Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast. Today, we're excited to have Pam Sherman - leadership consultant, actor, author, and recovering lawyer - here with us to talk about playing the role of you. Your Law School Toolbox host is Alison Monahan, and typically, I'm with Lee Burgess. We're here to demystify the law school and early legal career experience, so that you'll be the best law student and lawyer you can be.
Together, we're the co-creators of the Law School Toolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and the career-related website CareerDicta. I also run The Girl's Guide to Law School. If you enjoy the show, please leave a review or rating on your favorite listening app. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us. You can always reach us via the contact form on LawSchoolToolbox.com, and we would love to hear from you. With that, let's get started.
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast. Today, I'm excited to have Pam Sherman - leadership consultant, actor, author, and recovering lawyer - here with us to talk about playing the role of you. Welcome, Pam.
Well, hello Alison. I'm really excited to be here on the Law School Toolbox. Where was this when I went to law school? It's brilliant.
Same. Right? We make the things that we wish we had. Well, to start us off, can you give our listeners just a bit of your background so they have some context here?
Well, I usually start my story in the second grade, when I used to play piano with the door wide open, hoping that a wandering talent agent would hear me sing and cast me on Broadway. But yeah, they don't wander the streets of Staten Island. And I came from a very traditional family. Well, my dad was an OBGYN and my mother was a Freudian psychoanalyst, but to them, being an actor was just not a career path.
They wanted a secure profession, and so they thought, "Well, why don't you just go to law school?" And I agreed with them because I thought it would be just like being a lawyer on television.
Where everything happens in about 10 minutes, the entire trial.
Amazing. No paper, that's the most amazing. Maybe there's no paper now, but back then there was a lot of paper. And I really thought it would be a great way to use my communication skills and things that I could do. And I could act like a lawyer, like on television. And I went to law school, I got out and it was nothing like that, of course. Cases lasted years instead of 10 minutes.
Sitting on the floor of the law library, pounding my head against the table trying to find the right answer, doing mostly writing, and hardly any talking at all. And a funny thing happened on the way to my secure profession. I practiced for about seven years and my law firm went out of business.
Oh. Yeah. So much for job security.
Exactly. And therefore the thing that was the compelling aspect of what I did went away. And I actually decided to take the leap and I became a full-time working actor in Washington, D.C. You can cue the laughter on that. Like, isn't everyone acting in Washington, D.C.? And I was profiled in People magazine, which really was my dream, Alison not to be an actor; it was to be in People magazine.
And I got a call, and it was from one of the heads of training in one of the divisions at the Department of Justice. I didn't know why she was calling. I thought maybe she was indicting a former client of mine. I had no idea.
Something about the bankruptcy.
I don't know. But she said, "Can you help me make my lawyers more interesting?" And I laughed. I actually laughed. I think I went, "No, that's not possible." But I thought about it.
And in all of my experience, even going into courtrooms or depositions, or even just meeting with clients, the skill set that was least expected and most required was the ability to communicate and recognize that the messenger matters, that the storyteller is almost as important as the facts and the law, because the act of persuasion is an emotional one and not one only driven by legal knowledge.
And I said, "Sure, why don't we come up with some acting exercises they could do?" And I just remember there's nothing better than getting a bunch of lawyers to bark like a dog in an improv, right?
Particularly government lawyers in D.C.
Yes, anti-trust lawyers. They loved it. I took articles and they had to present the article and the point of the article, without reading the article. They had to improv it, they had to act it out. So, that was really exciting because it taught them about storytelling with sensory detail and how to be compelling to the decision-makers, ultimately. And that really set me off on a path.
And now I get to do that with leaders all over the world, not just lawyers - marketers, engineers, CEOs, and I get to do it in places as far away as Saudi Arabia and Cincinnati and Morocco and Milwaukee and every place in between, because I think people feel that it's so compelling. Everyone wants to make an impact with who they are. That's why we go to law school, because we want to change the world using the law.
