out.

– If you are Teflon, you have to fight through that armor in order to become open and receptive.

Example

• Velcro is a surface where things stick. People who are Velcro are open and receptive – they allow themselves to be affected by stimuli.

Obstacle

• An obstacle to “acting for lawyers” is that it is unlawyerlike.

Obstacle

• I hate to be the bearer of bad news but arguments which appeal to attorneys are often not arguments which appeal to lay persons.

Obstacle

• Why?– Arguments based on legal concepts have no basis

in human experience.– While being “witty” and “clever” are considered

admirable traits by those in the legal community, these arguments do not resonate with jurors and are often considered distasteful.

Fear Not!

• What is presented here is a technique that can be learned by any attorney, no matter how shy or timid you might be.

• Throughout the course of this presentation, I’m going to ask you to keep an open mind and do something that you might find difficult: suspend adherence to strict legal ritual.

• Don’t worry. There will be plenty of opportunity to use legal concepts and organize by the elements during the course of the trial.

My Approach

• I present an approach to this technique that is simple and straight-forward.

• I want to make it clear from the start that what you will find here is how the technique has come to me, how it speaks to me, and how I have made it my own.

• I quote Sanford Meisner frequently throughout this presentation, but I choose the words that have caused a stirring in me.

My Approach

• I do not believe that there is one set way of applying this technique in the courtroom.

• The purpose of the technique is to inspire, to find a creative state that is both pleasing to be in and also full of the power of expressing oneself.

What This Course Isn’t

• Stand upright with your feet shoulder-width apart.

• Keep your arms at your side.• Look each juror in the eye.• Smile.• Don’t have a wooden persona in front of the jury.• Avoid filler words like “ah, uh, and um” when

making your point.

What This Course Is

This course picks up where other storytelling classes leave off. It bridges the gap between storytelling creation and the performance

aspect of storytelling. It answers the question, “How do I become a better storyteller?” After

all, it’s not just about the story but how it’s told.

What This Course Is

By the end of this class, you’ll have a strong foundation in the art of storytelling and

dramatic technique that will catapult your courtroom performance into the stratosphere.

Buckle Up …

This is not your father’s storytelling class.

Why a Technique?

• Have you ever wondered why in one trial you had more Oscar moments than you could count and in another trial you were as “green” as your first mock trial competition?

• The ability to perform at a peak level night in and night out is a trait that great actors and great lawyers have in common, and one that I deeply admire.

Why a Technique?

• Ask any Broadway actor who performs eight shows every week how they can consistently turn out one Tony-award winning performance after another and you’ll get the same answer: “Technique and lots of practice.”

Why a Technique?

• It’s like the foundation upon which a large skyscraper is built.

Why a Technique?

• Just like an artist uses a canvas to create a piece of art to express the deepest levels of human thought and emotion, an actor uses technique to lose themselves in an artistic way so as to fully inhabit the mind, mannerisms, and reality of a fictional character, with the only limitation being that it falls within the “four corners” of the technique.

Why a Technique?

• Technique allows actors to express themselves freely, to accept themselves for who they are, and to allow their true self to shine through.

Why a Technique?

• Having a technique is as important to lawyers as it is to actors.

• When you’re in front of the jury, it’s as if you have a pallet, paints, and brushes and you’re painting, verbally.

Why a Technique?

Actors have a technique.

Why a Technique?

And now lawyers do …

Why a Technique?

• I’ve taken the tools and techniques that actors have relied upon for centuries to captivate audiences and draw them to the edge of their seats and applied it to the courtroom to help lawyers connect with jurors on an emotional level.

As You Begin Your Journey …

• As you begin your journey into the creative world of storytelling and acting, here is some advice.

• Neither is easy. Because what is being taught is new and in some cases, foreign, there will be times when you get frustrated and discouraged. You may even want to quit.


• Frustration is friend and foe alike. In theater, artistic frustration is like gold.

• It can motivate you to do something or it can cause you to fall into the lowest depths of misery.


• You have to think of yourself as a salmon swimming upstream against the current if you want anything in this world.

• You have to struggle for your success or else you’re never going to find it.


• It doesn’t come to you. You have to swim for it. You have to jump across chasms for it. You have to sweat for it.

• And then maybe you’ll get it. Many people jump the chasms but still fall into the canyon.

• Great trial lawyers, like great actors, are not born. They worked like dogs!