Hon Brian R. Van Camp, (Ret.) of ADR Services is our latest Featured Speaker!

Judge Van Camp of ADR Services has been speaking for us since our 2013 Superior Court Boot Camp.  We have asked him back to speak at our Superior Court Boot Camp every year since then because he gets top notch reviews from our attendees, is great to work with and is instrumental to the planning process

Judge Van Camp spent twelve of his almost sixteen years on the bench as a trial judge and has tried a wide variety of cases, involving disputes among businesses, partnerships and shareholders, real estate financing, construction defects, employment and wrongful termination, trade secret, medical malpractice and personal injury and served as an “all purpose” judge in complex cases.

If you have associates in your office who are new to Superior Court send them to learn from Judge Van Camp at our 11th Annual Superior Court Boot Camp in San Francisco on October 14th.

Your conclusion should be as simple as your introduction.

1. Summarize your three main points
2. Make a reference to and/or utilize the attention-getting device you used in your introduction

One effective way to provide closure — with solid impact — is to refer to the attention-getting device you used to kick off your presentation. You may want to refer to the story you told, or maybe you repeat one of the statistics you used. Re-telling a joke obviously won’t work, since everyone will already know how it goes — and this is another reason not to use a joke in an introduction. But you can integrate the punchline of the joke, as you would a the moral of a fable, into the fabric and ending point of your message.

How you remind everyone of your attention-getter will vary, but it is important to work it into your message and use it to drive home your theme. If I have used a quote, for example, to kick off my speech, I will repeat it again. And I not only make reference to it — I use that same quote and incorporate it into my concluding points. This is an important difference: I don’t just re-state the quote — I work it into my theme to drive home my message.

This speaking technique requires you think about what you’re going to say at the end of your presentation almost as much as you think about what you are going to say at the beginning, Furthermore, it requires you to create the body of your presentation before you create either your intro or your conclusion. That may seem counter-intuitive, and it may seem like more work. But trust me, it pays off well in firmly planting your message.

Mara Feiger of Mara W. Feiger, Attorney at Law is the latest Featured Speaker on the Pincus Pro Ed website!

Mara is an experienced criminal litigator and a California Bar Certified Specialist in Criminal Law.

Mara spoke for us previously at our 2013 Criminal Law Boot Camp in California and at our Exam Prep Course: California Criminal Law Specialist Exam. Mara was instrumental in the planning process for the exam prep course. She is well liked by our attendees who rate her teaching skills and knowledge base as outstanding.

If you need to brush up on your criminal law skills be sure to check out the recorded programs at the links above.

Quick review #1: Always dress a notch above your audience.
Quick review #2: Think neat, unobtrusive, classic. I suggest dark or darkish suits with a colored shirt underneath.

So much for the general stuff. But there are some things that have to be divided by gender. Big surprise — men and women have some different options regarding dress. And we might as well lead off with the one that will break some hearts …

Rule #1: No short skirts

This is important enough to repeat — NO short skirts. Yes, it matters. There are plenty of places to show off what you’ve got, but when you’re giving a presentation, you want the attention focused on your message; when you distract from that, it’s never a good thing.

Case in point: I interview a lot of judges and justices, usually when they speak at my trial and appellate CLE Boot Camps. And I always ask them for their best or worst story about attorneys presenting in court. One judge mentioned the time that a jury passed him a note after a break that asked him to direct the female attorney at counsel’s table to keep her legs crossed due to the length of her skirt. Need I say more?

So how short is short? I leave that up to common sense. But let’s just be clear: A skirt can be well below the knee and still be very attractive. There’s no good reason to flash your audience, and there are a LOT of negatives to it.

Thin line between flashy and trashy

Following Rule #1, you can figure out that other revealing or provocative clothing is a bad idea: low-cut shirts; tummy-revealing tops; skin-tight or semi-transparent tops or bottoms. You’ll want to leave them at home for the same reason as the micro skirt: You don’t want the audience looking at you nearly as much as you want them listening to you.

The same thing goes for a look that seems too “glam” for the office. For instance:

• No ridiculous nail polish colors or nails so long they scare people
• No ostentatious jewelry
• Avoid 4” spiked heels , open-toed shoes and sandals — any shoes that look like you’re headed for a night on the town or a day at the beach. Think “classy pump” and you’re safe.

Some of that may seem too stodgy, but it doesn’t have to be. These days, there are lots of top-line clothing stores catering to women going for the look we’re talking about. It doesn’t have to be boring to be professional. If you want to get real interest and energy coming your way, do it with what you have to say. It’s a much better long-term impression in any case.

So much for the general stuff. But there are some things that have to be divided by gender. Big surprise — men and women have some different options regarding dress. The list of specifics is a lot shorter for men than women, but that’s deceptive: Men are judged by what they wear as much as women are. It comes down to the little things, so you might as well give them some attention.

• Ties – color is fine, but ditch the sports ties, the political message, the holiday ties, the ties made by your kids. You want to wear something nice, but not something so flashy or distracting that people are paying attention to your tie instead of your words.

• Shoes – you want to make sure they are polished and have no holes in the bottoms. Do I have to mention no sandals or sneakers? Hopefully, I don’t.

• Avoid large flashy watches or jewelry. It may be tempting to want to make a statement with a little power bling. The problem is that if you do, that might be the only statement of yours your audience will take note of.

The bottom line is, you guessed it: you want your audience to be paying attention to what you are saying, not what you are wearing.

It is amazing how many speakers appear bored when making a presentation. There they are, up in front of a crowd with a golden opportunity to impart knowledge, create excitement or persuade a group to embrace a new idea and yet … they look as if they’d rather be almost anywhere else. Bored. Listless. Resentful.

You don’t have to be a motivational speaker to have permission to be passionate and enthusiastic about your topic. If you’re excited about what you have to say, show it. If, on the other hand, you aren’t passionate about your topic but you have to deliver the speech anyway, there’s only one thing to do: fake it.

Yes, I really mean that. Fake it till you make it.

Of course, if you’re not engaged in the topic, you probably shouldn’t be making the presentation in the first place, but there are many times when speakers, salesmen, lawyers and supervisors are forced to make speeches or give seminars against their will. In those instances, if the choice is between showing a lack of energy or displaying an enthusiasm that you don’t really feel, go with the fake-out every time: Fake. It.

Energy is contagious, yes. But the reverse is also true. If you can’t muster any energy for your presentation, how do you expect anyone else to?