And we cannot forget that this tool, the tool of you, is the most important tool in your law school toolbox.
Well, I have to say your current profession sounds a little more interesting and fun than working as a corporate lawyer. To each his own, right?
It's funny. I just was with 50 corporate lawyers, and many of them said they felt like they'd won the brass ring on the merry-go-round of a legal career, where you're in-house counsel making a difference and an impact for a company that is in the medical field. And it felt very purposeful for them and they love what they do. So, yes, what I do is fun and I love it, but it was a very interesting career path, right? Usually people go from acting school to law school, not the other way around.
Definitely a twist. If people want to learn more about you and what you do, or reach out, how can they do that?
Yes. My website is www.ThePamSherman.com. And on social media, I am @ThePamSherman - Facebook, Instagram. And LinkedIn, just Pam Sherman. Because there's actually a fitness instructor who has my name, and I'm clearly not her.
I came across that actually. I was like, "I don't think that's the same person."
No, her SEO is gaining on me.
Awesome. Well, we will link to all of that in the show notes for easy reference.
Thank you.
Well, I'm super fascinated by this kind of lawyer to actor transition, partly because I worked for a judge and he has a story about when he first got on the bench. He was at the time the youngest federal judge, so he had some issues around persona and whatnot and wanting to be respected. So, he actually had his mother, who was an actor, come and stand in the back of his courtroom and critique his performance. And I just thought that was so interesting.
And my co-clerk and I were rolling in 20 plus years after this, where he'd gotten it completely honed. And the first time we heard him give jury instructions, we were like, "Wow, he did such a great job on that." And then by the fifth time we were like mouthing it along with him, we knew the intonation, we knew the joke he was going to tell.
And that's such a powerful story, because it is repetition. Think about what actors do. We're doing the same show every night.
What do actors do? I don't even really know.
So interesting. And the reason I really think about, and this is what I'm working on and how I do my work - I call it, you've got to play you, and bring you into the fold. Great actors, if you think about it, they bring who they are to the character. They build their character, but they have to start with the foundation of who they are. Otherwise, I suppose they would be psychopaths taking on the role.
And I suddenly realized that it was more important that I be compelling in my work as a lawyer. When I went back and I studied acting while practicing law - maybe that's why the law firm went out of business, but... was leading a double life. I would run from deposition to audition, and partners would stop me in the hallway and I'm like, "No, that really wasn't me on that commercial." It really was me.
But I remember going back into an acting studio, and I had double-majored, theater was a double major for me in undergrad. And the definition of acting that I always found compelling came from a guru, Sanford Meisner. And he said, "It's the ability to live truthfully in given imaginary circumstances, so that we can take the audience on a journey of not disbelief, but believability." And I believe in many ways that's pretty much what we want all of our leaders to do.
And we surely want that from our lawyers. Lawyers, if you think about it, have to be credible, they have to be believable, and ultimately they have to bring their audiences on a journey, and they have to do it with who they are. So, yes, we may repeat the thing over and over again as an actor, but it's still got to be fresh and in the moment.
I always say it's as if you're on opening night every night for your audience, because the people at the end of the run have paid as much for their ticket as the people who go to opening night, and they're expecting a great performance. The jury that's sitting there, this is their only experience, right? Or the lawyer on the other side, that's their only experiences with you. So yeah, you have to bring who you are and bring the best of you to the table.
And I think that's something that we're not trained to do in law school and we forget about once we get into the nitty-gritty of the headspace of lawyers. And we forget that emotions are more persuasive than facts. Where do emotions come from? They come from the connection between you and your audience.
I think that's so right. I remember sitting through jury trials, and some lawyers just were not very good and it was clear that they were really missing the narrative on a lot of things. In one case, it was a sexual harassment and retaliation case. And you can imagine the corporate attorneys, older, not really clued in to this new generation and what they think.
