Mocking That Which is Legal

by Jeff Catanese                                  

A version of this article previously appeared on yesand.com at the following URL: http://www.yesand.com/features/archives/mocktrial.html. We have been asked by a number of people for a copy of it, so we are printing the original article here.

“Wasn’t there a time when all wasn’t well at 200 West 10^th Street?”

“Yes.  In August of last year the elevator went out.”

“And this was obviously an inconvenience for you.”

“Well, I’m relatively young, and I live on the third floor.  I was more concerned about the elderly folks who live in the building.”

There aren’t too many ways for an improviser to make a living.  There aren’t too many jobs that allow an actor to feel like they have a purpose outside of their profession.  And there aren’t to many opportunities for an actor to be a chlamydia expert.

The skills used by an improvisational actor come in extraordinarily handy toward helping law students learn to ply the lessons they’ve spent years learning without any practical application.  Actors are now being used in several colleges and universities around the country as trial witnesses for attorneys, interrogation suspects for law enforcement employees, and patients for perspective doctors.

The exchange above is from a mock trial the author participated in as a mock witness.  The student attorneys trying that case wouldn’t be properly prepared for the real world of deals, pleas and litigation without the “real world” experience gained by letting an actor take them through an entire trial.  The only way that a lawyer can really be prepared is to have some experience with the unpredictability a real witness might have.

Every semester at the law clinics of New York University a new batch of students passes this final challenge before actually litigating, or being buried beneath volumes of books on their way to passing (or failing) the BAR exam.  The challenge of seeing a case from its initial filing to its resolution in “court.”  Actors are hired to portray the litigants and witnesses that flesh out the case.

“Mr. Peabody, is Pat Weiss a tall person?”

“I think so.  Kind of.”

“Is Pat Weiss a man or a woman?”

“I’m not sure.”

The actors are given the details of the case along with specific instructions as to how to react if certain questions are asked.  Other than that, they are on their own.  It is up to the actor to create that character, their voice, background and point of view, sometimes with minimal information about the other actors involved with the case.  This can wreak havoc on a deposition.

The research can be daunting.  A criminal case might only have some names and dates for memorization.  One the other hand, playing a medical professional in a family court case could mean hours of scanning copies out of pediatric journals. 

Because each of the schools in the law clinic uses a similar system for their mock trials, the actors used may be recruited by any of the clinics to appear.  An actor who becomes used to the machinations of the real estate clinic may next have to play an FBI agent in a criminal trial or a victim of insurance fraud another time.  This way even the actors who take the stand every semester are able to stay attentive and interested.

Then of course there’s the money.  Most actors are paid on an hourly basis for their time spent being questioned and deposed by the lawyers, time in court, travel time and research time.  The hourly rate isn’t a lot of money, about ten to twenty dollars, but when you consider the time you spend at home learning the role and the details of the case, it adds up.  Many other jobs in this vein pay a flat rate for a one-day job.

The biggest benefit to the students seems to be getting a “Bomb in the Courtroom Free” card.  Once they’re billing clients hundreds of dollars an hour, they really won’t get the chance to stammer, treat a client shabbily or lose their notes.  In the clinic they get their chance to do all that, and then some.  Part of the job of the actor is to fill out a survey for the professors to rate each attorney based on their whole experience.

“Mr. McCoy, isn’t it true that the only reason you are testifying here today is that you are paid to be an informant for the FBI?”

“Sure, the FBI gives me a few bucks.  But I ain’t exactly getting’ rich off it.  Maybe it’s just enough to keep me in Mac & Cheese for the month.”

From the actor’s standpoint it is interesting to see how a case can be lost because the tools so often used in improv are not obeyed in the courtroom.  The student attorneys are routinely tripped-up by their own inability to discard their notes and work with what’s in front of them.  This leads to stammering, paper shuffling and saying “Good Morning,” at three in the afternoon.  At the least the actors hope that the students learn it before they might have to represent the actors in court.

To learn more about these positions, call the pre-Law or Law department at your local colleges and universities and ask if they offer any sort of mock trial clinics for their student lawyers.

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Jeff Catanese is editor-in-chief of Improv Review.  He is a veteran of dozens of plays and improv groups from the writing, producing, directing and performing ends, and is Artistic Director of Attic Salt Theatre Company, Inc.  Jeff is co-author of Folktale Plays From Around The World to be published by Scholastic Press in 2001.