From Alan:

On June 11, we celebrated the birth of our first grandchild.  A baby girl. We have two sons…a married lawyer, who just had the baby girl, and a rock ‘n roller, about to be married in October. Family has always been a central part of our lives. Our parents all live near us and are in increasing need of our care…3 left and we feel blessed.

During the birth week, the cable channels were playing PARENTHOOD. Now, this film was released in 1989 and has always been a favorite and one that I will almost always stop and watch if I flip by the channel when it is on. But, now with the addition of a new generation in our lives, the film has taken on a new significance.

Bill Moyers, the wonderful journalist, says that the birth of a grandchild has to make you an optimist. You must be convinced that the world will survive and that things will be better in the future. I agree.

This sprawling, multi-generational, multi-plotted film is brilliant in so many ways. But, what lessons does it have for trial lawyers?

Well, I was struck by two things: point of view and theme.

There are many points of view in this story and many stories within the film. In film, switching point of view can be done in many ways – a jump cut, a black out, or simply beginning a new scene in a new place with different people. In live communication, it is a little trickier. You still have many tools at your disposal.

Pause, silence, move to a new physical spot in the room, a new tone of voice, a different pitch or volume. All of these can help the listener understand that you are now switching to a new topic or a new point of view. And as a trial lawyer, you must become a master STORYTELLER and that demands that you master all of the tools above….and more. A fully relaxed and modulated voice, a full range of pitch and a detailed understanding of vocal patterns and inflections. And most especially, when telling a complex story with many characters and more than one point of view it is imperative to clearly mark each change so the listener, judge and/or jury, can follow.

In PARENTHOOD, all the stories were connected by a common theme. This is another important lesson from this film for the trial lawyer. Locating and developing an overriding, overarching theme that connects all stories and all points of view into a unified whole.

Do yourself a favor and watch this film again and keep these two points in mind.

TIP: Are you clearly delineating and marking the changes in the story and the point of view? Find a unifying theme, an overriding theme, that connects all aspects of your story and all the stories of your case.

From Alan:

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS is not a film in wide release. That means it is not easy to find. It will play in only a few cities on a limited number of screens. But, if you can find it, please do. It is exceptional.

Werner Herzog, the filmmaker and documentarian, has been afforded access to visit the caves of Chauvet in Southern France. Here are the oldest known paintings that humans created. As an old friend of mine once said, “It was ever thus.”

To see the detail and grace of these paintings is to know that throughout time, humans have had the same feelings, intuitions and dreams. These images are 35,000 years old. And they portray the basic human needs: hunting for food, seeking shelter and the fertility of women – immortality. The magnificent renderings of horses, elk, and horned antelopes are captured in mid-run it seems. The naturalistic representation of the animals is in contrast to the abstract images of human, especially of women. They are portrayed as vessels of fertility. A spiritual awe is almost palpable.

What is also fascinating is listening to the scientists and artists, working together, struggling to find THE STORY. Who were these people? What did they want? Why did they paint these images? Of course we can’t know definitively, but the struggle to understand, to make sense, THROUGH STORY, of what is in these caves is the essential human endeavor. We tell stories. We look for them, we seek them, we can’t understand our history, our present nor think about our future without story.

And this, of course, is what trial lawyers should learn from this beautiful film. Find the story and attach that story to the largest theme you can conceive. If you don’t, the viewer, the listener, will look for one on her own and supply one for you.

TIP:  Are you telling a story that has been told for 35,000 years? Does your story link to a universal, eternal theme?

From Katherine:

Okay. I’ll admit it. I have been angry with Woody Allen for YEARS and you know why. Every time he makes another brilliant movie, I forgive him a little bit more – and this time I think I am completely through being mad. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS is a must see! Run, do not walk! The theme of the illusion that living in another place and time would solve all your problems certainly hits home for me. OF COURSE I WANT TO LIVE IN PARIS IN THE 1920S SURROUNDED BY ALL THE GREAT ARTISTS AND WRITERS WHO WERE THERE. Duh! And the performances are brilliant. But it is one performance, that of Owen Wilson, that I think attorneys will find most useful in practicing the law. He plays “The Woody Allen Character.”

