Virtual communication for legal professionals

Virtual meetings and remote work are the new norm of the professional landscape — yes, even for law firms. As the industry evolves, so should our communication skills. 

Michelle invites Marsha Redmon, a legal communications and business development consultant, to share advice on how legal professionals can improve their engagement when presenting and pitching to remote and hybrid audiences. 

They discuss best practices for communicating in different scenarios, common mistakes lawyers make, how to project confidence and credibility, and more.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn

• Who is Marsha Redmon and what is Marsha Redmon Communications

• The challenges lawyers face with virtual communication

• How to engage audiences in remote and hybrid settings

• Common mistakes attorneys make when setting up their video

• Advice for setting up your remote video to enhance credibility

• What technology and equipment are worth investing in

• How to train and mentor employees remotely

• Best practices for holding difficult conversations virtually

• Best practices for presenting to C-suite executives

• Projecting confidence and authority as a woman

About our featured guest

Elite law firms and lawyers have gone to Marsha Redmon for 20+ years to learn how to have a more powerful presence when they speak. During COVID, she became the go-to expert teaching professionals worldwide how to fix their virtual presence so they can speak with confidence and engage powerfully — to win clients, have impact and own their niche.

Marsha is a former practicing attorney and award-winning TV journalist. The through-line in her varied career is, “There must be a better, faster way to do this.” Her workshops teach lawyers and executives the speaking skills and a fast messaging process they need for effective thought leadership in every scenario: speeches, panels, pitches, media interviews, client summits.

Marsha practiced law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and was an award-winning consumer and investigative television reporter in major markets. She also taught business communications to MBA students at the University of Maryland.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Check out Marsha Redmon Communications

• Follow Marsha Redmon Communications on LinkedIn and Twitter

• Connect with Marsha Redmon on LinkedIn

• Say hello to Michelle Calcote King on Twitter and LinkedIn

• Download Marsha’s “5 Steps to Being a Powerful Virtual Presenter” checklist

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by Reputation Ink.

Founded by Michelle Calcote King, Reputation Ink is a public relations and content marketing agency that serves professional services firms of all shapes and sizes across the United States, including corporate law firms and architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) firms. 

Reputation Ink understands how sophisticated corporate buyers find and select professional services firms. For more than a decade, they have helped firms grow through thought leadership-fueled strategies, including public relations, content marketing, video marketing, social media, podcasting, marketing strategy services and more.

To learn more, visit www.rep-ink.com or email them at info@rep-ink.com today.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Marsha Redmon: Lawyers often aren't aware of their audience, and so they tend to talk over the heads of people when they're in person, and virtually, it's a lot easier to lose your audience. If you're not concise, if you're not focused, if you don't have energy, if you're not making eye contact, all of those things make it much easier for you to lose the attention and really lose the ability to connect virtually.

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[00:00:27]: Welcome to “Spill the Ink,” a podcast by Reputation Ink, where we feature experts in growth and brand visibility for law firms and architecture, engineering, and construction firms. Now, let's get started with the show.

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[00:00:44] Michelle Calcote King: Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle Calcote King. I'm your host, and I'm also the principal and president of Reputation Ink. We're a public relations and content marketing agency for law firms and other professional services firms. To learn more, go to rep-ink, that's ink with a K, .com. 

Today, we're going to talk about all things remote work and virtual meetings. These are the norm in the post-COVID world. Although there've been some bumps along the way from learning how to unmute and mastering screen sharing, overall, it's allowed us to connect better regardless of our physical proximity.

In this new world, it's really vital for lawyers and their firms to be able to connect with clients and their peers in a virtual setting. Doing so effectively requires a different set of skills compared to in-person communication, which is why this topic is so relevant today. We've got the expert in the legal industry on this topic to discuss this. 

We're talking to Marsha Redmon. She's going to discuss best practices for navigating virtual communication in the legal industry. For 20 years, she's helped lawyers and other professionals improve their presentation skills. She's a former practicing attorney and also an award-winning television journalist. She's uniquely positioned to talk about this. Welcome to the show.