And they picked this jury, and my co-clerk and I were talking to the judge, and he said, "What do you guys think about that?" We think they made some very poor choices. And he says, "Why?" And we start explaining this to him, and he's, "Oh, I didn't catch that. I didn't catch that either." And we're like, "This is not the jury they should have picked." And it ended up being a disaster for them in the end.
But also, the other side had this young woman, someone who is clearly probably not a straight person, a minority presenting. And it was just one of those things. It was like, "Huh, somebody is actually thinking about who is presenting this and how they're doing it."
Yes, and brought her own believability to it. She brought who she was into the role. And I will say when I first started practicing law, I thought I had to pretend to be something else. I liken it to, it was an ill-fitting suit, both actually and metaphorically, because I had a lot of ill-fitting suits.
Same, I think everyone did. I did want to talk to you about that, because I think that's so key, is how do you find a way, particularly as maybe a person who is not the classic straight white man, to be in this profession?
I think it's imperative to your mental well-being, as well as to what I call your believability. So, all of my work is about how do we bridge the believability gap, which is, how do we believe in ourselves and stay true to ourselves and still meet the expectations of our audiences, so they can believe us as well? And I like to say this isn't about authenticity, but believability, because when you're authentic, that can be often used as, "I'm going to be mean no matter what."
But what actors learn is that you are you for others. It's not about you. You are balanced by the needs and wants of your audience. So it doesn't mean you have to compromise who you are at the core, but it might mean that you have to adjust sometimes for the audience's needs, your behavior, and that's okay. You've got to find a way to make that believable. Does that make sense?
It does. And it's so interesting, because I definitely felt that struggle, being particularly a woman who looked younger than she was, going into these environments. I remember once when I was working and we were on this huge joint defense thing, and it's this ongoing case and we'd only had conference calls - I guess they weren't on video mostly at that point.
And I show up for a deposition and one of the other attorneys looks at me and goes, "Huh, that was not who I was expecting to walk in the door." And I said, "Well, what do you mean by that? That's interesting." And he says, "Well, I would have thought you were a lot older, and like, not you." And I was kind of like, "Huh, okay."
Well, thank you, I think.
Yeah. I'm like, "A) I actually am older than you think I am looking at me. And B) I'm really not sure what any of this means." And
how inappropriate for you to comment on any of
this, anyway. I know. I mean, to just put it in context, I think a little later, he was like, "Oh, do you mind picking me up some coffee?" I'm like, "Actually, I would. Go get your own damn coffee. And why don't you get mine when you're there?"
It was really interesting. I remember after I started taking acting classes and I started getting oddly more comfortable in my skin by playing other characters, clients would be like, "Wait, so when did you make partner?"
That's awesome.
Well, in my head, I'm the partner. And actually an acting tool - you talk about what do actors do they start with exploring who their character is. They look for clues in the script. Depending on what case it is, that's going to change your behavior.
If I've got to depose engineers... I think that's why, frankly, as a leadership consultant, I'm able to work in so many different industries, because we lawyers have to morph into an understanding of those industries, of our clients' needs, in whatever capacity, and become changelings in a way, based upon the case that we're working on or the problem that we're there to solve.
So, there really is a parallel between being a lawyer and being an actor, and I think when used properly, it's a very powerful one.
I think that's so interesting. I was just remembering, before I went to law school, I was a programmer. And so I was usually working in the end on patent cases, but they would sometimes send me to go talk to the engineers. And one of our clients wrote to my boss and was like, "Alison is so great at that, because she can really talk to them in their language."
And I didn't even totally realize what I was doing, but of course, I was switching out of very buttoned-up lawyer mode into, "Let's talk about your code, tell me about this. I understand these things. What about this?" And it was so interesting that I was shifting roles.
But you should do that for every client, if you think about it, because we've got to build trust. How do we build trust? Sometimes it's through mirroring: "I understand you. I empathize with you. I know who you are." Trust obviously comes from being credible and an expert and being the person who's there to solve the problem. But I think empathy and emotional intelligence are critical tools that again, they don't teach you in law school.