Ah, the evolution of the Woody Allen Character. I fell in love with Woody Allen when I saw Bananas nine times. Brilliant, funny – an amazing writer and actor – I was in awe. His quirky smart comedy combined with his wonderful delivery never failed to amaze me. All nine times. Over the years his films have bowled me over as he has grown and changed as an artist. But those comedies – there is really nothing like them. Also, over the years, as he has aged he has taken to having another actor play “The Woody Allen Character” in his movies. In MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, it is Owen Wilson.

When I first started working with attorneys, I saw that young lawyers were all imitating their mentors. Playing their version of their own personal and deeply influential “The Woody Allen Character.” Sometimes it is funny and endearing. Kind of like when our kids were teenagers and I had to dress them up to go to traffic court in one of Alan’s sport coats and ties so that they could hang onto their drivers’ licenses. There is something really moving about a young attorney putting on the personality of his or her mentor. It never quite fits and you have to roll up the cuffs. Then as I got older and started looking at all attorneys, regardless of age, I saw that many have either a gigantic or a small bit of that imitation still at the heart of their trial personality. Sometimes it serves them well – almost like a pocket watch passed down from grandfather to grandson. Just a bit of an accessory. An homage. I am thinking now about an attorney who takes a small pause, looks at the jurors and smiles before she gives a really big point in her closings. I remember her mentor and she wears that gold watch with ease and pride. Really well integrated and coordinated.

But then I see attorneys who have really outgrown that old mentor – or at least their youthful version of that old mentor that is now completely “at odds” with their adult person. I am thinking now of an attorney who gives a big, bold and completely false gesture straight out of the Clarence Darrow playbook when wanting the jurors to know that he is disgusted with what opposing counsel said in closing. As if Clarence Darrow would have the same playbook in the 21st Century that he did in the 20th!

Do you have a mentor? Now…look at how Owen Wilson plays “The Woody Allen Role” in MIDNIGHT IN PARIS. You absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the base and root of that character is Woody Allen. But – the heart and soul is Owen Wilson. Every expression of delight, heartache, longing, and surprise is his – but we sure do know that Woody Allen is an integral part of what he is doing as an actor.

A note about my relationship with Woody – or as I sometimes call it “when he betrayed us all.” You know when I fell out of love with him. I know that it is best to “trust the art and not the artist” but I really let his behavior get in my way. As my friend, Terry said, “He was her father. If he ever once said, ‘Listen to your mother!’ he was her father!” At any rate, I think I’ve fully forgiven him now. Or maybe I just want to see Paris in the 1920s nine times…

TIP: Is your mentor showing up in your delivery? And is it a good thing?

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From Katherine:

If you are an attorney, you should go see BRIDESMAIDS just because you are working MUCH TOO HARD and you need to laugh until you cry. Did you love The Forty Year Old Virgin as much as I did? Then you know that anything that Judd Apatow produces might make you laugh and tug at your heartstrings at the same time. Paul Feig has directed some of my favorite television shows (The Office, Nurse Jackie, Mad Men, 30 Rock). If you like them, too, you will be as excited as I was to see this talented guy make the leap to the big screen.

BUT – ultimately it isn’t the guys who make this film great. It is the women. The Women. THE WOMEN. The amazing actress/writer/producer Kristen Wiig is stunning in all three of her capacities. Actresses Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCarthy, and the late Jill Clayburgh make this film unforgettably brilliant. I don’t think I have ever seen anything from a woman’s point of view that was this funny. I don’t think anyone else has, either. Ever. It is relentlessly female. Relentlessly funny and female.

