Brief 21: Find Your Own Voice

[Music] Welcome to the Advocacy Podcast, journey to excellence. We speak with Queen's Council, Trial Lawyers and Judges from around the world about how they excel in the courtroom. [Music] Please subscribe on your favourite podcast platform and visit us for additional resources at theadvocacypodcast.com. [Music] I'm your host, BB Badejo. Today's brief episode is all about finding your voice, a vital skill in our profession. We'll begin with the inspiring thoughts a professor Leslie Thomas Casey, followed by highlights from Queen's and Director of Public Prosecution, Carl Heaton Casey, and invaluable tips from Lucy Cornell, voice coach to Trial Lawyers globally. [Music] One of the best advocates in the oral tradition at the bar that I've seen and my mentor has speakourtney Griffiths, Casey. I remember when I was a very young advocate, I just started at Golden Court Chambas, which is my chambers in which is based in London. In my early years, I did some crime, not a lot of criminal law, but I did some crime, as most advocates in common law sets had to do. And Courtney was at the time, you know, one of the senior members of Chambas, and he taught me under his wing. And at that time, I hadn't done a criminal pupillage, traineeship, so I didn't have a clue about criminal advocacy. And I went into court, and I, you know, it was just luck really, as to whether or not I got a good result or a bad result. And then the opportunity came for me when I was co-defending on a case with Courtney. And I just looked at that man in awe. He held the court with everything about him. He had this majesticee when he was addressing the court. He was funny. He could switch it about in the way that he spoke, so he could speak in a very proper British accent, and then all of a sudden he would switch to Jamaican Yadi. And just have the court in stitches. And I thought to myself, my goodness, what this is telling me is there is no right way of doing advocacy. Because up until that point in time, I had been laboring under the misapprehension, but to be a good advocate you had to follow in the tradition of previous good advocates. And here's the thing, the profession in which we work is very white, very middle class, in fact middle upper class, it's known as a gentleman's profession and in the past you had to be a person with money to enter the profession because of the way that Barrett's is a paid and all the rest of it. And the role models that we had were middle class white men, and that is what people expected. So you've got your martial halls, your rump halls, who speak in a certain way, and are expected to address the court in a certain way. Court me for me shattered that illusion. He taught me that you could be just as effective, just as devastating, just as good using your own voice. Well, that made me look and reassess who I was. You may not know this, but I'm a Londoner. When I'm not speaking very slowly, I used to speak very fast with a very strong self-london accent, because that's me. I grew up in social housing. My folks lived in a housing association flat near council flats. I went to a comprehensive school. I used to drop my ages, and so on. I used to speak with a ever-so-slice copney type accent. And then when I came to the bar, I thought I had to abandon who I was. And you see this often, you see people speaking in these really strange tones, and you think, why are you speaking like that? And right at the very beginning of my career, I was put under that sort of pressure. I mean, I'll give you an example. I went into court on my very first occasion, and it was a family, I was in my high court of justice. I think it was court 37, or room 37, when I was doing the injunction. And it was a family case where I was representant and dad, and the mum was, there was a dispute over the kids, and the mum was trying to get an injunction against the dad. And in court, I went in, and I said to the judge, I'm representant and the dad. And this judge blew up at me. He was like a volcano. Dad! Dad! We don't use that word in this court. I was thinking, "Oh, blame me, dad. What have I said wrong?" I said, "Okay." "Okay, okay, you don't use that." And it was one of those days, and I was just going to say, "I just couldn't say anything right." You know, you don't say, "Dad, you don't say okay." I went back to chambers and said, "You know, this judge really chewed me out. Really made me feel small. What did I do?" "Oh, well, you know, maybe you could have said, you know, the word father." And I was like, "But, what's wrong with calling, you know, on a family case, what's wrong with calling me the mother mum and the dad, dad? I don't get it." And as a result of that experience, my advocacy changed. I tried to be something that I wasn't. I was using the expressions that didn't come naturally to me. It put me at a disadvantage because it was trying to learn a language that I wasn't used to. Now, here's the thing, if you are using a language that is not natural to you, you are not going to be as effective a communicator. And so when I saw Courtney speaking in Jamaican Patoire, switched not the cross examination. And so when he had a black client, he went into a Patoire and the client could understand him. I thought, "Why not? Why not? This is about communication, persuasion, and he's persuading the court and he's communicating and he's effective." And so I've said previously, it's important to be who you are and embrace who you are. And I really mean that. And in the 30 years that I've been at the bar, I've seen advocacy change. I've seen people from up north hold onto their accents. I've not tried to develop some strange, sub-on, you know, so home counties accent. I've seen many people of colour question using their own voices and dialects and do so effectively. And when I've been in front of juries, particularly London juries, I speak like them and I feel no shame and nobody's going to call me up doing so. That is embrace in who I am and speak in my own voice. How would you describe yourself as a younger advocate and how would you describe yourself now? What are the differences? As a young advocate, I was a little sort of anxious about the process of the trial. I was much more concerned about making sure I got the process right so that the advocacy probably then became a little secondary. In fact, when teaching advocacy I've often said that much of what we do, we do because we've seen other people do it nobody yelled. And I think that's kind of how I found my way through those early experiences of