And in many ways, the work of being an actor is all in the emotional intelligence arena. Self-awareness, self-management, relationship awareness, relationship management - that's pretty much what actors do all the time when they take the stage, right? They have to be self-aware, they have to be aware of their partner, they have to be aware and managing the situation around them. So, it's interesting you said you don't know what actors do.
Most people don't know what lawyers do, and that's the secret power.
It actually sounds very similar. If I think of what I did when I was working as a lawyer versus what I thought lawyers did probably when I started law school, it's everything you just described. It's managing people, it's managing your own emotional reactions, it's managing other people's emotional reactions.
Yes.
I would have partners flying off the handle, and thank God, by that point I'd gone to therapy in law school, because I had the tools to say, "You know what? We're going to get through this together. I hear you. I understand that you are frustrated." And I'm like, "I feel like I'm literally talking to a toddler and I'm talking to a managing partner."
So funny, because I don't know how I did this as a first-year associate. That's when I started my therapeutic journey as well. And I would leave the computer open and lunch out, and then I would walk to my therapist. I did it all the time.
And that was an internal journey that was almost as important as the one that I took on external behavior in getting back to acting and knowing that voice and body language and all these tools are in our toolbox of how to be the most, I think, powerful and effective lawyers. It's really interesting, when I went to law school, I did trial advocacy, obviously. Barry Scheck, who was a very famous trial lawyer, was our coach for the Cardozo School of Law trial advocacy competition.
And he picked all the ex-actors. One of our guys was an ex-clown, he actually went on to become a First Amendment lawyer and partner at a major law firm. There was another guy who was a manager of musicians but had been an actor in the past. He found out that I'd taken acting classes. And so when we all tried out, that was a really important component. And we ended up acting like him. He had a very distinct style.
And I like to write to him when I've seen him on The Good Wife and other shows and say, "Listen, I got my Screen Actors Guild card before you, I just want you to know."
I think that's also so interesting, because as a young lawyer or law student, you are picking things up and trying things on, whether it's in writing, the way that you're writing a brief, or if you're speaking. How can people walk that line between what feels authentic enough for them, or I guess you would say believable, but isn't just being like, "Oh, now I'm the new whoever."?
Well, I think that would also be really difficult, because you feel like you're putting on a different hat for everything. You're still you. So I think you have to do the core work of knowing who you are - what values are important to you, what are your character beliefs, I call them, and you don't veer from them. And that's really important. Other people might call them core values. I think it's really knowing your audience well and what will work for them, and adjusting.
It's really adjustment, not a reshaping of who you are. That's a really very nuanced skill set, but I think a really important one for young lawyers to be aware of. It makes you a little self-conscious at first, but I'd like to shift that narrative to really thinking about, "How am I going to more deeply connect with this audience, with this partner", whoever you have to deal with in your career. And make it your own.
That was the funny thing about working with Barry Scheck, we all ended up sounding like him. I remember going to Texas for the national competition and I think we were up against a Southern law school. And they were so sweet and molasses. And I remember, "Objection, your honor! We don't have time for this."
You're like the New Yorkers, "Come on, get to the point." We had a jury consultant once come up from Texas with the boots on. We're at trial in Delaware, and I'm just like, "What in the world? Who hired this guy?"
But he played his role and he believed in himself, and you probably believed in him too.
I did not totally believe. I believed in his role, I just didn't believe in his... I don't know.
Skill set.
Yeah, exactly.
Two different things. I
wasn't quite sure I trusted him on advice on what I should be wearing in Delaware in court. But luckily, I'd already sorted that one out.
And I do think there is a professionalism to being a lawyer, and an expectation. And it really is interesting, like how can I be myself? And I find there're ways to bring who you are. I always had things around me that felt like me, even if I felt like I had to be a little bit more somber in my dress, depending on what was the argument I was going to be making or who I was going to be meeting with. Does that make sense?