In the audience with me when I saw the film over the weekend were Alan and our own soon-to-be-bride of 2011, Ariana, and her fiancée, our son, Nathan. The large audience we saw it with was filled with women and men – some seeing the show with “dates”, some as a guys’ night out, some as a gals’ night out. The top of the film was a bit uncomfortable as the men and women in the audience all changed their points of view from what was “normal” to what was “different”. In a “normal” hysterically funny comedy, the point of view is decidedly male. To start a film with a woman having a really hysterically funny bad time in bed with an insensitive man is “different”. First the men I was with and a few others started to laugh with the women in the audience…then more…and more…and then by the time the scene was over the whole audience was laughing in big belly laughing waves together. Brilliant!

What can lawyers learn from the experience of seeing BRIDESMAIDS on the big screen? Women are different from men. I find working on a case with a woman or women in charge very different from working with men. Men are often very top down. Whoever is lead counsel in a case in which I am the only female on the trial team can choose to stay on the top of a pyramid and dictate from that position. Roles are assigned and to stray from the role one is assigned is simply never done. I call this “Playing Law With The Boys”. On the other hand…women are often team players. When lead counsel in the case is a woman, all of us sit around a table and she will throw a problem out and everyone brainstorms it. At the end of the day, she will decide what course to take with the problem – but she wants everyone’s opinion, ideas, and advice. I call this phenomenon “Playing Law Like A Girl”. I say “Like A Girl” because there are male attorneys who play this way, too. I call them “girl-y men”. I can give no higher praise than to call a male attorney with whom I work a “girl-y man”.

Although they do show up occasionally in my own generation, the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), I find that “girl-y men” are showing up more and more in Generation X (born between 1965 and 1976 or clear up to 1980, depending on which scientist you follow). You will note that the core folks who made BRIDESMAIDS are all GenXers: Wiig, Apatow, and Feig. They describe making the film as a large collaboration – not just because there is a strong tradition of improv in the cast. Every time you laugh until you cry when you see this film, know that it came from collaboration at every level instead of top down. Think about your own style of trying cases. Do you sit at the top of the pyramid at all times? Or are you more of a collaborator?

TIP: Are you already “Playing Law Like A Girl”? If not, maybe it is time you did.

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Katherine:

Will Ferrell is best known as a funny man who makes funny movies. The woman in front of me in the popcorn and diet coke line said, “I love his movies because they are so stupid.” When I told her my son loves Will Ferrell movies she said, “What is he – like 9?” I said, “No, he’s 32 and he is a lawyer.” She was amazed.  I don’t see why.  Lawyers have such high levels of stress and do such serious work that it doesn’t surprise me that so many of them are Will Ferrell fans. The need to laugh at something “stupid” is a great escape.

However, Will has been making the rounds of talk shows with his “unfunny” movie, EVERYTHING MUST GO.  He kept warning his fans that this movie was “different”. As the lights dimmed in the theater this evening I thought, “I wonder what is to be learned from creating something different from what is expected.”

As I watched the film, I was struck by the elements that allowed us to know that this film was “different” – not funny.  I kept thinking how many of the scenes could have been funny if first time feature director, Dan Rush, had handled them differently.  And the way he used the elements of film making undermine expectation! For example, the musical score was a sometimes plaintive, often times simple, acoustic guitar that underscored what Will’s character, Nick, was feeling. Sharper sounds would have made those scenes funny.  Also, the camera was soft – soft focus, soft light – sharper visuals would have made things funny.  The editing was drawn out.  No punches – again, working against funny. Finally, every scene was long, drawn out, very slowly paced. The acting was very real and each moment of realization was drawn out. Again, this is the opposite of comedy.

Over and over again in my mind I thought about the stories that we tell in court.  About how jurors, judges, arbitrators, mediators and opposing counsel “expect” things and are “steeled” for them.  I don’t know about you, but I want people who are deciding the cases I work on to be surprised by their own response to the trial.  I want them to “buy into” the scene they are a part of. What needs to be changed up?  Instead of frowning and getting pompous and serious when talking about a patent, how about laughing and getting excited about it – as excited as your client was the day he discovered his invention? Instead of almost crying when talking about the little girl the jurors are going to meet – the one in the wheelchair – why not smile in expectation of how great she is and how much they are going to fall in love with her? In a case that is about a contract, why go with fulfilling the expectation that this is going to be as dull as a dishwater and impossible to understand?  Why not challenge yourself to make this a light and breezy “no brainer”?

