Become an effective legal communicator

General Counsel and in-house counsel generally balance many things, and the role can vary depending on the industry the lawyer is working in. There will always be a commonality between them all: the critical skill of communicating. Being able to share a message effectively with stakeholders, whether that is your business partners, the executive team, the board or your peers.

Being an effective communicator as an in-house counsel is not only about how well you know the subject, how great your idea is, or the amount of time it took you to research – if the audience you’re advising and speaking to are unable to understand your advice, the message or the idea, your value will not be understood.

Clear communication can be a difficult skill to master and requires a lot of practice to develop. As legal counsel, it is something you should always keep in mind with everything you communicate. You have a duty to assist your clients, the business, and influence good decision making. Without clear and concise advice in an easily accessible format, you may struggle to have your message and advice heard.

To assist, I offer three tips to assist with guiding and improving your skill as an effective legal communicator.

Know your audience 

Knowing the audience you’re communicating with will be of critical importance. An example I use in my book, A Way With Words, explains that if you’re the finance advisor at a large company and three different people have asked you a similar question about Government Services Tax (GST), creating one response and copy and pasting it to everyone might seem like the easy thing to do. What you haven’t anticipated is that each person that’s asked you a similar question has (a) a different level of understanding of the topic, (b) different needs to be met, and (c) likely more questions than answers.

As a result, you’ll now have to do more work to provide specific information to each of these three people instead of taking the time to understand them individually, their department and their specific needs.

Tailoring a response that is specific to the audience – the business partner – you’re talking to will be more effective in delivering a useful legal response. With this, if you know the person, you’ll also know the best way to provide them with advice. Not everything needs to be an email or written memo. Some of my “I don’t have time to read stuff!” business partners prefer short voice notes or Loom videos. Understanding your audience means you’re delivering advice in a format that’s accessible to them.

Be clear and concise 

Being clear and concise is one of the most difficult skills to master. You want to share as much as you can as you know it’s important. However, overwhelming your reader with a giant block of text is going to be overwhelming and painful. Always remember “TL;DR” – Too Long; Didn’t Read.”

You want any advice you provide to be read. There needs to be a balance between providing enough information to be sufficient with not too much information to overwhelm. Focusing on a key message and then bringing that up early and upfront (whether mentioning it in a meeting or in a written piece of advice) will be more impactful than packaging it away. Being able to present the recommendation or the key thing for your business partner quickly and clearly provides a way forward; something you’ll be acknowledged for.

Using plain English helps to keep everything simple and explains key concepts for the audience in a digestible format. It doesn’t mean dumbing down a message. Instead, it means you’re not confusing the reader with complicated concepts that distract from the main message.

Build connection 

As legal counsel, you need to ensure you’re building trust every time you communicate. The entire point of communication is to connect with others, and with that comes a relationship of trust. Trust is built through authenticity.

Chris Anderson, Head of TED Conferences says, “Be yourself. The worst talks are the ones where someone is trying to be someone they aren’t. If someone is goofy, then be goofy. If someone is emotional, be emotional.”

In the corporate world, if you don’t show some level of personality or show others that you’re also a person, you may struggle to get the necessary buy in. As you communicate advice and speak up in meetings, you can do so in a professional tone and at the same time, still share it in a way that is authentic and true to yourself. You can still be yourself in a bar and the boardroom – as humans we are chameleons and can shift and change to suit the environment.

You can be a more effective communicator if you’re doing so as a real person and not the “I must be the stiff piece of cardboard” lawyer.

There is a duty to help influence appropriate decisions being made in compliance with the law and commercial imperatives. How you get the business to listen and understand is through understanding their needs, communicating the information in an accessible and clear format, and being a real person when sharing what needs to be heard.

Theo Kapodistrias is a multi-award-winning lawyer, based in Hobart, Tasmania. He is also an award-winning speaker, trainer and public speaking and presentation skills coach. For more information, visit www.theokap.com.au