It does. And I think calibrating that can be an interesting journey, and also difficult. When I went to OCI, I interviewed in a Brooks Brothers suit that was very boring, but I had these very loud Thomas Pink shirts under it. So it was this kind of mix. And my classmates, some of them were like, "Oh, I can't believe that you're wearing that pink and purple striped shirt to this very formal setting." You know what?
If somebody remembers me as that person who had that pink shirt on, I'm good with that, because they remembered me.
Well, and that's right. And part of this is, find ways to bring who you are to ground you, even in uncomfortable situations. And I think that's a really important acting lesson too. Think about it. Actors have to go in and audition. Mostly they're not working; they're looking to get work all the time, right? So it's the same thing. I'll never forget going in and interviewing for my law firm jobs and how nervous I was.
And if I had done some relaxation, been fully present, practiced stories, really understood that story... And I'm noticing, Alison, the skill with which you're recalling stories that are compelling, because ultimately, storytelling, I call it "storysharing". "Telling" feels very didactic and legalistic, right? Storysharing is at the core of what we lawyers do. We have to shape the facts to our story and zealously represent our clients. Just think about that.
In the legal ethical code is this incredible emotional word - "zealous", right? And yet, everyone thinks that being a lawyer is dispassionate and it's all about your head, when ultimately I think it is about your heart. That's a compelling reason to go to law school and be a lawyer. And if you can bring that into your practice by being a more believable you, then I think you're going to be a very powerful lawyer and you'll have a great experience at it.
Oh, that's so interesting. Law school is so analytical, and I think it attracts people who are analytical, maybe detached. When I went to therapy, I literally didn't understand what emotions were.
When I was an actor, I was constantly told, "Get out of your head, get out of your head. You've got to feel it in your body." I was like, "Wait, there's something below my neck? I had no idea."
Yeah, literally. My therapist, I'd tell her some crazy story and she'd say, "How does that make you feel?" And I'd say, "Well, I think..." She'd say, "Yeah, that's not the question I asked you." I'm like, "I don't really understand your question."
And feeling words are critical to storytelling, to argument, persuasion, because when we use words with feelings, when we have a facility with emotional language, guess what? It's more compelling for the audience too.
Right. Well, she had to literally walk me through the body of like, "Okay, well, what do you feel right now in your body? Do you feel your palms sweaty? Do you feel tense? Okay, that is the feeling called, whatever." And I was like, "Huh, fascinating. I never knew."
So, I told you at the beginning of this, that my dad was an OBGYN and my mother was a Freudian psychoanalyst. And the famous story that I actually put into a one-woman show that I wrote, a comedic show, was that if I had a headache, my father would say, "Take two aspirin" and my mother would say, "Who are you mad at?" That's the confusion.
Yeah, exactly. No, but I do think that even people who do have those tendencies of not being so emotionally, I don't know, informed - I do think it's worth trying, trying to get at that stuff, because I completely agree with you. I do think it makes you more effective as an advocate.
And it makes you a more effective leader. And if we think about it, lawyers, law firms, it is ultimately about seeing yourself as a leader. I talk about leadership presence, because to me leadership presence is that ability to emotionally connect with your audience and to do it by bridging the believability gap. And so, most lawyers are like, "I'm not a leader. I'm just here solving problems for my client." They are looking for you to lead. They are.
And there're so many opportunities to do that once you have a legal degree as well.
I think that's absolutely right. And I do think that's why they hired you - they want some direction.
Exactly.
Otherwise, they'd probably figure it out on their own. Well, before we wrap up, I do want to touch on one other topic area. Do you have any advice for people who realize, maybe too late, that being a lawyer just isn't for them? What's the value of a legal education? And how can people kind of transition and use that for something else?
I so now value my legal education, mainly because of the credibility that it gives me with my clients. You're doing a very different role. And there are plenty of actors who do what I do, obviously, because people find actors compelling, how do they create characters, and that's all well and good and those might be great technical skill sets. When I left the practice of law, I was at the point where I was using my good judgment to help my clients, as much as my technical skills.