Okay, so you won’t be “perfect”. That’s okay. Trust me, EVERYTHING MUST GO isn’t perfect, either.  But is it worth the ride to see how your expectations are turned upside down every step of the way? I think so!

TIP:  Where are you turning expectations upside down in the case on which you are working?

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Katherine:

Getting a wrong righted after decades of injustice is one of the most satisfying things about working for justice. It is especially satisfying when it happens in a court of law. The award-winning documentary, Neshoba: The Price Of Freedom, traces one of the most amazing journeys from injustice to justice in our country. It documents the coming to justice of the men responsible for killing civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney and Michael Schwerner, in 1964 when they finally came to trial in 2005 – over 40 years after their murders.

I first became aware that there was going to be a film of the trial at an American Society of Trial Consultants Conference. Two of my friends and fellow trial consultants, Andy Sheldon and Beth Bonora, came to us with the tale of victory on the case. Film makers Micki Dickoff and Tony Pagano had followed the entire trial process and had interviewed them as they helped bring light to one of the darkest times in our history. Much of the work done on this case was done pro bono by both the consultants and the attorneys.

It is moving to see the interviews with the families and loved ones of the victims, both then and now. It is hard to watch an ancient man, head still unbowed, tell the film makers he is not repentant for the deaths of the three young men. And it is stirring to the core to witness the brilliant lawyering and trial consulting that brought justice at last.

At this year’s ASTC Conference in Seattle, there is going to be a screening of the film on Saturday, June 11. You can also buy a copy of the DVD on the Neshoba website.

Every attorney who tries cases should see this film. Share it with others. Pass it on. And remember – pro bono some of your time every year. Justice is waiting.

TIP: Make a commitment to pro bono your time to at least one case this year.

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Katherine:

There is nothing harder than successfully translating a novel to the screen, unless it is successfully translating the story of the client to a lawsuit. Lawyers have a lot to learn from the team that turned a brilliant novel into an amazing film.

When I first heard that Sara Gruen’s wonderful novel WATER FOR ELEPHANTS was coming to the screen as the film WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, I was not automatically filled with joy. I had SO enjoyed reading the novel a few years back and I was afraid it would be ruined for me. I thought, “GAWD, I hate when adaptation is done poorly to something I LOVE.” The delicate dreamlike quality of the novel, the intensity of the story of trust and betrayal, the magic of the circus, the intensity of passion – how could that be accomplished in a film? I don’t know how I could forget that the filmmaker, like the trial attorney, has all the important elements of storytelling at his or her disposal.

Visually the film is stunning. I was reminded once again that films are “moving pictures” after all. The art director, David Crank, and the cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, created that magical world perfectly for us to live in it for a few hours. But then, that world stays with us for a long time after. It is very hard to get those pictures out of your mind. I started thinking about how attorneys who just blow up a few documents are so missing the boat when it comes to storytelling visually. My compatriots who do visuals for trial tell me that like an art director and cinematographer, they choose color, tone, style, and images that match the theme and story of the case.

There is so little dialogue – even though the book is filled with words (after all, it is a novel!).  In the film, words are kept to a minimum. How I was reminded of the excess of words I hear so much in so many cases. What is it that Mark Twain said?  “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

It took Richard LaGravenese a long time to adapt that script from Gruen’s novel. I know. I have adapted many a short story and novel to the stage. But once a point of view was chosen, that became clearer for him. There were many points of view in the novel, but only one for the film – Jacob, the protagonist, played by the great Hal Holbrook in present time, and Robert Pattinson in the past. The culling of the theme – life, like the circus, is love triumphing over cruelty through illusion – that made the way to the spare dialogue even clearer. How often have I heard attorneys again and again say, “There is so much to this story to tell…how do I choose what stays and what goes?” Don’t I always tell them “pick one point of view” and “let’s keep the words as sparse and simple as we can”?