[00:01:56] Marsha: Thanks so much. I'm excited to be here. I'm actually joining you from spring break in Fort Lauderdale.

[00:02:01] Michelle: Love it.

[00:02:01] Marsha: This is not my usual setup, but it'll do.

[00:02:05] Michelle: Actually, I'm going to get into that later because I want to talk about, what are those things you've got to do when you're not in your usual setup. That lends perfectly to that. 

Let's talk in general, let's set the stage. The whole world has had to really learn pretty fast how to operate in this remote world and communicate over Zoom and Teams, but what about lawyers in particular? Are there some unique challenges that you think lawyers have faced?

[00:02:28] Marsha: I think so. The main reason is that lawyers often aren't aware of their audience, and so they tend to talk over the heads of people when they're in person, and virtually, it's a lot easier to lose your audience. If you're not concise, if you're not focused, if you don't have energy, if you're not making eye contact, all of those things make it much easier for you to lose the attention and really lose the ability to connect virtually.

[00:02:56] Michelle: Do you see generational differences too? I was just having a conversation yesterday, especially in the law where older attorneys don't retire along the normal timeline that a lot of other industries do. Are you seeing real generational differences with this?

[00:03:12] Marsha: I think so. For some folks, the technology itself is challenging. The need to really remake how you communicate. I think folks at either end of the generations may not believe that this is our world and that it's worth it and absolutely required to learn how to connect and communicate effectively as a lawyer over a camera. Whether it's virtual or hybrid, we have to learn these skills. I think there's a lot of resistance. A lot of folks still haven't realized that in the most important communication situations like pitching and CLEs for your clients, this is never going to go away because it's just too convenient.

[00:03:53] Michelle: Yes, it really is. It's too convenient. It's going to morph, and we're going to see changes, but this kind of communication is going to continue. Absolutely. 

Tell me about the workshops that you put on. What are some of the different things you're teaching in those workshops?

[00:04:09] Marsha: Sure. As you mentioned, I've had this business coming up on 24 years next month. I started out doing media training, so, teaching lawyers how to talk to the press, whether it's broadcast or print. Very quickly, I expanded it to include all communication skills that impact lawyers, so, all the ranging from presentation skills to pitching, to how to talk about your practice. Both the core communication skills as well as thought leadership-specific communication skills. Of course, as you mentioned, once the pandemic started, it was 100% about virtual communication. Now that the pandemic is over, I am spending a lot of time teaching hybrid communication, so, talking about how to connect when you have people in the room, as well as people who are virtual.

[00:04:58] Michelle: Oh, fascinating.

[00:04:59] Marsha: Yes. The sad thing is that hybrid is harder than virtual.

[00:05:05] Michelle: Oh, yes.

[00:05:09] Marsha: Because we're dealing with two audiences at once. If you're the speaker and you happen to be in a room with people, we tend to forget about the people who are joining virtually, and so it's offensive and we miss out on some large portion of our audience.

[00:05:26] Michelle: Interesting. I just heard about a thing called an Owl. Have you heard of this? That you could put into a room, and it follows whoever the speaker is. I haven't bought one yet. I've just looked at it, but it'll follow the speaker for that particular reason, that people who are hybrid, who are remote, but everyone else is in-person, are really left behind in those conversations.

[00:05:51] Marsha: It's challenging. It's challenging at law firms. A lot of law firms use different platforms, and so it's hard, or they change platforms. I do a lot of work at a very large government agency that has a lot of lawyers and accountants, and they have traditionally used the one we all hate. That one.

[00:06:10] Michelle: Teams.

[00:06:10] Marsha: Now they've added a second one, so all of those people are now having to master both.

[00:06:19] Michelle: We become creatures of habits with our tech platforms. Once we're comfortable with one, it's hard to switch over to another. That's fascinating. I'd like to hear more about that hybrid training. What are some other things you are training your clients to do in those hybrid situations?

