How Theater Play Can Enhance Legal Practice

A winner of the WBAI’s Mary Heften Hooten Award, Judge Megan Goldish has served on the Circuit Court of Cook County for the past seven years. Judge Megan Goldish is also a student and performer of theater and improvisation, a practice that has also helped her in her law career.

While theater play and improvisation, and law and legal practices are fairly different, the first can complement the second, and help lawyers in their work. One way in which theater play can help one’s “performance” in court, is that participants learn to speak with intention. Lawyers can also learn to speak with the right facial expression and emotion.

Lawyers can also become aware of their body language and all the messages that their body transmits to other people. In this way, when a lawyer is presenting an argument or questioning a witness in court, they can make their points with confidence, a factor that can help them make a convincing argument to the judge or jury.

Another way in which theater play and improvisation can help a lawyer is through rehearsal. Just as actors, lawyers sometimes have to revise and practice presenting their statements several times, so that ultimately, they speak their arguments loudly and clearly, in order to be effective advocates.