Finally, of course, there is casting. Reese Witherspoon’s Marlena is a dream of Jean Harlow meets the Blue Fairy in Pinnochio meets the shadow of a great love is unforgettable. And Robert Pattinson’s young Jacob is funny and brave and wonderful – just the man we will root for forever.  For the attorney, which witnesses are you going to need to tell the story? There are plenty of characters left out of the novel when translating it to the screen.  Why do you need this witness?  Even if you have made a strategic decision to call a number of witnesses, each to tell a small piece of the story – are you sure you have the right number?  Are you giving the right amount and part of the story to your lead witnesses to tell?

Run, do not walk, to see this wonderful film.  And if you missed the book when it came out, I hope that you are inspired to read it, too.

TIP: Are you using all the tools you have – visuals, dialogue, testimony – to bring your case to life?

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Katherine:

Okay.  I’ll admit it.  I didn’t see BLACK SWAN on the big screen.  For some reason the trailer always made me laugh. Every time I saw the part where Natalie Portman as the character Nina turned her back to the mirror and pulled the swan feather out of her shoulder blade and her eyeballs turned red I would whisper to Alan, “God, I HATE when that happens!” Then we would giggle uncontrollably.

But then when Natalie Portman won so many accolades, including The Academy Award, I kept thinking, “I have to see this – I am sure that there is something there I need to write about for the blog!”  Of course, I had no idea that it would be PERFECTIONISM. Nina’s character is driven to extremes by her perfectionism. And I certainly recognized myself in her.

I am such a perfectionist.  It is a horrible quality to have – especially if it overcomes what you are doing well and starts your wheels turning backward so that you start doing poorly by getting in your own way. But I have picked up on the fact that the character of Nina I are not the only ones.  There are lots of people in the theater who are perfectionists as well. There are show business jokes about it.  “A doctor loses a patient on the table, sighs and says, ‘At least I didn’t screw up something important – like an episode of Grey’s Anatomy!’”

I can’t help noticing – it seems that many of the cases I work on and many of the workshops I teach have perfectionists as well.  Lawyers driven to perfection.  When you see BLACK SWAN and ortman’s fascinating portrayal, you may very well see yourself.  The tricky part is, of course, attorneys are caught up in a serious business. Lives and fortunes are saved and lost with your cases.  The importance of what you do can’t be compared to blowing an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

You know that whenever I work on a case or teach a workshop you hear me quoting Anne Lamott’s words from BIRD BY BIRD, “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.”  That crazy voice inside of you that says to an actress or a lawyer, “You aren’t doing it perfectly so you’d better tighten up.” The character of Thomas Leroy, played by the wonderful Vincent Cassell voices the theme of perfectionism as the oppressor again and again in the film.  Just as the need to be perfect makes the character of Nina’s performance stiff, forced and inauthentic, so does perfectionism for the attorney.  If you are stiff, mannered, flat and act like a robot because you are trying to hard to be perfect in your delivery of your case you will surely fail. You will get in your own way. You won’t remember what comes next. You will alienate the jurors, mediator, arbitrators, judge – whomever you are trying to convince.

When you see BLACK SWAN and see yourself as I saw myself – Hey.  Lighten up. If you don’t think that you deserve it, believe me – your clients do.

TIP: Trust yourself.  You know this case really well. Let go and fly.

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Katherine:

If you ever made fun of people who thought that French Existentialism made them feel hopeless – and you know as a twenty-something I was the kind of girl who stuck up her nose at the folks who didn’t get the brilliance of that movement– get ready to make fun of me right now.

When I saw the trailer for OF GODS AND MEN I had that response I have to all great trailers: “Wow! I’ve got to see this one!” When this much lauded, award-winning film showed up this week in our local movie theater, I was thrilled to buy a ticket and take a seat. And then… “it” happened.

