5 minute read
Outspoken: Expert Emma Taylor on making your voice heard
OPINION
For more than 15 years, Emma Taylor has used her experience as a trained actor and scriptwriter to improve the public speaking skills of MPs, councillors, CEOs, lecturers and entrepreneurs. Now she is turning her attention to legal professionals, with a brand new workshop for Birmingham Law Society, designed to equip advocates with the skills required to present clear, compelling arguments in court.
Tell us more about why you developed a course specifically for legal professionals.
Lawyers often come to me looking for one-to-one training to improve their public speaking skills, because while they have plenty of technical knowledge, they lack confidence when speaking in court.
Many of these lawyers have a great deal of empathy: they are driven by a desire to do the absolute best for their clients. But they are often more comfortable working ‘behind the scenes’. I wanted to design a course to help them to feel more natural when they are ‘in the spotlight’ too.
How is ‘public speaking’ relevant to the unique environment of the courtroom?
While you need a lot of training to be a lawyer, you don’t have to be a legal expert to know how to construct a great argument! Knowing what metaphors to use and when to use them; knowing how to enunciate properly; knowing how to use your words to really persuade your audience - these are skills that cut across all disciplines.
Success in court is also about more than just being able to write a good speech - it’s about having presence, and being able to adapt and respond to your audience rather than being tied to a script. My background in acting and drama means that I can teach classical acting and vocal techniques alongside more traditional public speaking skills - all of which can help develop an effective courtroom presence.
What’s the most common issue you see in those who have to speak in court?
has a problem with nerves. That’s entirely normal! It can be hard to ‘find your voice’ in such a daunting environment. There are also often unusual acoustics in courtrooms, especially in older buildings, which can throw people off when they start speaking and hear their voice echoed back to them.
Nerves are easier to manage as you become more experienced and get to know the system and the judges. However, even those who have been advocates for a long time can benefit from re-learning the basics. Many lawyers that I have spoken to about this course have expressed regret that it wasn’t available to them when they
COURTROOM DRAMA
PUBLIC SPEAKING EXPERT EMMA TAYLOR EXPLAINS HOW BRUSHING UP ON YOUR ACTING SKILLS CAN IMPROVE YOUR ADVOCACY IN THE COURTROOM.
were training - to them, I would say definitely still come along as you will still almost certainly learn something new.
Emma’s upcoming training workshops ‘Doing Yourself Justice in Court’ is being held on 4th November 2021 9.30am to 1:00pm and 2:00pm to 5:00pm at No5 Chambers (Fountain Court, 5 Steelhouse Ln, Birmingham B4 6DR).
Book your place now via the Events page on the Birmingham
Law Society website: www. birminghamlawsociety.co.uk
HELPING TO MAKE A DIFFICULT, COMPLEX AREA OF LAW A FRUITFUL SATISFYING CAREER
ONE KEY LESSON FROM 30 YEARS OF MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE AND CATASTROPHIC INJURY PRACTICE
Medical Negligence and catastrophic injury cases are complex and paperwork heavy at the best of times. To give you an indication of volume, in one case we recently had to increase storage for medical records to 10 GB. Bear in mind this is not simply collection of x-ray photographs or videos; these are mostly paginated, collated, organized written notes. And as if that paperwork burden wasn’t enough, our instructing solicitors are often navigating tight deadlines, unhelpful agencies, demanding insurance companies and high capital requirements writes Vinod Kathuria of Tula Medical Negligence Experts.
And yet many of us continue to grow and thrive.
determined my level of satisfaction and achievement in the field.
For this reason at Tula I personally vet all the Experts on our panel. Many of them I have worked with long hours, doing surgery, on call at the hospital, or over joint reports. Anyone can talk the talk but when your nominated Expert has previously sprung to action on a Friday evening and been late to a family barbeque (or missing it altogether) because they put their patient first, you know that this is someone you can trust implicitly. Unsurprisingly these are the same experts who consistently provide case winning reports and are happy to have informal discussions to test a case.
Equally, the solicitors who instruct us, many have been instructing me personally for decades. Over the years the friendships have developed, and the standards never waiver. Detailed letters of instruction are often augmented with calls, and informal discussions pre and post instruction. Ideas are evaluated and conclusions are reached as the solicitor and clinician bring their respective expertise wholly and openly to the table.
And I’ve seen what happens when one deviates from the principle of working with experienced professionals. Fly by night agencies, run by unqualified middlemen jeopardize cases; they lose paperwork, instruct an expert without the right experience or in the wrong specialty, and miss deadlines. They hurt the reputation of the industry, and many Experts and solicitors have sworn off using reporting companies. I understand why, years down the line some of them still owe me money from when I provided them with reports! Notwithstanding this, there are good agencies around and I can attest to this as I have worked with them for many years.
When I joined Tula Medical Negligence Experts I knew that that we had to offer more than just fancy case management software, and all the latest tech. Ultimately these are the basic tools to service the instructions we receive. The real superpower we have is our staff. I personally review each instruction to ensure the right expert is nominated, everytime. Our manager is a lawyer with 25+ years of claimant experience, who used to instruct me in my personal practice for years before joining us.
Everyone at Tula is either legally or medically trained and that a principle we will always follow. Although the infrastructure of the reporting industry changes, for example we recently have recently appointed a DPO to train our staff and build up our Data Privacy and security certifications, ultimately I believe it’s working with experienced professionals that will yield a better daily experience at work as well as a long and profitable career.
If I had to choose just one key, one magic ingredient for the longevity of my practice it would be this; the professionals I work with have