[00:06:36] Marsha: The challenges with hybrid, the first one is tech, so, figuring out. It sounds like this Owl thing is probably a voice-activated camera, and so, understanding, in all the conference rooms that you might work in, how do things work? Voice-activated cameras can be a problem if you have a main speaker, but other people have ice, or they're opening a chip bag or something else. You can have the camera turn away from the main speaker. Sometimes the microphones are voice-activated, so you may get a lot of background noise that's very distracting to the remote audience in particular. That's the first thing, attack. 

The second thing is making sure that you have procedures in place to do everything possible so that the remote audience is brought into the room and is given all respect, and that you're showing a true commitment to making sure their voices are heard. My best piece of advice around that is to have a person in the in-person room whose job it is to be the voice of the remote attendees so that they're monitoring the chat. They're getting questions, and they're literally speaking up and saying, "We have two questions from the Chicago office. First question is this, second question is that," so that we have that handled. Another thing I would recommend, if you have a panel or several speakers, make sure some of the speakers are remote because that brings a kind of parody so that we're showing the people in-person aren't the important people, but we're spreading the attention.

[00:08:06] Michelle: Interesting. Let's talk about, you're in your office, you're doing a Zoom or a Teams meeting. What are some basics that you see a lot of lawyers get wrong?

[00:08:17] Marsha: Now that we're back in our office, we're starting all over. Most of us by now have figured out, how can I show up well as a talking head. Talking head video means this. I have a little bit of headroom. I'm in the middle. You can read my expression. I come across as a professional. Most of us have figured that out at home. Now that we're back in the office, almost without exception, everyone is backlit. Whatever blinds they have behind them, typically, they're facing the door and the windows behind them, and so their audience can't read their expression because there's so much light behind them.

We all need to spin away from the light or get a better blind, or drape, or something because the bottom line is we judge each other over the camera the same way that we would if we were in-person, and so our audience needs to be able to read our expression. For me, I'm a little dark today because I'm doing this from a hotel room and the beach is out there. There's a lot of sun coming in on the side. Ideally, I would look more like you. I would have nice light on my face, I would have color in my face, but we need to work all that out in the office because we don't have credibility with our audience if they can't read our expression, if they can't see our eyes. We've got to work these things out. 

On the flip side, if we do it well, then the audience, even if we're communicating one to 100, every person on the other end feels like we're having a one-on-one conversation because we're showing up like a talking head, which also brings with it a lot of perception of expertise, a perception of knowledge because we've spent all of our lives seeing experts and heads of state looking like this, right?

[00:10:05] Michelle: Right.

[00:10:06] Marsha: Talking head video. We can borrow that credibility if we go ahead and work out the lighting, the framing, those things.

[00:10:15] Michelle: Interesting. Lighting, how you position your face in front of the camera. What about backgrounds? What are your suggestions there?

[00:10:23] Marsha: My goal with the background is to have it be not distracting.

[00:10:27] Michelle: Mine is probably a little distracting.

[00:10:30] Marsha: The good thing is you have fun stuff in the back, which is just showing expertise because I'm sure those framed things are awards and things like that.

[00:10:37] Michelle: Right, yes.

[00:10:38] Marsha: I can tell that from a distance, and lawyers resonate with that. The good news is you have a lot of distance between your back and the things behind you. They don't distract me. I don't have the urge to lean in and try to read what they say because you have enough distance.

[00:10:55] Michelle: Okay, interesting.

[00:10:55] Marsha: Yes. The goal is to not be distracting. Here we have a couple of things. Nothing really worth watching, but a little bit of color, which is helpful. If you have a lot of stuff going on behind you, you just want to try to get some distance. If you happen to be on Zoom, you can always do Blur My Background, and that's very effective. I personally do not like virtual backgrounds.

[00:11:17] Michelle: I was going to ask, that was my next question.

[00:11:19] Marsha: They tend not to work that well. As the lawyer leans slightly here and there, some big headrest on their chair suddenly looms over them or their ear disappears. If you have hair, I saw a woman once do a pitch with a bun on the top of her head, and as she slightly moved forward and back, the bun would disappear and reappear. It was super distracting and not at all professional.

