Bettered Battle Bears? {Brief}(bc)[sxsw Friday]

Legendary Litigators Better than Actors, We Really Have No Idea, Zoom screens

Simply, it was superman suddenly and without his cape sat in front of a pile of kryptonite.

Oh, they did well. Very well.

Yet, I could not escape the intractable understanding that everything had changed, instantly.

There are legends in trial and litigation practice. They come and go only about two dozen in a generation.

And, I do not care who disagrees… Lawyers are more skilled performers than actors. There are several reasons for this.

The “material” is vast and instantaneous, constantly changing, and predictably unpredictable.

There are no “second takes” in the momentary work. One take is all you get.

It is highly technical material, and the performer faces a constant foe or foes in real time bent on any fingerhold for destruction: distraction, disagreement, embarrassment, contention, complaint.

And so it requires decades of trial craft to be the best. No one is born that way.

So many many mistakes and learning.

Just and angry judges, frustrated co-counsel, malevolent and dangerous opposing counsel, lazy or mean jurors even serendipitous petty catty or stupid clerks.

So many dangers. Craft is survival.

The octagon of the “well” in a courtroom, beyond the gallery, beyond the last barrier, under eyes of a deputy resting hand on his sidearm, is like a Catholic sanctuary w Communion rail - holy, yet armed.

Permission must be won and granted to go in, permission almost to do anything. “May it please?”

And inside there the legend at court has perfected over thousands of iterations (much more than Gladwell’s 10k) in minute picayune detail all of the things that we do not mostly even notice. Voice tone tempo word choice pitch.

1. Hand movements, and body movements, and head moves, and shoulders and feet, very feet. (Like a fighter)

2. When to speak. When to stop. How to speak. How to stop.

3. How to speak without speaking. How to stop without stopping.

4. Where to look. Where not to look. How to look.

5. That look. And the other.

6. Much much and much more.

Courtroom legends require 30, 40, 50 years to settle into “Bear mode,” such that they remember always where the prize is no matter how far away they may be, and how to go exactly back instantly.

And they can smell fear.

Why does an 800lb bear not move quickly? It doesn’t have to.

These rapid and nimble bears do though, as circumstance that only they see require.

There I was in the mid of paranoid corona year of 2020, watching a legend attempt to adjust all that (and speaker volume) to transmit into a 12-in Zoom screen.

And that’s when I knew that everything in the Law had changed instantly from the past, and forever.