Vocab:Don’t chew your fingernails演讲的风度很重要

94. Don’t chew your fingernails. All right, we have never actually seen attorneys chewing their fingernails at oral argument. But we have seen just about every other distracting and annoying sort of mannerism. Some appear to be unconscious and unintended: drumming one’s pencil on the counsel table, swaying back and forth during argument, fixing one’s gaze on the lectern or off into the middle distance instead of looking at the judge who is asking a question, fiddling with papers on the lectern, going through the argument with a frozen smile that’s either silly or supercilious. Work to identify and eliminate these unintended distractions. Other mannerisms (worse still) seem quite calculated: punctuating a telling statement by leaning forward over the lectern or poking at the air with one’s pencil, striking a pose of deep contemplation by removing one’s glasses and nibbling at the end of the earpiece, repeatedly putting one’s glasses on and off with an audible clack and using them as a gesticulating prop, occasionally stepping away from the lectern to one side or the other. These pieces of stage business, probably originating in the Actor’s Workshop, are very effective in keeping a Rumpole of the Bailey audience entertained. But they do nothing but annoy and distract the judge who is trying hard to concentrate on the factual and legal details of a complicated case. Stand up straight and speak your piece. If you would not be surprised to hear the courtroom applaud when you sit down, you have overacted.