[00:11:45] Michelle: If they have some worries about what's in background, you would recommend just doing the blur versus choosing a background. Okay.

[00:11:52] Marsha: Yes, unless they've tested it, and it works really well. The thing about the virtual backgrounds is you really need to light your wall. Who has time for that? It's better to just blur.

[00:12:04] Michelle: Interesting. What about technology? Obviously, I podcast, so I've got my fancy microphone, I've got a really nice camera. Are there some basics that you recommend everyone have right now, or are there things we can do without having to get a whole new setup?

[00:12:23] Marsha: I think it's good to have a decent camera. The camera can really make a difference. That's why I'm so white today. This is the camera that I just keep in my bag all the time. The camera can really make a difference. If you're in a situation in your office or your home, wherever you do a lot of getting on Zoom or some other platform, it's good to handle background noise. If you know there can be a lot of noise if you're in a big city and you hear a lot of ambulances and things that are loud, I would suggest using a noise-canceling headset.

One that covers both of your ears and have the noise canceling microphone because that will keep your audience from being distracted by the noise in your environment, and for you as a speaker, as a communicator, having both of your ears covered means you don't get distracted by the noise in your environment.

[00:13:14] Michelle: It's amazing, I think, how well noise-canceling microphones perform. I work from a home office, and I have two dogs. I have been recording before and just heard mayhem going on, barking happening outside my door. I've learned that, really, it doesn't translate over the microphone. I used to stop recording and go back and listen, and they actually do a really effective job. Once you learn that, you calm down a little bit more about outside noises and that kind of thing.

[00:13:46] Marsha: Yes, absolutely. For the last three years during the pandemic, I did all of my workshops virtually until the last six months. The yard guys would come, and they'd be six feet outside my window, and I'd be doing a workshop for 150 people. No one heard a thing, and I kept talking, which is important. 

[00:14:07] Michelle: I had that happen. I was doing a speech to an industry group of, it was probably 100 people on it, and I was actually at my sister's house in South Florida. Her yard crew came, and right outside the window. As soon as I started talking, and I didn't have my noise-canceling microphone, I'm sure you can relate, it was panic-inducing.

[00:14:31] Marsha: Oh, yes. Plus you completely forget what you were saying.

[00:14:36] Michelle: Yes, you just blank. What about eye contact? I saw you wrote about some of that on your website. How do you make eye contact in a virtual setting?

[00:14:46] Marsha: That's the most important thing because if you're looking down here at your notes, or you're looking down here at the video of the people you're talking to, it seems as though you can't meet the eye of your audience or you don't respect them, or you just don't know what you're doing. The bottom line is you have to look at the camera.

I like to do a couple of things to help you cheat and make it easier. What I do is I'll take the Zoom window or the Teams window, and I'll squeeze it up so it's smaller. I'll push it right under the webcam, and I'll get about, as you can see, I'm a little more than an arm's length away from the camera, and so I can look at that video box right under the webcam, and it still looks like I'm looking at the camera.

[00:15:27] Michelle: Ah, smart. Interesting.

[00:15:29] Marsha: Yes, that makes a huge difference. The second thing is, for a lot of us, we have slides, we have bullets. I recommend that you squeeze that up and put that right under the webcam as well. Don't let those slides go full screen. You want to squeeze them up and put them under the webcam.

[00:15:44] Michelle: Got it. The other thing I noticed when I first started doing these podcasts and doing them on video, actually, my producer of the podcast said, "You've got to lower your camera." I was doing the classic, it was up here, and I had never thought to bring it down here. She sent me the exact how. Once we did that, I thought, "Oh my gosh, that made such a difference." I would've never thought of it.

[00:16:13] Marsha: Yes, it's easier. Truth be told, the ideal position for your camera is right at eye level.

[00:16:20] Michelle: Right, at eye level.

[00:16:20] Marsha: From today, my camera should be right here.

[00:16:24] Michelle: Got you.

