Sybil Procedure: How to build a national speaking practice.

Byline: Sybil Dunlop

Every once in a while, I realize that I've learned something in my years practicing law. One of those moments occurred last Friday, on my way home from Atlanta, where people actually paid to listen to me speak for six hours. On the flight home, I thought about the places that I traveled this year and I realized (proudly!) that I have a national speaking practice.

These days, I am primarily paid to speak on the topic of implicit bias in the legal profession (and how we can fix it), but I also teach daylong courses on legal writing and depositions. (At this point, my daughter might roll her eyes and say something like "your family might pay you to stop talking.") But on the off chance that you, reader, are interested in building a national speaking practice, I have a few pieces of advice to offer.

First, consider whether you want one. These days, I'm hopping on a plane more than once a month to speak to an audience outside of Minnesota. The flights can be long. I usually spend the night away from home. And the pay doesn't come close to covering the time I spend preparing for any of my presentations. So why do it? Two primary reasons: it helps me become a better lawyer, and I really enjoy it.

How is it helping me become a better lawyer? I teach day-long courses about legal writing and depositions. To do this, I offer the audience my own thoughts and opinions about legal writing and depositions, but I also undertake a lot of research. What are best practices? What do other writers on these topics say? I watch videos of other depositions and take notes. I study Aristotle and Daniel Kahneman as well as research suggesting that female-named hurricanes are deadlier than male-named hurricanes1 as I think about how to depose witnesses. All of this research and thought is helping me improve my own practice.

I also enjoy it. I'm a litigator. And many of us litigators are showboats. If I could sing and dance, I would love to be a Broadway star. But, alas, I can do neither. Instead, I get to perform around the country to legal audiences and aim to keep their attention and engagement. This is fun stuff and as close as I'm going to get to a chorus line.

If this sounds like a good time to you too, I have a few pieces of advice to offer:

Say yes. I started teaching CLEs by saying yes to anyone who asked me to teach. I taught courses about 1983 law in dimly lit hotels in Bloomington. I applied to speak at local conferences. Once people...