And I think that's critically important in the work I do, is having the good judgment to step back, zoom out, really understand what problems are confronting my clients, so that I can help them with their leadership. And it's all around communications and behavior for me. The second thing is, I think a legal education gives you the capacity to learn lots of things very quickly.
And in anything you do - let's say you want to be a tech entrepreneur - you're going to have to really know your landscape, you're going to have to learn how to zoom in, learn how to zoom out, and that's something that we lawyers do, I think, very well, and law school teaches you that. The other thing that law school teaches you, oddly enough, is collaborative learning, right? So it does actually make you a better team player, which I know is a very odd thing to say. Do you agree?
Yeah, I was thinking, "Is that accurate?" Well, it is accurate, because there's a lot of independent work, but then I always had people I was working together with, to figure out how to solve these problems and do things. So yeah, it was a very intense time of working closely with some other people, just not everyone.
That's right. So, it isn't a sole profession. It requires collaboration, brainstorming. And ultimately, the organizational skills and the professionalism that I learned in law school, I think serve you anywhere you go. Anywhere you go in life. I think it's more about thinking about, "What do I love? What industries do I love? What role could I play?", and then making that transition.
I'm a big believer in actually working, and I don't do this with career coaches, because they're going to help you break down what's the next step to take this skill set? Nothing is a mistake. I think there are no regrets to choosing law school as your postgraduate degree, oddly enough, despite the fact that I have raised one full-on MBA done and another one who chose to go for an MBA afterwards, after consulting as well. Nobody's chosen my path.
Well, I'm not entirely sure, because I was thinking earlier, I think business schools actually are better at a lot of those personal skill sets, and I think they probably did learn that from you.
I'd like to think so. But I do come at them like a lawyer. I think you know how to ask great questions - that's another thing law school teaches you, because we love to dance on the head of a pin to solve a problem, right? And get to those questions that then evolve out to get to other questions. I think that's just a beautiful mosaic that lawyers bring to the table that we can bring to many other industries, careers, and professions.
And I would say we're always looking for the evidence. So, so many times, someone says something and I'm like, "How would you back that up? What are you basing that on?" Some might call it skeptical, but I call it... I don't know what I call it, but...
Inquisitive, curious.
And I guess there is a little skepticism, but it's like, you need to back that up. Yes, always. And it's really interesting. I'm in the middle of writing a book about this, Play You, The Role of a Lifetime: How to Bridge the Believability Gap. And it's really a step- by-step primer for how to do this work on your own, so that you could grow your leadership presence and feel more comfortable being you for all your audiences. And yet, I'm such a lawyer.
I go down the research path, I have to back it up. We all know that when we stand up straight and our body language is important, but there's research around it that I think is important. You can't just say that in a vacuum. So, that's the lawyer in me, for sure. Well, the book sounds like it's going to be amazing. I look forward to reading it. Before we wrap up, any final thoughts you'd like to share?
Mostly, I've been so lucky to go back and get on stage again. I hadn't done that for 13 years, and I recently went back as my idol, a woman named Erma Bombeck, in a one-woman show. And I would encourage... I know in business school, they actually sometimes have acting classes. But I would highly encourage, go off and take an improv class.
It will both be fun, but it will actually inform your legal work and your legal studies, I think making you more collaborative, more willing to accept the unknown. So, I would definitely recommend, why not take an acting class? It will actually make you a better lawyer and a better you.
And it sounds like it would be a super fun activity for people to get out of their heads.
Exactly.
Alright. Well, remind us again how people can find out more about you.
So, my website is www.ThePamSherman.com. And @ThePamSherman on social media. And LinkedIn, Pam Sherman.
Awesome, we will link to all of that. Well, Pam, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me, Alison. This was really wonderful, to talk, to hear all your stories about being a lawyer, and to hopefully make a difference for all of those listeners who are making this choice.
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