[00:16:25] Marsha: There are no books in this hotel room, so I couldn't get it up. To your point, it's easier to make eye contact when the camera is level than when it is too high or too low. As you showed a moment ago, when it's too high, it makes you look really small so you don't seem professional. You don't seem like a full adult because the camera is looking down on you, which now that many of us are back in the office and on Zoom in the law firm offices, that's the new problem. It used to be the camera was shooting up our nose, now it's too high because they've got webcams on top of giant monitors.

[00:17:02] Michelle: Right, yes.

[00:17:03] Marsha: They've got to find a way to lower the desk or put the camera maybe on a tripod in front of the screen. Some solution.

[00:17:14] Michelle: Definitely. I had a client once that I felt like all I ever saw was the top of her head for that exact reason. It was a giant monitor and she had a camera stuck up there, and she couldn't change it. It's all these new things that we're having to figure out here. The other thing I thought was really fascinating on your website was talk about… What I hear from our law firm clients is the real reticence of firms with remote work or even hybrid work is training and mentoring young attorneys. I have a fully remote team. We've been remote since 2018. We had office space for many years, and then I took it remote in 2018. I've always mentored in a remote fashion. What are tips that you give your clients about how to do that, how to accomplish that?

[00:17:59] Marsha: The thing I'm hearing from all the law firms I work with is that small breakout rooms are a really effective way to let people connect and talk and engage, and feel like they know each other. Even now that a lot of lawyers are back in the office, they're not back in the office every day. Some firms still have people that are 100% remote for whatever reason. To have those times with teams of people so that we connect and we talk about things, whether we're talking about work or we're talking about life and ourselves to connect, to do it in small groups.

Two people, three people up to four people. Just to get that connection. Then if it's possible, to get together in person relatively often when everybody is there as much as possible. One of the government agencies I was talking about, they have a community day now. I think it's only once a quarter, but everybody has to come on the same exact day because otherwise, they're letting people choose which days to come in.

[00:18:57] Michelle: That's great. I saw somewhere where you were teaching them how to make little videos, screen recordings. I thought that was so important, because myself as a boss, as you're working through the day, you think, "Ooh, I'd love for my entire team to know this." What I hear from lawyers is, "Oh, well we're missing that, just drop in the office or that hallway conversation." When they say that to me, I think, "Yes, but that can still be accomplished through technology." Are there ways that you help them do that?

[00:19:26] Marsha: Yes, there are a number of screen recording options. I'd be happy to send you some links and stuff if you want to put it in the show.

[00:19:31] Michelle: Let's put it on there, yes.

[00:19:34] Marsha: That just make it really easy. That you can log in, and you can use it to connect. You can also use it to say stuff. You record it once, and then people can watch it when it's relevant to them or useful for them. Sometimes with time zones and stuff, it's hard to get everybody together all at once. With the benefit of screen sharing is they can see your face in a little bubble, but then you can show them stuff on the computer. You can walk through and say, "Hey, looking at this document," or, "Looking at this new piece of tech we want you to use," or, "Let me walk you through some changes to the website," or whatever it happens to be. You can make a little screen share video and they can see things as well as you.

[00:20:12] Michelle: It is very very helpful. Lawyers, they deal in the world of contentious topics, what about difficult conversations over Zoom or Teams?

[00:20:25] Marsha: I actually teach a workshop called “Difficult Conversations,” which, of course, is about messaging, really. It's about actually having the difficult conversation. The thing I know is that it's easiest to connect and read each other if the camera is on so that we can see each other and we can hear each other. A lot of our judgment of tone and emotion comes from the voice, but it also helps to see people. It varies from person to person, but certainly, if you're delivering bad news, we always used to say if you're delivering bad news or having a hard conversation, you want to do it in person. If you can't do it in person, I say do it over Zoom or Teams or Webex, whatever you have, so that you can see each other.

[00:21:07] Michelle: Yes, that's super important. What about busy executives? Is there anything different about, say, lawyers are presenting to the C-suite? Is there anything unique about when communicating with that audience virtually?