doing trials. I'd seen prosecutors particularly, but advocates generally doing trials. I'd seen how other people did it and I set out trying to emulate that and navigate successfully through the trial. But as I got older, well then I, and more experience, well then I realised that the advocacy side of things is much, or is as much of importance as the process side of things. And so then I said about not just navigating successfully through trials, but trying to use my advocacy to navigate through trials successfully if you appreciate the difference. So as I gained more experience, I was able to bring more of my own personality, more of my own style and shackle myself from what I had seen of other people and bring my own, my own style and my own personality to my advocacy, which is again a thing that I think is very important that young advocates be reminded that they don't have to emulate some archetypal barrister that it's important, particularly when you're dealing with a jury. It's important that you bring your own personality to your advocacy style because otherwise a jury is going to be able to see through you. If it appears as though you're acting, if it appears as though you're trying to be something that you'll lose credibility in the eyes of the jury and if you lose credibility, well then your ability to persuade will be significantly reduced. You answered what was going to be my next question, which was when you saw something that you really liked, did you make it your own and the answer obviously is yes, you found your own voice. But I suppose the follow on question from that is how did you make it your own? Because I think for some people having heard that Eminent Silk say something that sounded absolutely amazing and trying to copy it yourself but it doesn't quite work, there's a disconnect. I suppose it's that how do you make it your own? I think recognising that it is important that you be yourself in front of a jury and you might see something that you find impressive but you've got to analyse it as to whether or not it is compatible with who you are as an advocate, your personality and the way you communicate. Don't just steal some turn of phrase or some particular affectation in court if it's not going to suit you. I remember now many years ago and in a regional town there was a barrister who was perhaps a might I'm kindly described as being a little bit pompous and he was renowned for beginning what was I guess going to be a submission which was difficult to sell to the judge and it would say in this big pompous voice and I may now be on the precipice of a bold submission your honour. I suppose as a young advocate it seemed all a bit rumpolean and so it was impressive but purely from a theatrical point of view but if you analyse it from a persuasive point of view I think your assessment of it is different and if you look and I certainly encourage young advocates and indeed more experienced advocates to always be watching other advocates and see what they do and if you find something is persuasive analyse why it is persuasive and then assess whether or not you can import that into your own advocacy style. So let's talk about some real practical things what's always going to happen is when you're under pressure and your in action your range will diminish anyway so the best way to rehearse or practice is to do it in an extreme way or a more extreme way than you normally would. So there's a couple of ways you could do it I mentioned earlier if you can just get out of the house and use your voice in extreme ways and every week once a day that would be really healthy for your practicing court. By that I mean literally take the dog to the park and yell "Go fetch!" or throw a frisbee to it or throw a ball to it or take a child, borrow a child and go to the park and play on the climbing frames with him whatever you're doing like do it vocally or go to a sporting match and go to a rock concert can we do that these days but whenever you can and do use your voice to extremes because the more you stretch it out the more play you have. So that's number one the second thing is as you mention speak your text aloud in your chambers get pull it apart and put it in your body and put it in your voice speak it aloud but when you speak it aloud it's not just ladies and gentlemen of the court I'd like to tell you that blah blah blah you had to speak it aloud like get up walk around the room I often have and this is going to sound actry but I'd love you to do it anyway because it's all about play the more playful you can get with your voice the more range you'll have in court to jump up and down walk you've got one thought walk to the other side of the room jump in the air and say the thought as you're jumping and landing and then walk somewhere else jump speak it land move your body around and get on the floor roll around anything you can do to stretch your voice around now that's going to be terrifying for advocates I know you're all shrinking in your chairs right now while I'm saying this if that's too much then at least stand up and at least play with your voice and take your voice into different places as you're speaking so we'll go too far so ladies and gentlemen of the court I'm going to do silly stuff like that the best place to do it is in the car everyone can hear everyone these days I think if you can get in a car and put the windows up then that's the most private place you can be and do it there to just find the extremes because we've forgotten how to do that these days so that's the practical so it sounds a bit ridiculous and silly but that's the most practical way to do it. Are you an experienced trial lawyer who feels like you've hit a plateau if you want to take your advocacy skills to the next level feedback is key and I have just the thing for you I'm baby the voice of the advocacy podcast and founder of the advocacy coach every month I host the advocacy clinic is a free and unique online platform for lawyers to practice or arguments or witness handling with seasoned actors then receive real time personalized feedback because you actively engage or simply observe it's an unmatched opportunity to hone your advocacy skills. Dejoin just sign up at the advocacy coach.com/clinic Become unstoppable at court with the advocacy coach your partner in your journey to advocacy excellence. Thank you for listening to the advocacy podcast journey's excellence. If you enjoyed the episode please subscribe and visit us at the advocacy podcast.com for reading lists and other resources. Until next time.