I recognized “it” from some of my experiences with art – and certainly some of my experiences with the law. How many times have I said to an attorney, “Okay – really, really, really sad. Now, where’s the hope? I mean – a jury isn’t going to give your client any money if there’s no hope.” I find this equally true in business cases, personal injury cases, patent cases – you name it, you gotta make 12 people feel like what they are doing makes a real difference.

Yes, OF GODS AND MEN is one of the most depressing and hopeless films I’ve ever seen. I was reminded of other French experiences I’ve had with art… that circus at the Bastille in which the entire audience sat in rapt attention not breathing and communing with the performers. A production of TARTUFFE at the Comedie-Francaise where that actor almost punched out that kid in the audience who was laughing. Don’t misunderstand me, I’ve had some off the charts amazing experiences with French art as well – but OF GODS AND MEN brought back the ones that made me think, “the French are not like you and me.”

TIP: Make sure your case gives us hope for the future or we won’t vote for you.

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Alan:

WIN WIN is a terrific film and I highly recommend it. This is a human story, with a strong narrative, well told and well acted. The characters are all believable and their struggles are identifiable. It is the kind of film I love.

For the purposes of this post, I want to focus on the non-verbal storytelling. Not only the camera work, but also the interactions between the characters where there is very little or no dialogue. So much is being said without using any words. There are wonderful “who do you like best?” exchanges between the wonderful Paul Giamatti as the down and out lawyer wrestling coach, Mike Flaherty, and the assistant coaches played by Jeffrey Tambor and Bobby Cannavale. There are other exchanges I don’t think we’ve ever seen on screen before between Paul Giamatti and his wife, Jackie Flaherty, played by Amy Ryan. She is such a strong and active presence and, as is typical of “the wife” role, is given only a modest amount of dialogue. You have to watch what she does with it.

But the most telling scenes come toward the end of the film between Paul Giamatti and newcomer, Alex Shaffer, who plays Kyle. Look for the scenes in the basement and then during their brief breakfast together that follows. Almost no words are spoken, and yet so much is being said. So much is accomplished by the actors and film maker, Thomas McCarthy, in terms of their relationship and the story.

As attorneys, I know you have often heard that pauses are powerful. That silence can speak volumes. Well, here are some wonderful examples of just how true that is. Watch the film, and focus on what is happening in between the words.

TIP: Trust the silence. By valuing the pauses and unspoken communication, you can sometimes emphasize your story and the critical moments of your storytelling in ways far more powerful than with all the sturm und drang at your disposal.

Katherine:

Shilpa on our creative team told us that we had to see WIN WIN immediately because it was not only a great movie, but it was about a lawyer and perfect for the blog. I thought, “I wonder what I’ll write about for Legal Stage?” I never dreamed I’d be writing about ethics.

The film is brilliant from an artistic sense – and Alan’s comments begin to address this beautifully. But I was much more struck by the story of a solo practitioner, Mike Flaherty, who is stuck in our current horrible economy. He’s still in the small town he grew up in. His business is going down the tubes fast. He is a soft-hearted guy whose client list is dwindling to the ancient and the dying. We know him. Some of us are him.

Mike is faced with a moral and ethical issue as an attorney and makes a choice that he knows is wrong. Funny, I think of all the folks who do this for great windfalls – or for power – or for some kind of prestige. He just makes a choice that lots of folks who feel like their backs are against some financial wall might be tempted to make. The difference is that he is an attorney. And making this choice violates his duty to his client, the court, to his client’s family…and, ultimately, to all of us.

I must say I came home and looked at myself long and hard in the mirror and made sure that I was doing well by doing good. And I’m not even a lawyer. WIN WIN is now on my list of favorite lawyer movies because I think it deals with a real ethical dilemma, and one lawyer’s journey through it.

TIP: How are you doing on your journey on the straight and narrow pathway today? Feeling the pinch? Inhale, exhale and make the highest choice for the greatest good of everyone involved.

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