[00:21:22] Marsha: Yes. I call it the short attention span audience, or as I used to say about lawyers, some of them have the attention span of a gnat. Just because you're that person, too, doesn't mean you know how to present to those people yourself, as with lawyers many times. The main things are, get to the point right away. My focus on that is to flip the order of your communication. Most of us were taught the scientific method, proof, proof, proof, conclusion. I always recommended, conclusion—

[00:21:50] Michelle: Conclusion first. Right, yes.

[00:21:52] Marsha: My point, here are the two steps you'll need to take, here's the benefit to you if you decide to do as I recommend.

[00:21:57] Michelle: That's your journalism training right there, yes.

[00:21:58] Marsha: Absolutely, yes.

[00:21:59] Michelle: An inverted pyramid.

[00:22:01] Marsha: Yes, super structured. In fact, really everything I teach around communications, most of it comes from journalism. In addition to my five years at Big Law, it's all about, how do you structure a message, how do you get the attention of an audience, how do you keep the attention. It's all the stuff you and I learned in journalism.

[00:22:20] Michelle: 100%. I love to hire former journalists because they come ready-made with all of these skills that are often difficult to teach. It translates so well. Honestly, obviously, as a PR firm, it translates for that. I think just in general nowadays, having good communication skills gets you so far in business. This is just another step forward in learning how to do that. 

Tell me about women and female attorneys. What's unique about how we as women communicate? What are some things we specifically need to think about?

[00:22:56] Marsha: I think it's beneficial for women to get together with women and to talk about the communication issues and how to project confidence and authority. There are some slightly different issues for women, and I just find we're more comfortable talking about these things together, not having any men in the room. This is a very popular workshop I do, powerful presence for women. It's specific to women, and I mention women-specific communication issues only there. I never do it in front of men because it's just better for all of us.

The specific things are pitch, knowing if you have an issue with pitch. If your voice is too high, how to use the lower natural range of your pitch. High-pitch voices don't carry as much authority as we want. There are specific ways to deal with that. If you have the issue, you probably know it. For me, the most important thing around confidence and authority for women these days is to become concise. Most lawyers talk too much. All of the research tells us men talk more than women do, but the perception is that women talk more. The upside for women is when we become concise, when we say less, when we have a real structure to our message, it's very noticeable, and we get extra benefit from it.

My number one thing I always teach to women are my messaging structures and the templates that I use so that they get right to the point. Their sentences are shorter, their communication is direct, and that bumps up the perception of authority and expertise. It keeps attention, which is hard to do now for all of us. Then other elements, of course, are around things we do with our voice. Not using phrases that take away our power, not saying a lot of likes and ums. The most important thing, and men and women do this equally, is saying things like kind of and sort of. It's deadly. We have to get rid of that because we're basically saying, "Don't believe me. I don't really mean it."

[00:24:58] Michelle: It's the worst whenever you listen to a recording of yourself, and realize you've got an issue with some of that. My issue is saying the words, "You know." When I'll listen to a recording, just cringe every time I hear it. It is very difficult to work it out of your communication style.

[00:25:17] Marsha: Yes. I say, again. "Again, blah, blah, blah." I'm like, "Oh."

[00:25:23] Michelle: Yes, that's so difficult. This is all fascinating. It's very relevant for nearly everyone working today. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this, especially while you're on vacation. We've been talking to Marsha Redmon of Marsha Redmon Communications. If people want to learn more, where should they go?

[00:25:39] Marsha: Sure. It's really easy. It's my name, Marsha, marsha.com is my website. If you happen to be interested in a nice little checklist, you can go to presencetips.com.

[00:25:52] Michelle: Great, awesome.

[00:25:53] Marsha: It'll be in the show notes.

[00:25:54] Michelle: Yes, fantastic. All right, thank you so much.

[00:25:57] Marsha: It's my pleasure. Thank you.

[00:26:00] Michelle: Thanks for listening to “Spill the Ink,” a podcast by Reputation Ink. We'll see you again next time. Be sure to click “Subscribe” to get future episodes.

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